1

Asia in Revolt

Civil War in I(orea

Korea: New Stage in ~~Cold War" The Third Chinese Revolution Indo-China: Struggle tor Freedom • Latin-America: One Country

September-October 1950 25c aer'. Column I,', h~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!l!I!!!I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~!!!!!!!!!~!!!!!:!!!!!!:!~!!!!!!!!!-y.!'t1 Question, in' the May and .. Sep­ Manae tember 1948 issues. In addi- I F 0 U R T H I N T ERN A T ION A L . tion J. Meyer has written ex- tensi'Vely o~ this question con­ As we go to press with the Volume II Sept.-Oct. 1950 No.5 (Whole'No. 106) tributing The Revolutionary September-October issue or­ Answer to tll~ Negro, Problem ders al'e bekinning to arrive in the United States (Decem­ for the new 1948-1949 bound Published Bimon~hly by tht- ber 1948), Stalinism and Negro volume of Fourth Internatiort­ Fourth I nter'national P~blis bing Association Hist.ory (November and De­ aL There is no doubt that this cember'1949), and many other 116 Un~versity Pl., New York 3, IN.Y. Telephone: Algonquin 4-9330. articles in this bou~d volume. volume contains the be~t in Subscription rates: U.S.A. and Latin' America $1.25 fior 6 issues; contemporary Marxist theore-' b~ndles, 20c for 5 copies and uP. Foreign and Canada : $1.510 for _ tical writing, so get your or­ 6 Issues; bundles 21c for 5 copies and up. '" * * der in quickly befo;re the sup­ Reentered as second class matter April 4, 1950, at the Post The volume contains impor­ ply is exh~usted. The price for O~f1ce at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. tant material on the colonial struggles, inciudiiig articles ort the 19 issues bou,nd in per­ Managing EditQr: GEORGE CLARKE manent hard binding is only the recent downfall of the Kuo­ Business Manager: JOSEPH HANSEN $5.00. The v9lume comes with min tang regime in China and a six' page index printed on the rise of the new Mao Tse­ heavy' glossy paper containing tung government. These arti­ both subject and author list­ cles on China will be found in in~s. The index can be purcha~­ CONTENTS the February, June and De­ ed separately for 60c. cember i949 issues. Much of Civil War in Korea ...... ,. By f. B. Stuart 131 the information included in * * * these articles is very difficult I

VOLUME 11 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1950 NUMBER 5

New Stage in the Asian, Re'vol'ttion • Civil War In I(orea By J. B. STV.4RT

Regardless of its further course, the war in Korea has along with the wall of secrecy typical of Kremlin policy in brought a rude awakening to the American ruling class. its buffer zones-followed as a matter of course. tiIt is a war unlike any we have faced before," one war cor­ But the very nature of the Soviet bureaucracy and its respondent writes, "it is a political war as well as a military historical roots imposed a different line of conduct upon war." But they are still rubbing their eyes. While they the occupying power in North Kor~a from that pursued by lecture the soldiers on the battlefields not to refer to the the US occupation authorities in the South. Por, \"hat both embattled Koreans, who had been' pushing them farther powers encountered in Korea, as jn all of Asia. was the and farther to the sea, as "gooks," Warren Austin, their stirring colonial,' agrarian revolution. chief diplomat in the United Nations continues to speak of the North Korean leaders as "zombies," "Soviet zombies." The Occupants Introduce Themselves Thereby the rulers of the US show they are still fat from The difference in approach between the Soviet bureau­ understanding what they are up against. cracy and the US imperialists was indicated in the tone of But they are not alone in this misunderstanding. There their first pronouncements to the Korean people. The are so-called tiradicals" and "socialists," some with Marxist Command of the Soviet Army declared at the outset: pr.etensions, who fail to recognize the essential character of "Citi{ens of Korea! Your country is now free. But tbis the war despite the daily flashes of lightning that illuminate is only the first page in the history of Korea . .. The Soviet it from all parts of Asia, from the China of the "Com­ A rmy has created all conditions to enable the Korean people munist" Mao Tse-tung to the I i1dia of the bourgeois to e~bark upon free, creative u.:ork. You, yourselves must democrat Pandit Nehru. If this is a political war it would become the creators of your ou;n happiness, etc." seem necessary to determine what' its politics are. Instead While Stalin's generals did not fajl to take the usual American public opinion is being mesmerized by the concept credit for "liberation," they were obviously constrained to that what is happening in Korea is purely and simply an recognize and adapt themselves to thl" temper of the popUla­ element in the warming up of the Hcold war" between the tion. MacArthur, on the other hand, issued the following US and the USSR. They fail to grasp that it is much more order: an element of the onrushing anti-imperialist revolution in "The entire administrative power of the territory of Asia. whose momentum cannot be arrested by any of the K or~a south of parallel 38 is under my jurisdiction. The l rulers or governments in power today. population should unreservedly obey the orders issued over my signature. Those acting against the occupation or I. US and USSR in Korea violating order and tranquility will be mercilessly a.nd severely punished. For the periQd of military occupation, I t is, of course, indisputable that the Soviet bureaucracy English is introduced as the official language." has from the first regarded Korea, as well as every other To a people rising from forty years of Japanese domina­ territory to which its influence was extended by World tion, under which large-scale revolts flared up regularly "Var II, exclusively from the point of view of its own every other year, the calling quds of the two new occupants narrow national interests. Stalin's agreement with Roosevelt were bound to be impressive. If the Stalinists thereafter at Yalta underwrote the latter's Cairo pact with Churchill made full use of this contrast, that 'vas only to be expected. and Chiang Kai-shek to give Korea independence "in due course." This was supplemented by the arrangement be­ tween them, upon the USSR's entry into the war against First Revolutionary Upsurge japan, to divide Korea at the 38th parallel "for the purpose Even before the entry of American or Russian troops, of accepting japanese surrender." The strategic an d eco­ however, local revolutionary committees divested the nomic exploitation of the area "north of the 38th parallel---': japanese authorities of power throughout the country. The Page 132 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Septernber-October I 9 5 0 network of "people's committ~es" hap been quickly, C011- authorities, but also by seizures of property, hitherto largely solidated into a "People's Republic" set up at Seoul, the in the hands, of japanese or of Korean collaborators. Even capital, located in the South. branches of banks -were seized. Studying a .table of assets "The Japanese authorities,", writes Professor McCune, prepared' by the Chosun Bank, McCune remarks: "An ap­ the outstanding American authority on Korea, "fearful of parently very common reason for suspension of operations the powder keg on which they were sitting, did not impede was seizure by loca:! People's Committees acting largely on the formation of the Republic, but on the contrary granted their own initiative." The dates given, along with the 1 its leaders special facilities in exchange for assistance in notation of the reason' for, suspension, vary from September maintaining order." (Korea Today by George M. McCune, I to early Octobe'r 1945 (japan surrendered on Septem­ Harvard University 'Press, 1950. Our presentation of Korean ber 2.) events leans heavily on this scholarly work for its 'factual A "Deci~ion' No. 91" issued by the North Korean material.) authorities October 4, 1946, requires that "Claims of In the North the Republic's activities were thereafter recovery of already confiscated property (i.e., of Korean­ carried on "with the sanction of, the Russian occupyiilg citizen-owned factories, iridustries, mines, etc.) ... should forces" who promptly. recognized the new "people's com-, be investigated by Provincial People's Committees, and mittees." When US troops arrived un September '8, 1945, errors rectified," indi~ating that "in mariy ins,tances abtoga­ the Republic offered its services to the Ametican command, tion of private property rights may have been a usurpation but "was given a cold shoulder." 1nstead, General Hodge, of authority by local People's Committees." the commanding general, "announced that the existing Japanese administration would continue in office." (The Laud Reforlu and Counter-Revolution story of the warm cooperation between the defeated J a p­ anese and the victorious US authorities throughout the But greatest of all was the land hunger that had grown Korean surrender, contrary to the relations of both to the to vast proportio'ns under the J apanese a~d which ~ere, as Russians, is a highly interesting social study ill itself, but everywhere in Asia, was the paramount explosive force. would take us too far afield here.) \Vhile popular resentment The Soviet-backed North; Korean allthorities faced that proved too great to make this plan feasible, Hodge never­ problem at once and a central decree legalized all previous theless ordered th~ Republic dissolved on November 20, action taken spontaneously, with sweeping provisions' declaring that" Military Government is the only govern­ "bestowing the right to exploit the land to those who cultivate ie' All Japanese and collaborator-owned lands ment in South Korea." A few months later, in February 1946, he appointed a were confiscated and distributed in their entirety to the "Representative Democratic Council" under the chairman­ peasants free of charge.' Also subject to the same provision ship of Dr. Syngman Rhee, the reactionary former head of were: "1) Land owned by Korean landlords in excess of the "Korean Provisional Government" who had recently 5 cho (l2~ acres) per family; 2) Land owned by those returned from the US and who had no appreciable' follow­ who did not cultivate but rented land solely for tenancy; ing in the new Korea. The "Democratic Council" was - 3) All land, regardless of acreage, which is continuously in likened by l

Septe111b~r-October 1 9 5 0 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 133

lease to private entrepreneurs of industrial plants taken cratic Independence Party; and Lyuh Woonhyung, chief of over from the Japanese resulted by 1949-50 in a standard the Social Democratic Party. of living below the average of that under the Japanese occupation; in 800,000 unemployed; in black market pro­ South Answers with Terror fiteering which undermined the whole economy. The anti­ Even after the election of the clrefully gerrymandered labor laws deprived the workers of any means of economic National Assembly of the "Republk of Korea" in 1948, 18 betterment by collective bargaining. The electoral laws members intrbduced a motion for a "North and South virtually placed a political monopoly in the hands of the Special Unification Committee" to explore the possibilities landlords and capitalists. The suppression of civil rights with the Soviet-sponsored regime. It was defeated. led to 'continued revolts which encompassed virtually all political tendencies outside the narrow Syngman Rhee By contrast, ,the North Koreans continued to press the clique. subject even as late as the Spring of 1950, offering to unite their legislature elected in 19:18 with the National Assembly Struggle for Unification elected in the South that same year. As became well knowtl at the time-although the fact has since been carefully sup­ Compounded with all these sources of resentment was pressed in the American press-a delegation from the North, that of the division of the country itself,. felt equally which came to meet the UN commisslQn on this very subject strongly by the mass of the people in the South as well as at the frontier last May, a month before the openillg of in the North.· The natural economies of the two regions hostilities, was arrested under gunfire from Rhee's troops and abducted into his jails. dovetailed with each other, in agriculture as well as in­ Mass terror was' the response of the US occupation and dustry. The South was a great rice bowl, the North a source the Rhee regime to the agitation for national unity. Three of wheat, fish and fertilizer; the South, a consumer goods "major round-ups" took place, McCune recounts. A wave producer and the North a center of heavy industry. The of demonstrations and strikes in October 1946 supported artificial division, of the country at 'the 38th parallel was the unification program of a "Coalition Committee" headed choking the life-blood out of the nation. Unification of f by Kim Kiusic, the former associate of Rhee,. and Lyuh Korea became a crying necessity, giving a still greater \Voohhyung, president of the short-lived People's Republic. impulse to the social ferment and placing the nati()naJ I n the city of Taegu alone, police trained under the revolution on the agenda. Japanese slaughtered 50 civilians, themselves suffering an The Stalinist bureaucracy, while sharing equal respon­ equal number of casualties. 1,500 persons were arrested and sibility with American imperia'lism for the division of the tried: 500 convicted. All "left wing" publications were sup­ country, nevertheless adapted itself in this respect also to' pressed. In March 1947, 2,718 persons were arrested in a the revolutionary developments, again for its own purposes second round-up. In August 1947, right wing. "Youth 10 be sure. \Ve have already noted how at the very first, the Corps," in collusion with the police, ran a reign of terror' of Soviet Army Command sanctione,i the activities of the their own. Among the many victims of assassinations was People's Repub~ic set up at Seoul and later dissolved by Lyuh \Voonhyung, who had been considered a compromise the US authorities, I n the subsequent course of, events, candidate for president against Rhee. ~while Washington sought to manip~tlate the United Nations Roger Baldwin, director of the American Civil Liberties machinery for its maneuvers with the }lnification problem, Union, upon returning from a Korean visit in the summer Moscow relied on a continued campaign of negotiations for of 1947, summed up his observations: "By nurturing the unity conducted by the North Korean regime. In this police state, we drive moderates into the Communist camp." campaign practically all political groupings in the South After the withdrawal of the troops by the USSR iil exclusive of Rhee and his henchmen came to participate. 1948 and by the US in 1949, the tendencies displayed in Distrust of the US and, the UN Commission grew con­ both parts of Korea under the occupation became more stantly in the South, as the results became evident to the pronounced. The pressures fo~ a showdown oh the national broad masses: stolen elections, a balloting system dis­ as weII as on the economic, on the colonial as well as the criminating openly in favor of the propertied classes, police social' planes were greatly increased. Whatever the resultant suppression of civil rights and organizations, the outright strategic plans of the big power sponsors of the two r~gimes, jailing as well as assassinatitm of anti-Rhee leaders of all it is obvious that a brewing revolution was dividing native opinions. Every attempt of. native political groups to work society, developing a drive of its, own. The social classes out unity with the North "drew the fire of the American and their leaders were' undoubtedly relying upon support of command" and the narrow ruling group cooperating with one or the other big power. But they were girding for a it. Involved in one such attempt, at a nation-wide con­ battle all their own, on vital issues growing out of their own ference in 1947-which called for withdrawal of both US past, which could not have been cooked up in the diplomatic and Soviet forces among other conditions for establishing a corps or the general staffs iri either Moscow or Washington. unified .government-besides the l'Jortherners, were Kim "An internal South Korean rebellion against the Rhee Kiusic, chairman of the Interim Legislative Assembly set government would have occurred if the forces of North up by the US authorities; Choi Tongo, its rightist vice­ Korea had not invaded," runs the testimony of an Economic chairman; Kim Koo, who had replaced Syngrhan Rhee as' Cooperation Administration official of the US government president of the "Korean Provisional Government" during and former CIO official, Stanley Earl, who rdllrnrd from World War I I; Hong Myungki, head of the liberal Demo- Korea at the end of last July. Page 134 r-OURTH INTERNATIONAL September-October 1 9 5 0

II. "People's War" ill Korea. in the Orient not only resisting successfully but of scoring .. victories Over the better equipped forces of the most modern Not to understand the background of revolutionary imperialist army. ferment that preceded the outbreak of the Korean war Both phenomena have been recognized as examples of inevitably entails a misunderstanding of the character of the "people's war." This is a new type of war :that our the war itself. For in this background alone lies the I)ey soldiers do not understand, the correspondents warn from to the military operations of an erstwhile oppressed colonIal the front The "enemy" is all around them. He "swarms people which have given serious battle to the armed might fan~tkalIy" over them without regard for life and safety. of the great US. Some publicists have begun to recognize it He infiltrates around' their flanks dressed as refugees. I Ie vaguely as a "people's war," that is, a political war which, rises in their rear as guerilla detachments. Where does this to be more precise, has to be characterized as a revolu- fanaticism come from? What accounts for all this? tionary war. Jn Korea, as in China, the war proceeds with a constant To speak of the -regime conducting this "people's war" division of the landed estates. The army recruits as it as no more than a puppet regime of the USSR and of its marches forward, the peasants are only too anxious to leaders as "Soviet zombies"-like the picture of the war defend their newly acquired land, the population its newly itself as a simple episode of the world-wide struggle of the acquired rights. That's what makes for the undiminishing Big Two-is the height of superfiCIality. mass of soldiers and their "fanaticism." What makes the An interesting sidelight serves to illuminate this ques- "people's war" so superior tactically, as Jack Belden has tion. At the beginning of the war, the entire body of official pointed out in China Shakes the World, is that its public opinion in this country aSCrIbed the rapid military soldiers know exactly what they are fighting for, they have successes of the North Koreans to the fact that they were it tangibly before their eyes. On the other hand, the soldiers Ctssuredly Russian-led "from the top command all the way opposing them have only the vaguest notions as to the down to regimental units," as one report put it. After more whys and wherefores of the struggle. At best, as one of them than two months of incessant and widespread warfare, explained to a front reporter in Korea, "I am fighting to with casualties on both sides as well as prisoners numbering remain alive." in the thousands, Washington and Tokyo haven't been able - The example of China, and now of Korea, cannot help to offer a single example of any Russian soldier in the but have its effect on the rest of Asia. "The promptness Korean fighting. with' which the North Koreans instituted drastic land But it has become known that the top commanders them- reforms in the conquered areas o'f South Korea \s an im­ selves are actually Koreans. "Half a dozen such, in Positions pressive fact for many Asians," writes Harold R. Isaacs in from division to corps commander4i, have now been iden- The Nation. And this, the writer explains, undermines the tified," says a dispatch to the N. Y. Times from MacArthur's ability of politicians like Nehru, much as they desire, to H.Q. in Tokyo, indicating "that at least thus far the leaders catry their countries into an alliance with the US. "Jf the of international communism have left the Korean war in American fight against Communist aggression can be suc­ the hands of homegrown thqugh foreign-educated Red Ko- cessfully twisted into a fight against needed revolutionary reans." The "foreign education" they have received, it ap- change, the outcome is a foregone conclusion regardless of pears, is in the Chinese CIvil war. Three of those named, episodic military decisions." Kim I r Sen himself, Kim Mu ~hong and Choi Young Kun To combat the "people's war," the US must yield to the were leaders of major battles in that war, with Kim Mu Itneeded revolutionary change" which is its driving force, Chong identified as one-time commander of the famous this ex-Marxist proposes along with all the other liberals. 8th Route Army. All three, it also appears, are graduates The tiger must change his stripes... of the equally famous Whampoo Military Academy, which was established in China in the early 1920s with Soviet aid IV. Stalinism and Asia and whose founder was none other than Chiang Kai-shek. The Korean war is, as we have seen, the result of the III. Anti.InlperiaIist Revolution unfolding Asian revolution. No amount of UN mummery about North Korean aggression-and it is hardly clear just Like the Chinese civil war which finally overthrew what the real occasion for the opening of hostilities was­ Chiang Kai-shek, the Korean war i~ anchored, in a revolu­ can obscure that fact. At the same time the strategic benefits tion which, challenging foreign imperialism, tends to over­ of a North Korean victory for the USSR are undeniable, turn all of society in the process. The events in China just as the converse holds true for the US. But which is proved that the revolutionary ferment produced by World decisive: the strategic advantage gained by the Soviet War IJ had risen to such proportions that the ruling class, bureaucracy or the revolutionary advantage achieved by the no matter how superior its material resources and how Korean people in arms? great the aid obtained from abroad, could not withstand This same question has a direct bearing on the relation the assault of the dispossessed. (Chiang is estimated to have of the Kremlin to the broader problem of the Asian revolu­ received no less than $3 billion from the USA in the post­ tion. In undermining US imperialism, the Asian revolutipn \./ W:1r period, while the 8th Route Army is said to have at present works in favor of the Moscow bureaucracy in operated on its territory on an overall state budget of $15 the conflict between the two big powers. Jacob Malik, the million annually.) The events in Korea offer the even more Soviet delegate to the Security Council, speaks not to the startling spectacle of a relatively new revolutionary army Council but to the people of Asia, the newspapers complain. 1

