FOOTNOTES:

The over-all picture of the Kuomintang and its activities is hard to bring into focus. One general contrast will point some of its strength and weakness clearly: as a governing agency, which created and maintained the government, the Kuomintang has been more effective than any other group in China. The Party has met and overcome obstacles in practical politics, international relations, working administration, internal unification, and national defense. The Party has succeeded well enough to remain in power, which none of its predecessors or competitors have managed to do. As a social and political force, its governing character colors its work. More has been done by the government for the people than in any comparable situation in EastAsia. But Kuomintang rule, however excellent when measured by the standards of authoritary or colonial government, still falls far short of even elementary application of democratic techniques. The flexibility of the Party, and a continued ability to yield power in order to retain power, are the most hopeful factors in the view of the Kuomintang future.

The Kuomintang could not be overthrown by any force—mere force—on earth, unless the Party betrayed itself. Attacked by a major power, it has emerged unscathed. But the Communists or other opponents may find their most useful weapons in the weaknesses of the Kuomintang itself: in the slowness of its change, or in its unadaptability to rapidly changing conditions; or in an extra-Party resentment arising from severe economic dislocation which, though consequent to war rather than to governmental policies, was not swiftly enough controlled by a slowly-moving Kuomintang. By contrast with 1935, however, the Kuomintang has gained much power; the Communists have lost some. Regional and half-separatist regimes, often corrupt, have almost altogether disappeared. Along with the Kuomintang, the independent Leftists have also profited.

No prediction, to be plausible, can assume the early demise or collapse of the Kuomintang. The Party has obtained power; its organization is one of the three policy-executing branches of the new national organization. Ruin of the Kuomintang implies ruin of the emergent Chinese state, so laboriously constructed; though a successor might arise, too much of the work would have to be done over again. Many Chinese, of all classes, realize this. Kuomintang rule is thestatus quo; despite demerits, it is the first stable government modern China has had, and China's chief tool of defense today.

FOOTNOTES:[1]The text of this Constitution is given in Arthur N. Holcombe's invaluable study of the Great Revolution,The Chinese Revolution: A Phase in the Regeneration of a World Power, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1930, p. 356-70.[2]Wang Shih-chieh,Pi-chiao Hsien-fa, Shanghai, XXVI (1937), p. 651-3.[3]SeeChina at War, Vol. V, No. 3 (October 1940), p. 77-8, for a recent official account of the Corps.[4]Information given the author by Dr. Ch'ên Kuo-fu and members of his staff, at the Central Political Institute, August 18, 1940. Few places are more beautiful than the valley in which the cool, spacious buildings of the Institute are set. Landscaped for centuries, and celebrated as a beauty spot, the area is filled with carved shrines, severely simple monuments, and flagstone walks. A river runs through a forested gorge; waterfalls feed the stream.Dr. Ch'ên supplemented his hospitality in Western China by transmitting to the author a series of statements in reply to questions which were put to him in writing. Of these, the two most interesting refer, first, to the economic status of the Institute's students, and secondly, to the Kuomintang training plan in the Northwest: "Judged by functions and economic levels, students of the Central Political Institute represent all economic strata of Chinese society. Those of peasant origin are most numerous, forming over 40% of the total number."—"For the purpose of educating young men and women in the border provinces, the Central Political Institute has established a School for the Border Provinces, of which branches were established at Powtow (Suiyuan province), Sinin (Chinghai province), and Kangting (Sikong province) in October 1934. Another branch was established at Shuchow (Kansu province) in August 1935, this being the school sponsored by the Kuomintang in the Northwest. The Powtow branch was suspended in 1940, and those in Sinin and Kangting were handed over to the Provincial Governments concerned at the same time. So the only Kuomintang school in the Northwest at present is the one at Shuchow. It is subdivided into three parts: namely, a Normal School, a Middle School, and a Primary School. Its annual budget is one hundred thousand dollars Chinese national currency." (Letter to the author, March 10, 1941.)[5]The termpuis usually translated Board, but thepu-chang(puchief) is given as Minister. Since the identical terms are rendered Ministry, Minister, Vice-Minister, etc., in the case of the government, the term Party-Ministry is here adopted as both distinct and descriptive.[6]Visitors to Chungking owe much to the Foreign Affairs Section of the International Publicity Department. Its chief, the affable Mr. C. C. Chi, a well-known economist from Shanghai, has acted as host to almost every visitor to Hankow or Chungking. He has fulfilled endless requests—many of them irrational—with unfailing patience, good humor, candor, and intelligence. Few books on contemporary China fail to bear the imprint of his help; the present one is no exception.[7]Statement to the author at Kuomintang Central Headquarters, Chungking, July 16, 1940; Dr. K'an also supplied the facts for the new organizational features of the Party. The following interpretations are the author's alone.[8]For a Marxian analysis of the Kuomintang, carefully stripped of frank Marxian verbiage, see "Wei-Meng-pu," "The Kuomintang in China: Its Fabric and Future" inPacific Affairs, Vol. XIII, No. 1 (March 1940), p. 30-44. The authora prioridefines the Kuomintang as the party of the national bourgeoisie in China, in effect exhorting it to fulfill its historic mission of completing the national democratic revolution, whereupon socialism [i.e., Stalinism] may historically follow. Nevertheless, its comment on personalities is informing in terms of practical politics.[9]The China Information Committee,News Release, March 4, 1940. English translations of names such as the New Life Movement, Officers' Moral Endeavor Corps, National Spiritual Mobilization, etc. are often awkward or jejune where the original is not.[10]Young, C. W. H.,New Life for Kiangsi, Shanghai, 1935, is a missionary work which praises the New Life Movement highly. The book includes interesting, first-hand, unfavorable accounts of the rule of the quondam Chinese Soviet Republic, and explains some of the opposition to the Communists. The interconnection between Communist-suppression and the New Life Movement is consciously and clearly demonstrated.[11]Chiang, May-ling Soong,China Shall Rise Again, New York, 1941, p. 38ff.Mme. Chiang's work also includes a full account of the enterprises of the New Life Movement and of its affiliates.[12]Chiang K'ai-shek,Outline of the New Life Movement, Chungking (?), n.d. p. 8. This is the translation, by Mme. Chiang, ofHsin Shêng-huo Yün-tung Kang-yao, Nanking, n.d., originally published in May 1934.[13]Giles, Herbert,A Chinese-English Dictionary, Second Edition, Shanghai and London, 1912; ideograph No. 7128.[14]The same; ideograph No. 1999.[15]Chiang K'ai-shek, cited, p. 7.[16]Reprinted as Appendix III (B), p.373, below.[17]Chiang K'ai-shek, cited, p. 6-7.[18]Most of these and the following facts, but not the interpretations, are based on interviews which the author had with the hospitable Major-General J. L. Huang in Chungking, on July 14, 1940, and subsequently.[19]For an excellent outline of the role of women in the war, see Chiang, May-ling Soong,China Shall Rise Again, cited, p. 287ff.

