THE KUOMINTANG

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 21 May 1927, Page 11

THE KUOMINTANG

CONDITIONS IN CANTON

A DETAILED description of conditions in Canton and the functioning of the Kuo- . mintang Government is contained in an article by Sergei Dalin which recently appeared in “Pravda,” states the Moscow correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.” Mr Dalin emphasises the political and economic power of organised labour in Canton, together with the increasing will and ability of the trade unions to enforce their demands, even against the desire of the more conservative elements in the Ivuomintang Government, Some of the workers, notably in Swatow, spontaneously continued the boycott of Hong Kongeven after the Cantonese authorities had officially terminated it. Much discontent was aroused by a statement attributed to Mr Eugene Chen that the termination of the -boycott meant a change in the Cantonese policy toward England, and the workers were only pacified when the statement was formally repudiated.

Labour, it seems, is organised 100 per' cent, in Canton, and strikes are continuous. The real wages of the Chinese labourers, according to Mr Dalin, have declined by 10 per cent, during the last ten years, and only amount, on the average, to a dollar a month. With its organisation Chinese labour has acquired a new sense of dignity. When a police official beat a rickshaw coolie all the rickshawmen struck in sympathy, and the incident was only settled by the dismissal of the official. When the authorities threatened to lock out the arsenal workers a general strike was threatened, and this dispute also ended in a victory for labour.

At the same time the Cantonese workers are patriotic in the sense that they fully supported the northern expedition of the Cantonese armies. But the strikes in Canton did not altogether stop even under the pressure of war conditions.

Besides i*eeeiving low wages (writes Mr Dalin) the Cantonese labourer must work from eleven to fifteen hours a day ; not all the workers have a weekly vacation, and apprentices still work from dawn until late at night without pay. To carry out wage increases from above, by means of. legislation, is impossible; the bourgeoisie would not submit to such a law. and the apparatus of control is still weak. The question is decided by struggle on the streets.

In some of its features, notably in its complete control of the Government and in its or-

ORGANISATION AND METHODS

ganisation, with a Central Committee as the highest organ, and a smaller gfoup, the Political Bureau, which guides and directs the decisions of the Central Committee, the Koumintang party seems to be indebted to the Russian Communist party. The Russian influence in the Chinese revolutionary movement is also shown by the pictures of Marx and Lenin, which flank the portrait of Dr Sun Yat-sen in every Government and party institution. November 7th —the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution —is observed as a national holiday in Cantonese China, along with November 12th, the birthday of Dr Sun Yat-sen.

But there are other points in which the Kuomintang organisation deviates from the Russian model. For instance, all Government employees automatically enter the Kuomintang party, otherwise they are subject to dismissal. Naturally this system has the effect of bringing into the party ranks a number of conservative, old-fashioned Chinese intellectuals who have little sympathy with revolutionary aims. Then, the Kuomintang is much less exacting than the Russian Communist party in its political and social entrance requirements. The Russian Communist party recruits the majority of its rank and file members from the manual workers, admits intellectuals cautiously and sparingly, and absolutely bars merchants and traders from membership; but admission to the Kuomintang, according to Mr Dalin, is open on pretty much the same terms to merchant, student, worker and peasant. Revolutionary China on the other hand, does not seem to have developed anything comparable with the Soviets, which in Russia fulfil the function of a bridge between the ruling Communist party and the non-party masses. The power in China, in name as well as in fact, seems to rest in the hands of the Kuomintang party.

Mr Dalin describes the general ritual of Kuomintang party meetings. First, the whole audience rises ami recites in chorus the political testament of Dr Sun Yat-sen. Then after the regular business of'the meeting is disposed of there is again mass declamation of the most popular revolutionary .and Nationalist slogans. Mr Dalin states that during the last five years a noteworthy change has come over the Chinese workers’ demonstrations. The old religious customs, the display of lions’ heads, the beating of drums to drive away evil spirits, have been abandoned; they have been replaced by musical orchestras and banners with slogans.