September-October I 9' 5 0 F 0 U R THIN T ERN A T ION A L Page 135

ARd he wins this "propaganda" battle hands down.' Of not have surrendered the soyereignty ... to the Kuomintang course. But all this ,indicates that the Soviet bureaucracy, even 'at the direction of Mao," Bdden reports. I t was the contrary to the "Big Brain" in Washington, is aware that irresistible spread of this agrarian revolution that made any a revolution is taking place and is trying to exploit it for kind of compromise with Chiang impossible. The revoll,l­ its own advantage. Does that mean that the KI'emlin is tion undermined. Chiang's regime within the very social promoting the revolution, as capitalist propaganda claims? strata that supported it. By the same token, the revolution Dges that mean that the bureaucracy h.as complete control pushed Mao and the CP to the fore as the rallying center of it as certain "radicals" and "soCialists" think? of the new nation being created. For the Kremlin it was a matter of expediency to-shift to support of the revolution, The Kremlin's Record not at all a matter orpolicy or aims. The whole record of Stalinism in Asia since 1925 presents a veritable avalanche of proof that far frorn-instigattng or In Indo-China promoting the revolution-in China e~pecially-the Kremlin In Indo-China, the collapse of Japan in 1945 .swept the has done everything possible to thr6ttIe it. Up until most CP-organiz~d Viet M~nh movement under Ho Chi Minh into recently, including the postwar period, Stalin has not only control of .virtually the entire country. No other authority not seught control over the ferment in Asia, but has done capable of governing existed. Even the former Emperor what he could to lodge power in all kinds' of coalitiOIis, in Bao Dai pledged loyalty to Ho's regime. The French im­ which the colonial ruling class would predominate. China, perialists were forced to deal 'with it. But the pressure of Indo-China, and Korea itself are outstanding examples the Kremlin and of its agents in the French CP forced Ho of this. Chi Minh and his government to agree to the incorporation In Cbina, Stalinist policy began in 1925-27 with the sub­ of the country, renamed Viet Nam, within the "French ordination of the Chinese Communist Party to' Chiang Union," as the French Empire was then rebaptized. Kai-shek within the Kuomintang. After' Chiang'.s march to The French im.perialiststhereafter only had to wait long the North and the massacre of the Shanghai workers, whose enough to land their own troops ;n force at the port of strikes started the wave of revolution at that time, Stalinism Haiphong in order to abrogate all agreements with Ho; set pursued a similar policy with \Vang Chin-wei and the Left up a"succession of puppet regimes (the latest one headed by Kuomintang. When this bloc' yielded similar disastrous Bao Dai), and to 0pen' up full-scale war against the Viet results, a brief ultra-left period marked by the putsch ,')f Minh. \Vithout a murmur of audible dissent from Moscow, the Canton "Commune" intervened, but for the whole fol­ the' French Stalinists continued to vote credits to finance lowing period 'the two-class party ("workers and pea'san'ts' this war organized by the various coalition governments party") and the "bloc of the, four classes" (bourgeois, in which they participated until they were thrown out of petty-bourgeois, peasants and workers) became the essence office in May 1947. of the Stalinist line all over Asia. The whole course of the Only \'vhen, despite this stab in the back, the Viet Minh Chinese CP and the army and territories' under its control army continued effectively to challenge the French for r was based originally on this policy. control of Viet Nam, did the line of Stalinism change. Stalin recognized the Ho government not in 1945, when it had Coalition Policy Fails in China unchallenged control, but in 1950 wht;n Ho Chi· Minh was fighting desperately to regain it. And even then, recognition The war with Japan and the requirements of guerilla by Mao had to be granted first. Moscow was merely bowing warfare that ensued from it, pushed the Chinese CP ever to necessity. forward as the rallying center for the agrarian revolution and widened the cleft between it and the ruling class all across the vast nation. The Chinese CP was riding the twin In Korea horses of the agrarian revolution, that threatened to leave I n ,Korea also, the Kremlin was prepared. despite its ( it behind, and of the policy of coalition with the ever more early adaptation to revolutionary events. to provide a means discredited Kupmintang. Moscow itself purslwd a line ()f tor curbing them. At the Foreign Minister's Conference in loyal collaboration with Chiang as a war partner, and even \1oscow, in December 1945. it prooosed setting up a coali­ as late as 1949 concluded an agreement with him relating tion government under a four-power trusteeship, US-USSR­ to Manchuria and Sinkiang province. This was universally Britain-China (Chiang). A Joint Commission .of American regarded as a slap in the face of the Mao Tse-tung ieader­ and Russian occupation forces was formed to work out ship of the CP for Mao was then getting ready for the details. Pressure on the North Koreans swung them into showdown with Chiang, who had, rejected all compromise line behind the Moscow proposal, which was of course proposals. Clearly, "the Kremlin seems to have been very accepted by the other powers. skeptical of the post-war possibilities of Mao," as Belden The Korean rightist under Syngman Rbee took the ,says. initiative to disrupt the trusteeship plan by a campaign of While' Mao had been forced by the Kremlin to seek a agitation, including both mass demonstrations as well as practical soluti~:m in negotiations with Chiang at Chung­ assassinations of supporters of the plan. Like the Kuomin­ king, the famous "Border Region",of the Hopei-Shqntung­ tang in China, the Korean party of the lanrl10rds and Shansi-Honan provinces was so. completely engaged' in the capitalists could not countenance the r)()ssihil ity')f any revolutionary process that its leaders and troops "would government that was not strictly under their control in the P ag e 1 3 6 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL September",October .1'9' 5'0

existing revolutionary ~ituation .. McCune explains that the -of the great Asian revoI'ution ofo,ur time;" they support Americans were "caught in a dilemma: If the rightists were British recognition of the Mao regime. wholeheartedly 'J.nd repudiated . . . the American delegation (in the Joint look with dread upon American policy toward Fonnosa, Commission) would have eliminated the largest, group of for instance, which "'if persisted in means tragedy f

1 September-October 1 9 5 0 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 137

The very rise' of the third Chinese revolution, poses the off their Stalinist miseducation and in contrast to Stalin's question of its proletarian character and in this broader, policy for decades, to seek out, however hesitantly and more fundamental sense, confirms again Trotsky's analysIs. confusedly, the great strategic concepts of the October Rev­ As the revolutionary struggle sharpens in' Asia, the old olution. T opportunist formulas of Stalinism-,the "bloc of the four The task of Marxists' under these circumstances is clear. classes," the "two class party"-are being ~wept away by To place themselves firmly on the side of the permanent titanic social forces. Mao launches a campaign of recruit­ revolution; to disting'uish between its dynamic forces and ment of, industrial workers to "enhance the proletarian those of the Kremlin trying to exploit it; to support f the character" of the Ch'inese CPo Kim I r Sen says:, "The struggles' of the col<;mial peoples against imperialism in people's committees represent organs composed of represen­ their present complicated form. Th~ successful prosecution tatiyes o.f various sections of the Korean people and are of these revolutionary struggles, we are profoundly con­ founded on a solid alliance of the workers an'd peasants vinced, will bring the insurgent Asian peoples into conflict under tbe leadersbip of the working class." with the conservative and counter-revolutionary Soviet We do, not need to take these words at their face value bureaucracy and, as Yugoslavia h~; shown, will open up to deduce from them an actual trend: The force of the the path for the regeneration of~the revolutionary Marxist Asian revolution itself compels the native leaders to cast movement throughout the world. Korea and the ~~Cold War" By MICHEL P.4BLO

Th~ Korean events raise two principal questions which llow can any part of the Korean population whatsoever now demand an answer: what is the correct attitude, the be reproached for opposing the arbitrary division of their f class attitude to be adopted toward them; what are the country and for desiring to restore its unity? The in­ perspectives of development of the international situation dependence and reconstruction of the country was at stake. in the near future. A struggle for the unity of the country undertaken by any part of the popUlation whatsoever, even from the pur,ely Who Is the "Aggressor" formal standpoint of international law, could not be con­ sidered as an "aggression" or as an {'invasion," but simply It 'appears that an "aggression" occurred in Korea on -so far as it involves armed struggle, as is the case-as a June 25 and the only difference on this point between the civil war. apologists for the pro-American camp and those of the A civil war involves hostile classes and hostile interests. Soviet camp is the identification of "the aggressor": North To take a position in regard to :1 given civil war, it is Korea instigated by Moscow or South Korea instigated by necessary to analyze the charactE:r of the social forces r \Vashington. 1I1volved and their aims: The whole gamut of centrists and ultra-ldtists in the W bo fights whom, and why. international workers' movement is clinging to this formal aspect of the events, seeking lithe ag,~ressor" and denouncing him. \Ve specifically refer to the articles published to date Social Geography of Korea on this question in Shachtman's Labor Action in the United A knowlege of social geography is necessary for every States, in the POUM'S La Batalla, in Monatte-Louzon's political writer or spokesman. Korea is a distant country La Revolution Proletarienne, the Franc- Tireur clique in \vhich up to now has attracted very little internatiOltal France, the position taken by Fenner Brockway in Eng­ attention, but its present social structure at least ought to land, etc. be very clear to all those who have denounced the "ag­ The attitude of the Yugoslavs is more subtle but no less gression" and "invasion" by North Korea. I n the "People's equivocal, but we will discuss it separately from the posi­ Democracy" of North Korea, the feudal-capitalist elements tion of the above-mentioned groups. were eliminated, an agrarian reform was promulgated and Reading the angry prose inspired by the Korean war the government, taken over by the Communist Party, stilI 1mongst most. of these people, one is first of all struck bv enjoys if not support at least expedant toleration of the how far tlleir Stalinophobia and eclecticism have relllove~i masses, t.he poor peasants and workers. 'them fro'm the class i standpoint and have led thelll I n South Kdrea the feudal-capitalist class. had the upper to "forget" a fundamental fact in the Korean affair: hand and the police were the principal prop of Syngman namely, that this country was artificially divided along the Rhee's regime. The advanced state of corruption and line of the 38th parallel by the mutual agreement of Moscow disintegration of this regime is beyond doubt: This has and Washington and that there can be no question of two even been recognized by a number of American and pro­ "nations," in which one can be accused of acts of "ag­ American spokesmen and confirmed by such facts as the gression" or of "invasion" against the other. And con­ elections which took place only this year. ~equently, the very allusion to the precedent of the attack The scope of the partisan movement which developed upon Finland by the Soviet Union in 1940 is valueless. in the South even before hostilities, as well as the military Page 138 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL September-October I 9 5 0 debacle which overtook this regime at the very beginning countries and which constitutes the most important revolu­ of the war, has confirmed its advanced state of decay which tionary factor at the present time. was comparable to that experienced by Chiang K;i-shek's But, these haughty observes' 01 history reply to us, regime in the latter stages of its existence. what do you make of the role of the Kremlin and of Thus, o!l the plane of the alignment of social forces at Stalinism in all this? The Korean war, they say, is above the beginning of hostilities in Korea, we are confronted by all an episode in the ,'cold war" between vVashington ~nd the following: considerable masses of poor peasants and Moscow, the former manipulating Syngman Rhee and the workers on the one side, attracted by the· Korean Com­ latter Kim I r Sen. To consider the North .Korean war just munist Party under the banner of unity and independence and progressive, to support it, is 'to play MoscO\v and for Korea; feudal-capitalist elements surrounded by Amer­ Stalinism's game and to facilitate it, write our prophets ican military-police forces and some insignificant sections of the new "bureaucratic" era which is supposedly b,eing 'of backward peasants on the other. Syngman Rhee's army erected over mankind "to extend the orbit of Russian which, according to its American instructors, was "the best domination and the regime of bureaucratic capitalism." army in Asia," began to crumble and crack up because (Socialisme ou Barbarie, Aug.-Sept. 1950.) the South Korean soldiers had no desire to fight ,for the That is the essence of the arg 1Jmentation of all those feudal-capitalists 'of Seoul and their imperialist masters, who, even in the best case when they do not go so far as who entered dir~ctly upon the scene ,by dispatching Amer­ to applaud "the energetic action" of American imperialism ican forces stationed in Japan. and its UN cover in Korea (Revolution Proletarienne) , At this juncture the Korean civil war became combined content themselves with adopting a "neutral" attitude with a direct aspect of colonial and anti-imperialist war. toward the "two" Koreas. The revolutionary aspect of this war is not less im­ Logic has value only to the degree that it is capable portant. I t began as a national civil war, for the unity and of generalizing without thinning into empty abstractions independence of the country, and then developed into a the essential points, the fundamental factor of a pheno­ revolutionary anti-imperialist war, which had to fight the menon. It is easy to see nothing in the world today except inevitable coalition of native feudal-capitalists and foreign the direct or indirect action of two gigantic organized ~mperialists, as happened in China, Indo-China,and tpe forces: the Soviet bureaucracy and American imperialism. Philippines .• But, to go further and believe that these forces alone are More quickly and audaciously than in China or I ndo­ creating and orienting contemporary history and that his­ tory unfolds according to their p'ans, is a big jump for .:hina, the North Korean leaders lin~{ed the purely military struggle to a bold social program, calling upon the South· anyone who is uninclined toward a metaphysical conception Korean masses to revolt, to organize themselves "every- of history and h4s no taste for a divine Providence resem­ bling the conceptions of a Bishop \ Bossuet where" into People's Committees* and to proceed to agqri4n reform. This was to be carried through in the liberated terri­ The experience of the Korean war, which has radically tories of the South, according to the decision ,on July 4 of the upset the politi'cal and military' strategy of the United Permanent Commission of the Supr~~me People's Assembly, States, has already served to demonstrate that this colossal by the "confiscation of land without compensation and power is seized by the contradictions of the planet that it through free distribution of the confiscated land." . (New aspires to govern-contradictions which are far beyond the China News Agency, Bullet,in" J~ly;n.)"The s;ame deCision understanding of the ruling class and even ,the means at. its abolished a series of taxes imposed by Syn'gman Rhe~'s disposal. We will return later to, this aspect of the question. regime and considerably lightened others.' . ' . The'Soviet bureaucracy, because of its different social The results of this program and these revolutionary nature, and despite its material and technical inferiority in decisions have been incontestably manifested in the scope relation to American imperialism, has a better grasp of of the mass support everywhere encountered by the North' social forces and can ex~loit them better to its advantage. Korean army as it descended upon the South. It is this sup­ But neither the United States nor the Soviet Union port which lies at the base of its resistance, its victories and creates these social forces and determines their fundamental explains the surprises that were in store for American historical course. The crisis of the capitalist system .in the strategy when confronted by a revolutionary war of this metropolitan countries and the colonies is not the product type; of the Kremlin's machinations nor are its dynamics determined by the Kremlin. Both are above all determined by the nature and the evolution of the capitalist system. Blinded by the Glare from Moscow The crisis of Stalinism. on the other hand. is not determined To declare that this aspect of anti-imperialist and revo­ by Washington but by the nature and evolution of lutionary war is only of "secondary order," as the .POUM'S Stalinism. La Batalla (J uly 19) writes, 'or is of a purely "formal" character and tlcomplete1y" devoid of all content, as the Progressive Character of Colonial Struggle pretentious prose of certain ultra-leftists asserts, means turning one's back upon the mass movement of mWions of To return to the colonial aspect of the crisis of capital­ people which is shaking all of Asia and all the coloflial ism, it is absurd to attribute everything that has happened in this domain since the last war to the Kremlin an4 not to * June 26 message of Kim Ir Sen to the Korean people 'understand above all, the profound, necessary and progres­ (New China News Agency Bulletin, June 28,' 1950). sive character of the mass movements in the colonial coun- September-October J 9 5 0 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page Jj9