[1]The text of this Constitution is given in Arthur N. Holcombe's invaluable study of the Great Revolution,The Chinese Revolution: A Phase in the Regeneration of a World Power, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1930, p. 356-70.

[2]Wang Shih-chieh,Pi-chiao Hsien-fa, Shanghai, XXVI (1937), p. 651-3.

[3]SeeChina at War, Vol. V, No. 3 (October 1940), p. 77-8, for a recent official account of the Corps.

[4]Information given the author by Dr. Ch'ên Kuo-fu and members of his staff, at the Central Political Institute, August 18, 1940. Few places are more beautiful than the valley in which the cool, spacious buildings of the Institute are set. Landscaped for centuries, and celebrated as a beauty spot, the area is filled with carved shrines, severely simple monuments, and flagstone walks. A river runs through a forested gorge; waterfalls feed the stream.Dr. Ch'ên supplemented his hospitality in Western China by transmitting to the author a series of statements in reply to questions which were put to him in writing. Of these, the two most interesting refer, first, to the economic status of the Institute's students, and secondly, to the Kuomintang training plan in the Northwest: "Judged by functions and economic levels, students of the Central Political Institute represent all economic strata of Chinese society. Those of peasant origin are most numerous, forming over 40% of the total number."—"For the purpose of educating young men and women in the border provinces, the Central Political Institute has established a School for the Border Provinces, of which branches were established at Powtow (Suiyuan province), Sinin (Chinghai province), and Kangting (Sikong province) in October 1934. Another branch was established at Shuchow (Kansu province) in August 1935, this being the school sponsored by the Kuomintang in the Northwest. The Powtow branch was suspended in 1940, and those in Sinin and Kangting were handed over to the Provincial Governments concerned at the same time. So the only Kuomintang school in the Northwest at present is the one at Shuchow. It is subdivided into three parts: namely, a Normal School, a Middle School, and a Primary School. Its annual budget is one hundred thousand dollars Chinese national currency." (Letter to the author, March 10, 1941.)

Dr. Ch'ên supplemented his hospitality in Western China by transmitting to the author a series of statements in reply to questions which were put to him in writing. Of these, the two most interesting refer, first, to the economic status of the Institute's students, and secondly, to the Kuomintang training plan in the Northwest: "Judged by functions and economic levels, students of the Central Political Institute represent all economic strata of Chinese society. Those of peasant origin are most numerous, forming over 40% of the total number."—"For the purpose of educating young men and women in the border provinces, the Central Political Institute has established a School for the Border Provinces, of which branches were established at Powtow (Suiyuan province), Sinin (Chinghai province), and Kangting (Sikong province) in October 1934. Another branch was established at Shuchow (Kansu province) in August 1935, this being the school sponsored by the Kuomintang in the Northwest. The Powtow branch was suspended in 1940, and those in Sinin and Kangting were handed over to the Provincial Governments concerned at the same time. So the only Kuomintang school in the Northwest at present is the one at Shuchow. It is subdivided into three parts: namely, a Normal School, a Middle School, and a Primary School. Its annual budget is one hundred thousand dollars Chinese national currency." (Letter to the author, March 10, 1941.)

[5]The termpuis usually translated Board, but thepu-chang(puchief) is given as Minister. Since the identical terms are rendered Ministry, Minister, Vice-Minister, etc., in the case of the government, the term Party-Ministry is here adopted as both distinct and descriptive.

[6]Visitors to Chungking owe much to the Foreign Affairs Section of the International Publicity Department. Its chief, the affable Mr. C. C. Chi, a well-known economist from Shanghai, has acted as host to almost every visitor to Hankow or Chungking. He has fulfilled endless requests—many of them irrational—with unfailing patience, good humor, candor, and intelligence. Few books on contemporary China fail to bear the imprint of his help; the present one is no exception.

[7]Statement to the author at Kuomintang Central Headquarters, Chungking, July 16, 1940; Dr. K'an also supplied the facts for the new organizational features of the Party. The following interpretations are the author's alone.

[8]For a Marxian analysis of the Kuomintang, carefully stripped of frank Marxian verbiage, see "Wei-Meng-pu," "The Kuomintang in China: Its Fabric and Future" inPacific Affairs, Vol. XIII, No. 1 (March 1940), p. 30-44. The authora prioridefines the Kuomintang as the party of the national bourgeoisie in China, in effect exhorting it to fulfill its historic mission of completing the national democratic revolution, whereupon socialism [i.e., Stalinism] may historically follow. Nevertheless, its comment on personalities is informing in terms of practical politics.

[9]The China Information Committee,News Release, March 4, 1940. English translations of names such as the New Life Movement, Officers' Moral Endeavor Corps, National Spiritual Mobilization, etc. are often awkward or jejune where the original is not.

[10]Young, C. W. H.,New Life for Kiangsi, Shanghai, 1935, is a missionary work which praises the New Life Movement highly. The book includes interesting, first-hand, unfavorable accounts of the rule of the quondam Chinese Soviet Republic, and explains some of the opposition to the Communists. The interconnection between Communist-suppression and the New Life Movement is consciously and clearly demonstrated.

[11]Chiang, May-ling Soong,China Shall Rise Again, New York, 1941, p. 38ff.Mme. Chiang's work also includes a full account of the enterprises of the New Life Movement and of its affiliates.

