COUNTER-REVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION The reactionary world press is shedding bitter tears over the repression of the revolt of the crusaders of far-off Tibet struggling for their "independence." Here is the "Hungary" of the Far East, bled and oppressed by Peking in emulation of the Kremlin. But this comparison by quite external and superficial analogies does not stand up under an examination of the real facts.
remote region on the borders of China and India, is inhabited by a very ancient people whose history was often mingled with that of the Han people, of the people. Especially since close-knit relations established in the VIlth century between the empire and Tibet, the latter has gone on being sometimes subjected to different Chinese empires, times formally independent, until it became an English protectorate at the beginning of the present century.
when India wor rights over Tibet were passed on to the new Indian dominion. At the time of the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949, Chinese troops advanced as far capital of the theocratic state of Tibet. In 1954, an agreement with India, according to which the latter country gave up its privileges Chinese influence.
The Chinese left in place a local government called Kasha, composed of six members, the age-old feudal-theocratic social regime. This regime is based on the feudal exploitation of about a million and a half peasants and nomads by "notables," especially the higher Buddhist clergy, organized in vast and powerful lamasery-convents. At the summit of this strictly hierarchized theocratic state is the
In 1956 a preparatory commission for the status of the "autonomous region of Tibet" was created by Peking. It was to busy itself with the reorganization of the Tibetan army, and to abolish the social system of serfdom under which the overwhelming majority of the Tibetan people were stil! living. The ecclesiastical and secular reactionary circles. however, did everything to postpone the reforms, dantime, and prepare armed struggle for the "indepenpositions, threatened by the revolution. The Chinese government, always anxious not to precipitate matters, had let it be known that, during the whole period of the second Five-Year Plan, 1962, it would abstain from requiring the application of
There is no doubt but that the reactionary circles of the country, encouraged from abroad, especially by Chiang Kai-Shek and imperialism, had sworn to bring about a 'national" rebellion in order to compromise Peking in the
"neutralist" Asia. Peking could be criticized only for having had a class-collaborationist policy and having failed to stir up a civil war that would have set the peasant serfs against the ecclesiastical and lay feudalists, the lack of which permitted the latter to take the offensive. Already in May and June 1958 rebel bands had begun to attack in the regions of Chambo, Dinching, and Loka. But it was on March 10th 1959 that the real
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL rebellion began with an attack on the Chinese garrison in Lhasa itself.
The Chinese government does not exclude the hypothesis that the rebellion was encouraged by imperialism on the basis of the assurance that the Chinese provinces would follow, the peasants rising up against the system of "communes." The the Chinese the ecclesiastical and secular feudalists, as might have been expected. The affair of the Dalai-Lama's flight and declarations, however, still remains obscure, and seems to confirm certain Chinese government statements. In any case, Nehru has recognized the authenticity of the letters exchanged between the Dalai-Lama and the Chinese presentative in fibet, which testify to his good relations with the Chinese authorities up to the very eye of
69 the revolt. The rebellion at Lhasa itself was quickly suppressed, and the guerrilla is continuing only in remote places in this mountainous country, particularly favorable to such a kind of "resistance.
Peking is now obliged to overturn from top to bottom the mediaeval social structure of Tibet in order to estabits influence over the mass of Tibei, about whose fate reactionaries throughout the world will be moved to tears.
By entrusting the administration of the Autonomous Territory of Tibet to the democratic organization of the ountry's poor masses, and by aiding in its modern ecc omic and industrial development. the Chinese revolutio would thereby eliminate a bastion of the worst reactionary forces in Asia, allies of imperialism.
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