tries which, in one unprecedent biow, are simultaneously A study of what happened in Korea before the "aggres­ smashing the chains of feudalism, parasitic native capital- sion" establishes that military operation came as the ism and imperialism. . climax to an extended period of propaganda for unity by This movement is necessary, that is to say, it has been North Korea. On several occasions proposals were made prepared by the entire previous "evolution of the colonial by them for the "peaceflll" unification of the coulitry. coun-tries and no one is able to stop it. The only possible These proposals were invariab~y rejected by Syngman Rhee revolutionary attitude is to participate in this movement and strongly contributed to the isolation of his regime of the colonial masses and to struggle within it against its trom the ·masses whq aspired toward the unity of the exploitation by the Soviet bureaut.:racy. But the primary country. I n such a situation as existed in Korea, with a condition for realizing this possibility is the utzconditional regime disintegrating in the South, and the fever of unifying defense of tbis movement against the native feudal-capital­ the coun try mounting more and more among the masses, ists and above all against imperialism. It is impossible to who can affirm that the Korean CP leadership itself was imagine a better scheme for political suicide than that which able to resist this mass pressure without incurring the risk consists in telling the colonial m:Isses who are rising up of being swept aside and that it was not on the contrary against imperialist domination by the millions especially carried along by this pressure? throughout Asia, that they will be supported only on condi­ I n China the compromise imposed by Moscow upon tion, as the POUM's La Batalla says (forgetting its own Yenan with the Chunking regime in 1946, to which the struggle in Republican Spain) that they are not headed by agrarian reform was sacrificed, was broken by the pressure Stalinist or Stalinized leaderships but by "revolutionary of the masses themselves who began to seize the land. If governments independent of Moso?w"! the Chinese CP had not changed its policy at this time, To condemn these movements, to ignore them, to it would have found itself cast aside by the masses and minimize them, to maintain "neutrality" toward them be­ isolated from them: cause they are directed by Stalinist leaders means in reality In Greece, after the Varkiza agreement, the new partisan war was spontaneously'begun by elements who did not want to cond~mn, to ignore, to minimize, to maintain "neutrality" toward the wbole of the class struggle and tbe colonial and to accept this treasonable deal and the Greek CP leadership anti-imperialist struggle in our epocb. subsequently went along with this movement in order not f\ to lose its base completely. Further the movement of the colonial masses is not Naturally, the Kremlin seeks to participate in every in the sense we have already explained. merely'necessary movement of the masses and to exploit it for its own J t is at the same time basically an extremely revoluti01iary exclusive benefit. But that is not sufficient 'reason for and progressive movement from two points of view: (]) it condemning the movement itself, that is to say, condemning destroys forever the equilibrium of the capitalist system ~he class struggle altd tbe struggle 0/ tbe colo1lial peoples and plunges the latter into a permanent and ever worsening in our epocb. crisis; and (2) to the degree that the anti-imperialist revolution spreads throughout the world and the crisis of capitalism, deepens, the world revolution is strengthened Nature of R1J~Hialt Air) r and the regime of the Soviet bureaucracy, despite contr~ry Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the Kremlin is playing appearances at, the first stage, is undermined at its very its own game in the Korean war against its principal foundation. adversary, the United States. But there is more than one Events confirm this conception of the entire situation major difference between Russian and American interven­ and of the historical process. The mass movement in the tion. There are no Soviet troops in Korea, there are not colonial and semi-colonial countri~s broke out everywhere even Soviet "cadres" directing operations. No proof has after the war with a power so OIIC had anticipated, not yet been furnished on this subject by the Americans or the even the Stalinist leadership itself. The impetus of this United Nations despite their obviolls interest in this point. movement dragged the Communist Party much further Koreans are fighting against American imperialist ~nd than the Kremlin envisaged, influencing the independent other troops. 'This fact is of major importance. jevelopment 'of these parties. This becomes clear upon a La Batalla, however, does not wish to he deceived: it more attentive study of the developments of the Chinese knows that the "North Korean divisions are armed-and revolution since 1936 and especially during the war. almost certainly likewise directed-by the Russians." Other knowing observers of t,he specific expression of "the bureau­ Pressure 011 Stalinist Leadership cratic phenomenon in Korea" can only explain the resistance of the, Koreans and the reverses that the "immense USA" In Korea the mass movement was no less deep-going. has experienced up to now by the fact that behind North ;-..Jo one can afllrm with certitude that it was the Kremlin Korea there is "the power and strict control of Russia." 'which initiated the unleashing of the operations against The fact is, however, that Russia, up to now, as in the South Korea and not the leadership of the Korean CP Spanish war, as in Greece, as. in I nclo-China, doles out its impelled by the pressure of the masses and its own "left­ military aid in doses deliberately calculated to insure that ism." And no one yet knows the precise role played in victory wiII not ever be acquired at this price alone: \Vhat these movements by Mao's China which is not exactly that the Kremlin is aiming at in Korea will be pointed out of a Moscow satellite on the order of the "Popular DemOo­ later. Let us note for the time being that the tanks and cracies" of Europe. other Russian armam~nts that the North Koreans possess Page 140 rOURTH INTERNATIONAL September-October 1 9 5 0

have been paid Jor by the labor of the Korean masses and Viewed from the angle of the antagonisms between the that they still for example completely lack airplanes even Soviet Union and the Unitt;!d States, there are really two up to the present time. Their superiority over the Americans important fronts: Europe and Asia. The European sector is a!ld their partners thus far consists above all in their by far the more important of the two for in Europe there superior morale and in the broad and deepgoing support still remains concentrated the great material and human that this war has aroused among the population, in the forces whose effective control can decide the outcome, of a revolutionary character of the struggle which has given general war. For thJs reason Moscow has an evident in­ the greatest surprises to the imperialists, producing the terest in involving its imperialist adversaries in conflicts greatest discouragement and the greatest scepticism regard­ which oblige them to strip Europe and to render the con­ ing the effectiveness 'of an action which was conceived solidation and reinforcement of their Europ~an positions purely along the lines of the c1as~,ic military procedures impossible. Moscow actually gains from these local conflicts against a peo.ple in revolt. in which the imperialists .are involved, not only because Tbe Korean struggle must be placed in the framework of the immediate financial and material hemorrhage that of the immense mass movement of the colonial and semi­ results for the imperialists but also because of their long­ colonial countries which aims to throw off the yoke of im­ range political consequences. perialism and also of the native feudal-capitalists. At the present time this movement is the main revolutionary factor Undermining Capitalist Stabilization which is causing the ruin of the capitalist' system and is The margins of capitalist stabilization are everywhere powerfully strengthening the historical perspectives of the so narrow that a wave of prolonged strikes, for example, world proletarian revolution. It thtis acts in the long suffices, in anyone of the countries in Western Europe which run also against Stalinism, against the rule of the Soviet has attained a precarious equilibrium thanks above all to bureaucracy which I is incompatible with the expansion of Marshall Plan aid, to restore th:; cycle of inflation, of the revolution in the world and with the new possibilities rising living costs and all the consequences flowing from for the organization and development of the world pro­ this. Conflicts on the scale of those of the partisans for ductive forces. Greece, of Indo-China for France" cf Malaya and Burma for England (to a lesser degree) are factors which under­ Moscow's 'Strategy in Korea mine the bases of ,a genu,ine equilibrium for these countries We can only offer hypotheses on the role played by the and perpetuate the social crisis. To the degree that the Kremlin in the Korean war as well as on how it plans to United States is obliged to take (~irect charge of part of utilize this war. Even if the Kremlin was actually the chief the' war efforts of all these capitalist countries, the margin instigator of the "aggression" against Syngman Rhee's of equilibrium of American capitalism itself begins to be regime, it is very probable that it did not foresee either the perilously restricted, as has already become e.vident by the speed, the scope or the consequences of the American reac­ growing budgetary deficits in the United States and the tion. It proba,bly counted upon a quick war which would constant inflationary pressure. easily overturn the Seoul decrepit regime. Within certain limits, Moscow evidently profits from all But the mom~nt the leaders in Washington decided to this disorganization of the capitalist system., aggravateH demonstrate in action the sejiousness. they attach to their by 'the constant struggle that this system is obliged to policy of "upholding de facto situations" and not abandon­ conduct in order to survive 'in the metropolitan countries ing any position or any sphere of influence already held, it and the colonies. We say Itwithin certain limits" Jor if this is possible that the Kremlin found on interest in exploiting disorganization of capitalism, this crisis, this decomposition the Korean affair in the same way as that of Indo-China or acquires the scope of a stampede under the, blows of the of Greece. It may have sought to create a new "focal point" world socialist revolution, that would set into motion forces which' would involve the United States and its other im­ among the masses the Kremlin fears instinctively and perialist allies in an exhausting war effort, disorienting which would be directed in the long run against the bureau­ their entire strategy, and which in any event would be cracy itself. disproportionate to watever gains victory would give On this account the Kremlin maintains areas of unrest them. but never helps them to the point of victory. I t is possible Some European and American journalists, more adept that the Korean affair is now being exploited with this at interpreting the game of the Kremlin, are evidently not perspective tin mind. It is fl{rther possible that the Kremlin wrong when they define Moscow's strategy as dictated by would be agreeable to seeing a connict arise between China a design to involve the United States in secondary but very and the United States which would simultaneously check costly military and political conflicts, while keeping the the forward march of the Chinese revolution, increase it$ strength of the Soviet Union. intact., This conception not dependence upon the Kremlin, and on the other hand only seems logical but conforms to the interests of the intensify the exhaustion of the American forces and COn­ I~ Soviet bureaucracy. Every minor conflict it can drag im­ tract the extent of the equilibrium of Yankee imperialism. perialism into, like that of Greece or Indo-China, each center Naturally this complicated game of the Kremlin which of unrest like Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines, provokes reflects the complex nature of the Soviet· bureaucracy and a constant hemorrhage in the body of imperialism, both which consists in' exploiting the crisis of tapitalism for its financial and material, which exhausts and disperses its exclusive benefit without solving it through the world forces over secondary points on the world front. socialist revolution, gives it an enqrmous superiority over

• September-October I 9 5 0 F OUR T H I N T ERN A T I O,N A L Page 141 the' United States. This superiority 'can be regarded as a spokesmen or in doctrine, are the, se!j:ing into motion of supplementar.y weapon which it would be naive to under- the American war machine, the expansion of an armamen'ts 6Stimate and which tends· to 'modify the relationship of economy, and the accelerated militarization in the count,ry. fortes between the Soviet Union and the United States in Two or three years from now, these trends will lift the favor of the Soviet Union. military potential of the country to a very high level and on this account a dangerous one. Changing Relationship of Forces As for the rest of the "Atlantic Community," it is dif­ We do not say that this relationship of 'forces has already ficult to - see what important modifications British and been altered in favor of the Soviet Union. We merely mean French rearmament will introduce in the relationship of that it would be ~rong to appraise the relationship of forces forces between the Soviet Union and the United States, between the Soviet Union ane the United St1ates simply while on the contrary it is easy to see \how the precarious by comparing either their existing or potential material an'd equilibrium attained by these countries can again crumble human forces or their degree of technical developmen t. It under the weight of new budgetary expenses. It is doubtful is also necessary to take into account the strength that the whether the capitalist countries, including Germany and Kremlin derives' from the 'exploitation of the crisis. of Japan-which will inevitably become gears in the armament capitalism, an exploitation which among other things in­ machine-can counterbalance by the. effectiveness .of their cludes the specific form of a war in Indo-China, or a war in military contributions the fin'ancial and social disequili­ Korea, draining the substance of imperialism without brium which would result from such a drive toward war. directly affecting the resour.ces of the USSR. I f it is true that the Korean war accelenites capitalism's preparations for war, it is equally true that the 'social 'crisis The Korean war is extremely instructive from this in all countries is aggravated by this preparation and the viewpoint. Regardless of its outcome, it has already crisis will give .birth to new great struggles which can upset demonstrated the enormolls price imperi~lism must pay for Washington's as well as Moscow's plans. every attempt to re-im~ose its grip upon the colonial peoples and that the era of simple police operations or of a few garrisons ma'intqining ttorder" in the colonies has Imminence of Third World War gone forever. On the other hand, it has demonstrated that Despite the prophets of the imminence of the Third a mere material superiority does not suffice against a World War (an "imminence" which has now endured since revolutionary war, against the masses of an entire people 1946), the Korean war remains confined. within the general in revolt. The United States can probably conquer Korea­ atmosphere of the "cold 'war." That is the result of the if it persists in its waf efforts in the absence of any other existing relationship of forces between the Soviet Union solution and if new complications are not introduced in the and the United States which permits' neither one nor the international situation-at the expense of an effort whose other to count upon, an ,assured victory. price would be far out of keeping with "the efficiency" of That is now evident for the United States so far as the American industrial production. But such a price paid in Korean war is concerned. I ts lack of preparation for a Korea would really mean a Pyrrhic victory, which is not general war is a striking fact. To'declare war now despite much to look forward to in a general war. everything would mean the United States would' have to The Korean war has demonstrated that American im­ conduct war without any effective allies, not only against perialism cannot indulge in everything and that its power, the Soviet Union and its satellites but against all Europe which is much more potential than actual at· the moment, and Asia which is not at all inclined to resist the combined has limits and is not easily brought into play. Moreover, its action of the Red Army and the internal revolts led by the utilization is complicated by the reactions of the masses, Communist parties. When it stilI had the atom bomb of-the classes, and of antagonistic factions within the ruling monopoly the United States could still hope for a swift class of the United States itself. From this viewpoint, the strategic victory. But now not even this hope exists. Korean war ought to be regarded by the working class as Until the Korean war there was a widespread, notion­ a stimulus for bold revolutionary action, unencumhered by which had even penetrated our own ranks-that the United fear of Moscow as well as fear of \Vashington. States enjoyed a natural superiority over the Soviet Union, Naturally, reality is dialectical and it is 'not enough to which would become manifest in any test of their material point out only the weak points in the armor of American and military strength. Facts have demonstrated that this imperialism. The Korean war has called forth a violent superiority, this wholly American effectiveness, which is reaction in the ruling class of America by suddenly en­ incontestable from the purely material and technical stand­ lightening it about a reality it had not fully been aware point, does not have an immediate equivalent when applied of up to now. This reality con~ists in "the terrible facts" in revolutionary wars of the Korean type. By spreading that Winston Churchill recently spoke about in his recita­ this power and effectiveness everywhere in the world, it tion of the enormous superiority in'men and classical antis becomes weak and dispersed and requires too great a possessed by the' USSR, confronted by an almost disarmed price even for the wealth of American imperialism. ttAtlantic Community"· leaning' upon the sole supremacy Actually it is rather the Soviet Union than the United of atom bombs, which is itself now disput.able and in any States which now commands all the possibilities for con­ event not decisive. ductihga world war. This situatio.n modifies to a certain The latest consequences of this reaction, which continues degree our own appraisal of the relationship of forces at and which has not yet found crystallization either in the' present st'.lge between the two antagonistic camps in Page 142 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Se pt~mber-OctubJr J.J 5 0 the sense that the existing effective superiority has shifted the immediate inevitability of war but on the n;volutionary toward the Soviet camp. But this does not alter our basic struggle against capitalism and against the policy of the perspective of the continuation 01 the "cold war" interrupted Soviet bureaucracy, a struggle facilitated by the parallel by attempts at compromise without an immediate general dev.elopment of the crisis of capitalism and: of Socialism. , war. This is the sole effe,ctive obstacle to the outbreak of war The reason why the Soviet Union, despite the advantages itself. I of its present position, is probably not greatly inclined to take the initiative in a general war is to be found above The Yugoslavs and the Korean War all in the risks the Soviet bureaucracy would incur in the \Ve will close with some necessary remarks regarding event of a world conflagration which would let loose immense revolutionary forces over the world without a suf­ the attitude adopted by the Yugoslav government and the ficient guarantee that these forces could be controlled by Yugoslav Communist Party toward the Korean e~nts. Moscow .. Naturally this attitude is part of a series of conceptions I t is superficial reasOiling to forget this basic char­ held by tQe Yugoslavs regarding the United Nations, the acteristic of the Soviet bureaucracy and to invest it with Soviet Union and the international workers' movement, Napoleonic ambitions of world conquest. The conservatism which we will examine elsewhere. Here it suffices to say of the bureaucracy is a fact and it moves cautiously in the simply that insofar as the Yugoslavs persist in these con­ world arena, in accord with a rhythm which will permit it ceptions, one can be justly fearful that their tendency which to maintain its absolute control in respect to the bourgeoisie has begun to differentiate itself from Stalinism, will stop as well as in respect to the masses. half-way and, while not yielding to the contrary pressure Some people object to this argumentation which rejects of imperialism, will nevertheless maintain a markedly the possibility of a general war in the near future (and centrist character. even for some years) on the ground that war is not The Yugoslavs, tormented by the possibility ot an necessarily the result of mature thought and that it is attack by the Soviet Union against their own country and possible to engage in an adventure without consciously under pressure from American imperialism, have adopted calculating the chances, of its success.' I n a situation, say an ambiguous attitude toward the Korean events. At no these objectors, where the fever constantly rises in the two time, either in the United Nations or in their press, have camps, where nervousness and uneasiness grip the leading they denounced the imperialist character of the American circles, it is possible that a small military clique, for and United Nations intervention or taken a clear position example, can ignite the powder magazine and launch a to~ard the war led by North Korea, as they had previously general conflict. Such a possibility is especially applicable done in the case of China and Indo-China. They have taken to the United States where the factional struggle within the refuge in a somewhat enigmatic "neutrality," avoiding all ruling class is' very great and their understanding of the comment and all clarification of their position; as if they real situatiOIl in the world is fairly limited and scanty. felt. troubled and perhaps even a little asha·med of this Naturally sllch a danger exists and it would even be silence. heightened in the event of any new action by the USSR in That the pressure of American imperialism has forced another nerve center of the world front-the Middle East, them to adopt an attitude of abstention and ilclltrality in Yugoslavia, Berlin-an action which would infuriate some regard to the two participants in the war in Kore'a \vithin of the 'top American and European drcles. the United Nations, is understandable. But that their press But it is also necessary to'take into account the fact that in Yugoslavia, and the press of the Yugoslav party in in reality, so far as war against the USSR is concerned, particular-which ought never to b8 confused witb tbat 01 the decision will be made by the most responsible circles tbe Yugoslav government as such-likewise avoid taking a of the American and even the world bourgeoisie and'that clear position on this conflict, on its meaning and on its it is very difficult to imagine that such a decision is at the class character is a centrist attitude which does not at all mercy of a MacArthur or'a McCarthy. On ':l question like serve the cause of the genuine defense of Yugoslavia by the I that of war against the Soviet Union, which will involve revolutionary proletariat and the colonial peoples. ; the fate of the' entire capitalist system, factional struggles The Yugoslav leaders "doubt" that the struggle of the within the bourgeoisie are settled as a rule by a carefully Koreans will lead to "genuine' independence" and by th.at 'I)nsidered position, conforming to the class interests of the they mean that Korea, even when liberated from imperialist bourgeoisie, to its possibilities, to its chances of success troops will fall entirely under Soviet control (see the in­ and not. of suicide. terview by 'Marshal. Tito given to the r ndian journalist, Capitalism is accelerating its march toWard \var, but Kamaiesh Banerji, in August 1950). This danger exists; the road is still blocked by numerous and powerful obstacles. and the Korean and international revolutionary vanguard The K9rean war provides supplementary proof of these ought to denounce it and struggle against it. But is not the difficulties and of the need imperialism has of gaining time. same thing true for Indo-China and China? By adopting On the other hand, we have e!TIphasized the reasons such a position, the Yugoslavs risk joining the ranks of which likewise restrain the Soviet bureaucracy from launch­ the "neutralists" in regard to the class struggle and the ing into a general war. Under these conditions it conforms struggle of the colonial peopl.es in our epoch under the far more to the reality of the international situation, to pretext that its leadership belongs in most cases and at the orient the policy of the, revolutionary proletariat not on first stage to groups influenced by the Soviet bureaucracy.

