China: Red Guards Curbed Again

China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has changed course numerous times in its tumultuous 27-month existence. The alternating current is provided, of course, by Mao Tse-tung. His heart is with the radicals, who advocate violence to cleanse conservatism from China, but his head must sometimes nod to the moderates, who say that stability is needed before the revolution can make progress. Last week a set of new directives from Peking made it clear that Mao has decided, at least for now, on head over heart.

He had little choice. His minority extremists, composed largely of student Red Guards and egged on by Mrs. Mao, Chiang Ching, were losing out in bloody battles with more conservative workers and peasants who are backed by most of the army. To keep China from falling apart entirely, Mao apparently moved over to the majority side.

An editorial in the official Peking People’s Daily ordered an end to factionalism, support for the army and the army-dominated revolutionary committees, and abandonment of the “mountain-stronghold mentality” by those who consider themselves more Maoist than Mao himself. These people, said the paper, are “swell-headed, and have even distorted Chairman Mao’s instructions.”

What those instructions are has never been very clear, but Peking press, and radio in a series of lectures, told the people not to worry about puzzling them out. One editorial demanded obedience to the “proletarian headquarters, with Chairman Mao as the leader and Vice Chairman Lin Piao as the deputy leader.” Their headquarters is “the one and sole leading center” for the nation. Another directive gave the army authority to deal with recalcitrant Red Guards “according to the laws of the state,” reducing them virtually to the status of common criminals and counterrevolutionaries. The writing of posters and publishing of newspapers by Red Guards were put under army control.

Mangoes from Mao. Along with the army, the workers also got the green light for reforming the Red Guards. Mao dispatched “worker-peasant, Mao Tse-tung-thought propaganda teams” to rebellious college campuses in Peking, Shanghai and Canton, which have been dominated by Red Guards. To dramatize the move, Mao sent a shipment of mangoes to the workers on Tsinghua University campus in Peking, where they were solemnly sniffed and touched, one commentary reverently reported, then preserved chemically as a “token of Chairman Mao’s great attention to the working class.” The gift was celebrated at campus rallies all over the country.

Red Guards quickly got the message, and expressions of their contrite feeling filled the Peking press. Red Guards in the capital pledged “to be pupils of the workers, peasants and soldiers, and rapidly catch up with the hundreds of millions of revolutionary people now advancing with big strides.” They admitted that not the Red Guards but “the workers, peasants and soldiers were the main force” in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and in proletarian education. Worst of all, “Red Guards in many places expressed their determination to go to the rural areas, border areas, factories, mines and basic units in order to integrate themselves with the workers and peasants.” That, in the current lexicon of China, is the Maoist version of exile to Siberia.