OCTOBER
By P. Mayorga
. [The following report is by a Latin-American revolutionary socialist who visited the People's Democratic Republic of China last October. The translation from the Spanish is by World Outlook. ]
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It is not my intention to offer political conclusions on what we saw in the twenty days that we spent in China. For this I refer the reader to the articles by Farien, Novack and Livio Maitan which have appeared in World Outlook and which have sought to interpret the events that have been occurring there and to determine the origin and meaning of the Cultural Revolution. In addition, my lack of knowledge of the language was a barrier in grasping the thinking of the Chinese people as well as members of the Communist party. Nevertheless what we saw and what we heard from people with whom we could discuss through interpreters will, I think, prove of interest.
In our tour of China we first went from Hong Kong to Canton, entering at Lo Wu, the frontier post. To enter a socialist country, whatever the situation may be there, is an emotional experience for a Marxist for obvious reasons. The Chinese comrades greeted us with genuine affection. True, we were officially invited guests, but our status was that of professional people of various skills and not that of political figures.
The fields we passed in our itinerary were extraordinarily well cultivated and flourishing. Few mechanical implements were to be observed and few draft animals, these all being buffalo. But this might have been due to the fact that the greater part of the fields were rice paddies requiring hand labor. Similarly we were not able to learn if the fields had always been worked in such a perfect way or whether this was a result of the Liberation, as the Chinese call the period that began with the triumph of Communism. But the fact that modern practices in soil conservation could be seen, indicated that the new regime had brought about an improvement in agriculture. The buildings were old ones on which repairs had been made.
These observations hold for all the rural areas we visited, although the. crops varied according to the zone.
The trains were all equipped with diesel engines and the coaches were comfortable some of them being double-deckers. The ordinary coaches in which the majority of the people ride, were always in good repair, clean and comfortable. They were made in Shanghai.
Canton is a clean, beautiful city, like all the Chinese cities, despite the absence of sewers, since the waste is picked up-from the homes in trucks to be transported to. the fields and used as fertilizer. In the streets there were innumerable low-storied old buildings, the doorways crammed with small traders. The sprinkling of tall modern buildings are illuminated at night along ali the edges. Small steam vessels and sampans navigate the Pearl River and its tributaries. The climate is hot and humid.
We were put up at an elegant mansion in the center of the city in front of a beautiful park. The official automobiles -- there are no others -- are of Russian; German and Chinese design, made in Shanghai. The chauffeurs are expert drivers and keep the cars clean and bright.
The first thing the traveler notes in all the cities is the density of the population -- in the doorways, at street corners, everywhere, continually, there are groups of people -- and the absence of motor vehicles. But we saw no great difficulties in organizing collective mobilizations. There are _thousands of bicycles: and numerous "rickshaw" tricycles.
Another thing that strikes foreigners is the uniformity of dress. Women and men wear a Simple blouse with three big patch pockets and loose, unhemmed trousers , made _ out of washable blue, black or khaki cloth.
The youth have taken over the streets. Boys and girls with red arm bands gather together and march in various directions.
‘The police carry neither clubs nor arms and their uniform is blue trousers and an olive- -green shirt with red ribbon at the collar, the “style being the same as that
worn by civilians. Soldiers wear olive-green. Their caps are soft. We never saw them carry arms even in the big mass demonstrations. Their commanders wear the same uniform and, according to what we were told, live with the troops, eating at the same mess.
Our first contact with the Red Guards came when we visited the Museum of the Revolution at Canton, which is the school for revolutionaries set up by Mao in 1926. Hundreds of youths were visiting it. Their ages ran from ten to twenty-one. Every one of them carried in his hand the small red book, a kind of breviary, containing the writings of Mao. Gilt medals bearing his effigy shone on the red ribbons they wore as arm bands. As guests we were greeted warmly. They were quite interested in talking but the language limited us.
The museum is an old house retaining all the humble aspect of a school of this kind. From there we went to the park to visit the austere tomb commemorating the revolutionists murdered by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927.
I got the impression that the Red Guards in the various cities we visited, especially those in Shanghai, are not as "Maoist" as the ones in Peking.
We flew to the capital in a jet plane made in China, quite comfortable, all seats filled. The loudspeaker system never ceased transmitting speeches and slogans in Chinese, in a strident, sharp, singsong feminine voice which named Mao every moment throughout the flight which lasted almost four hours.
The evening of the next day we went to an official reception at the monumental People's Palace where Chou En-lai received 43,600 foreign delegates at‘’a banquet that lasted exactly an hour and a half, to be followed immediately by another group, just as large, of banqueters.
Chou's speech was given out in advance to each one of the guests. It was brief and superficial, with constant allusions to the "Great Cultural Revolution" and to Mao Tse-tung.
Upon returning, I asked my interpreters if I could go out alone to wander around the city. They replied that I could do so but that it would be better if one of them went with me. I knew that with my insignia as a guest I did not need to fear the least incident. That was how I came to submerge myself in the dense Peking crowds.