1 War and Diplomacy In• Viet Nam The Five-Year Struggle for Indochinese In,dependence

By JEAN FAVRE

I n the fifth year of the war in Viet Nam (I ndo-China), On the one hand the development of the volume of in­ the positions of the French colonial army can be outlined dustrial production was negligible. Raw materials repre­ as follows; two-thirds of the territory is completely out of sented 96.5% of tbe bulk of exports. I-atex was not con­ its control and is administered by the Ho Chi Minh gov­ verted industrially, but exported at a low price in the ernment; the area occupied by this army in the North con­ interest of the Michelin rubber trust in France. Although sists of the Tonkin delta and includes the cities of Hanoi the country has mineral products in abundance (coal, iron, and Haiphong; in the central part of several coasltal cities nonferrous metals) the're is not a single blast furnace in all of which Hue is the most ,important; in the South of a Indo-China, and'two-thirds of the coal mined is for export. fairly large portion of Cochin-China including the city of Add to this the fact that rice represents by far the most Saigon. important export i~em at the expense of mass consumption. It is in the tone occupied by tbe colonial army that The French bourgeoisie carried prudence to the point of incessant engagements and attacks against the Viet Namese dispersing concentrated !ndustry, needed even for the guerrillas take place for control of the lines of communica­ preparation of latex or the husking of rice, by its diffusion tion. (I n a conference convened on feb. 26, 1950 by the into small artisan establishments. Httnking capital. repre­ i Minister of Colonies, an officer of the expeditionary corps sented by the all-powerful Bank of I ndo-China, has been defined as tlfree" those roads to \\'hich access can be had degraded to the medieval role of p~.wnbroker :lI1d usurer, two days of the week under the protection of stockades keeping. the landlords in subjection,. through whom it spaced a kilometer apart. These are the roads leading from siphons the surplus value extorted from the coolies, day Saigon in Cochin-China whete th~ position of the. ex­ laborers and tenant farmers. peditionary corps is' infinitely better than in Tonkin.) The social structure of the countryside is likewise very This isa very precarious situation for the imperialists backward. On the side of large l·anded property: 700 Euro­ despite a considerable war effort which, according to some pean planters own one-fifth of the cultivable land, of which serious estimates, equals the total of Marshall Plan aid to only one-half is cultivated; a slightly larger number of large France. In September 1945, the Socialist-Communist-M RP Annamite landlords crush their ten:lI1.t.s under the burden government, presided over by de G~.uIle, spent 100 billion of debt. (At the beginning of the season, thti tenant is francs merely to launch the expeditionary corps. Since then, obliged to borrow from the landlord. Six months later, a~t these expenditures have been greatly exceeded each year. harvest time, he must repay him in rice at a 300% rate of The imperialists have been trying to augment their interest. The landlord takes in all 70% of his crop.) fighting forces by the recruitment of native Bao Dai On the other side, the immense mass of poor peasants auxiliary troops. To'date these recruits do not exceed 3,000. own less than two hectares of land on the average; in The recent revolt of an ttuxiliary detachment occupying Tonkin, 62% of heads of families ,')wn an average of less an outpost moreover is significant of the dangers in such than one hectare and only S% owned more than I.S hec­ recruitment. The French bourgeoisie is meeting with the tares. Even in large holdings, cultivation is split up on a greatest difficulties in cloaking its own intervention with family basis, lacking the most rudimentary implements and a civjl war. These difficulties flow directly from the con­ fertilizer (Tonkin phosphates are. exported to obtain a sequences of SO years of colonial domination. larger profit). I rrigation is at a minimum. All this ex­ plains the low productivity of the Illdo-Chinese rice fields In Search of "Collaborators" whose output is 12 to 14 qu intals to the hectare as com­ Content in its comforts, the French bourgeoisie pre­ pared with 32 in Japan. ferred tlsafe" investments and usurious operations to the * * * investment of capital in the colonies. It saw in the non­ By curbing the capitalist transformation of fndo-China, industrialization of the colonies a measure of security for imperialism' has hampered the development of a strong its empire, fearing above all the rise of a numerous colonial national bourgeoisie. Trade and manufacturing play only proletariat and the raising of the cultural level of the an accessory role for the Annamite ~apitalist who is almost masses. always also a landlord because ~arming and its com­ This explains the extremely backward state of the plement, usury, are a source of the greatest individual economy of Viet Nam which h4s known imperialism only profits, and are therefore the preferred form of investment in its piratical and plundering form. On the eve of the for the accumulated capital of the merchant or factory Second World \Var, the' picture was as follows: cwner. Page 144 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL September-October J 9 5 0

As a result of its extreme weakness, the native bour­ with Japanese imperiaiism when it occupied Indo-China in geoisie is incapable of playing either a revolutionary or an March 1945. Ten days after the Japanese capitulation, he effective counter-revplutionary role. Organically tied to the abdicated: there was no hand to pull the m~rionette's 'Class of landowning usurers it cannot embark on the first strings. It was then that Ho Chi Minh designated him as i and principal step of the bourgeois democratic revolution: "councillor of the Republic" of Viet Nam, making him the , the solution of the agrarian problem. Oh the contrary it is symbol of Ho's intention to remain "within the framework in direct class opposition to the poor and landless peasants of the French Union." who constitute 92% of the population of Viet Nam. Weak Bao Dai does not and will not' e:ljoy the support of the numerically, a real historic abortion,· the Viet Namese popular masses. Today as before he remains an instrument bourgeoisie cannot, provide the count~r-revolutionary of imperialism. And there is no doubt, a§ a deputy said in ftJIcrum needed by French imperialism to crush the struggle the French patliament, that "the Viet Namese people will. of the Viet N!tmese people fro~ within and to achieve a know how to inflict the punishment which those who betray compromise of the Indian 'or Indonesian type.* their country deserve." The dialectic of history has transformed the strength Qf French imperialism into its weakness. Without a strong Viet Minh and the Ho Chi Minh Governnlellt I bourgeois party, without a Nehru or a Sukarno, it has no .,l one with whom it can deal. I t is in the dilemma of all or The Ho Chi Minh government beyond any possible nothing: either recqnquer Indo·,China and re-establish its doubt is the representative of the broad Viet Namcs~ rule along the old lines, or lose everything. Imperialism masses in struggle against imper1alism. I t is the duty of the will not find any "collaborators" whom it can trust to international proletariat to fight for the recognition of this safeguard the essence of its positions in its old colony. government so as to deprive the imperialists of the shadow of justification ,whiCh is represented by the support of this Juridical Strategems shadow Bao Dai government. That in no way implies approval of Ho Chi Minh's policies. Since its own forces,. after -five years of war, are no Up to, 1949, Viet Minh with its Stalinist leadership was 10l)ger sufficient for .reconquest, the French bourgeoisie is the champion of "independence within the framework of employing one of those juridical. stratagems of which it the French Union." Internally, this is the explanation for is so fond: it has baptized its own agents as the Viet Nam the liquidation of the self-governing organs of the masses, "Government." the assassination of revolutionary militants, outstanding As far back as 1946 the French tripartite cabinet, in among them Ta Thu Tau, the great Indo-Chinese Trot­ which the Stalinists participated, cr~ated a puppet govern· skyist leader, several weeks before the March 6, 1946,com· •ment under Dr. Thin: seven out of eleven of its ministers promise, the dissolution of the Co;nmunistParty into the Were French colonials. The life of this Hgovernment" came Viet Minh, the designation of the traitor Bao Dai as to a tragic end with the 'suicide of Dr. Thin. councillor of the government. Extemally there were constant Then in October 1947 came the constitution of the efforts at compromise with France which had the same ""govern.ment" of General Xuan, general .. : of the French results as those of Sukarno's Indonesian government with army. XuaA did not commit suicide but his government Holland: to permit the invading army to strengthen its had no more success than its predecessor's. positions. Finally in April 1949, the Minister of Colonies dis­ \Vhat were the consequences of the March 6, 1946 agree­ patched His Majesty Bao Dai to Indo-China and placed ment? The expeditionary corps unJer General Leclerc was at his disposal the expeditionary corps which installed him in a bl ind alley. After having seizeu Saigon on Sept. 23, at Dalat. Endowed with such mighty protection and with 1945 with the help of British troops,. he did not have the a letter from President Auriol confirming the famolls agree­ strength either to cut down th~ partisans in Cochin-China ment of March 8, 1949, His Majesty Bao Dai became the or to set foot in the North where the Chinese troops of dreamed of partner needed to sign a good agree men t. I Iis Chiang Kai-sh,ek were stationed. The offensive then gayc only defect is that he does not reprc~ent the struggling Viet way to diplomacy: in exchange for vague promises, vaguer Namese masses. I Ie has even been incapable of consolidat­ even than those included in the present agreement '\'ith Bao ing around himself a native bOllrgeois and fcudal force Dai, the 1-10 Chi Minh government opened the big cities large enough to serve as a screen between himself and the and the decisive lines of communication to the expeditionary masses. corps and called upon the popUlation to give the French Since the time of the conquest of I ndo-China, the French troops a friendly reception. Then Ho departed for France bourgeoisie has made and unmade imperial dynasties, to the Fontainebleau conference which was dragged out by putting the most docile marionettes on the throne. Bao Dai the French government to Sept. 14 when a "modus vivendi" was one of such selections. He was prepared to collaborate was signed which' confirmed the cJpitulatory concessions * Dutch imperialism also c~rbed the industrialization of made by Ho Chi Minh. Indonesia. But the Indonesian national bourgeoisie today is This seven- months' period was put to good use by the incomparably stronger than the Viet N amese bourgeoisie. For French government, in which the Sialinists participated, to example, 50'% of the rubber plantations belong to the Indone­ reinforce its expeditionary corps in men and materiel and sian bourgeoisie while 70,% of such ,plantations in Indo-China are owned by French companies. Moreover Indonesia benefited to set up the puppet government of Dr. Thin in Dalal. from a certain industrialization during the ,Japanese occupa­ On November 20, the reinforced invading army was ready tion in the last war. to renew hostilities. On November 24, the French fleet took Septemb~r-October 1 9 5 0 FOURT·H INTERNATIOlNAL Page 145

Haiphong after a bombardment Which took 6,000 lives. to it only after the USSR in turn recognized the Ho Chi The war ha$ continued to this day despite constant. offers Minh government (Jan. 31, 1950), to be followed by the by Ho Chi Minh. "people's democracies." This belated recognition by Stalin did not make any The Indo-Chinese Policy of the US decisive difference for the Vjst Nam republic. In fact, its American imperialism, conscious of the impasse of strength rests in the reality which convulses the structure French colonialism, was not displeased by' the indefinite of the world, in the mass upsurge of the peoples of Asia to prolongation of this war. I t was to renounce its 1945 pro­ free themselves from the chains of imperialism. Stalin now .jects of trusteeship and to content itself for five years with desires to utilize this irresistible force, to channelize the raising a few virtuous protests against the military solution struggle for' independence to provide water for his mill' in chosen by .French imperialism. Recently, "its strategic real-· the cold war. ism led it to the hope that a compromise could be effected Soviet recognition in 1945-1947 would have rendered a before the expected victory of Mat> 1:se-tung. I t was not real service to the ~Viet NamRepublic; by allowing for satisfied with the Bao Dai maneuver. the sending of material support, it would have quickly led I I n the' last months of 1949, it demanded on the occasion to expulsion of the invading army. At that time Viet Nam's t of the delivery of arms provided for by the Atlantic Pact position was stronger than it is now and it was not "even that these arms not be used in, Indo-China. In a word dispu~ed by French imperialism which had to deal with American· imperialism was biding 'Its time and ',looking Ho Chi Minh. toward the future. The victory of Mao Tse-tun'g and the But at that time, Stalin was scrupulously observing the recognition by the USSR of the Ho Chi Minh' government Yalta agreements, that counter-revolutionary Holy Alliance changed this policy. Truman's ambassador, Jessup, went to which provided that Viet Nam was to remain a colony in Dalat to confer his blessings on the puppet Bao Oai. the French Union. Maurice Thorez, Secretary of the FrencQ Endowed with two masters,' the valet-sovereign has, been CP, was, a government Vice-President and during - the recognized in law as thegovernment of VietNam. prolonged Fontainebleau conference (May-Sept. 1946), the If American imperialism has dropped its distrustful party brought daily pressure on Ho Chi Minh to capitUlate reserve, it was in order 'to reply to the recognition of' 1-10 Chi to the n;presentatives of French 'imperialism. Minh by the USSR and to fulfill hs role of sick nurse of decaying imperialism on this new front of the cold war. The New Stalfnist Policy But there is no enthusiasm in the Yankee press tn its com· During the debate in the' French parliament on Jan. 27, ments' on the recognition of Bao Dai. 1950 over the March 8 (1949) agrtement, the French CP "The French," writes the Baltimore Sun, "are not sit­ opened a violent attack against the policy carried on by uated for the kind of policy which had its expression in In­ French imperialism. One of its deputies especially, dia when England granted freedom to that country while keeping it in the Commonwealth... No one can say yet Jeannette Vermeersch called 'upon' the international whether the Bao Dai experience can be expected to suc­ proletariat to take action' against imperialism to force ceed. The perspectives are not very good .. : " the withprawal of. the expeditionary corps. She went so The N, Y. Herald Tribune makes the melancholy far as to denounce the massacre of 40,000 Algerians in observation: Constantinois on May 8, 1946 without, however, recaqing The western powers are in a difficult situation. The that a Stalinist vice-president, Maurice Thorez was in the Bao Dai regime cannot be considered really independent government responsible for this crime and that the while French troops remain in Viet Nam ... On the other plan~s whi~h bombed' the villages of Constantinois were hand, if the French troops leave' Indo-China, the Ho Chi Minh forces will conquer all of Indo-China. dispatched by a Stalinist Minister of Aviation. Charles Tillon. The British press itself, despite the kinship which binds Similarly throughout her long speech, the speaker tried the two imperialisms possessing colonies, wrote on the eve to imply that the war had lasted for three years and all the of England's recognition of Bao Dai: Stalinist speakers followed the same line. Undoubtedly their We will prepare a grave defeat in prestige if we rec­ ognize Bao Dai before taking measures which will preserve aim was to circulate the idea amon~ the worker masses that him from disaster. A premature recognition will be a du­ the imperialist attack began {)nly in 1947, that is after the bious benefit for Bao Dai, Stalinist ministers left the government. Thus the imperialist allies have had their hand forced. The CPF pretends that its deputies never voted credits They have been obliged to open a new front in the cold war, for the Viet Nam war. But the facts are beyond question: submerging their own rivalries and· suspicions in the In Sept. 1945, the coaJition government, including Stal­ common support of Bao Dai. Having entered this road, the inists, requested 193 billion francs for military appropria­ tions of which 100 billions was especially allocated for the us, supplanting French imperialism, will be compelled to launching of the expeditionary corps. The CPF deputies directly supply the Dalat government with dollars and war voted for it. materiel. In Jan. 1946, during consideration of the annual budget, the Socialist deputies demanded a 20% reduction in military The 'Recognition of Ho Chi Minh credits. Tillon. Stalinist minister of armaments, protested and obtained the rejection of the Socialist demand. The 'The recognition of Ho Chi Minh by Mao T se-tung' s CPF deputies voted' in favor of the budget requested. China on Jan. 20, 1950 did not impel the imperialists to On July 29, 1946, the deputief:? of the 'CPF voted for a decide on this adventurous step. They resigned themselves _budget of 189 billion francs. On -the sam.e day the Assembly Page 146 F 0 U R T H· I N T ERN A i ION A L September-October 1 9 5 0

