TWISTED DARKNESS OF MAO'S THOUGHT

By Dr Emery Barcs 1967-9-4

The ugly brawl outside the Red Chinese Embassy in London last week makes one wonder more than ever whether there is any rational explanation for the events in Mao Tse Tung's Communist empire.

Sixteen months have passed since Red Chinese Premier, Chou En Lai, announced the official beginning of the Great Cultural Revolution in Peking on the eve of May Day, 1966.

Since then hundreds of the most competent "China Watchers" on both sides of the Iron Curtain have been trying to find out why this revolution had been launched, what it is all about, and where it is supposed to lead the 700 million Inhabitants of the People's Republic of China.

Dozens of theories have been developed. However, the trouble with most of them is that, say, Theory A sounds quite acceptable until one reads Theory B which is also plausible although exactly the opposite of A.

Some of the most popular of these analyses are:

*    Mao Tse Tung was critically ill in body or mind (or both) for some time    before May, 1966.

*    The cultural revolution is nothing but a struggle for power Between Mao's lieutenants led by Army boss Lin Piao on the one hand, and President Liu Shao Chi on the other.

*    Mao is in full control of his mental and physical powers. He launched the Cultural Revolution as a super effort to purge the Chinese Communist Party of "influential power holders" who sympathised with the slower pace of the Russian way to Communism in opposition to Mao's instant Communism.

*    Mao (still sane and healthy) believes in a permanent revolution.  He was apprehensive about the rise of a New Class of leaders in Red China similar to those in the Soviet orbit.

*    The Cultural Revolution is only a practical application of the theory of class struggle.

The reasons why Mao (or someone else) has let millions of teenagers loose on a nihilistic rampage may be unfathomable, but some of the consequences of the Great Cultural Revolution are clearly visible.

One is that, as a result of the crazy pattern of the Mao regime's foreign policy, Red China now stands isolated because the Peking Government has developed the making of enemies into a fine art.

One could understand the Chinese Communists' feelings towards the United States which has been the main protector of the nationalists in Taiwan.  Even if one sides with Washington one must admit that there are rational grounds for Peking's hostility towards Uncle Sam.

But the point is that Peking has been at great pains to offend its potential friends as well. The Mao regime has challenged Britain, the first Western Power to recognise Red China, over Hong Kong, and when this had not produced the expected British surrender, it organised a barbaric assault on Britain's representatives in Peking.

Relations with the Soviet Union have been worsened by submitting Soviet ships to such humiliations in Chinese ports that Moscow has threatened to break all trade contacts with Communist China.

India, once Peking's staunchest friend in Asia, has been attacked, and tension between the two countries is at a permanent high.

Relations with Indonesia are deteriorating day by day.

Burma has been submitted to indignities from the local Red Guards, young militants of the Chinese minority.

Ceylon has been threatened with the cessation of Red Chinese rice sales because the Government in Colombo dared to seize subversive propaganda material sent from Red China.

Even the Japanese Communist Party -- Peking's most ardent admirer not so long ago -- recently complained about Red Chinese interference in its affairs.

Red China now has no friends in the world except tiny Albania, where the Hoxha regime entirely depends on Peking's support, and - insignificant pro-Peking Communist splinter groups in a number of countries, and a rather shaky love affair with Pakistan.

China, huge, populous, and potentially strong, could establish itself as a really great Power by its own strength and without outside goodwill or help.  But to achieve this the Chinese would have to combine enormous human efforts with brilliant political and economic leadership.

As far as one can gauge, the Cultural Revolution has sapped whatever determination for such effort existed, and has reduced efficient leadership to hesitating impotence.

Juni Kossiukov, former China correspondent of the Moscow daily Izvestia, who was recently expelled from Peking, has published the most up-to-date analysis of Red China's economy in the latest issue of the Soviet periodical, New Times

He writes that the interference of the Red Guards with production, and the mobilisation of workers and peasants in the fight for the Cultural Revolution have completely disrupted the country's ailing agriculture and industry.

According to him, unemployment is enormous and steadily increasing. There are no jobs for the two million young men and women who swell the work force annually.

Teaching has ceased or has been hopelessly disrupted in schools and universities.

Intellectuals, scientists, and technicians have been humiliated and cowed, and often beaten or otherwise ill-treated by the Red Guards for alleged unrevolutionary attitudes.

Where all this will lead is anybody's guess. But if collective insanity is not stopped soon then Red China could fall to pieces, or sheer desperation could transform her into the mightiest homicidal lunatic history has ever known.

Such a monster with the Bomb in its hands is hardly a prospect one can enjoy