ANTI-MAO ARMY REPORTED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31275, 23 January 1967, Page 13

ANTI-MAO ARMY REPORTED

Province Of Kiangsi ‘ln Rebel Hands’ (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) HONG KONG, January 22. Workers, peasants and former soldiers had formed their own anti-Mao army in Kiangsi and seized control of much of that key province, Nanchang Radio revealed in a broadcast ordering action against the revolt, the Associated Press reported. The anti-Maoists, the broadcast said, had barricaded roads, cut off electricity and water, closed factories and mines, seized control of radio stations and newspapers, invaded banks and grabbed their cash.

The broadcast ordered the “instant arrest” of all antiMaoists but, at the same time, indicated that police and Regular Army units were not obeying the order. It threatened “severe punishment” of public security units for “not carrying out their duties.” August First Anti-Maoist worker and peasant organisations, the broadcast said, began their revolt in the rural areas of Kiangsi, which has a population of 30 million, “by organising the August First Battle Corps" commanded by “a large number of party cadres of high and low rank” including “many discharged soldiers.” “The ‘August First’ named is an obvious appeal to veteran Kiangsi Communists to join the rebellion against the party chairman, Mao Tse-tung and the Defence Minister, Marshal Lin Piao. It was August 1, 1927, at the provincial capital of Nanchang, that Chinese Communists organised their first army after a mutiny.

Apparently many Communists have already joined the revolt and it has the support of at least some—and perhaps many—of Kiangsi’s provincial officials.

Guards Overwhelmed

The broadcast admitted that the worker-peasant forces had overwhelmed teen-age pro-Mao Red Guards in numerous incidents in Nanchang and its outlying rural districts. It gave no details of individual clashes but accused the worker-peasants of “great violence” and “vicious white terror” that has “gravely disrupted order” throughout much of the province. Although there have been previous indications, both from provincial radio stations

and Chinese travellers arriving in Hong Kong, that much of the south-eastern quarter of China was in a ferment of opposition to Mao and Lan, the Nanchang broadcast was the first solid report in Hong Kong of a major area revolt. Liu’s Supporters In Kiangsi, as in the rest of the area, the opposition to Mao probabl yis being caused by well-placed supporters of President Liu Shao-chi, the man Mao and Lin 'are trying to bring down. Throughout Central and Southern China, most provincial Communist officials owe their appointments to Liu, the party tactician generally credited with doing more than any other man to build the party apparatus throughout the country. N.Z.P,A.-Reuter, reporting from Tokyo today said supporters of Mao Tse-tung stepped up their battle for Chinese minds today with a call for the seizure of all publishing houses owned by “bourgeois reactionaries.” They also issued a new call in Shanghai to revolutionary farmers to overthrow rich landowners and reactionary Right-wing elements. In official statements they declared that the peasant masses would “beat back the evil gusts of counterrevolutionary economisin'’— higher wages and better working conditions not ordered by the State—and consolidate the worker-peasant alliance.

Publishers’ Appeal Peking Radio broadcast an appeal by 22 leading publishing houses for a take-over of bourgeois publishers who were hampering the issue of Mao’s works through “economism.” The radio also broadcast an appeal by pro-Mao groups in Shanghai for a “positive rebellion” against landowners, rich farmers and reactionary Right-wing elements.

In Peking, the official party newspaper, the “People’s Daily,” called for formation of a “Great League of Revolutionary elements” supporting Mao to crush opponents of the party chairman.