It was the evening before the celebration of the day of Liberation. Peking was seething with trucks filled with Red Guards who were still arriving, converging here from all parts of. China, taking advantage of the privileges made available by the government consisting of free transportation, lodging and meals.
Many were arriving on foot, on bicycles, in buses. The trains had added coaches and increased the number of runs. They were lodged in schools, barracks and designated buildings and patios. The arrangements were carefully worked out.
On. Saturday, October 1, at 10 a.m., the parade began before the reviewing stands, the one for officials being the gate of the old imperial palace facing Tien An Men Square located between the enormous buildings of the People's Palace and the Museum of the Revolution. The plaza was completely filled with thousands of participants who utilized various colors to form phrases tied in with the demonstration and paying homage to Mao. They changed these constantly with clock-like precision, giving the appearance of an immense signboard on which the letters kept changing.
On the sidwalk bordering the square numerous military bands played. The build~ ings were decorated with big pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
The parade passed in closed ranks of 150 demonstrators who marched rapidly and with astounding energy to the rhythm of the anthem of the Red Guards, “Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman." Thus it was mostly a presentation of the Red Guards with their distinctive arm bands, carrying the compass of Mao's small red book. Flags, placards and enormous portraits of Mao were frequent.
The reviewing stands were jammed with delegates from all parts of the world, many of them dressed in their national costumes. In the official stand, Mao, Lin Piao, Chou En-lai and numerous party leaders observed the parade in which the absence of military elements was conspicuous. The military stood in ranks on both sides of the sidewalks and down the entire length of the street.
The parade ended at 3 p.m. and it was estimated that a crowd of 1,500,000 persons had marched by, the immense majority of them being youth. Despite the impressive—
ness of the parade, some friends resident in China said that it was not as big as the year before.
The speeches of the foreign delegates showed how isolated China is from the rest of the Communist world. After Lin: Piao spoke, speeches were made by a delegate of the Australian Communist party,.a North American Negro delegate and a guerrilla heroine from North Vietnam, who, unlike the others, made no references to Soviet revisionism.
At the end, Mao went from one end of the stand to the other to greet the crowd and came close to our stand as films and photographs were taken of him without any restrictions. Then he came down and went toward the Tien An Men Square .and the crowd poured toward him. Thereupon, detachments of the army, who had no arms, not even belts, moved on the run toward the spot to handle the crowd. They did this without any violence, by interlocking their arms.
- I noted that when some of the soldiers on the street wore their caps to the side or their uniforms unbuttoned, their commanders ran up to them personally to see to it in a courteous way that they adjusted their uniform. .
Mao moved into the street for a few yards, the crowd itself opening a way for him. Nothing seemed staged in all this. At the beginning the crowd was a little disorderly, showing that it was spontaneous and that. it was not feared that something unexpected would happen. The Red Guards rushed up to shake hands in a genuine Maoist frenzy.
That evening in the same plaza spectacular fireworks were staged, an art in which the Chinese are masters. For four hours the sky was illuminated with the most fantastic colors covering a big area and at a great height. In some instances rockets were launched from different angles, meeting in an arch where they disintegrated to form thousands of birds that chirped as they fell. Finally, to close the show, enormous globes were exploded. .
Peking, Shanghai-and the other cities and sites which we visited -- like the home near Changsha where Mao was born -- were always filled with Red Guards, occupied with meetings, discussions, visits, or writing “datsibaos" -- the wall newspapers which are made by painting characters on sheets of the daily newspapers and posting these on the walls. They carried criticisms of school teachers ,. functionaries and elements who have been charged with something.
One morning we went to a secondary coeducational school in Peking. The youths who participated with us in a round table discussion answered our questions readily. According to them forty percent of the students were Red Guards and seventy percent were sons. of poor peasants: and workers.
The classes were to remain suspended for six,months while plans were recast to teach and to study the works of Mao. In addition they were to carry out military exercises and help the peasants with their harvests.
When the questions became troublesome, they turned to a small red book and would read a paragraph that would provide them with an elastic answer.
I asked them what they read, aside from the writings of Mao and they replied that they also read Lenin. I asked them what they had read by Lenin and they were disconcerted. But after consulting among themselves several times, they told me that they studied articles.
When I asked them to give me a precise title in these works , I couldn't get a satisfactory answer. ;
Then one of them explained to me that the books of Mao had assembled, amplified and brought Marxism up to date, consequently, it was sufficient to read them..
Later, in various areas, this was the general reply given to me.
On one occasion I asked a Red Guard interpreter where I could find one of the articles that appeared in the Peking daily entitled, "Notes from Three-Family Village" and "Evening Talks at Yenshan." He said there was a pamphlet containing a commentary on them which cited paragraphs and demonstrated that they had a counterrevolutionary . character. When I said that i-had already read this and that this was not enough for me, and that I also wanted.to know more about the personality of Peng Chen, the former Mayor of Peking, and Teng To, the former editor of the newspaper referred to, he became troubled and begged me not to require him to speak about people who had sold out
to Chiang Kai-shek as it was very disturbing to hin.