[12]Chiang K'ai-shek,Outline of the New Life Movement, Chungking (?), n.d. p. 8. This is the translation, by Mme. Chiang, ofHsin Shêng-huo Yün-tung Kang-yao, Nanking, n.d., originally published in May 1934.

[13]Giles, Herbert,A Chinese-English Dictionary, Second Edition, Shanghai and London, 1912; ideograph No. 7128.

[14]The same; ideograph No. 1999.

[15]Chiang K'ai-shek, cited, p. 7.

[16]Reprinted as Appendix III (B), p.373, below.

[17]Chiang K'ai-shek, cited, p. 6-7.

[18]Most of these and the following facts, but not the interpretations, are based on interviews which the author had with the hospitable Major-General J. L. Huang in Chungking, on July 14, 1940, and subsequently.

[19]For an excellent outline of the role of women in the war, see Chiang, May-ling Soong,China Shall Rise Again, cited, p. 287ff.

The party politics of Republican China fall into two periods: the early period of competitive, pre-parliamentary parties, 1912 to the Great Revolution; and a later period of struggling monopoly-power parties, from the Great Revolution to the present. In the earlier period the Kuomintang and its rivals tolerated one another's existence; each regarded co-existing parties as natural, desirable, and useful. But the sham democracy of the prostituted Republic disheartened the Kuomintang, which thereupon bid for the complete conquest of power, brooking no legitimate competitors; its rivals did likewise. The first coalition (1922-27) of Kuomintang and Communists was therefore not the democratic competition of two parties with different stresses upon a common ideological foundation, but a war-time alliance of basically incompatible forces. After the 1927 break, the Kuomintang became the only legal party in most of the country, while the Communists—with a rebel army, an unrecognized government, and a territory of their own—enjoyed legality within the limits of their own swords. The Kuomintang, embraced by all major groups save the Communists, became the foremost vehicle for Chinese political life. Minor parties enjoyed precarious, ineffectual existences, underground or expatriate.

With the outbreak of war in 1937, Nationalists and Communists adopted a truce, formally a Communist surrender of armed rebellion, subversive ideology, and separate government. In actuality it was an allianceof deadly enemies against the Japan which threatened them both. Today, Chinese party politics revives in the People's Political Council, and to a slight degree in public opinion. The legal prohibition of minor parties, including the Communists, remains in effect. Chinese party politics, in the Western sense of a friendly subdivision of common opinion, remains vestigial. The only guarantee of party rights is an unstable toleration extended by the Kuomintang in the negative form of non-prosecution. The Kuomintang is the Party for most of China. The Communist Party is the party for a separate fraction of China. The minor parties, holding neither territory nor armies in the game of power, maneuver between and about the two, struggling to attain legal existence.

Literary Marxism runs back to the Ch'ing dynasty, but the first formal organization of a Chinese Communist Party occurred with the first Congress of the Chinese C.P., in Shanghai, during July of 1921.[1]TheSoviet-Kuomintang entente was, strictly speaking, not a union between the Kuomintang and the Communist parties, although it came to be such in fact; it was collaboration between the Third International, which agreed that Communism was unsuited to China, and the Kuomintang. The development of a Chinese Communist Party, and open Communist debate concerning the assumption of power, made the Kuomintang mistrustful, repressive, and finally hostile. The suppression of the Communists by Chiang in 1927 has become world history; Vincent Sheean and André Malraux have preserved aspects of it in moving literature.[2]

In the period 1927-37 the Chinese Communists operated the Chinese Soviet Republic (Chung-hua Su-wei-ai Kung-ho-kuo),[3]primarily in Kiangsi, but also in the Ao-yü-wan (Hupeh, Honan, Anhui) area. In the Long March of 1934-35 the main forces of the Communists, in the most spectacular military move in China since the great Northern raid of the T'aip'ing, marched a distance of some six thousand miles, and established their new area in North Shensi (see above, p.112ff.). Not only did the Chinese Red Army remain intact; through great and successful effort, the Communists transplanted schools, banks, and other institutions intact. The Long March was comparable to the celebrated Flight of the Tartars, in that it amounted to the transplanting of an entire people, their worldly goods, andtheir most highly treasured institutions and traditions.

Despite Kuomintang theory, the Frontier Area is a one-partyimperium in imperio, and its unchallenged party is the Communist. Under conditions requiring great fortitude, the Chinese Communist leaders have consolidated power, and use their base to spread Marxism through the guerrilla movement. They are thus in the best possible political position; their strategic excellence makes them welcome in precisely those zones wherein their doctrines can best take effect. Their party organization controls the Frontier Area through formal appointment of the leading officials by the National Military Affairs Commission, and through formulae of election for the subordinate officials.

The hierarchy of the Chinese C.P. is much like that of the Kuomintang, which also copied Soviet models:[4]

Chinese Communist Party Hierarchy

The shibboleth of Democratic Centralism applies to the Chinese as well as to other Communist Parties; in practice this means the high and unqualified concentrationof power at the top of the hierarchy following action by the democratic, or mass, element of the party through the Party Council or Congress. In effect, nothing is decided at such elections, since the plebiscites, according to the familiar authoritarian pattern, concern questions to which only one answer is reasonably possible: the answer decided by the party rulers. The free use of meaningless elections characterizes Communist activity in governmental as well as party matters. The voting act gives the impression of concurrence, improves morale, and ceremonializes the approval of the majority for the minority. The purpose which elections serve in democracies—that is, of providing a decision to issues not previously ascertained—appears very rarely in Communist elections, where a near unanimity is constructed to indicate popular support, and contested elections, disunity.

In terms of personnel, the Communist hierarchy has been consistently compliant with world Communist policy as made in Moscow. This is a tribute to the high international unity and uniformity of the ecumenical Communist movement, but raises, in China, problems of intra-national Communist policy. Revolutionary veterans of the party, who fought, suffered, studied, and worked for their cause through ten, fifteen, or twenty years of effort, often find themselves displaced, dictated to, or expelled by the clique of younger men who have lived comfortably in Moscow studying the dialectic mystagogy and acquiring an inside track in Stalinist cliquism.[5]The Chinese Communist Party has been shaken by violent schisms, casting off many once highly-valued leaders.

