CHINA: Red Progress

Few names have been more closely linked in Communist propaganda than those of Soviet Russia’s Joseph Stalin and Red China’s Mao Tse-tung. One of the first questions raised by First Party Secretary Khrushchev’s exposure of Stalin as an egomaniac and mass murderer last February was, How does this affect Mao? Last week, gathered for the eighth National Party Congress in their history, the first since 1945, Chinese Communists let it be known that the “cult” of Mao’s “personality” was ended, but that Mao was still their august leader.

Missing from the flags and bunting that decorated Peking’s vast, Red-built Magnanimity Hall were the customary huge portraits of the party leader. Only four Western newsmen were permitted to report on the proceedings, and they were briefed in a clubroom 2½-miles distant. Communist journals avoided lavish praise of Mao, emphasized instead his record as a “collective leader.” No actual down grading of Mao was involved, however, nor did this represent any contraction of his real power. The Chinese leaders were merely deferring to the pattern suggested by their Soviet brethren, a pattern explained in person to the Chinese Reds by the most distinguished visitor to their conclave, First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan. Mikoyan explained how the Soviet Party had made itself “more united and strong” by overcoming the “cult of the individual.” In his 6,700-word address, he heaped praise on the Chinese Communists for their “transformation of China into a mighty industrial power,” made only one reference to Mao—but it was a robust one. Mao, he said, is a “distinguished Marxist-Leninist” who has made a “major contribution to Marxist-Leninist theory.” Mao appeared content. In the congress’ opening speech, he told the 1,122 party stalwarts: “We must never become arrogant and complacent . . . Humility helps one make progress, whereas conceit makes one blind.”

Confidence Unbounded. For all that, the Chinese Reds were feeling a little boastful after their seven years in power. If there was a dominating characteristic, it was confidence. “We have achieved great successes in every field,” said Mao. Added Presidium Member Liu Shao-chi, the party’s No. 2 man and reigning theorist: “Our party, under the leadership of the Central Committee headed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, has not made any mistake in its line during the past 25 years.” Public Security Minister Lo Jui-ching, who between 1950 and 1955 had directed the greatest mass liquidation in history (TIME, March 5), confidently announced that it was now “totally impossible for counter-revolutionaries to stage a comeback in China.”

The apparent firmness of their control was enabling the Reds to introduce important leniencies. Liu Shao-chi enumerated a few of the reasons why the Communists can afford to treat their few remaining capitalists magnanimously:

¶ Most capitalist industry is now in “partnership” with the state.

¶ Middle-class peasants have stopped “wavering” because they have seen the “futility” of resistance, with the result that 91.7% of peasant households have joined cooperative farms.

¶ Party membership has grown to 10.7 million, with another 20 million young candidate members, out of a population of 601 million (Russia, with its population of 200 million, has a Communist Party membership of 7,200,000 and 18.5 million Communist Youth candidates).

Without disclosing the strength of China’s armed forces, Defense Minister Marshal Peng Teh-huai announced that there were 2,700,000 fewer men under arms than in 1949. As a sop to the self-respect of the hitherto terrorized Chinese intellectuals, the leaders decreed that a party member, while obliged to carry out party decisions unconditionally, may now “reserve his opinion and submit it to a leading body if he disagrees.” Surest indication of the regime’s sense of achieved stability was the news that Red China is about to attempt a system of codified law, a Western concept never adopted or imposed on the Chinese (as it was, for example, by the British in colonial India). Dryly commenting that the contempt for law traditionally shown by China’s millions “was probably increased by the mass revolutionary movements, because mass movements did not entirely rely on laws,” Peoples Court President Tung Pi-wu listed among most urgent needs: a criminal code, a civil code, a law of procedure, a labor law and a land-use law.

Totalitarianism Unruffled. Against this background of unruffled totalitarianism, Premier Chou Enlai, the No. 3 Red, calmly forecast that in six years Red China would rank fifth or sixth among industrial powers. Chou based his prediction on the first five-year plan (1953-57) targets, which, he said, had already been exceeded. Despite flood and droughts, grain production for the current period would total about 1.1 billion tons. As a consequence, said Chou, a 35% increase in agricultural production will be the goal of the second five-year plan, beginning next year. This, said he, should make possible a 100% increase in industrial production by 1962—a figure impressive even as a wish. (Estimated steel production in 1955, 2,700,000 tons; coal, 92.7 million tons; electric power, 12.5 billion kw-h.)

Mindful of Russia’s own amazing climb to industrial power in 28 years, there were Western observers who concluded uncomfortably that Chou’s targets, high as they are, may well be achieved. China’s Red masters were doing well—too well for the peace of mind of the free world.