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"Those at the helm in Peking have never thought of themselves as other than obedient members of Moscow's rigid party organization. The only methods they know are Russian methods. There is not one member of the Politburo who has had more than superficial brush-ups against Western liberal tradition. That any anti-Russian clique could form and operate in Peking today is simply unthinkable. As in Russia, so also in Red China the state consists of soldiers, policemen, prisons and concentration camps."
War's Burden. China's economy, in chaos when the Reds took over, is groaning under the burden of war. The Communists have avoided the inflationary pitfalls of printing money whenever it was needed. Instead they have followed the deflationary road simply by draining off, through merciless taxation and "voluntary" bond issues, whatever cash the public may have. Merchants who refuse to subscribe to the bond issue are invited to headquarters and kept in conference on the subject without food, water or bathroom privileges, for ten, twelve or 16 hours until they see the light. Peasants who find themselves freed of the old landlord's demands for rent are faced with infinitely greater government demand for taxes. If the peasant produces more food, it is taken away from him in enforced donations to the party. Result: a balanced budget, but one of the world's most depressed standards of living.
Spring floods have laid waste some 20,000,000 acres of China's arable land. Vast areas outside the flood districts lie unused and unplanted. Dissatisfied cotton farmers who refuse to sell their product at the government's low price last week forced Shanghai's cotton mills to close down completely for a period of 45 days. Communist cadres are being mobilized to reason with the recalcitrant cotton growers.
Two out of every three able men in Canton are unemployed. In other cities the problem is swelled by thousands of rural refugees, who have lost their means of support in the land reform. Whole classes of merchants and professionals like lawyers, brokers and jewelers are idle: their functions have simply vanished. In Shanghai, Tientsin, Hankow, Chungking, Foochow and Swatow, thousands of shops and factories have gone bankrupt. Shopping centers in almost every big city in China now seem lifeless and deserted.
That, last week, was China under the rule of a mob of Communist soldiers, politicians and intellectuals.
The Bosses. In Peking's high-walled, yellow-tiled "Forbidden City," Red China's masters live in as much secrecy as any of Old China's despots. Nobody on the outside is precisely sure just how the Red leaders currently stand in their hierarchy, but a rough directory is available.
Mao Tse-tung, indefatigable boss of Chinese Communism, is aging (59) and ailing (heart trouble), is obviously unable to wield as much personal power as he once had over the army and the party.
Chu Teh, 65, his oldest comrade-in-arms, is still nominally commander in chief of the Chinese Red army, but is apparently only a figurehead.