No sooner does a man become suspect to the ultimateauthorities than his previous record, hitherto praised, is re-examined and captious criticism proves that he was a traitor from the beginning, like Trotsky, Bukharin, Chicherin, and Zinoviev. The profound vitality of the Chinese Communist movement as a quasi-religious, self-sacrificial organization is demonstrated by the fact that it has weathered these storms. The terrible hunger for a guidance in life, an insight into the ethical meanings of things, and an absolute which asks nothing but acceptance and obedience—these factors call for courage, humility, abasement, fortitude. They do not favor imagination, individual integrity of thought, or the examination of fact. There has been no indication whatever, despite the wishful thinking of Western liberals, that the mentality of the Chinese Red leaders is one whit different from that of Western Communists. They talk practical democracy, moderation, collaboration with the Kuomintang; they do so because this is the Comintern's China policy, just as they have fought the National Government in the past when the Soviet authorities disliked Chiang more than they did Japan.

Their all-China collaboration is no doubt sincere; but the sincerity is based not on the wish to collaborate, but on what, in their special phrasing, is termed the "objective" analysis of the situation. If the Soviet Union, the chief "proletarian" force in the world, turned against Chiang, the Communistipso factowould be against collaboration. The war of China against Japan would no longer be a war of "national liberation" but an "inter-imperialist" war in which the true interests of the "working classes" would be againstbothsides. This provides to Marxians, under the name "science," an absolute, infallible guide to ethics in practical politics, because it presumes to reveal the inescapable long-range meaning of human affairs. The supposition that daily affairs may in fact possess nonebut short-range meaning, outside of slow, general, nearly impalpable changes in ecology, demography, and genetics, etc., is anathema to the Marxians. A humanism trained to deal directly, pragmatically, and simply with events is as far beyond the Chinese Communists as it is beyond other Marxians.

This orthodoxy, so complete that it enthralls the leadership to Moscow and paralyzes Marxian heretics in the very act of dissidence, reaches throughout the upper levels of the party. This fact does not mean that the Chinese Communist movement is in no wise different from other national Communist movements. The historical basis of the Chinese Communism, ever since Chiang smashed the urban unions in 1927, has been that of an exotic faith imposed upon a nativejacquerie, in which the exoticism is unwittingly traditionalist. Peasant revolts of the Chinese past have operated with the counter-ideocratic leverage of a superstition, normally Taoist in derivation. The heads of the Yellow Turbans (ca. 200A.D.) and the Boxers (ca. 1900) were all magicians; the T'aip'ing (ca. 1850) leader was a Christian in communication with God Himself. These heresies against the all-pervading order of Confucian common sense disappeared after their high-pitched dynamics died down in social readjustment.

Marxism provides an element of faith, devotion, and irrational submission which has operated in past Chinese history. The frugality, honesty, and integrity of the Chinese Red leaders are celebrated by foreign visitors and even by Nationalist officials; such revolutionary virtues seem new in China, whereas they are the twentieth-century manifestation of a common enough phase of Chinese political activity. However, one cannot herefrom conclude that the Chinese Communist movement is destined to disappear with its predecessors, for it has three things which they did not have: an extra-Chinese application, which not only supports it, butproves its concreteness and relative realizability; a modern system of education, and thereby a class of counter-ideologues to compete with the post-Confucian Nationalists; and leaders with revolutionary experience greater than any in the world, not excepting that of the great Soviet leaders themselves. Ancient peasant uprisings revealed a final cleavage between dervish-type organizers and the peasants, once infuriated, who finally sought normalcy. If the Chinese Communist leaders can, through the example of the Soviet Union, or by education, or by dexterous leadership, make Communism into normalcy, they may retain their hold on such sections of the peasantry as their leadership has captured.

Two men stand forth above all others in Chinese Communism. Both would be remarkable individuals in any historical setting. Their partnership has led them to be described by one hyphenated phrase:Chu-Mao: Chu Tê and Mao Tse-tung. Chu Tê, the military genius of Chinese Communism, was born of a gentry family in Szechuan, and attended the Yünnan Military Academy at the time that Chiang was in Japan; he entered the years of his early maturity as an aide to a provincialtuchün. According to Edgar Snow, he was at this time sunk in vice, enjoying wealth, opium-smoking, a harem, and the amenities of a war-lord existence.[6]Chu felt an urge within himself to escape this rut. He abandoned his worthless existence, leaving his harem provided for, and went to the coast, where he could become acquainted with the revolutionary movement. On the way he broke himself of the drug habit. He went to Europe, living in France and Germany, and in the latter country joined the Chinese Communist branch established among the students. He returned in 1926 during the Great Revolution, and served as political officer in the Kuomintang forces. Later hewas instrumental in the creation of the Chinese Soviet Republic, and was the prime military leader of the Communist forces in the long civil war. He led the trek to the Northwest, and is esteemed as a military hero of Arthurian proportions. Friendly, candid, interested in specific tasks, he is characteristic of the superb leadership which preserved Communism in China. He is the only Chinese military leader who was not defeated by Chiang, although Chiang pursued him six thousand miles. Major Evans Carlson, the American Marine officer, compares him with Robert E. Lee, U. S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln—drawing on the best features of each for the purpose.[7]

Mao Tse-tung was born in Hunan in 1893 of a well-to-do farmer family. His autobiography, dictated to Edgar Snow, is a classic of Western literature on China.[8]His history was that of many other restless young Chinese intellectuals, struggling for education amidst turmoil, and adjusting their sense of values to the chaotic early Republic. He was caught up by the Marxism of the literary Renaissance after 1917, served in the Kuomintang during the Great Revolution, and worked as head of the All-China Peasants Union. During the Soviet period, in which he first became a colleague of Chu Tê, he stood forth as the chief political leader. He and Chu between them formed a team to rival Generalissimo Chiang, although Mao shared his political leadership with various others, particularly Chang Kuo-tao. Maois an expert dialectician, skilled in rationalizing the policies of the Communist International, and keenly critical within the limits of his Marxian orthodoxy. Less genial than Chu Tê, he is nevertheless an inspiring leader. His political skill, in following the lurches and shifts of the Stalin party line while simultaneously leading an enormous Chinese peasant revolt, is monumental. His earlier rivals and colleagues are in most cases dead or forgotten. He survived both ideological and practical ordeals.

