THE SITUATION IN CHINA

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21966, 15 December 1936, Page 15

THE SITUATION IN CHINA

TO THE «d:tob of th» fkkss. Sir,—What is the significance of the mighty events that are moving China, cradle of nearly a quarter of the world’s population? The Chinese people have been engaged for 15 years in a life and death struggle for their independence and fi’eedom. Now the Chinese Communist party, hundreds of thousands strong, is taking the helm from the weak hands which have grasped it and directing the million masses to their liberation and salvation. It is the initiation of the unification of the people for the struggle against the Japanese plunderers. The overwhelming majority of China's 450.000,000 live a semi-starved existence. Think of it! In the nine years of struggle for Soviet power in China more than 1,000,000 people have been executed, many only for being suspected of harbouring dangerous thoughts, and countless thousands have died in the civil wars between the Soviet districts and the Kuomintang Government, supported by all the imperialist powers. The profound agrarian revolution has been the means of rally - ; ' '

ing and drawing ten and hundreds of millions of peasants into the national liberation struggle. History has never before known such a ferocious white terror as that launched by Chiang-Kai-Shek against the working people and their communist leaders. The Red Army and the Soviet districts have become their national hope and glory. A regrouping of the class forces is now taking place in China, faced with the alternatives of resisting Japanese aggression, which means life, or else capitulating, which means death. The seventh world congress of the Communist International, held last year, drew up a new line for its Chinese section, viz., the establishing of a united national front against Japan, not an anti-imperialist united front in general. On this basis it has approached the Kuomintang. the Government party, the supporters of which know that the communists are sons of the Chinese people, against the foreign yoke, flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone. With the slogan. “Unify all forces against Japan.’’ it has proposed the cessation of the civil war and the building of one mighty . army, millions strong; the establishment of a united all-Chinese democratic republic, with universal suffrage and an all-China parliament and a government of national defence; the Soviet districts to introduce the same regime in their territories and participate in the all-China parliament. The Communst party has won the masses of China to its policy, and Chiang-Kai-Shek and his minions are being swept aside by the national united front for salvation. But the final decision in the world crisis, in China as everywhere else, lies with England. She decides for fascism or against it, for the oppressors or for the million masses, Asiatic and European. Her’s is the role of destiny: she is the arbiter of peace and war. Being this, the crest of the world crisis may be expected in England. Indeed, it has begun to appear in the last fortnight. We are the people of England, we have not spoken yet.—Yours, etc., C.F.S. December }4, 1936.