with Stalinist agreement incorporated the definition of the operation, contenting itse'If with presenting an amendment French union in the constitution. to the agreement of March 8 to th~ effect that this a$ree­ On Od. 3, 1946 the CPF deputies voted in favor of the total 1946 budget comprising war appropriations. ment would be considered only as a point 0/ departure and On pec~. 23, 1946 the CPF deputies voted for the pro­ as definitive. Their amendments Jefeated, the Socialist • visional 1947 budget including 70 billion francs of military deputies nevertheless voted for the agreement while begging r credits necessitated by the growth of the expeditionary for a cessation of hostilities. . corps and the resumptiot;1 of hostilities in Indo-China. But while the SFIO (Socialist Party) congress periodic­ On March 21, 1947, several days after the massacre of 80,000 Madagascans by the imperialists, the five Stalinist a-lly votes for peace in I nda-China, the parliamenta~y ap­ r ministers voted 55 billion in military credits for the second paratus of the party is engaged in intrigues for· compromise quarter and voted confidence in· the government which had among the job-seeking, military and. administrative cirGles. perpetrated the massacres in Madagascar and Viet Nam. This is accompanied by the usual deals in the corru'pt Tliling Finally, on December 20, 1946, a month after the bom­ bardmet;t.t of Haiphong, the 182 Stalinist deputies voted to­ spheres of French imperialism, by lucrative traffic in' posts, gether with the entire Chamber to send greetings to Gen­ by bribery, by sha~y go-betweens. eral Leclerc and his expeditionary corps. Mired in these orerations, which are. a good reflection of the degree of degeneration of a· party which has re­ Nevertheless thi's memorable speech by Deputy Ver­ f ; meersch, synchronized with the diplomatic recognition of nounced the class struggle for several decades, the Social ist Ho Chi Minh by the Soviet government, marked an· im­ leaders became the target for the right wing of the M R P portant turn of Stalinist policy toward Viet Namand the (the French Catholic Party), which is the mouthpiece ·for abandonment of all past efforts to keep -it within the French the Bank of Indo-China.* This Was known as "the scandaL Union. It was accompanied by a campaign of agitation of the generals" which went beyond the confines in which involv.ing strike movements o~ sabotag~ by 'fighting groups the M RP had hoped to keep it and revealed the· corruption in several unions and localities. of all the ruling bourgeois circles and their .Bao Dai agents. The turn, made in the typical bureaucratic manner, threw the Communist workers into extremely violent and Perspectives of the ~ ar .in Indo.. China convulsive actions without ·an absolutely indispensable cam­ The perspectives of 'French imperialism in Indo-China paign of preparation and systematic mobilization of the are extremely bleak. I t is impossible for it to provoke a masses. The 'result has ,been the isolation 'of the Communist civil war in Viet Nam. It is impossible for it to reach a workers who, in certai'n cases, were left with a hp.ndful of compromise safeguarding its economic domination in the strikers exposed to employer and government repression absence of sufficiently strong capitalist or feudal formations while a large majority of the workers remained disoriented to constitute a government party which could put down the and passive. war of liberation. It is impossible· for it to reconquer the To this disastrous tactic were added the demoralizing old colony miHtariIy. effects of slander. Here is one example: some 2,000 workers All that remains for the already defeated Frenchbour­ in Ni~e demonstrated against the shipment of a V2 landing geoisie is to aid in the transformation of the war of recon­ platform to Viet Nam. They pushed the huge crates con­ quest into an arena of the cold war and to take a back seat taining the engine off the dock. The next day they were to behind American imperialism. That however does not read in l' Huinanite that this shipment was destined for ... permit it to relax its military effort which is its only means Tito. of holding on to a portion of its former privileges. I n other Far from pursuing a united front policy which would words, there is no hope of healing the festering sore which permit the maturing of the consciousness of the masses and for five years has weakened the emaciated body of French would aid their mobilization, die CPF intensified its ulti­ imp~riaIis.m except by amputation, whose effects will be matistic and sectarian policy whose aim is the destruction of even more serious. the Socialist Party. By these me.thods, it pits the Socialist The struggle of the Viet Nampeople since 1945 has been and Communist worker against each other. Once more a very weighty element in the. relationship of forces be­ Stalinism has shown itself incapable of a genpine, class tween the classes in France itself. The bourgeoisie has been united front policy. It can only switch from class collabora­ able only to partially exploit its victories of 1947 and 1948 tion to sectarian isolation in order to then return to class over the French proletariat because of the setbacks it suf­ collaboration. fered at th~ hands of Viet Namese proletarians and peasants The rise of De Gaulle has been bridled by the same reality Socialists and Generals since he has had to limit his criticism to this or that weak­ ness, this or that hesitation of the government without being The reformist leaders thus' find it much easier to carry able to counterpose a more effective policy .. He has had on their policy of camp followers and shameful accomplices nothing better, nothing not just as bad to propose to the of imperialism. With no concrete proposal for action to reject, with no explanations to give, ·they have ready * The financial interests of the Catholic clergy occupy a answers to the wild insults and attacks of their Stalinist predominant place in the Bank of Indo-China. A. Hamon partners. wrote in "The Masters of France in 1938"; " ...the majority of the members of the administrative counsel of the· colonial For years the social democracy has timidly 'implored enterprises belong to the category of catholic capitalists or for negotiatiOns with Ho Chi Minh. But in the last several their representatives..• The Catholic Church and its congre­ Months it has become the accomplice of the Bao Dai gations invest capital in colonial enterprises." , I'r

September-October I 9 5 0 F 0 U R T 1-1 INTERNATIONAL Pa gel 4 7

ruling circles of the French bourgeoisie as a way out of the democratic rank and file committees. Such a united front I ndo-Chinese impasse. would evoke a great response and would overwhelm the Hostility among the French working masses' to the war repressive apparatus of the French hourgecisie, which can­ in I rido-China is mounting. Government employees know not triumph over its own proletariat as long as it is unable that an increase in their salaries clashes against the' all­ to triumph in Indo-China. The proletarian united front 1 devouring war budget. Peasants ;llld middle classes see in would quickly paralyze the imperialist war effort, forcing the war one of the reasons for the heavy taxes that have the withdrawal of the expeditionary corps. By the same been levied on them. The wor~ers understand that the war token, Bao Dai would collapse, and with him the hopes is one of the causes of the debasement of their standard of American imperialism. of living. Youth drafted into military service' live in fear The pel, French section of the Fourth International, is of being sent to Indo-China to strengthen the present army fighting for the realization of the pmletarian united front. of volunteers. The war in Indo-China 'clearly appears as an The unwavering struggle it has carried on since 1945 against unjust war, a criminal war, a war without end, as little dirty the war in Viet Nam, .for the withdrawal of the ex­ war" as a bourgeois weekly called it. peditionary corps, the confidence it has won among the What curbs the movement of the French masses today Viet Namese workers in France" and among the national )s their distrust of Stalinism which has only been, able to parties of the oppressed peoples spur it on to intensify its organize defeats. Many workers refuse to be tools of Stalin aQti-imperialist work in the new situation. in the cold war. This distrust can only be overcome by the creation of a genuine' proletarian united front, based on (Translated from the March-April Quatrieme Internationale) The Third Chinese Revolution I. Origin and Significance of the Victory of Mao Tse-tung

By ERNEST GERMAIN

A half-billion inhabitants in a sub·contin€nt as vast as Chinese society, bastard child of the old China and Europe (1)*, nomad peoples living beside modern prole­ world imperialism, did not cease suffering bloody con- tarians, the kerosene' lamp and Rockefeller's fuel oils vulsions. Principal theater of imperialist rivalries in the penetrating to the smallest villages. of the South while Far East, it was chopped up by warlords waging private money remains unknown in entire regions-such is the wars subsidized by the big powers interested in Chinese China of today, classic example of the historically combined commerce before duly falling victim to a war of conquest development of all Asia. The penetration of international by Japanese imperialism. The defeat of the Chinese revolu­ capital industrialized an insignificant coastal strip and a tion of 1925-27 permitted no progressive solution of the few northern provinces; in the rest of the country its action contradictions in which this bastard society writhed. That was limited to the' destruction of the centuries-oldhandi­ is why there was a consequent slow decomposition of the crafts, and the crushing of the peasant under the burden 1undamental productive relations on which Chinese society of usury. Between international capital and the mass of the was based. ChiMese arose a class of intermediaries, the compradors,' Japanese imperialism invested' .:onsiderable capital in who, living on the commercial profit granted them by the Manchuria, colonized in ]931. The equivalent in yen of foreign entrepreneurs and its conversion into 'usurer's close to 5.5 billion dollars flowed in (2). Vast industrializa­ capital, bled the -peasantry white. tion doubled coal production there and tripled metallurgical Incapable on account of their social peculiari{ies of production. But this industrial development did not profit unfying the country, of assuring its independence,' of the country as a whole. The great agricultural belts of the .resolving the agrarian question, this bourgeoisie of com­ North and the South, which the Japanese never succeeded pradors, unable to play any progressive role in history,' kept in occupying, were cui off from the developed industrial the country in chaos and, prostration. The ancient Chinese c~nters. I n the North, above all in territories occupied by culture disintegrated; in the countryside, ignorance and Communist guerillas or by local peasant militias, handi­ illiteracy reached their culmination. At the same time, in crafts underwent a new growth (3). Trade died down and the big cities as a common means of communication with the tendencies toward provincial and even district autarchy the foreign lords the infernal and highly symbolic jargon of gained strength continually. The country turned in upon "pidgin English" was coined in which "I am" is translated itself. by "I belong,"" Such is the country which is the theater This had considerable consequences for agrarian eco .. of the most important revolution precipitated by the Second nomy. 'The links with the world market which made it World War. possible to smooth the ups and downs in the supply of rice and wheat, were cut. The result was famine at each bad * AIJ footnotes are listed in sequence at end of article. harvest. Entire provinces with tens of million: of irihabitants Page 148 FOURl=H INTERNATIONAL September.October 1 9 5 0

were ~ard hit, especially during !he big famine in the 2.nd to acquire in numerous sectors virtual monopolies for northern plain in 1941-43. A shif~ occurred away from their private enterprises. crops such as cotton, grown for saTe in the cities, to food The reactionary American writer George Moorad, who crops (4). remains nevertheless an apologist for the Kuomintang, 1 At the same time, the officers of Chiang Kai-shek's decried the situation thus created in these terms: , army, small local officials and other supports of the By using government loans and UNRRA materials, and Kuomintang, suffering from the mounting inflation. appro­ by confiscating enemy-alien properties, the state-family ! priated for themselves immense stretches of communal and monopolies soon came to-dominate mining, heavy industry, I tenant peasant lands. In the province of Szechuan it was silk, cotton, spinning, sugar, transportation, and, of course, banking and overseas trade... In addition to their control­ estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the landlords seized their ling interest in the National government, Soong.-Kung com­ lands during the war and their holdings represented 90 bine and its satellites also owned the China Highway Trans­ percent of the land owned by the old landlords (5 J. This port Company, Fu Chung Corporation, Yangtze Develop­ evolution was again accentuated after the end of the war ment Corporation, Central Trust of China, China Textile Development Corporation, and Universal Trading Corpora­ when the government through r.~tionalized companies tion. Thus the great Japanese-owned cotton spinning mills seized lands belonging to the Japanese. The North China in China, which, in 1937, had rivaled Bombay and Man­ )I Exploitation Company alone seized several hundred thou­ chester productions, were taken over by the China Textile sand mow of land in Hopei (6). (One mow equals ap­ Development CO.l'poration, which, receiving government proximately one-sixth of an acre.) loans and government cotton, was able to put private Chinese and British mills out of business, The monopolies The tax in kind since 1941, the innumerable forced also got preferences in allocations of fuel, transport and loans. and requisitions of the army, dealt the final blow to raw materials. (Lost Peace in China. E. P. Dutton & Co., a peasant economy that had been tottering for a long time. New 'York, 1949. pp. 197-98.) Numerous villages were depopUlated-the number of farm­ This is a form of the concentration of monopoly capital ers who died of starvation during and after the war is which the advanced countries have never known. estimated at ten to fifteen mill!on (7)! Vast reaches \Vhen a member of one' of these families, the financier remained uncultivated. The soil, exhausted by centuries of T. V. Soong, ex-president of the Bank of China, ex-minister too numerous harvests and lack of C:lre, rebelled in its turn of foreign affairs, and ex-prime minister, was named against the archaic mode of production in northern China. governor of the rich province of Kwangtung in September The yield per mow dropped without cease (8). Belden 1947, four months after his resignation as head of the gov­ estimates that at the end of the war 50 million mow of land ernment uQder the pressure of public opinion, the press were lying desolate in the three -fertlle provinces of Honan, explained this nomination as the result of a gift which Hupeh and Hunan. Hundreds of thousands of small and Soong himself had made to the charity fund of the Kuomin­ middle peasants were dispossessed (9). A considerable tang of at least 500 billion Chinese dollars, or 10 million devaluation in the price of land occurred as numerous American dollars, in stocks and bonds of important com­ peasants found themselves forced to sell their tiny mercial and industrial enterprises '(13). HBureaucratic patches (10). capital," hence, was the conquest 0f dominating positions Thus the war and its immediate aftermath created on in the economy by exploiting public office, combined with one side a new layer of speculators and parasitic Cfwners, the purchase of controlling posts in the government by and on the other an enormous mass of expropriated means of enormous profits wrung from the economy. peasants. This polarization of society signified an extreme These extremes of corruption and despotism injured not exacerbation of the social contradictions and was the only the foreign capitalists who saw themselves excluded midwife of the third Chinese revolution. from part of their traditional profits, but also the majority of the Chinese compradors themselves who found the most "Bureaucratic Capital" profitable fields monopolized by the ltfour families." These China's sudden reconquest of the big industrial centers native bourgeois layers, cut off from profitable commercial upon the Japanese capitulation betokened brutal confirma­ or industrial activity, concentrated all the more on speCUla­ tion of a typical aspect of contemporary China-the sub­ tion and usury, thus accelerating the disintegration of the economy and feeding the hate of all the productive classes mergence of the extremely weak industrial bourgeoisie by toward the Kuomintang and its rotten regime. "bureaucratic capital." From 1936 on, nationalizations acquired importance. Official statistics indicate that in 1942 the government possessed 20 power stations, eight iron and Galloping Inflation steel factories, many machine and electrical manufacturing But the factor which contributed most to the disintegra­ plants and ten distilleries (11). At the end of the war, the tion of the traditional social relations was the galloping government seized all Japanese-owned enterprises, thus ap­ inflation that developed during the course of the war and propriating the lion's share of th~ textile and coal in­ its immediate aftermath. In addition to the universal dustries (12). Four families, Chiang Kai-shek, the Soongs, parasitism of the regime, the cause of this inflation resided the Kungs and the Chen brothers skimmed the ,cream from above all in the enormous mass of unproductive govern"7 these nationalized enterprises as their private domain, mental expenditures for the maintenance of a hypertrophied utilizing their political positions at the same time to amass bureaucracy and army-approximately 70 percent of the fabulous fortunes in the management of these enterprises budget was devoted to the army (14). This led to an September-October 1 9 5 0 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 149