A third Communist leader, Chou En-lai, is of importance because he acts as liaison officer between the National Government and the Frontier Area. The Communist quasi-legation in Chungking is maintained as a purchasing and communications office of the Eighteenth Army Corps (formerly Eighth Route Army). Chou, who studied abroad in Japan, France, and Germany, served at the Whampoa academy under Chiang, and in the period of civil war he was one of the chief political officers, twice Chinese Communist delegate to Moscow. He is an old acquaintance of many Kuomintang leaders from Chiang on down, and appears to be one of the most successful diplomats in the world. Despite acrimony from secondary leaders on both sides, Chiang and Mao seek to maintain their alliance against Japan, and Chou is their chief intermediary. At Chungking he is seconded by the alert, brilliant Ch'in Po-k'u, a veteran of Communist political-bureau work.

The difficulties and conditions of Communist collaboration with the National Government are well illustrated in the life of Chang Kuo-tao. One of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai, in 1921, Chang was of the upper classes, like Chu Tê; and like Mao, he was a radical student in Peking. Just before his departure from the party in 1938, he had been chairman of the Northwestern Soviet, taking precedence over Mao himself; but with the coming ofnational unity, Chang wished to cooperate fully with China's leader, government, and legal Party, the Kuomintang. He adopted subterfuges to get out of the Communist Area. Arriving in Hankow, he announced his desire to form a genuine United Front on the basis of a candid and sincere acceptance of theSan Min Chu I, which would mean the actual abandonment of Marxian dreams of Communist "proletarian" dictatorship in China, even for the future. He did not renounce Communism, but simply took his colleagues at their words, and announced his intention of cooperating honestly, and not through compulsion of the Moscow dialectic. He wrote:

According to the views of the Chinese Communists, the present United Front is only a temporary union of many political groups, which are entirely different from one another in nature. These political groups have their own social bases, and they represent the interests of different classes. "The Kuomintang," so they believe, "represents landlords and capitalists, while the Communist Party represents the working class." No [ultimate] compromise can be made between the two parties.Now we often hear such slogans of the Chinese Communists as, "Let's lead the peopletogether," "Let'salltake responsibilities," "Let usbothbe progressive," and "Let's act under thesameprinciples." These represent the old ideas of striving for leadership. These show that they do not have the foresight to work unselfishly for the nation and the people. They want to retain their military forces. They want to maintain the Frontier Area and special, privileged positions in certain occupied areas. They keep these in order to await future developments....I hope they [the following suggestions] will receive the consideration of the Chinese Communists:(1) the Chinese Communists should always remember that the benefits of the nation and the people go before everything. They should support the movement of Resistance and Reconstruction under the leadership of Mr. Chiang K'ai-shek. They should carry out theSan Min Chu Iwithout hesitation. What they do must agree with what they say;(2) there should be complete coordination of governmental and military operations, under all conditions.... I hope the Chinese Communists will not think that the Eighth Route Army is one privately owned by the Communist Party.... The Frontier Area [where Chang Kuo-tao had so recently been leader] should not be made a Communist base, nor made into an isolated place where Communist-made laws are executed and prejudice, together with political persecution, prevails....(3) with a view to working for the nation and the people, the Communists should follow the foreign policies adopted by the central government.[9]

Now we often hear such slogans of the Chinese Communists as, "Let's lead the peopletogether," "Let'salltake responsibilities," "Let usbothbe progressive," and "Let's act under thesameprinciples." These represent the old ideas of striving for leadership. These show that they do not have the foresight to work unselfishly for the nation and the people. They want to retain their military forces. They want to maintain the Frontier Area and special, privileged positions in certain occupied areas. They keep these in order to await future developments....

I hope they [the following suggestions] will receive the consideration of the Chinese Communists:

(1) the Chinese Communists should always remember that the benefits of the nation and the people go before everything. They should support the movement of Resistance and Reconstruction under the leadership of Mr. Chiang K'ai-shek. They should carry out theSan Min Chu Iwithout hesitation. What they do must agree with what they say;

(2) there should be complete coordination of governmental and military operations, under all conditions.... I hope the Chinese Communists will not think that the Eighth Route Army is one privately owned by the Communist Party.... The Frontier Area [where Chang Kuo-tao had so recently been leader] should not be made a Communist base, nor made into an isolated place where Communist-made laws are executed and prejudice, together with political persecution, prevails....

(3) with a view to working for the nation and the people, the Communists should follow the foreign policies adopted by the central government.[9]

Chang demanded that the Communists react more sincerely, that they accept the full implications of a united China, and abandon their long-range dialectic for power.[10]For this he was denounced, his years of service were reappraised, and he was dropped from the Communist Party.[11]He was accused of hurting the United Front, because he urged a more nearly perfect union. The chief Communist leaders challenged him in open letters, revealing their continued adherence to an ideology which made an eventual struggle for power inescapable.

The Communists have, therefore, cooperated as far as they are able, without emerging from the infallibilities of their cult. They retain the Marxian rationalization apparatus, and the linkage with Moscow. As such, they are welcome but not completely trustworthy allies. Their presence is undoubtedly the greatest check to the development of democracy in China; the presence of a totalitarian party, respecting no rules but its own, jeopardizes the entire experiment. The Communists want democracy, but they want it quite frankly as a step toward "working-class" (Marxist) power; they accept theSan Min Chu Ion the condition that it be read as elementary Marxism. They do not insist on the term Communism, but employ the terms "working-class" interests for their party, "scientific objectivity" for their ideology, and "a people's movement" for radical, arbitrary reforms to rip Free China open with social revolution. The Kuomintang leaders are fully aware of the support in name plus subversion in fact which the Communists offer, and complain bitterly about the principles of Sun being twisted about to Marxism as in the form of "'independent' nationalism, 'free' democracy, and 'beneficent' livelihood," the qualifying terms sufficing for the alignment.[12]They understand that the Communists are incapable of sincere extra-class democracy; the Communists are hurt by the Kuomintang's unwillingness to admit that it is not a Party of patriots, but the Party of a transitional, historically doomed middle class.