When I persisted in my daubts, he promised to arrange a conversation with members of the party better versed politically than he was. This meeting never took place; he would not resume the subject despite my hints. The only political talk to which we were. invited dealt with the gains in the development. of.industry and agriculture since the liberation.
The réceptions in the factories, people's communes and technical centers, began and ended always with the assertion that everything that had been gained was the result of applying "the teachings of Mao" and that the present phase of the revolution is one in which political understanding is primary. I began to be able to distinguish. those with a more independent judgment through a nuance -- the more rapid and brief way in which they enunciated these declarations. :
Near Shanghai when we visited a plant devoted to heavy industry, it was explained to us that the big 12,000-ton press used for forging large sheets of steel, and which is one of the three or four largest in the world, was made exclusively by workers sent abroad. Moreover they had reduced the height and weight traditionally called for and introduced original improvements in its design. First a Soviet technician had come there on a trip. He didn't think much of the project, saying that China did not have the capacity to undertake it. After “eating a lot of apples," he went back home. When he returned and saw the press, he asked for the blueprints so he could study them and give his opinion. "He ate a lot of apples again and left and we are still waiting to hear from him."
The story indicates the depreciative and ironic way in which the Chinese regard the Russians. But it is not only that; day by day this attitude is being transformed into hate; since they are sure that they have an understanding with the North American imperialists and that the latter will attack them in the near future. In short, they seek to completely deny whatever aid the Russians have been able to give China.
I asked how many Chinese technicians participated in the calculations, and, to my surprise, the response was that when Mao's thought is intimately linked with a proposition, science is of no great importance since it is rapidly superseded by this: thought and the experience of the workers; but that science nevertheless used to be used perfectly by the specialists who worked in line with Mao's thought. I noted that the person who offered us this explanation and others that were superficially scientific, was a member of the plant's administrative staff, not a skilled worker.
' Here I will offer my impression of the factory workers. In my opinion, the trade unions -- to which we were never invited by those who decided on our itinerary -- and the majority of the workers, are not much involved in the Cultural Revolution. The propaganda, most certainly, is so persistent and totalitarian that for many it would be difficult not to be influenced. But -it is not less certain that they are directly aware of the errors that are being committed and which become a living part of the process of production, I never saw any forty-year-old workers caught up in the vertigo of the Cultural Revolution. The fact that the enthusiasm is to be found only in the layers of youth, who are. less politically advanced, reveals.a resistance, the depth of which is difficult to estimate. In addition, the workers are more familiar with the history of the party and its internal struggles.
Another interpreter spoke to me about the war in Vietnam and how the Russians are failing to help the people in arms to win. I replied that in my opinion, neither the Russians nor they, the Chinese, were helping as much as they ought to. This reply wounded him deeply and he told me that he had already been recruited to go and fight in Vietnam and that they were only awaiting Hanoi's call to mobilize. I said that I did not doubt his eagerness to participate in the struggle, but that the official declarations were to be considered a mere pretext to justify their failures.
The Chinese ballet, which is marvelous, has been utilized in the Cultural Revolution and has suffered variations reflecting its twists and turns. Thus for example, the plot of "The Child with White Hair" has been altered various times. The truth is that some of them constitute powerful revolutionary propaganda for the masses such as the one depicting the Congo and featuring Lumumba as the main figure.
. The political literature placed in headquarters, hotels, railway stations, etc., is composed ninety-five percent of the writings of Mao and the same is true of the photographs, busts and statues which are profusely displayed in all such places and the means of transport. To indicate how distasteful we found this tiresome repetition to be, I told our interpreters that we Latins believe that "good perfume should be kept ina small bottle". or that "when it's good a little goes a long way." But this veiled
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eriticisn, even after being explained to them, did. not. appear to make the slightest impression, from which I concluded that they consider what is happening to be completely natural.
Speaking of Stalin, I told them that the revolutionary youth in South America do not think much of him and they told me that they too understand that he committed grave errors, like the big purges, but that in general they considered his qualifications outweighed his defects. They would never utilize violent methods with political adversaries since they believe that all of them can be reeducated into accepting the correct line.
I was informed by another guide that those who fall into disgrace with respect to the Red Guards must undergo continuous chastisement like being shoved around, being spat at, the beating of gongs, and sometimes destruction of their personal effects.
The Red Guards always told me that persons they tried had the right to defend themselves and that on certain occasions part of the Red Guards themselves defended then.
In conversations with other youths it was evident that they wanted to go into certain political questions more deeply, but caution prevented them.
On leaving Communist China, I found that I had become deeply attached to those who had accompanied us continually, despite their political defects, limitations and positions. Thanks to them I had been able to come into close contact in a minimum way with the feelings and emotions of millions of human beings who are engaged in a historic experiment of immense sweep and whose destiny is uncertain. And I must confess that, like my-comrades on the tour, at the frontier station of Lo Wu tears were in my eyes. .