THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1927. MOSCOW AND PEKING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19762, 8 October 1927, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1927. MOSCOW AND PEKING.

The hand of Moscow oan be seen in the new joint offensive launched in China. So says a despatch of Sir Percival Phillips, the Daily Mail's special correspondent. There is no element of surprise in the statement. No eye closely following events in the East can have failed to catch sight of that hand. In recent years the Bolshevik leaders, tyrants in Russia and plotters of a world revolution, have been very active there. As they have been exposed and rebuffed in country after country of Europe, .they have felt compelled -to pursue in the East their universal programme. For it to be deprived of opportunity of expansion is to kill it. Actuated by class rather than national motives, and therefore seeking to drive a wedge into all nations for the .splitting off, from each of them, of those who may be united in a universal campaign against the accepted order, this cause depends for success on foreign propaganda. Lenin and Trotzky, and all who to-day inherit the programme they instituted, have made no secret of their intentions. They coul'd not have made any had they wished, so plain is it that a class revolution, unless accomplished in practically every country, cannot wholly succeed in any one. " Workers of the world, unite!" is therefore a slogan easily understood, however hard to justify. The Soviet Government, working hand in glove with the Third International, has adopted it fully; and together, in a partnership where neither can act without the other, has striven to honeycomb the world with Communist doctrine —as lawless and conscienceless and godless a medley of principles as has ever been let loose in the earth. Baffled in the West, they have turned with eager energy to the East. In the latest phase of China's turmoil they are prcn-iding a driving force of sinister intent. What has been done can be readily traced There has happened, as an inevitable consequence of China's arousal by the impact of the West, a national awakening. This ancient people, after long ages of content with their own ways, have almost suddenly become ambitious of a place amid the stream of advancing nations. Not only do they welcome Western education; they covet Western industrial and political freedom Who can blame them? Certainly not those whose impact has incited the desire. This arousal of nationalism, associated with industrial development, has presented the Communist rulers of "Russia with a great opportunity. Here was a soil ready for the seed of 'class hatred. Sedulously the seed has been sown. Moscow sent a fullvaccredited agent to Canton, and gave the Southern Government, in revolt against Peking, help in munitions and personnel .to fieht the Central Government There was also organised a campaign of hostility in China to the so-called Imperialistic nations -—a convenient description decerned maliciously to asperse the Treaty Powers and harass them in their efforts to befriend China. So the Cantonese cause was more or less captured by Russian intrigue. Its forces became a Red army, its obiective a Communist upheaval. This Soviet achievement was in one way remarkable: it induced the Cantonese to forsake the saner programme given to them by Sun \ at Sen. His was not a Marxian philosophy. For the gross materialism of that philosophy he had no taste, and against its preaching of a class war he was emphatic. But Bolshevik r influence has been too strong for that traditional tendency of the party Sun Yat Sen founded. China's people, on the whole, arc poor. To dangle before them, as the Bolshevik agents have done, in the days of national awaking and industrial development, the prospect of wealth through the snatching of their country's material resources, has been to adopt a sure means of infecting a great part of China with Communist ideas. Against this insidious campaign Chang Tso-lin, the warlord of Manchuria on whose fidelity the Central Government has mainly depended for defence from the Can- , tonese revolt, has stood firm. In , ttie South, there has been a notable secession from the Russianised Government on the part of Chiang Kai- . shek. For a while, Chiang has been ( able to hold his own in the turmoil . of faction, and there seemed prob- ' able a reconciliation between him , and Chang, with a prospect of their | defeating together the Southern , forces adhering to Communist aims. , Within the last few days, however, ] although news from Peking has been j lacking in full detail, a swift change j has happened. The joint offensive i of which Sir Percival Phillips gives i

particulars has exposed Peking and its Central Government to a new and serious menace. The Shansi army under Yen Hsi-Shen has declared for the Cantonese cause, and associated with it are the forces of Feng Yu-hsian, the so-called " Christian General" whose earlier acceptance of Russian aid has developed, in the last twelve months, into apparently complete allegiance to Moscow's aims. A combined " drive" by these armies has placed all the North in peril. There is no sufficient reason to discount recent reports to this effect. They augur ill for China's immediate future, for if Moscow can dominate Shanghai and Peking as it has dominated Canton there will be an embarrassing and damaging setback to the Baner programme for which the North has stood.