If the Communists were as inflexible, disciplined, ferocious, and intransigeant as they like to appear tothemselves, China would have had a three-sided war long ago. In practice, however, the Chinese Communists yield amazingly. The Communist International is not goading the Chinese Communists into the sabotage of Chiang and of national resistance. Whether Moscow could do so is a standing question of Chinese politics. The answer cannot be known except by practical test. One might, however, plausibly suppose that an attempt by Stalin to consummate a Moscow-Tokyo pact (possibly in accordance with pressure from Berlin, which would require immediate protection of the proletarian fatherland) would create a deep schism in Communist ranks; but it is unthinkable that all the Chinese Communists would abjure their faith. Moscow would not be naive enough to require the Communists to cease fighting Japanin form. Such a Kuomintang-Communist break would probably weaken the National Government; it would not destroy the Chungking regime unless the Generalissimo ignored the chance offered by a Leftward turn, to retain some of the peasant-radical and guerrilla forces in his own ranks. It would, however, enormously strengthen Japan, and be a severe blow to China. The greatest danger of a Kuomintang-Communist break would lie in an American defeat of Japan. By removing the necessity of Soviet support of Chiang, and increasing the power of the National Government, American aid would lessen the opportunities of Communism in China.

At present, however, the Chinese Communists welcome American aid, even though the effect of such aid is to strengthen the China of Chiang as against the China of Chu-Mao. The Communist spokesman, Ch'in Po-k'u, told the author that American aid was not feared in China, but waswelcome, emphasizing the word. He even stated, in response to a far-fetched hypothetical question, that actual American troops wouldbe welcome at Yenan, and stated that inter-party trouble was to be expected only in case of defeat.[13]

The final picture of the Communist position which emerges in China is about as follows:

(1) the Communists are gaining ground because of their helpfulness and vigorous leadership in organizing the guerrilla areas; wherever the Japanese forces go, the Communists (thus shielded from Chinese National armies) increase their influence;(2) the Communists are benefiting politically by a genuine popular movement in both Free and occupied China, particularly in the latter, where spontaneous mass action is providing a base either for Sunyatsenist democracy or for Communism in the future;(3) in view of their belief that time is on their side, because of the present direction of Soviet foreign policy, the Chinese Communists are very cooperative in the alliance against Japan, patiently postponing demands for "democracy" (i.e., unrestricted rights of organization and agitation);(4) they have superlative leadership, rich in practical experience, which represents the super-orthodox residuum of years of schism and purging; such a leadership is not likely to abandon the fundamentals of Communism, such as the dialectic, the class-outlook on all history and politics, and belief in the inescapable universality of future "proletarian" rule (Communist world conquest); therefore, it is almost unthinkable that they would fail to do Moscow's bidding, if the party line demanded national treason in war time;(5) the interests of the Soviet Union run parallel with those of non-Communist China for a long time in the future, unless the European balance of power forces the U.S.S.R. to appease Japan; under such circumstances,the Soviet Union will be very anxious to maintain the foothold of Communism in China, and will not be likely to ask the Chinese Communists to commit candid treason;(6) lastly, the Kuomintang possesses the opportunity of rivaling Communism, of overtaking its rate of growth in political power, by a bold policy of freeing speech, constitutionalizing the government, reforming the land tenure system, and pushing cooperative industrialism; the base of Communism has been widespread peasant revolt. If the conditions of peasant revolt are eliminated, Communism will not be much more of a threat to China than it is to the advanced countries of Europe. (Wisely or not, the Kuomintang has not consented to meet the Communists in open ideological competition. If it did so, and won, Kuomintang morale would be strengthened. At present the practical aims of Party policy toward Communists are about as follows: restriction and isolation of the Frontier Area and of the Border Region, so far as agitation is concerned, before ingestion by the constitutional national system; military precautions, balancing Communist forces with Nationalist; standardization of Red military practice by national rules, and the elimination of peculiar political features; eventual dissolution of fellow-travelling organizations, and their absorption into the corresponding officially sponsored movements; supervision of Communists and channels of Communist propaganda; courtesy toward Communist leaders, strictness toward Communist subordinates, and harshness toward the Communist laboring class following. A corresponding policy toward the Kuomintang is pursued by the Communists.)

(2) the Communists are benefiting politically by a genuine popular movement in both Free and occupied China, particularly in the latter, where spontaneous mass action is providing a base either for Sunyatsenist democracy or for Communism in the future;

(3) in view of their belief that time is on their side, because of the present direction of Soviet foreign policy, the Chinese Communists are very cooperative in the alliance against Japan, patiently postponing demands for "democracy" (i.e., unrestricted rights of organization and agitation);

(4) they have superlative leadership, rich in practical experience, which represents the super-orthodox residuum of years of schism and purging; such a leadership is not likely to abandon the fundamentals of Communism, such as the dialectic, the class-outlook on all history and politics, and belief in the inescapable universality of future "proletarian" rule (Communist world conquest); therefore, it is almost unthinkable that they would fail to do Moscow's bidding, if the party line demanded national treason in war time;

(5) the interests of the Soviet Union run parallel with those of non-Communist China for a long time in the future, unless the European balance of power forces the U.S.S.R. to appease Japan; under such circumstances,the Soviet Union will be very anxious to maintain the foothold of Communism in China, and will not be likely to ask the Chinese Communists to commit candid treason;

(6) lastly, the Kuomintang possesses the opportunity of rivaling Communism, of overtaking its rate of growth in political power, by a bold policy of freeing speech, constitutionalizing the government, reforming the land tenure system, and pushing cooperative industrialism; the base of Communism has been widespread peasant revolt. If the conditions of peasant revolt are eliminated, Communism will not be much more of a threat to China than it is to the advanced countries of Europe. (Wisely or not, the Kuomintang has not consented to meet the Communists in open ideological competition. If it did so, and won, Kuomintang morale would be strengthened. At present the practical aims of Party policy toward Communists are about as follows: restriction and isolation of the Frontier Area and of the Border Region, so far as agitation is concerned, before ingestion by the constitutional national system; military precautions, balancing Communist forces with Nationalist; standardization of Red military practice by national rules, and the elimination of peculiar political features; eventual dissolution of fellow-travelling organizations, and their absorption into the corresponding officially sponsored movements; supervision of Communists and channels of Communist propaganda; courtesy toward Communist leaders, strictness toward Communist subordinates, and harshness toward the Communist laboring class following. A corresponding policy toward the Kuomintang is pursued by the Communists.)