enorino~s budgetary defieit surpassing two-thirds of the in the villages of Manchuria and northern China while expenditures, and this deficit could ntlt be covered except by famine, reigned in the cities. At the same time, huge stock­ unbridled printing of bank notes. By 1940 prices had already piles of coal accumulated in mining centers while the peasant reached an average of 3,500 (taking the 1937 level as 100) population suffered terribly from the bitter cold of winter. and in some provinces even more thln 5,500 (15 J. The end All ~conomic life in the country seemed to halt (20 J. The 1 of the war was marked by pronounced acceleration of the culpability of the regime was aj1parent to everyone. inflationary movement. During 1946 prices soared 700 percent in Shanghai. From January to July they mounted American Intervention in China ~gain by 500 percent. The circulation of money rose from f mperialist intervention had prevented transformation 1.15 trillion Chinese dollars in January 1946 to 11.46 trillion of China into a modern nation. A.t· the same time it lent in July 1947. From that time, the rhythm of inflation unexpected support to the particular social rela~ions accelerated, as is indicated by the course of the American characterizing the China of the first half of the twentieth dollar on the Shanghai black market: century. With the end of the war this situatioq was radically One A merican dollar was worth (in Chinese dollars J­ upset. Of the old powers protecting the" Chinese social order, I in June 1947, }6,000; August 1947, 44,000; October 1947, only' Great Britain and the United' States remained in­ • 100,000; November 1947, 165,000; March 1948, 500,000; dependent forces, and Great Britain was too weak to in .. May 1948, 1,000,000; beginning of August 1948, 10,000,000 tervene e'ffectively in China. On American imperialism fell (16J. The magnitude of the inflation ~nded in the elimina­ the whole burden of d~fending that Christian civilizatiQn tion qf money as means of monthly payment of salaries and which had pressed on China the sell of opium, coolies and wages, payments being made with sacks of whe~t. Inflation the' licensed brothels of Shanghai. led to hoarding of gold and foreign money, to massive The outbreak of war between JaP'ln and the United stockpiling of goods and ,from that to incre;lsing scarcities. States considerably accentuated American interest in China. At the end of August 1948, the government JTlade ,a last While bankers anq technidans prepared plans for credits attempt at stabilization of the monetary situation. A new and capital investments, General Stilwell sought to utilize issue, the gold yuan, was put in circulation. Pr,ices were the immense Chinese human potential for the creation of stabiliz~d and rigorous penalties instituted to curb specula­ new armies endowed with modern equipment. It was in the tion. But the public remained sceptical, ~ince at th~ salTJe ,ourse of these attempts that the Yankee military heads time budget figures showed annual. government revenue had their first prolongeq contacts with the .Ieaders ~f _th~ covered scarcely 'two months" expenditures (17). And so, KLJomintang and understood that the ChIang Kal-shek like agrarian reform, inflatjon on 1he morrow st;trted up .regime was hop~lessly. ~orrupt. and condemned to perish. again worse than ever. Six weeks later the hf~e i~prkes' rh~ documents published by the American State Depart­ reached 45 percent. Fo~r weeks more, ~nd the (~fftciaJ index nWJlt c.ontain &ecret. .reports' ;Q;f '1'&ents, written in 1943-44, hit'81 .percent (18),: Between November 1948 ~~d Janu~ry which were all unflnimous ill predfding th~ ~,efeat of Chiang J949, pric~s mounted 500 perc~nt. A new cycle of galloping Kai-sh~~ in tht! event of civil war 6i( th~tgrand scale in hiflation was opened. . . China. The r~port of John Stewart St:rviceftha.ra'syer;i,~es the The inflation led to complete prostration Qf business. situation ih tH~ provinces controlled by the Kuotnintang in "Production is paralyzed," wrote the correspOndent of the the following way: Neue Zuercher Zeitung, October 17, 1948, ribec~use 9f ,t~e 1. Morale is low and discouragement 'widespread. There lack of raw materials. The peasant producers refuse to sell is a general feeling of hopelessness~ their products so long as they cannot 'buy foods 'at offichil 2.. The authority of the Central' Government is weaken­ prices." Fear of the inflation led to heavy disinvestment of ing !n the areas away from the larger cities. Government capital. Such capital, transformed into gold bars or dollars, mandates and measures of control cannot be enforced and remain ineffective. It is becoming difficult for the Govern­ flowed to Hong Kong, the United States, Latin America. ment to cpllect enough food for its huge army and bureauc­ Plant equipment deteriorated. Mactlines were no longer racy. repaired. Capital ceased to be renewed. Inflation devoured 3. The governmental and military structure is being per­ what reserves had remained intact in the country. Coal meated and demoralized from top to bottom by corruption, production fell to. half the pre-war level; textile production unprecedented in scale and openness. to a similar leve1. Through01.Jt ..l\:'lanchuria, industrial 4. The intellectual and salaried classes, \\rho have suf­ fered the most heavily from inflation,' are in danger of ,production in 1948 stood at J0 pertent" of its normal I~vel. liquidation. The academic groups suffer not only the attri­ A typical case, cited in the report of General Wedemeyer, tion and demoralization of economic stress; the weight of is that of the Hwainan Coal Mine in cent'ral China owned years or-political control and repression is robbing them by the China Finance Development Corporation which is of the intellectual vigor anq leadership they once had (21). controlled by two of the four families, the Soongs and This appreciation of the Chinese situation placed Amer­ Kungs. This corporation possessed extensive for~ign ex­ ican imperialism before an insolubl~ dilemma the moment change assets, but refused to use them to rehabilitate the the war in Asia came to an end. On the one hand, it was ,mine. the government itself. had to ~tart production moving necessary to give maximum aid to Chiang Kai-shek to by advancing more than one million American dollars. prevent the swift collapse of Kuomintang China. On the After exhausting this loan,things stopped at that (19). other hand, it was necessary to Ireplace the Chiang Kai-shek Finally, this situation led to a rupture in trade between city government by a government capable of avoiding the out­ and country. Great stocks of foods u.nd cotton 'accumulated break of civil war on the grand scale, since the Kuomintang Page 150 F 0 U R T H I NT ERN A T ION A L September-October I 9 5 (J

could not help losing such a war. But the sole means Amer­ I n reality, the landlords were convinced of the' inevita­ ican imperialism had to put pressure on the Kuomintang bility of peasant uprisings on a grand scale. They had no was precisely the aid which it advanced. Unable to make confidence that the Chinese Communist Party, following up its mind to cut this aid in order to' wring real concessions from the Kuomintang, it sawall its attempts to reach eventual entrance in a coalition government, would prove conciliation between the' Chinese Communist Party and capable of halting these uprisi'ngs. They. feared consequently Chiang Kai-shek doomed to failure in advance. that any prolongation of the period of relative freedom enjoyed by the peasants in the Communist-occupied regions Attenlpts at Compromise would lead fatally to the seizure of land, and that the The political and military basis for such a compromise example set by these regions woulJ spread throughout the was real nonetheless the first two years after the war. Chinese pea~antry. The sole mean~ 9f avoiding this catas­ Chiang's armies, equipped thanks to the Americans with trophe was the rapid reconquest of these regions, as long as ultra-modern materiel, we're transported by American planes the relation of military .forces was basically favorable to and ships to the big centers of Manchuria and the North, in the Kuomintang. The Chinese ruling classes understood order to speedily occupy the cities evacuated by the Japan.. that time worked against them. The military adventure in ese, then by the Russians. The groups of C«:>mmunist which' they plunged with a blindness rarely equalled (26), partisags, officially united to the regular army under the was neither desired nor provoked by the Chinese Communist name of the Eighth Route Army, had occupied some agri­ Party which seems to have genuinely sought the road to cultural districts and a few cities, then had halted their compromise (27 J. operati'ons. On October II, 1945, an agreement was ihe failure of General Marshall's mission of concilia­ reached between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Com­ tion and the following fact-finding mission of General munist Party providing for the convocation of a People's Wedemeyer did not by any means signify abandonment by -Political Consultative Conference to iron out all the dif­ American imperialism of its policy of intervention and ferences. "pacification" of China. For two years,. American policy This conference was held in Chungking in January 1946 continued to be buffeted between two contradictory aims~ and after 2 I days of discussion adopted a series of resolu­ to avoid any breaching of Kuomintang power from one ,tions on the organization of a coalition government, the side; from the other to try 'to "liberalize" the regime and reconstruction of the country, military problems,convoca.. lead it to putting an end to the civil war. I f Amerj~an tion of a National Assembly, etc. I t was not a question of a conciliatory intentions in China seem to have been genuIne, radical reform (22). Finally on February 25, 1946, under in practice American intervention brought about prolonga­ the aegis of General Marshall, in China on special mission tion of Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship. The "pr~sslJre" as conciliator, the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist exerted on the generalissimo to introduce some "progressive" Party concluded an agreement for the unification of the reforms achieved only ridiculous results (28 J. armed forces. The road to /4s~ial peace" seemed open (23). The total amount of American aid given the KuomiIltang , Nevertheless, at the very moment these agreements were was considerable. It is a flagrant lie when reactio,na!"y reached, hostilities were again on the point of breaking circles in the United States and the world try to explain the out. Responsibility for this fell squarely on the Kuomintang, victory of Ma

point of view, it Was the spontaneous initiative and a con­ ,ports." Headed for prison, he was saved by his comprador siderable degree. of local self-government which permitted protectors, then went south,. to link his fortune with Sun the Mao Tse-tung arinies to overwhelm the rotten and Yatt'sen. A young career officer, he Vlas chosen by the father universally detested despotism of the Kuomintang. of the' Chinese Republic to spend s'ix l110nths' in' Moscow in Nothing in fact cQuld b~ further from reality than to 1923. On his return, he besame commander of the Whampoo 1 call Chiang Kai-snek's dictatorshio bourgeois democracy. Military Academy, constructed and maintained with The dictatorship was openly affirmed as such, since the Russian funds; anq it was from this position that he left in Kuomintang openly declared that it was ~ exercising tutelage 1925 for the military expedition which permitted him later bver the, Chinese people, not yet ripe for political sover­ to crush the .revolution in 1927 and. to unify China under eignty, up to 1947. (31). And the formal abandonment of his dictatorship. The ,massacres which he perpetrated left ~his <'tutelage" came at the time when the dictatorship, wounds that are felt to this .. day. basing itself on a secret service of 200,000 members, opened From April to December 1927, .37,985 persons were ex­ an' unparalleled wave, of repressions (32), ecuted for "political crimes." Fmm January to August A very convincing example of the "democratic" nature of 1928, the number condemned to death was 27,699~ At the Chiang Kai-shek's governme'nt is its reign of terror on the end ofl 930, it was estimated that 140,000 political op­ .. island of Formosa in 1947. On February 25, 1947, incidents ponents ha~ been put to death by the regime. In i 93 I, I broke out which led to a numbe.r of killings by Chinese incomplete statistics' referring to the citiys of only six soldiers. The population of Formosa rose up and organized provinces mentioned 38,778 persons executed by the poli .. political councils which demanded a democratic constitu­ tical police in the course of the year. tion for the,. island. The gov,ernor entered into n~otiations with the populace to gain time'pending 'arrival of reinforce­ Changes ,Wrought by the War ments from the mainland. When the Chinese troops landed, a bloody'repreS'sion began. The Americans fix the number Chiang Kai-shek maintaiped his dominant position, says of victims at 5,OOQ slain; the inhabitants of ,Formosa speak I saacs, by offeripg immediate benefits to all the ruling of 20,000 people murdered (33). History took "its revenge classes and by effective maneuvering among the mutually on Chiang Kai-shek by abandoning him today to the hostile military cliques (37). But the change in the relation­ stubborn, underground hatred of the unhappy people of ship of forces between landlords and compradors, during the this island. ' war profoundly altered the Kuomintang's seat of. power. Even more fatal was the development' in northern China As Trotsky long ago observed, the ~uomintang dictator­ and Manchuria dUl'ing the same period of organs of self­ ship was not fascist in character (34); cpntrar,W to the defense and self-government among the peasants. In the fascist regimes it had no base of support in the petty­ lost villages where the Japanese troops had not been able bourgeois masses, whicry were violently' hostile to it. It was to send more than advance scouts but whiCh the Kuomintang a military dictatorship based on an alliance land­ ~between troops precipitately abandoned,' solid nuclei were organized lords, certain layers. of compradors and the' immense caste of anti-imperialist res'istance and local democracy. The of military men and ~pper bufeau6'at~ who profited from village militia of secretly elected town adnlinistrations ap": the regime. According to the Swiss journal Der Bund, China pea red even behind the J apanese lines~ had generals in active service. (June 15, 1948.) The 6,77' The Communist, Eighth Route Army soon began to war, however, altered the base of this regime. Cut off from coordtnate this resistance movement under its leadership. the big industrial centers and the decisive levels of the Having insufficient cadres, it was cqmpelJed to leave the cptnpradors, Chi~ng Kai.:shek Wfl~ ft)rcedJ,o support himself villages a high degree of autonomy and democracy. Ad­ mbre fully ,conservative and backward land­ on~ t~/most ministrative units put, together in rather slack fashion were lprds. Fr01n thIs fact, the politicar weight.of the representa­ taken in hand by a central body created from above, the tiv'es of this class (notably the clique of the Central Com­ "government of the Shansi-Hopei-Shantung-Honan Border mittee of the KuomintaQg) became decisive '( This 35). Region" which left considerable reDres,entation to -local and explains the failure of the 1946 compromise which had been non-Communist elements (38). Toward: the end of the war, favored by the industrial bourgeoisie of northern China, this "government" and the authoritative formations which who, on March 13,1946, sent a delegation to Kuomintang the Communist partisans had constructed in other parts of headquarters to obtain immediate cessation of hos­ the country already controlled close, to 90 million peo­ tilities (36). ple (39). The mass of peasants, while ebserving with distmst Career of a Generalissimo the measures of the new authorities tending to prevent the The personality of Chiang Kai-shek is a faithful reflec­ agrarian reform up until 1946, nevertheless considered the tion of the regime which he incarnated. Harold Isaacs has new government as the first which nad not acted forcibly drawn a portrait of the Chinese dictator .as ferocious as it and always against tHe people. They were ready to grant .is faithful. Son of a landlord-trader of the province of it their support from the moment their fundamental demand Chekiang, Chiang Kai-shek came to Shanghai about 1911 for land was carried out (40). where he tried to make a career as a stock broker. He got The Chiang Kai-shek regime thus found itself facing an in touch with the secret societies and hobnobbed, says adversary whose forces did not cease' to grow. I ts own I saacs, with '~gangst~rs and bankers, smugglers and brothel­ resources did not cease to diminish, corroded by an un­ keepers, the tn0n'ey-changers and the scum of the treaty bridled corruption. Belden cites the case of a colonel' due Page 152 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL September..;October 1 9 5 0 for promotion to command of a batallion who was rejected In 1946 especially there were demonstrations greeting becau$e <;>f inability to pay the customary "gift" to his­ establishment of the truce; but the demonstrators who ac­ sUperiors. He was then made head of the transport unit of claimed -the leaders of the Kuomintang as well as those his regiment. In this capacity he had to give one-seventh of hailing the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party were aU the gasoline to the officer in charge of the supply depot. attacked by the police and army. At Suchow, 12 students His superiors took another one-seventh of the gasoline for were killed and 27 wounded. The dean of the school was their personal graft. To supply the regiment, the colonel likewise killed. At Kunming. two professors were murdered had to sell grease and lubricants on the blacK market himself a~er having spokCh at a meeting in favor of the truce (49 J. in order to make up fqr the gasoline lifted by the' corrupt h~ 1947, the movement was much larger. Student's of the officers (41 J. The Chinese writer Pei 'Wan-chung reports universities of Shanghai, Peking and Nanking proclaimed that the mayors of villages responsible for sending young a general strike. Some 3,000 students of the Transport High recruits to the army had organized, in the province of School occupied the North Station in Shanghai and seized Hopei, a system according to which every family paying a train, demanding that it tal

