CHINA: Show Window

Kalgan, crossroad of camel caravans from Central Asia, is the Mongolian gateway through the Great Wall into North China. Occupied by the Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army, Kalgan has become the Communist metropolis (130,000 population), outranking Yenan in size and wealth. It has a cigaret factory, machine shops, a power plant, an iron smelter, railway facilities. It is military headquarters for all Communist operations in Shansi, Hopeh, Chahar and Jehol Provinces and in Manchuria.

From Kalgan last week, the New York Herald Tribune’s able, evenminded Correspondent A. T. Steele reported: “This city . . . has become a show window for the policies and methods of the Chinese Communists. . . . The attitude of the people here is one of curiosity mixed with apprehension. The poor are attracted by glittering promises of economic and political reform, and the middle classes and the well to do are worried. . . .

“There is unquestionably much good in what the Communists are doing. . . . One cannot help being impressed by the tenacity of purpose and the absence of corruption among the Red leaders. But ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom,’ as they are under stood here, would seem strange to Americans. . . . Freedom exists here only in so far as it conforms with the Communist Party line. The Party brooks no opposition.If you are with it you are a patriot. If you are too critical you run the risk of being denounced as a traitor. . . .

“There is no mercy for … those who are considered traitors. . . . Today I passed a small-fry traitor being led down the street on the end of a rope. He was on his way to the execution grounds. . . .”