Finally, the deepest element eludes political analysis: the moderation of the Chinese character, and the heritage of Confucian common sense. The Chinese language and the Confucian inheritance of ideological sophistication lead to clarity, pragmatism, andpracticality. The Chinese have long delighted in ingenious formulae with which to meetde jureimpasses, while proceedingde factoin quite another direction. The Chinese are perhaps the only people in the world with enough finesse about "face" to save the Communist face. The Generalissimo is in theory consciously anti-Marxian; but when he was asked whether it is possible that Communists or Leftists might exploit democratic rights for unscrupulous power politics, he answered quietly by writing: "No, because democracy in itself has the ability to work out the solutions for those problems if there are any." A Communist leader said, the Generalissimo would have nothing to fear from the Communists if he won the war. His prestige would be unassailable. Chiang and the Communists both know this.

The National Salvation (Chiu Kuo) movement is third in point of size and influence, and has been largely instrumental in assisting national unification and resistance. The movement began in 1935 with the organization of a number of professors, students, and young intellectuals who were influenced by the student anti-appeasement movement in North China. It had a simple, and very clear program: stop civil war; stop appeasement.[14]Unlike the Kuomintang or the Communists, the National Salvationists never developed formal dogma, or a comprehensive ideology. Genuinely a movement, it had no membership books, no formal or systematic organization, no minorities, and no schisms. The movement spread like wildfire, across the length and breadth of China as well as overseas; and, because of its lack of formal hierarchy, was ignored bythe National Government. Its loose organization, consciously based on the middle class of clerks, students, business men, professors, etc., followed functional lines familiar to the Chinese.

When the National Salvationists began the creation of a structure, however rudimentary, by forming an inter-professional federation for National Salvation, and when they followed this with the national congress for National Salvation, the government took action, which resulted in the celebrated trial of the Seven Gentlemen (ch'i chün-tzŭ). The term (chün-tzŭ) is the Confucian word for superior or upright person, without reference to gender, and was applied in affectionate derision by the press. One of thechün-tzŭwas a lady. The seven, who included a celebrated and popular law school dean (Shên Chun-lu), a banker, and authors (Tso Tao-fên, the spokesman among them) were tried and imprisoned late in 1936. Demands for their release figured in the Sian kidnapping.

The movement was financed very simply through volunteer contributions. Most of the work was done by volunteers who asked no pay, travelling and working at their own expense. About Ch. $5,000 (then about U. S. $1,000) sufficed to cover the whole expenses of headquarters. Despite the imprisonment of its leaders, the movement gathered momentum. Funds were collected to support guerrillas opposing Japan in transmural China. Most literate persons not already committed to formal Kuomintang or Communist membership fell under the influence of the movement. General Shêng Shih-ts'ai in Sinkiang offered the movement a home, and many of its workers went to the West.

In practical terms, the National Salvationists often work with the Communist Party, although they are strictly Chinese and do not have an elaborate dialectic. A strain of economic determinism runs through their thought, but this is not systematized. The leaders ofthe movement were released after the outbreak of war, but their organizations continued to be suppressed, and work is largely suspended. The leaders told the author that they had no means of estimating the actual number of their adherents; they had no formal membership roll, and they were still legally suppressed in Chungking areas. The quest for policy and principle instead of power is new to Chinese politics, and the National Salvation leaders are esteemed almost universally and hated by none. Nevertheless the Kuomintang has not admitted the legality of the movement, which continues to exist in non-public fashion. Some of the leaders were recognized to the extent of being put on the People's Political Council. In addition to standing with the Communists in matters of practical domestic reform, the National Salvation leaders demand two fundamental policies: continuation of the war, and unity of the country above all party considerations.

The National Salvation leaders are able, modest, and patriotic. They represent the older non-political sentiment of China, infused with modern Leftist content. Dean Shên of Shanghai, the senior of the movement, is an elderly man of almost dainty gentleness, keenly intelligent demeanor, and serious but charming good humor. Mr. Tso Tao-fên, an author, is a world traveller. Their colleagues are of the student, publisher, author type: intellectual, patriotic, common-sense in outlook.

The National Salvation movement looks forward to constitutionalism. It has become almost universal in the guerrilla areas. The leaders have faith that the Constitution and liberalized public life are developing, although they expected in the summer of 1940 that the Convention would be postponed until 1941, to allow the Communists and Nationalists further opportunity for balancing and adjusting power relationships. The National Salvationists are past masters in the techniquesof indirect, almost invisible pressures. Their disinterestedness, high principles, and patriotism put them in an admirable position to act as a determined moderating force between the two major Parties. As such they are the third party of China, although another, smaller group bears this name.

The party commonly called The Third Party (Ti-san Tang) was organized by dissident Communists and Left Kuomintang members who wished to keep on collaborating after the major parties broke apart in 1927, thus ending the Great Revolution. Led by the indomitable Têng Yen-ta, who was finally shot to death in Shanghai, the party began illustriously with the participation of Mme. Sun Yat-sen (Soong Ching-ling) and the Left ex-Foreign Minister, Eugene Chen. The formal names of the party varied. From 1927 to 1929, and again from 1930 to 1937, it was the Revolutionary Action Commission of the Chinese Kuomintang (Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang K'ê-ming Hsing-chêng Wei-yüan-hui); in 1929-1930, the Chinese Revolutionary Party (Chung-kuo K'ê-ming Tang); and after 1937, the Acting Commission for the National Emancipation of China (Min-ts'u Chieh-fang Hsing-chêng Wei-yüan-hui).[15]The party is at present led by Dr. Chang Pai-chün, a returned student from Germany and lieutenant to the late Mr. Têng. It suffers from the official ban on minor parties, but retains, by its own statement, a formal organized membership of about 15,000. (This estimate would, in the opinion of independent observers, need to be discounted.)