impossible to gIve a simple sketch \)f class relations in the To complete this picture, it must be added that, in Chinese village since these relations vary enormously from practice the landlord fixed the rate of rent as he pleased regiO'n to region. A certain number of generaliz,ations never­ and this rate often v:aried from harvest to harvest in the theless remain possible. Agriculture in the provinces south absence of any written contract. Even with a written con­ of the Yangtze is in general more advanced than that of tract, it remained with the landlord to interpret it, as he 1 the northern provinces; in the same way, in the North in pleased since the peasant was most often illiterate. Finally, places remote from the coast and principal railway lines one it is necessary to say that the rates cited above refer solely fin'ds stronger vestiges of feudalism in agriculture (55). In to rent of the land. If the landlord likewise furnished some southern, China, farms are smaller than in the North. But farm tool or ferti1izer. he demanded additional pay­ :this difference simply reflects the poverty of agriculture ment (60). in the North where the peasants are unable to eke out a living on smaller plots. Thus in the South of China only Backwardness of Land Relations half the farms haye an area. greater than 1.64 acr·es and The landlords. were themselves ~uite different. I n the 20 percent an area greater than 3.29 acres. In northern North, they lived in general amid their lands; capital wen't China, 73peraent of the farms have more than 1.64' acres, from the city to the countryside; the merchant tended to not more than 50 percent are larger than 3.29 acres and 35 become a landlord. Contrariwise, in the South, the owner percent exceed 4.94 acres. These figures also indicate the generally lived in the city. He invested the rents he received extremely small dimensions of Chinese farms (56). in business or industry. Capital went from the countryside In the ~orth of China, the small landlord system to the city (61). In both cases, however,'the capitalizatioh predominates; in the South, tenants and sharecroppers con· of the land rent was never made through the industrializa­ stitute the majority of the peasants. However, throughout tion Qrmechanization of agriculture, the improvement of China the humber of independent peasants has diminished the land or increase in the productivity of labor. It was considerably since the turn of the c~ntury, as is recognized d(;me either by taking the land from ruined peasants and by official Kuomintang sources. I n :.lome provinces of south­ parceling it out to otHer peasants toiling with the same ern China, the percentage of peasants owning their land archaic methods, oi by usury, trade, or by a combination fell extremely low~in the province of Chekiang (south of of these different operations. This explains the considerable Shanghai along the sea) to IS perc~nt; in the rich pro,-,:ince backwardness in the development of agriculture in relation of Kwantung, where Canton is located, 2 I percent; in to the growth of the population (62). Fukieng, between Chekiang and Kwantung, 25 percent, etc. Bourgeois economists try to explain this backwardness More agriculture is capitalist and more small farmers have by the lack of arable land or the excessive birth rate. In given way .to the tenant and sha'recropper (57) reality, it is a question of a phenomenon already well known In' 1936, profe'ssor Chen Han-seng esti~ated that 65 in Russia and again today in I ndia. Because of the . lack of percenf of the Chinese peasantry either possessed no land land, the landlord is interested in maintaining production or possessed too little to make the l,arest living (58). within the limits of intensive small production similar to Chinese agriculture is likewise marked by a strong dif­ truck gardening, without introducing the methods of pro· duction and instruments of modern technique. Each year, ferentiation in the form of payment' of agrarian rent. This all, the surplus product and a part of the means of sub­ rent is paid, sometimes in kind at a fixed qlte, sometimes sistence are taken from agriculture to feed" and enrich the as a portion of the annual harvest. I n general, industrial landlords, the bureaucrats and innumerable officers. This crops (t~tton, tea) pay. rent in mOl\er, food crops predo­ permanent crisis in agriculture cannot be resolved unless minantly in' kind. This rent is extremely high. Official the owners are expropriated,. a new concentration of land 'rendered impossible by the nationalization of the soil, the Kuomintang sources fix ~'the, average" at 40 to 60 percent buying and selling of land forbidden and the countryside of the harvest, but in numerous cases the landlords receive thus made capabte of providing a market for the in.dustries more than 60 percent of ,the harvest, as the following of the city, which in turn will furnish the countryside with figures demonstrate: the instruments needed to considerably raise agricultural p'ercentage of farms production. paying on the harvest: From 50% From 60% M9re than The Burden of Taxes and Usury to 60% to70%- 70% I n addition to this basic cause of the pov~rty of the Province (ot the crop) (of the crop) (of the crop) Chinese peasant, other evils overwhelmed him too, prin­ Hopei 6.9 16.0 9.2 cipal among them being the feudal vestiges, usury and the Sz.echtian 28.9 21.7 2,4 Shantung 3,4 9,4 11~ exorbitant taxes. Feudal vestiges were heavy in northern Suiyuan 6.3 12'.5 6.3 China and even in certain inland provinces of southern Honan 11.0 13.6 2.2 China. Not very far from Shanghai one I~ould see the adobe Shansi 24.8 14.3 0:8 Cilstles of the landlords surrounded by the miserable huts Fukien 19.3 9.7 2.2 'rsinghai 9.1 4.5 4.5 of the peasants. The head.of each ,wi (social unit composed Hunan' 16.5 5.53.3 of a number of villages) wa~ at once judge, merchant, tax Kansu 4~ 4~ 2A collector, usurer and executioner. He had his own army

(59) recruited on a IIvqluntary" basis amon.g his servants and Page 154 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL September-October I 9 5 0 the poor peasants of the area. Forced labor, the lord's children as concubines or servants to ,the tax collectors Of fe.udal right over wives of the peasants, concubinage,existed officers, in charge of t~e requisition (67). on a wide scale (63 J. If the predominant mode of a~riculture wa,s· t,liat of Usury was the direct consequence of the exorbitant rate small plots: the continuous expropriation of the small ~f. rent which prevented the peasants from accumulating peasants through very high rates of rent, usury and taxes the least reserve. fund. I t expanded considerably with· the ended in the concentration of property in'the hands of the commerciali{ation of agriculture which tied the value of village lords, usurers and merchant-usurer-coIUpradors. It the harvests to the fluctuations of the world market. If was not rate to find landlords posse~ing\'20,OOO mow. (3,333 for natural causes or in consequence of the movement of acres) or more. Ten pereent of the agricultural population prices a poor harvest made it impossible for the tenant to of China-lords and rich peasants-possessed 55 to 65 pay his taxes to t~e government and his rent to the land­ percent of the land. I n the province of Shansi, 0.3 percent lord, he was obliged to borrow money from~ the usurer,the of the families possessed 24 percent of the HlOd. In Chekiang, landlord himself or a member of his family. He was often .. 3.3 percent of the families possessed half the land~ while obliged to borrow seed for the coming season' or even food 77, percent of the poor peasants possessed no mo~e than in order to give .his family its meager pittance of millet 20 percent of the land.. And in Kwantung where Z percent or rice. Interest was extremely high and did not Icease to of'the families possesse<1 53 percent of the land, 74 percent mount in later years. On the eve of the war, it reached 40 possessed only 19 'percent of the la~d,(68). to 60 percent a year. During the war it exceeded 100 percent This ,explains why ·the l,nsatiable land hunget: of the for three months. peasant soon became transformed into a clcrss hate with Who. could be astonished in these conditions that "the an exact object----hate for the landlord and· all those allied most'massive and best-built houses in the villages and small with him. This hate precipitated the downfall of Chi4;lng towns were always the pawnshops"? Or tha't the pOOf Kai .. shek. peasants of the province of Shansi- had a bitter verse: "hl The Collapse' of Chiang Kai.s~ek , good years, the landlord grows crdps in the fields. I n bad Wben the economic and political .'situ~tion becomes years, the landlord grows money in his house." (64) insupportable to all the productive classes Qf a society; During tne war the four fal1)ilies sought to move in on wh~n all the· conflicts tend to become marked by force; the consiqerable '·profitS of usury. Their ,Fanner's Bank and when the classes supporting the ~decre'pit power have lost above all the "government" farm cooperativ~s; which before all 'confidence in themselves; when. indignation and revolt the war had never advanced more than 15 percent o"f the constantly mount; when the past and the futur(! confront sums borrowed by the peasants, now furnished them 80 each other in every social conflict'; at such a ctucial time, percent. These cooperatives loaned, money to the village the rulers of the country, seeing their power falling away heads and 'small lanalords who in turn loaned it to the definitively,' ~nd up despite themselves risking all in a peasant. As in the celebrated cartoon at the time of the fa tally imprudent action because they are powerless to 'peasant war, the tenant alone bor~ the cost of all these reverse the course .of events. What the Varennes flight· of beautiful institutions which crushed him and pushed' him Louis XVI was for the French arisJbcracy ahd the Kornilov. into' revolt. coup ,d'etat for the' Russian bourgeoisie, such was· the T'he exorbitant character of the taxes has been emphasiz­ Manchurian adventlJre of Chiang Kai-shek for the Chinese ep again and again. I n the history of China, the examples ruling classes. of in:mppbrtable tax l systems WhICh have pushed the \Ve have seen that at the time the truce was agr,eed upon peasants into revolt are innumerable (65). But never were under the aegis of 1'4arshall at the beginning of 1946, the any pushed to such extremes as in the final years of Kuomintang still possessed considerable military superiority Kuomintang rule. Besides the land tax, there were a dozen over the Communist armies. At that· time' nothing was, yet different additional taxes which from, 1941 on began to be clear-cut. The peasants had not yet definitively chosen. The collected in kind. I n 1942, government monopolies were uprisings were still sporadic. It was .then that Chiang Kai­ established for the sale of ~alt, suga!", tobacco and matches shek, against. the advice of the Americans but with their (66). At the same time, they established and· extended the aid, took his best armies to the north of China and Man­ system of military requisitioning of manual labor and churia and began an offensive to drive the Communists 'lgricultural products which bled entire areas white. out of the few cities which theY' ~till occupied after· the I n the article already cited, the writer Pei W,an-chung departure of the Russians . . reports thaX in the province of Hopei in 1946 no one would This maneuver proved fatal on all counts. Militarily, accept a mow of land as a gift, the special tax ex~eeding it lengthened the communication lines of the government in effect 'the annual revenue which one could squeeze from armies to the extreme and ended in their isolation and this morsel of land. Belden tells of a case w·here the special complete encirclement far from the supply centers and vital land tax passed annual p.roduction by more than 100percent centers of central China. Politically, it forced the Chinese in the plain of Chengtu. And' in the province of Honan, Communist Party to proClaim agrarian reform to obtain the same author discovered a ca~e. where the military the active support of the peasantry. Arid socially,it requisitions of the Kuomintangarmy were one thousand provoked the indignant hostility of this same peasantry be­ times greater than the land tax. This had a precise signi­ cause of the vexations and reprisals inflicted on them, ficance-the peasants lo~tnot only their land, their Ifood: and thus unleashed the uprisjngs on such a scale that the and their clothing,. they stiILhad to sell their women and downfall of the Kuomintang be

1n vain' the American advisors, including General Communist maneuvers and the failure of the government \Vcdemeyer himself, counselled Chiang Kai-shck against maneuvers solely- to the difference in strategic ability of the the Manchurian campaign and proposed that he first con­ generals of the Kuomintang and those of the Chinese Com­ solidate his positions on the North plain (69). The gen­ munist Party. It is true that this difference existed, and eralissimo was obliged to take his chances as he had been that, adhering to the fundamental rules of the military obHged to sabotage the agreement with Mao Tse-tung. ~rt, the Communist chiefs sought above all to destroy Chiang had used this tactic with sliccess in crushing the the enemy (71), while the Kuomintang generals sought to revolution of 1927. But the revolutionary fires were then occupy the big cities. less numerous and more isolated. Now·it was a question of But in these different strategies was reflected the. dif­ the entire country. That is why in 1927 the lightning-blow ferent structure of the two armies and the difference of of a concentrated force could overwhelm the main revolu­ their social function. Army of social conservatism, dragging tionary centers one by one, while twenty years later a with it an interminable train .of parasites, living off .the similar concentrated force found - itself outflanked on all country and universally detested by the population, con­ sides by the extent of th~ uprisings. stantly losing forces when in march because of desertions At first the generalissimo's action seemed crowned with and carelessness; cut from its supply bases in the South, success. On May 23, 1946 government forces seized the and for that reason obliged to group itself around aviation important city of Changchun in Manchuria; the Com­ fields where its food came by air-the army of Chiang Kai­ munists were obliged to lift the siege of Tatung, important shek was heavy, immobile, harassed continually from the communication center in the province of Shansi. OnOctober rear by partisans, exposed more and more to demoralization. ]0, the government troops seized Chihfeng, last importan't Army of social revolution, consciously seeking to gain the Communist center in the province of Jehol,' and the big sympathy of the peasants by distribution of the land and city of Kalgan. In November, they occupied the city of food stocks (72), capable of dividing itself into innumer­ Tunghua in Manchuria, and finally, in March ]947, they able columns' which in course of the way became armies occupied Yenan, which had been the Communist capital that grew larger with peasants in revolt; without baggage during the war with Japan. or a train of camp-followers, lirqiting itself to the most frugal nourishment on the level- of the population of the Communists Gain Initiative ar~a it traversed-Mao Tse-tung's army enjoyed extreme mobility, unseizable by the forces of the adversary, utiliz­ These quick successes would not have been possible had ing with const(},ntly repeated success the tactics of infiltra­ not the Communist command avoided being drawn into big tion, seeing its morale growing at each new success and at engagements. The Communist troops retired systematically each extension of the peasant uprisings. No matter what from the cities toward the countryside, contenting them­ Chiang's strategy, he would have lost this civil war in selves with cutting communication lines between the urban advance. centers occupied by the government troops, and harassing them constantly. Although the Kuomintang troops at the beginning of 1947 still had,a numerical superiority of two Peasant Revolt to one and still greater superiority in arms, the immobiliza­ As military operations extended to an ever greater tion of important contingents of the Kuomintang used to number of provinces and districts, the peasant uprisings garrison the cities soon gave the advantage of the initiative similarly widened and deepened. The peasants had hesitated (0 the Communist troops. up to the summer of 1946. At that time, after months of This initiative was utilized by the Communists in an hesitation and evasion, the leadership of the Chinese Com­ audacious maneuver that was- crowned with complete munist Party decided to permit distributidn of the land. success. The armies of the Communist general Liu Po­ This was the sole means available to halt the offensive of cheng marched from their base positions in Shantung, close the government armies at the edges of the big cities and to the sea, toward the province of Honan in central China, to recruit new forces. Peasant uprisings began to be felt separating the government forces which had conquered behind Communist lines in territories under jurisdiction of Yenan to the west frem the main forces of the Kuomintang the "Border Region Government." Organizing at first with in. the Suchow-Nanking area. The forces of General Liu hesitation, then with growing courage as they became gained the Yangtze and began to cross it in the month of conscious of their forces in the frequently held public meet­ June ] 947. Other Communist forces follow.ed and a new ings (73), the poor peasants expropriated 21,000 landlords front was opened by the Communist troops on the two in the Shansi-Hopei-Shantung-Honan Border Region during banks of the Yangtze in central China. At the same time, the summer of 1947 (74). This example exercised an Liu continued his march, ending by establishing his general irresistible attraction on the peasants in neighboring areas, headquarters in the autumn of ]947 in the mountains be­ then on the peasants of all China. tween Nanking and Hankow, the very heart of the Kuo­ In vain the landlords supported themselves on the mintang empire, from where in 1948 the decisive attacks forces of the Kuomintang or on their own armed bands; were directed against the government forces (70). Thus seeking to dam the insurrections. The "fire brigades" which began to develop the grandiose encircling maneuver which they organized against the "bandits" conducted a reign of. in 1948 overwhelmed the troops of the Kuomintang in the terror in the villages, but this terror continually brought battle of Suchow and destroyed them there. new recruits to the armies and partisan groups of Mao It would however be unjust to lscribe the success of the (75). Numerous students and functionaries escaped from Page 156 FOURTH tNTERNATIONAL September-October 1 9 5 0

the big cities to join the Communist forces (76). I n the parleys which could not lead to anything were undertaken. second half of 1947, the peasant insurrections in Hopei, Meanwhile, the Communist armies regrouped along the Honan and Shantung brought together a new armed force. whole Yangtze, cen tral artery of China. Farther to the south, an jnsurrectiot1 in Kiangsi forced the At midnight, April 20, 1949, when the,Communist ulti .. Kuomintang to open a new front. Along with the students rnatum for the acceptance of terms e~pired,. Communist and s'mall functionaries, womeh joined their forces in the troops crossed the river at numerous strategic points in face revolt, rising a~ainst the thousand-year-old slavery, cover­ of insignificant resistance. The triumphal . march on ing the villages with their "Women's Associations" which Shanghai, Nanking, Hankow, Canton ·and Chungking had written the emancipation of women on their banners. began. In a few 'm~nths, Mao Tse-tung became master of The downfall ~ould not be delayed longer. But 'the all continental China. The dictatorship of the Kuomintang C?mmu~ists understood. th.V the easiest and most. crushing had lasted 22 years, exactly the same as that of Mussolini. vIctory IS not that carned off on the fields of ,battle, but May /, 1950 the one conquered in the minds and hearts of the opposing army. Beginning in 19,48, they concenttated all their forces (The second part of this article gives a description of the cutren.t situation in China, a study of tl1e evolution of the policy on the disintegration of the government armies. The demo.:;. ot. the Chinese Communist. Party in the civil war, a criticism cratic structure of their army, 'the lack of privileges among of the irttei'ventidn of the USSR in China, an analysis of the their officers, the attention paid. the ranks, the consideration cJass nature of the Chinese revolution and a sketch of the fu .. tUre perspective~ 01 this revolution.) with which prisone.rs were treated, paved the way for ,l , . radic~l reversal of- the situation. (1) Including Sinkiang and' Manchuria, excluding, Tibet Chiang's \ officers, already profoundly demoralized. and Outer Mongolia, Cijina has an area, of some 3.75 million equate miles, that is, sotn~what less than that of Europe. With treated their own soldiers as brutally 'at the first military TibetanQ" Outer Mongolia,. China becomes 15 percent bigger reverses as the Chiang Kai-shek regime had treated its own than Europe. (2) Report of Pauley, President Truman's spe­ peasants. Thousands of wounded 'were ab.andoned without cial en:V0Y,to Man'churia, in the spring of 1946. Neue Zuercher Zelt1)It" May 4, 1947. (3) Jack Belden, China Shakes the any aid; hundreds of thous

