Revolutionary Puritans TWENTY MEN WHO GOVERN NEW CHINA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28911, 3 June 1959, Page 14

Revolutionary Puritans TWENTY MEN WHO GOVERN NEW CHINA

IBp a special Correspondent of “The- Times”]

The man we are leaking for, the American-style personnel advertisement might run:— Will be in his early or middle fifties, a native of the west China provinces of Hunan, Hupei or Szechuan (preferably Hunan), of a well-estab-lished (but not rich) peasant family, graduate of a university or military academy, educated wholly in China (or possibly France, but not Britain or the United States and probably pot the U.S.S.R.), must have had at least 20 years’ experience as a guerrilla leader and worker among peasants, will be a convinced Marxist, devoted to the party and to the creation of a new world, ready for any self-sacrifice. He will be keen to share in the responsibility of ruling 650 million people. . . .’ The vacancy would be in the 20-man political bureau of the Chinese Communist Party. Here are some summary statistics of the present 20. Origin—ls from the west central provinces (those furthest removed from contact with the West in the last century), five from elsewhere. (The Kuo- : mintang balance was as much weighted towards the maritime provinces of Chekiang, Fukien, and Kwangtung which had known Europeans up and down the coast for two centuries and more.) Agegroups—seven over 60, 12 in their fifties, one still in the forties; background—ls rural, five urban; education—ls of approximately university or military academy level, five of lesser or no education; overseas training—nil, 10; France, five; Japan, two; U.S.S.R., two; Germany, one. Unaltered Team

So much to put out of mind the urban, proletarian, Moscowtrained stereotype. Instead, we have a bunch of yeomen who have found Marx and Lenin, just as their English equivalents might have succumbed to John Wesley 200 years ago. The analogy is not absurd for these Praise-God Barebones of a Chinese revolutionary puritanism.

This team has worked together unchanged and unpurged for 30 years, not as an opposition party but as an opposition government, ruling first 10, then 50, then 100 an- now 650 million people. Since 1949 (though not before) a triumvirate has emerged, Mao Tsetung, Liu Shao-ch’i, and Chou En-lai. Mao the all-rounder—poet, calligrapher, philosopher, political strategist, a many-sided man who echoes Chinese aspirations: he is Chinese through and through. Liu Shao-ch’i, who has now emerged from the back room to become Head of State, is the austere party organiser, a high-priest of doctrinal orthodoxy, severe, unsparing, with none of Mao’s goodhumoured warmth. Communist rather than Chinese in flavour, one might say, but put his speeches alongside a Soviet one and the Chinese colour is; visible: there" is the Leninist intensity but also a strong Chinese element of the self-critical exemplar of virtue, the paragon of the Confucian tradition equipped with a new doctrine. The third, Chou En-lai, is too familiar to need more explaining. He is the able executive above all, an asset to anyone’s cabinet, and yet not quite a party man; their characters apart, he has the indispensability to the Chinese Communists of Stafford Cripps to the British Labour Party To pick on these three men with such different talents and personalities is not to suggest that they, and they alone, are the core. To find that we should have to penetrate the inner sanctum where the standing committee of the politburo sits round a table and probably does so with the same frequency as the British Cabinet Here are the other four

A Popular Figure Marshal Chu Teh stands, in a sense, almost above the Communist fold, for his life and endeavours span the whole revolutionary period of modem China. Now aged 72, he made his way from a peasant background in Szechuan to military advancement in Yunnan. In the early years of this century the Army was one centre of revolt against the conservative, declining Manchu dynasty. But once the dynasty had collapsed with no more than a rustle of imperial brocade, Chu’s revolutionary ideals came into conflict with his military ambitions. The pickings were rich in the warlord era. Only with the resurgence of Chinese nationalism after the First World War was his zeal rekindled. Then, as an aging student in Berlin, he caught the Communist fervour and returned to China a party member. Since 1928 he has been Mao’s military partner, the bluff, undaunted, simple soldier working with the political strategist As Communists apparently never retire, Chu remains as a leader of delegations. He is still the most popular figure after Mao. Ch’en Yun, the fifth man on the list is one of the most puzzling. He is the party’s economic expert but is not much publicised and observers in Peking’s diplomatic world have remarked how withdrawn from his comrades he seems at public gatherings with the detachment of a man who does not quite belong. His features reveal a fine intelligence and graciousness of manner, yet Ch’en is the only one of the top 20 men with unimpeachable proletarian origins. As a compositor in Shanghai he was drawn into the trade union movement and spent some years as an underground worker before his abilities brought him to the top in Yenan. When Chou En-lai is abroad Ch’en Yun acts as prime minister and there is evidence that he shares Chou's outlook.

Trusted Lieutenant If a “Maoist” model could be said to have emerged in the Chinese leadership, Teng HsiaoP’ing, the number six, might exemplify it. That he stayed longer in France after the First World War than the rest of that remarkable revolutionary group and speaks fluent French seems quite out ol keeping. He has worked his way up through all the hardship and approved experience of the Communist struggle in China. A short, sparse, tough little man, he was one of Mao’s trusted lieutenants In the regional administrations

that were set up as a temporary measure in 1949. When they were abolished in 1953 Teng came to Peking and moved up quickly. Cpunt his fingers in the party organisation, in economic planning, in the defence council and other sectors, and he might be said to have the best all-round hand of these seven men at the top. After Liu Shao-ch’i, he looks the most likely successor to Mao, certainly the man Mao would choose himself. Last of the seven is Marshal Lin Piao. He is just 50 and by far the ablest of the younger men. Had he not contracted tuberculosis soon after the Government came to power in 1949 he would now certainly be the accepted successor as leader. His early career was entirely military—he commanded a battalion in the Nationalist Army at 21—but he has made his mark as an administrator and a strategist of the traditional Chinese kind that sees strategy as aU one, whether the task is civil or military. Though he seems to have recovered from the condition that kept him right out of political life a few years back, his health still seems bad enough to rule him out from the top position.

Free Argument The rest of the 20 may be briefly summed up. Four are Army Marshals, to give that arm its share —but not too great a share—of power. Lin Po-chu and Tung Piwu are elder statesmen, the latter now raised to a vice-chairmanship of the Republic. Ch’en Yi is an Army man turned Foreign Minister P’eng Chen is the tough, ebullient boss of Peking. Li Fu-ch’un is second to Ch’en Yun at economic planner. (Both hit l and Chou En-lai’s wives were revolutionary girl students; both are now on the central committee). Li Hsien-nien is another “Maoist” type, a tough guerrilla leader who has become Finance Minister. Three others, K'o Ching-shih, Li Ching-ch’uan, and Tan Chen-lin, have been recruited to the politburo in the last three years and their calibre and leanings are still undefined, but they are all Long March-Yenan men. Among these 20 men Mao’s authority is great but in no way dictatorial. China has never had a Beria. Since the anti-rightist and rectification campaign of 1957, a certain apprehension njay have affected party members at lower levels, but In the politburo argument is probably free. Disagreement is usually well concealed, though obvious enough over last year’s “leap forward.” That this diversion should have been healed is proof, if more were needed,, of the unity of these men. (The complex Kao Kang case of 1954 .is the exception that proves the rule of no purges). Certainly the shift of responsibility after Mao’s departure as Head of State means no weakening or loss of confidence among these 20 men who rule China.