BOLSHEVISTS IN CHINA.

Evening Star, Issue 19381, 15 October 1926, Page 6

BOLSHEVISTS IN CHINA.

The machinations of the Russian Soviet, planned with a view to the worldwide revolution which should lead to the destruction of Capitalism, have not prospered well in Europe. No other country in Europe has changed its form of government for one organised upon the Bolshevist principles. Where changes have been made, it has been in the precisely opposite direction. But the Soviet has had more success in the furthest East. There is no sign that it has succeeded yet in imbuing more than the smallest and most irresponsible proportion of the Chinese with Bolshevist principles, but it has succeeded in intensifying in that country the hatred of all foreign nations (except Russia) that has been an accompaniment of its now national movement, and in directing it especially against Great Britain. While they sue to it for credits to assist their own development, the -British nation is more odious to the Russian revolutionaries than all the other so-called capitalist countries combined, because they regard it as being the most stable, the least likely to be seduced by tbeir wild theories. Tlio Rev™. G. H. M'Nour, the senior Presbyterian missionary of the Canton Villages Mission, who has been .twenty-five years in Southern China, and has more knowledge, probably, of the currents and under-currents there prevailing than anyone else in New Zealand, has no doubt as to the real moaning of what is happening there to-day. The Soviet, lie has stated, is deliberately using the opportunity created by Chinese unrest to direct a campaign against Great Britain. “At first the Chinese were dependent on their Russian advisers in the preparation of their propaganda, but they had learned their lesson well, and if all the Russians were now to withdraw from China the same conditions would probably prevail.” All the evidence—• and it is neither small nor hidden—that is available upon the subject goes to support Mr M'Neur’s opinion.

One of the ironies of the situation is that it was Groat Britain’s reluctance to interfere ou a large scale in the affairs of China that gave Russia its opportunity m the South. Four years ago British assistance was invited by the late Dr Sun Yat-sen to co-operate with him in a vast plan of development of the region, with Canton as its centre, which had proclaimed its independence of the Peking Government. But the British had always distrusted Sun; the British policy had always been, moreover, to support tlio Peking Government in the interests of a united China, as opposed to division and separation, and the request was declined. Sun turned immediately to the Russians, who saw at once how they could use the opportunity for their own advantage. With a financial adviser who was sent to the Canton Government wore sent also Russian military teachers, and a military academy was established for the technical training of young officers. And the Russian instructors were not more concerned with making soldiers than with making political proselytes. The Government of the South has not been altogether in favor of that development. It is divided into two parties, always in conflict, of which one is much more “ Red ” than the other. The Russian military advisers wore dismissed this year. But they had done their work well. It would appear that, unless General Feng’s forces in the North, which aro also very much under Russian influence, are to bo regarded as an exception, they have founded the only army which is more than a rabble in China. Generals and soldiers of the others servo this standard to-day and change sides to-mor-row, with complete sang-froid, accordingly as it appears to suit their advantage. So the Reds have carried all before them in South and Central China, and, although their allies were checked recently in the northern theatre, there seems small reason why they should not do so soon over the whole country. The “redness” of the Chinese Nationalists, it is constantly asserted, is no more than skin deep. The Russian theories have no natural attraction, and aro in no ways adapted to a population of which only the smallest fraction is industrial in the European sense. But in playing, as the Power opposed to Capitalism, on all the anti-foreign prejudices of the Chinese, the Russians have been able to make trouble for all the other nations interested in China, the end of which cannot yet be seen.