192M and 1937. in China Handbook. pp. 84-85. (32) Robert Agnes Smedley. "Feudal Vestiges in the Chinese Countryside." Payne. Journey to Red China. p. 110, Heinemann, London In Sneevliet's magazine, De Nieuwe Weg, 1933. No.2. (62) 1947. (33) United States Relations with China. pp. 925-33, Belden cites on this subject (op. cit., p. 147) the following Belden. OPe cit., pp. 394-97. (34) L. Trotsky. Letter to the facts: From about 1650 to the present, the population of China comrades of Peking, "A Strategy of Action and Not of Specu­ grew from 70 million to 450 milliQn, while the area under cul­ lations." (La Lutte de Classe, Nos. 46-47, January-February tivation increased from 130 million acres to only 260 mi1lion~ 1933.) (35) Belden, OPe cit., p. 422. (36) Payne, OPe cit., p. (63) Agnes Smedley. Ope cit. Belden. Ope cit. pp. '155, 168. 109. (37) Harold Isaacs, No Peace for Asia. Macmillan, New (64) Belden. Ope cit., pp. 152-53. Isaacs. Ope cit., p. 29. (65) York, 1947. pp. 54-55, 60-61. (38) Belden. Ope cit., pp. 28, Owen Lattimore. The Making of Modern China. pp. 78-84. 52-53, 55, 71, 84. (39) Report of John P. Davies, Jr., United George Allen & Unwin Ltd. London. 1945. Isaacs. Ope cit. p. 3. States Relations with China. p. 567. (40) Belden. Ope cit., pp. (66) China Handbook. pp. 200-04. (67) Belden. bp. cit., pp. 83, 84, 161-62. (41) Belden. OPe cit., p. 376. (42) N. Y. Herald 157-58. (68) Belden. Ope cit. pp. 149-50. (69) United States Tribune. July 8, 1947. General Wedemeyer extends this con­ Relations with China. pp. 131-32. (70) Belden. Ope cit., pp. clusion to all of China. United States Relations with China. 360-61. The report of military operations is based essentially p. 759. (43) Belden.Op. cit., P. 376. (44) Neue Zuercher Zei­ on the dispatches of A. Steele of the N. Y. Herald Tribune. tung, September 9, 1948. (45) United States Relations with (71) Military tactics outlined by Mao Tse-tung in his Christ­ China. p. 758. (46) United States RelatioJis with China. p. 799. mas Day speech in 1947. Belden. Ope cit., p. 322. (72) Belden. (47) Neue Zu~reher Zeitung. June 15, 1948. (48) The Times, Ope cit., pp. 361, 381. (73) Meetings' to "settle accounts" or May 19, If}48. (49) Belden. Ope cit., p. 399. (50) United States "list grievances" against the landlords. Belden. Ope cit., pp. Relations ,with ehina. pp. 238-39. Neue Zuercher Zeitung, May 30-31, and in passing. (74) Belden. Ope cit.,p. 200. (75) N. Y. 21, 1947. Le Soir, May 22, 1947. (51) Belden. Ope cit., p .. 400- Herald Tribune, July 8, 1947. (76) Belden. Ope cit., p. 406. In 02. (5~) Belden. Ope .cit.• p. 404. United States'Relations with October 1948. 4,500 students crossed over in ten days. (77) China. pp. 277. 869, 872. Neue Zuercher Zeitung, July 17, 1948. The Times, November 20, 1948. (78) Neue Zuercher Zeitung, '(53). Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Aua-u.st 12~ 1947. (54) Nieuve June 27, 1947. (79) Belden. Ope cit., p. 351. (80) Notably by Rotterdamsche Couraftt~ May 12, 1947. (55) Harold Isaacs. the execution of speculators, the arrest of owners of the The Tragedy of tlie Chinese Revolution. Secker & Warburg, biggest textile mills and Tu Yueh-sen, opium king of Shang­ Ltd., London. 1938. p. 28. Belden, Ope cit., p. 156. (56) China hai and head of the yellow "trade unions" 'of the Kuomintang. H&ndbook. pp. 609·10. (57) China Handbook. p. 605. One (Belden. OPe cit., p. 409.) Belden, as well as others, indicates reads: "Land ownership became more and more concentrated that the bourgeoisie was forced to resume commercial rela­ in the hands of a small section of the people." (58) Agrarian tions with the areas' occupied by the Communists. The Neue Problems in Southernmost China. Cited by Isaacs. The Tragedy Zuercher Zeitung of November 19, 1948, estimates that ,25 to of the Chinese Revolution. pp; 27-28. (59) China Handbook. 40 percent of the goods imported in the Kuomintang ports p. 608. (60) 13owman, The Ch~nese Peasant. Ope cit. (61) went Pl.jLst the Communist lines. Latin-American Unification By I. GOMEZ

A special dispatch to the New York Times dated Feb­ accomplish this -not under capitalist society, but only ruary 14 states tbat the Argentine government has con­ through the Socialist United States of Latin America. fiscated and outlawed the book written by Jorge Abelardo The peoples of Latin America have the burning prob­ Ramos entitled Latin America: One Country (Its His­ lem of creating a solid· economic basis for existence and tory, Its Economy, Its Revolution), published by Ediciones survival; but this task cannot be realized within the frame Octubre. of its prevailing geographical divisions and subdivisions. The author deals with one of the p~ramount problems This has impressed itself upon most of Latin-American facing the peoples of that continent: their disunity and how society except among the feudal and semi-feudal bourbons, it can be overcome. I shall limit my comments to some for whom nothing has changed since the colonial days of of the problems connected with the main political conclu­ decadent Spain and who reduce all modern problems and sions of 'the book whose descriptive material is devoted human struggles to the management and administration of not so much to the whole of Latin America, but rather to the old feudal ,"hacienda" (plantation). The economic con­ the conflicting social groupings in Argentina. and to a lesser sequen,ces of disunity have preoccupied not only the fighters extent, to its most immediate neighbors, Uruguay, P~ra- for socialism but even the most advanced elements of the guay, Bolivia. ' I , newly rising bourgeois 'forces. A typical statement is the Although some statements and fdrmulations are .. open one made at the Ninth Pan-American Conference held in to question, the author's three main conclusions are basically Bogota, Colombia in' 1948 by Jaime Torres Bodet, Chief correct, regardless of their precise application 'in daily of the Mexican Delegation: Il Unity continues to be urgent struggles: jor our economic liberation, because a truly solid inter­ I. I n the solution of the economic find political prob­ american structure cannot be buil~ upon rickety and lems ,of Latin America, there can be no room for its present precarious national economies." geographical divisions. What accounts for this "rickety and precarious" condi­ 2. Neither the feudal elements, which still prevail in tion of the national economies of the Latin-American a number of Latin-American couritries nor the bourgeoisie, countries? including even its'most aggressive and advanced Argentine 1. Vast though the continent is and rich in natural branch,are capable of carrying through the historical task resources, it is cut up into numerous separate units, each of unifying Latin America. calling itself a ('nation." Most of these states are small and 3. Only the ascending proletarian class has the poli­ lack the necessary material elements for the semblance of tical power and the need to realize c0ntinental unity; it can a national economy. Moreover, as a result of three cen- Pa[!,e 158 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL September-October I 9 .5 0 turies of parasitic rule by feudal Spain to be followed, after majority of the popUlation could hardly be worse. Professor their political liberation from the Spanish yoke, by the JoshUt~ de Castro of the l)niversityof Brazil declares th

September-October 1 9 5 0 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 159

development coincides with the mortal decay of the capital­ real nature of the bourgeoisie because, in the honeymoon ist system as a whole. Thus even its most audacious and days of Peronism in Argentina the political grouping to radical wing lacks clear perspectives ~nd the courage to act. which he belonged hoped that the Latin-Amerkan bourgeois The nationalist bourgeoisie undoubtedly. dislikes its forces, due to their "own peculiarities," could, given a subordination to. American imperialism and would prefer favorable conjuncture of circumstances, achieve at least la to become sole owners and exploiters of their Own resources, partial unity and thus break away from .their semi-colonial or at least bigger partners in the system of capitalism. status~ To prove their point they cited the case of the Peron FurJhermore, its petty-bourgeois humanist wing,'horrified "Five-Year Plan" of industrialization and Argentina's trade by a state of· affairs comparable to Hitler's concentration agreements with Chile and Bolivia. But, under pressure camps, would like to see a juster world. They also realize from American imperialist interests and the inherent con­ that only a coordinated and unified Latin America can tradictions of capitalist economy, both trade agreements .bring about siIch a gigantic human advance. failed . This failure was not an isolated episode. Notwithstand­ United to Oppression ing the cry of the Latin-Americ~n bourgeoisie that only through continental trade expansion can Latin America But these middle-class reformers and radiea.ls are pledged correct its present economic deformation, trade between to preserve the private property system responsible for all them fell from an estimated $600 million in 1948 to $450 those desperate "bloodless" bodies and are thus impelled million in 1949, as was revealed at· the recent Conference of to ally themselves with the very US imperialism that stands the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin Amer­ in the way of their own na.tionalaspirations .. Here is how ica held in Montevideo. This 1S a forceful illustration of one of their representatives, Santa Cruz, .Chilean represen­ the decadent nature· of the capitalist forces as well as of tative to the United Nations, speaking about the fact9rs their inability to unify the continent and break its semi­ of conflict between them and American imperialism, sum­ colonial chains. marizedtheir basic position: "I believe that the things that With variations in degree and form, the' same thing unit.e us are much more profounc;i than the ooes that separate holds true for the petty-bourgeois political groupings and us. " forces. Ramos correctly points this (Iut but the chapter in 10 this one sentence the nature 9f th~se representatives his book on this subject is rather weak because it is limited of the ruling classes is. expos.ed. The mo~t casual view of to dealing with the abortive effects of concrete political the economic history of Latin America and the unbearable actions of the petty bourgeoisie instead of analyzing the conditipn~ of its .inhabitants.poi.nt to one imperfltive con­ basic social causes; This a serious shortcoming because these clusion: no matter to which one of the twenty separate political groupings and movements in Latin Am~rica attract units: the .people of Latin Arn.~r~.ca belong, nothing unites not only the best elements among the radical petty bour­ them with the interests and aspirations of US imperialism, geoisie but also broad layers of the working masses~ Only a either on ·a continental or world scale.· In fact, the interests program based upon a' fundamental analysis can attract a .and aspirations of them all stand in open antagonism with considerable sector of their ranks to the revolutionary the aims of A~erican imperialism to keep Latin America socialist movement. in its present state of economic bad{\vardness and deforma­ tion.· Disunity is a: means of preserving Latin America as The Middle-Class' Movements a source of raw ·materials) as a· market for industrial pro­ ducts and for . super-exploitation qf its human material, for The masses have observed ~ but not yet understood - in division there is weakness. how the Aprista (Popular Revolutionary Allianc~ of \Vhat are the more "profound'" things tha.t unite not America), one of the most radical nationalistic and con­ only the feudal-oligarchy bpt also the more sensitive and tinental-minded political movements with an exceptionally ambitious bourgeois elements with American imperialism strong and capable leadership, switched from its original rather than with aspirations of the peoples of their own anti-imperialist and anti .. feudal attitude in Peru and not counUy for unity and coordination? They all look upon only modified but even renounced !!~ opposition to United their own peoples as actual or potential enemies. Hence the States imperialism and the feudal oligarchy. renunciation and subordination of their own aspirations to The same is true of the Romulo Betancourt movement

the mbre "profound" task th.at history has imposed upon in Vene{uela. Although this; ex-Marxist formed a I huge these fuling groups in this hour when three..,fourths of the popular movement, when Betancourt rose to state power, "bloodless" bodies are growing impatient with the system like Haya de la Torre in Peru, he l~ft untouched the basic that, in the midst of so much "1

PI R (Revolutionary Left Party) in Boli'via; and for the ticipate on a free and equal basis in the so-called election present Arevalo regime in Guatemala. there. Santo Domingo is a strictly personal enterprise of The task of unifying Latin America is certainly com­ Dictator Trujillo. How can leaders of this kind fight for plex because of the diverse and contradictory factors in­ national independence on a local or continental scale? volved. But unity can be realized because, together with But the Latin-Americanism of the Indians, mestizos, the growing understanding that the economic and poJ.itical Negroes, and whites who form the heart and body of real problems of each of the component separate parts of con­ Latin America is of a completely different nature. It is tinental Latin America can be solved only through their not based upon the defense or preservation of any':in­ consolidation, the necessary material and social prerequisites herited dynastic interests" or "privilege's." It expresse's a are actually in existence. deep inner feeling of belonging to one and the same bo'dy of To be sure, intense nationalist feeling,; have been foster­ toiling and suffering humanity. I t is a manifestation' of ed by the elements responsible for Latin America's "Bal­ concern for their mutual welfare since they are all facee' kanization"-as the author of tht~ book designates its with the same problems and needs. It arises from the present division-or for'the formation of "patrias chicas" growing realization of the Chilean, Colombian, Bolivian, (tiny motherlands)-as Luis Alberto Sanchez, one of the Peruvian, Costa Rican, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, etc., that outstanding intellectuals of Peru and of the continent with their aspirations for a better world cannot be achieved; strong radical and humanitarian. inclinations, terms them within the present geographical divisions but only through in his book: Does Latin A mericd Exist'! Driven by per­ unity since all are in the same situation. Their Latin sonal ambitions and exclusive economic interests, the Americanism in the ethnological field lacks the malignant nationalists have made special efforts to cultivate feelings group exclusiveness predominant in the ruling class. It of "Argentinism," "Peruvianism," "Chilean ism," "Bolivian­ arises from a melting pot of humanity with a common his­ ism," "Salvadorenism," "Mexican:sm:' etc. Nevertheless. torical development, a common gl'ography and common there exists a· deep-rooted feeling of Latin Americanism objectives in life. throughout t~e continent. I n contrast to the timidity and nervousness of the ruling I am not referring to the "Latin Americanism" of the elements, reflecting the instability of the foundations they ruling classes. They talk much about Latin-American unity. rest upon, the fighters among the Latin-American people This is empty rhetoric which Luis Alberto Sanchez properly are bold and courageous. The coas.ts, val1eys and mountains characterized as "Latin Americanism" of the "traditionalist" of Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Nica­ variety resting upon the Hpart (of the ruling class) that is ragua, etc. are covered with the' blood·of their battles. In associated with small inherited dynastic interests" and cul­ these life and death struggles even military and police tivated by those who are above all concerned not to lose terror cannot stop the masses, as we see from the actions I'their privileges." of the rndian tin miners and other working people in For instance, the ruling group of Bolivia, faced with Bolivia; in the strikes in Chile and in Venezuela. Under the deep social unrest, is forced to "discover" or "uncover" leadership of the newly rising 'proletarian class, the popular every month or so-and lately even more frequently­ masses come to the forefront in the struggles for social and "revolutionary" plots to overthrow it. Every demand, economic emancipation. In the struggle for national eman­ manifestation, popular movement or strike/ is immediately cipation from imperialist, rule and control, the working stamped as a Hrevolutionary" plot and suppressed with all mass€:s are the most consistent fighters for expropriation and the brutality at its disposal. Similarly, every strike or riatio'nalization of the basic industries, such as the na­ movement for better conditions is branded a "communist" tionalization of the petroleum industry in Mexico. The plot by the ruling class of Chile and consequently outlawed same demand is being made by the Venebuelan and Colom­ and suppressed. The feudal oligarchy of Venezuela linked bian petroleum' workers. with imperialist interests could not even tolerate the exist­ Herein lies the hope for its future! The young and ence of so mild a reformist popular movement as Betan­ rising. proletariat of Latin America is not only developing court's "Party of Democratic Action" and tt.ad to, drive it rapidly and becoming the most cohesive unit in the organ­ out of the government and declare it illegal. The outlawing izational and political fields. The conditions of the workers of the Apra in Peru duplicates the Venezuelan situation. under semi-colonial status are so scandalously sub-human The feudal elements of Latin America will stop at they do not feel the slightest attachment to the system of nothing to perpetuate their "dynastic interests" and ambi­ priva,te property, but' cherish only hatred and rebellion tions. I n the recent presidential elections in Peru, the Odria toward it. Their material needs and social position impels regime eliminated a rival candidate of the same social class the workers to lead the struggle for the social and national from the race because Odria could' not have won even liberation of their own immediate country and of the entire in a restricted election. Odria's government is so fearful continent, both for their own class and for other sectors of and unpopular it had to prohibit the importation of mimeo­ the population. that hav~ no room under the sky of the graphs into th.e country without permission from the regime ruling class, such as the "landless p~asants and the poorer because some oppositional material appeared in the streets sections of the middle class. The banner under which the in mimeographed form. working class wiII conduct its battles to victory wiII not be The military junta of Venezuela does not dare to hold that of the decaying and outlived capitalist system, but, "elections." Nicaragua is merel) Samoza's "hacienda." He as the author of the book properly concludes: the, new wouldn't permit even the most conservative forces to par- banner of the Socialist United States of Latin America.