National and International Movements

JIEG J 0 1945 'I ~ [9UECOXITTEE PRINT] -~'k~V ~ COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENTS SUBCOMMITTEE NO. 5 Hon. FRANCES P. BOLTON, Chairman REPORT TIE STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF WORLD COMMUNISM SUPPLEMENT III COUNTRY STUDIES C. COMMUNISM IN CHINA Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs UNITED STATES 80261 GOVERNMlENT I'RINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1948 BEST AVAILABLE COPY SUBCOMMITTEE NO. 5--NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENTS FRANCES P. BOL'rON, Ohio, Chairman OHESTER R. MERROW, New Hampshire WIRT COURTNEY, Tennesmee DONALD L. JACKSON, Caio(Ornia THOMAS X. MORGAN, Pennsylvanl FRANKLIN 3. MALONEY, Ponnsylvanila Port-The Strategy and Tactics of World Communism. Su plemont I-One Hundred Years of Commupdsm, 1848-1048 (a collection of ,ommunist documents). Supplement I--Official Protests of the United States Government Against Communist Policies or Actions, and Related Correspondence (July 1945- December 1947). Supplement III-Country Studies: A. The Coup D'Etat in Prague. B. Communism in the Near East. C. Communism in China. (Others in preparation.) Supplement IV--Five Hundred Leading Communints (bio aphical data on lead. ing Communists in the Eastern Hemisphere, excluding the U. S. S. R.). NoTE.-7The report of the subcommittee The Strategy and Tactics of World Communism has been printed, together with supplements I and II, as House Document 4o. 619. Supplement IV has also been printed as House Document No. 707. 11 INTRODUCTION 1. Chineae communism i8 regular communism. Its doctrines follow those of Lenin and Stalin. Its leaders are Moscow-trained. Its policies and actionO, its strategy and tactics, are Communist. 2U Ciese Communi4to have followed faithfully every zigzag of the Krem- lin'8 line for a generation. The character and significance of communism in China has been subject to more controversy in the United States than has communism in any other country in the world. The controversy has raged among scholars and commentators and has been reflected in public opinion and in the policies of the United States Government. But the evidence is clear enough today, if not before, so that there is no need for the controversy to continue. 2. China itself has been one of the world's great centers of human civilization for 3,000 years. It has been a very large country, for its high civilization made it powerful, able to conquer its neighbors, and to swallow up its occasional conquerors. It is the one great county that never was politically submerged by the west. Today 'it is facing the impact of western science and technology, not as Europe did gradually, in the 400 years since the Renaissance, but suddenly and all at once.' Chinese politics until recently were more like medieval politics than like those of the modern western nations, and the Chinese are forced to att,3mj)t modern democracy without cen- turies of preparation in the development of constitutionalism and of legislative authority. China ha8 never yet known peace a8 a modern nation. 3. Communism first appeared in China soon after the Russian Revo- lution. Comintern advisers followed soon after the first beginnings, an(I initiated the work of developing and adapting communism for the conditions in a nonindustrial country. Since that time there have been Your great periods or phases in the history of Chinese communism. The first united front 1923-27. The first civil war 1927-37. The second united front, 1937-46. The second civil war, 1946---. 4. China has been an experimental center for the development of the modern Leninist Communism. Communism, since the Russian Revolution, has faced what is best regarded as two worlds. On the one hand to the west, lie the loading industrial nations, for which Marx's "Kapital" Wis intended as a diagnosis and a prophecy. Among these Germany was formerly thought to offer the greatest opportunity for communism, and before the days of Hitler the German Communist Party ranked as the senior party in the world outside the Soviet Union. On the other hand, to the east and south, in most of the land masses of Asia and Africa and South America, live three- fourths of the people of the earth. They are industrially backward, low in literacy, poor in material wealth, and predemocratic in politics. 'Ug IV INTRODUCTION Toward these the Kremlin has progressively turned its face; in these countries it has found many o its most easy opportunities. As in Russia itself in 1917 the absence of old and so12d democratic institutions hz proved a more favorable circumstance for communism in these countries than has the presence of highly developed industry in the west. For the Communist drive in this three-fourths of the world China has served as the laboratory and proving ground. The Chinese Commu- nist Party has, for this second world, assumed the place of the eldest daughter of the Kremlin. 