The Politics and Economics of the Chinese Community, 1949–1959

Chapter 6 Between Two Revolutions: The Politics and Economics of the Chinese Community, 1949–1959

In October 1949, after four years of intense military confrontations and class warfare in China, the communists imposed a crushing military defeat on the military apparatus of the dominant classes in China. Despite having received military and financial support from the United States and its allies, the Kuo Min Tang regime collapsed. Chiang Kai-shek and his associates fled to the offshore island of Taiwan, where they quickly established their own rival capital city. Whereas Beijing became the headquarters of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan became the bastion of the Kuo Min Tang’s Republic of China (ROC). For the next several decades, both regimes attempted to influ- ence the millions of overseas Chinese living in such nations as the United States, Malaysia, and, of course, Cuba. Many China watchers discussed China’s rejection of capitalism and its sig- nificance for global revolution. In the United States, right-wing politicians led by Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon asked “Who lost China?” Eventually, this topic became part of an orchestrated political movement against American liberals.1 In Havana many of the debates that had occurred behind closed doors of the Chinese associations were now coming to light and spreading through the community at large. On 10 October 1949—nine days after Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the anniversary of Sun Yat-sen’s 1911 revolution to overthrow the Qing Dynasty—members of the National Alliance to Protect Chinese Democracy stormed the offices of Havana’s Kuo Min Tang. Reporting on the incident, the November 1949 issue of Bohemia said, “At one location, Mao sympathizers posted a few large bul- letins and hung a flag of the People’s Republic of China from the balcony. Hundreds of Chinese with opposing ideologies gathered around, threatening to start a riot. Violence was prevented by the quick intervention of the Cuban police.”2

1 Jack Barnes, El Desorden Mundial del Capitalismo: Política Obrera al Milenio (New York: Pathfinder, 1999). 2 Bohemia, November 1949.

Image 6.1 Pro-communist members of the National Alliance to Protect Chinese Democracy pose for a celebratory photo commemorating Mao Zedong’s military victory in China.

In the same issue, Bohemia described the upheaval in China and its effect on the Cuban Chinese:

With the fall of Guangzhou and Xiamen [in southern China] and the communists’ preparation for a final assault on the remaining territory in the hands of the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, the spirits of the [normally] calm Asians in Cuba have been excited, provoking large controversies.