The Third Party is aSan Min Chu Iparty. It accepts the legacies of Dr. Sun, in their Left-most phase as they were at the time of his death. The party is stronglyanti-imperialist, socialist, and land-reform in its teaching. Its socialism is of an independent kind; the party neither seeks nor wishes collaboration with the Third International, although it is willing to cooperate with the Communists as well as the Kuomintang. It finds its chief political dogma in the last policies of Sun, executed in the period just before his death: (1) a pro-Soviet orientation in international power politics; (2) a Nationalist-Communist entente; and (3) immediate aid for the peasants and workers. It is therefore more like the old Left Kuomintang than the Communists.

At the present time, the party seeks to promote collaboration between the two major parties, thus becoming the second third-party to that friendship, and urges constitutional government. Eventually it would prefer a representative government of the whole people (p'ing min), with the executive agencies composed 60 per cent of peasants and workers, 40 per cent of others, chiefly intellectuals. (The proportion is believed to be Mme. Sun's contribution.) In past practical politics, The Third Party took part in the Foochow insurrection of 1933-34, but has on no other occasion obtained power. It is not expected to attain major status.

The elder brother of Chang Kia-ngau, who is the enterprising Minister of Economic Affairs, has organized a political party after the fashion of the traditional pavilions of learning and patriotism. In China's past, Confucians frequently developed an institution which admixed the features of a perpetual resort camp, a library, a seminar, and a club. Living together amid scenically beautiful and scholastically adequate surroundings, they made their influence felt through their writings and their example, whenever one of their number returned to public life. Dr. Carson Chang (Chang Chia-shêng) has organized an Institute of NationalCulture at Talifu in Yünnan, in the mountains just below Tibet. There he associates with kindred souls to attempt a restoration of traditional values in the traditional manner.

The confusing and unhappy similarity of the name of his party to Adolf Hitler's party is explained in the following communication:

To give to the world in a clear and unambiguous way the principles our party stands for and the platform we wish to adopt should we have the chance to serve our country, I have written a book, entitledWhat A State Is Built On. In formulating my political philosophy, though I have drawn freely upon the wisdom of the West, I have kept my eye steadily on the needs of my people and the circumstances of my country as the guiding and controlling principles in shaping my own thought. In view of the possibility of distortions you have suggested in your letter, an extract is now being prepared in English, with the idea to facilitate the understanding of our movement and to present to the intellectual world of the West our principles and policies ...The accidental similarity of names between our party and Hitler's is indeed an endless source of misunderstanding, but the similarity is truly "accidental." In Chinese the name of our party runs "Kuo Chia She Hui Tang," which may be literally translated into "Nation (Kuo Chia) Society (She Hui) Party (Tang)," a name we adopted long before Hitler's party became known, embodying principles widely different from what Hitler's party stands for. The suspicion abroad of our connection with Hitler's National Socialist Party may be traced to an incident two years ago at Hankow when Kuomintang first came to recognize the legal status of minor political parties. The foreign correspondents, in reporting my exchange of letters with Generalissimo Chiang with regard to the recognition of our party, referred without a second thought to our party as "Nazi," thus creating all distortions which might have occurred even without such mischief. I shall be more than grateful to you if you would undertake to clear the suspicion on us and pave the way for lasting understanding between us and your people.[16]

The accidental similarity of names between our party and Hitler's is indeed an endless source of misunderstanding, but the similarity is truly "accidental." In Chinese the name of our party runs "Kuo Chia She Hui Tang," which may be literally translated into "Nation (Kuo Chia) Society (She Hui) Party (Tang)," a name we adopted long before Hitler's party became known, embodying principles widely different from what Hitler's party stands for. The suspicion abroad of our connection with Hitler's National Socialist Party may be traced to an incident two years ago at Hankow when Kuomintang first came to recognize the legal status of minor political parties. The foreign correspondents, in reporting my exchange of letters with Generalissimo Chiang with regard to the recognition of our party, referred without a second thought to our party as "Nazi," thus creating all distortions which might have occurred even without such mischief. I shall be more than grateful to you if you would undertake to clear the suspicion on us and pave the way for lasting understanding between us and your people.[16]

These two minuscule parties are both expatriate groups organized in Paris. The Social Democratic Party was organized in 1925. It has no connection with the Socialist Party of the pro-Japanese Kiang Kang-hu, but is simply the Chinese affiliate of the Second International. The Social Democratic Party may unite with the Third Party, in view of the close similarity of aims and ideology; its leader, Mr. Yang Kan-tao, has been recognized by being seated in the People's Political Council.

The party calledKuo-chia Chu-i Pai(La Jeunesse, orParti Républicain Nationaliste de la Jeune Chine) was organized in 1923 in Paris, by a Mr. Tseng Chi, with whom is now associated Mr. Tso Shen-sheng, the most active worker for the party. It survived for years as an expatriate organization, joined by successive generations of Chinese students in France. Its policies are strongly democratic and social-minded. A functional legislature, the cooperative movement and state capitalism have suggested a similarity to Fascism in the minds of some observers; of Trotskyism, to others.[17]The party, through accident and the family connections of its founder, has connections in Szechuan, and the transfer of the National Government to Chungking was a corresponding aid to the slight influence of the party. Long in exile, it is known by one of its French names even in China; all it does is to help diversify opinion. Mr. Tso occupies a seat in the People's Political Council.[18]

The National Salvationists are an operating forcein China, and the Communists, while a minority party, are not a minor party in the American sense. Unhappily, the existence of minuscule parties among both patriots and pro-Japanese elements suggests that multi-party constitutionalism is likely to degenerate into innumerable party fractions, splinter parties, and novel, unstable groups. The Kuomintang and the Communists possess their respective monopolies of power; the National Salvationists have a popular and sincere cause. The other parties exist in part because they obtain recognition. As long as Chinese political processes depend on leadership by personality, individuals will be free to form their own parties, while the geographical, cultural, and economic diversity of the country holds out little hope for the appearance of two or three China-wide democratic parties. Far more likely is it that, with the presumable advent of constitutionalism, the Kuomintang-Communist alignment will continue, while the present minor parties will gain some ground, and innumerable new parties will appear in order to profit by democratic guarantees of minimal representation, or to fulfill functions exercised by fraternal societies in the United States.

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