5. In Chinafrom the first, communism has been able to take advantage of the upsurge of national patriotism and of the anti-imperialistmovement. The earliest Communists in China also had the initial advantage that the nationalist movement in China had, at first no experience or example by which to judge the consequences of Communist collabo- ration. It was not until the Communists saw victory and national unity for China assured in 1927, and thereupon revealed their own intent to Bolshevize China, that the Kuomintang broke with them and the first civil war began. 6. During the 10 years of the first civil war the Communists sue- ceeded in gathering themselves together in one region, set up a Soviet system, and defended themselves in bitter warfare against repeated campaigns of the national forces. Finally, in 1935, they inign'ated to Shensi Province, in the remote northwest, where they secured an area and established a sort of government. 7, The second "united front" canie when the rise of Hitler and the turning of Japan toward aggression made it urgent for Moscow that Japan become as fully engaged in China as possible. The Chinese Communists, following their familiar pseuldo-patriotic pirogaganda line, demanded ever more emphatically a renewed united national front against invasion. By '1987 Chiang Kai-shek was forced to accept this renewed united front, beginning the 8 years of war that sapped the strength of national China while grantinig a respite to the Communists. 8. The Communist theoretical and propaganda line for the period of the second united front is vimbodit'd in tl,., pallmp l, by Mao ]TJI-Lttlg on China's New Democracy, published in 1940. T1 is l)ampiet was designd to serve a double purpose, first, to explaiv with perfect clarity to Chinese Communists how to maintain the drive for dictatorial power, second, to put the story into such language 'that it would seem patriotic to patriots, moderate to moderates, and liberal to liberals. Since any good Commuiiist knows that democracyy" if used in official commllnist documents, means the dictetorship of the proletrivt, and ILost liberals do not know this, the double task is not as difficult as it sounds. While the period for which this pamphlet was written has now passed, it served Communist purposes most effectively for many years. 9. The second united froit did not end formally until the beginning of the second civil war, but before, this there was a brief transition riod of great importance. The Russian entry into the war in the Far cast accomplished what had never been possible before that is, a massive intervention by Russia in the Chinese situation,. The occupation of North China and Manchuria by the forces of the Chinese National Government were frustrated by the combination of transport diffi- culties and Communist and Russitan interference, while the stocks of Japanese weapons passed more or less covertly into the hands of the Chin e Communists. By the time that the United States abandoned INTRODUCTION V its efforts to secure a truce in China, and (misguidedly) to persuade the National Governmnent to accept a coalition with the Communists, the Communists were ready to renew the civil war with many times their former resources. Thu8 Russia wa8 enabled to move in under the auspxk of the wartime alliance, to reverse quickly the balance of forces in China, and to step out again in time to renew the propaganda line of anti-foreignism and anti-imperialism agarst the UnitedStates. 10. Communism in China has enjoyed several advantages or assets. It has at all times been able to play upon emergent nationalism. It has also, at least since 1920, had the advantage of the turmoil of war. It has had, since 1927, the control of territory without any correspond- ing national responsibility. It has had its own Red Army. These conditions have shaped the tactics and policies of Chinese communism on all economic and political issues. Its approach to the land problem in particular illustrates the speciousness with which it can "solve" problems under these conditions. The Communists, whose control of any rural area is tied up with the cutting off of the countryside from the cities, can find an easy way to aJ)peal to the poorer peasants by giving them the land of the rich )eusaiuts, without facing the consequences of reduced production. 'I hey do not have to face the problem whole, with food for the cities as a necessary part, since they have so far merely looted or destroyed cities and machinery. They have never had to face the genuine responsibilities of ChineC.1 government , and have fattened on the conditions of war and ruin. 11. Chinese communism has weaknesses as well as assets. In 20 years it has found no means that can attract wide support in the cities of China.

Load more