ANGER WHIPS RED CHINA TO FEVER PITCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2013
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: October 13, 1958
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

V.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 ? CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
N.Y. Worlirelegram & Sun Oct. 13, 1958_
Nation of Work and Hate-i
Anger Whips Red China to
Fever Pitch
Globe-trotting author-editor John Strohm, first U.S.
newspaperman permitted to travel freely within the borders 1`
of Red China, is back home after crisscrossing? 7500 miles
of country behind the Bamboo Curtain, witnessing firsthand
a bitter anti-America propaganda machine in action. Here's
the first of a series describing the startling things he saw.
in his three-week sojourn with typewriter and camera.
By JOHN STROHM.
Copyright, 1958, NEA Service, Inc.
All rights reserved, including reproduction in Whole or part.
Communist China is a nation organized to work
and to hate. No human beings have ever taken on a '
more complete mental and physical bondage in order
to leap forward into the, 20th century than the subjects
of Mao Tse-tung. Nor has human intelligence ever
been brainwashed into a more violent hatred of United
States leaders.
I have just traveled 7500 miles behind the Bamboo Cur-
tain which for 10 years has shielded from American view
the massive state that calls itself the People's Republic of
China.
At the height of the Quemoy crisis, I
have witnessed a hate-America campaign
that extends to the most remote peasant
village. Was this what the Red masters of
Peiping wanted me to see when they
granted me a visa? Or did they accept my
statement that I wanted to visit the farms
and factories of the New China?the- China
I had first seen 21 years ago?so I could
report to the people of America?
Back home now, I ask myself these
questions while sorting out impressions.
But The answer is not clear and it may never be.
It's enough that I walked with only minor incidents in
the streets, fields and buildings of Red china, snapping
pictures with four cameras, talking with whom I chose and
visiting schools, farms, hospitals and landmarks without.
prior appointment.
For three weeks I traveled, by automobile, boat, tratO
and airplane. My days began,
at dawn, ended at midnight.t
Expected U. S. Invasion.
Although I saw militiamen
training everywhere to repel
the U.S. Marines who were
expected to storm ashore any
day, I do not believe there is ,
danger of full-scale war in thef.
korthosa strait.
This backward people has
too much to do to hoist its
Vast expanding bulk upwards
toward seemingly impossible.
soeial and industrial goals.
It cannot afford war, but in
eoCky self-confidence it is
willing to risk war to infuse
an apathetic peasantry with
nationalistic pride to drive I
weary bone and muscle to
accomplish prodigious works.
The Communists say over
and over that they licked'
Uncle Sam in Korea. People
who knew nothing of the
power of a modern sea and
air fleet chatter loudly and
arrogantly that America is a
"paper tiger."
As-one who traveled among
the Chinese people 21 years
'ago; I must report sadly that ?
our once vast reservoir of
goodwill built up in China by
generations of good deeds by
U: S. citizens and organiza-
tions is now being poisoned
by a campaign unequaled in
the history of the world.
Hate Demonstrations.
I arrived at the tail-end of
the hate-America demonstra-
tions in Peiping which sent
three million people coursing
through the streets shouting
"Down with American impe-
rialism. Americans get out of
Asia or be smashed."
But this was no window
dressing in the capital. Every-
where in north, central and
south China I saw my coun-
try portrayed as a bloody-
fanged wolf, a ruthless and
ravaging soldier or a dollar-
bloated Uncle Sam.
Everyone I talked with?
farmer, housewife, factory
manager or official?lectured
me on the evils of American
imperialism.
A militiaman in a Nanking i
factory shouted he was ready
to work or go to the front?
and he shoved his rifle 1nto.1
my stmach to dramatize his
feelings to the first Amer-
ican he'd ever met.
A collective farm chairman
in North China said: "We
whipped the American ag-
gressors in Korea, and we will
fight them if they invade
Chii?a,"
He added that his farmers
werepo indignant they worked
15 days and nights to over-
fulfill the farm plan?clear-
cut example of the transmu-
tation of hatred into labor
force.
Women Learn to Shoot.
A woman chairman of a
neighborhood cooperative in
Tientsin -said her neighbors
were so incensed that 130 of
the women are learning to
shoot rifles to defend their
homes against America.
As I stepped out of the
Church of Christ in Nanking
on a Sunday morning a
young man greeted me cor-
dially in English, but when
he found out I was an Amer-
ican le demanded: "Why do
you want to invade China?"
I could not persuade him to
talk about religion, or any;
thing else. :He would only
rant against, 'aggressors."
A worker in Ilankow came
over and gave me a written
.protest aioinst 'American
butchery" when I walked
through a hog-killing plant.
Chinese officials assert that
800 millien Chinese have dem-
onstrated against American
imperialism. From all I saw,
I believe that figure.
The official line is persua-
sively logical to these cocky
Chinese, feeling their oats
after centuries of slavery to
their warlords and foreign
domination.
The line they believe is
"America admitted at the
Cairo conference that Taiwan
belongs to China ..., Quemoy
and Matsu are to China as
Long Island is to the U.S.A.
... Chiang Kai?shek'S "govern-
ment was so corrupt the U.S.
couldn't save it from being
overthrown in a fair fight by
the Chinese people ... Chiang
?exists only by protection of
American guns and therefore
the U.S. is interfering in .the
Internal affairs of China . . .
in . other words, aggression."
Bitter Propaganda.
These . themes are developed
by all means of communica-
tion, from hand.draWn cats
toons on walls to elaborately-
acted opera skits. Day after
day, newspapers devoted 60
- percent of ' their . space to'
stories bannered under head-
ings like these: "Cairo News-
paper Refutes Dulles Policy,"
"New American Atrocities
Uncovered in Korea," and
"Demobilized Veterans Offer
Services to Resist U.S. Ag-
gression."
In factories, on train's, on
farms and in the streets, loud-
--i--iA" I
that the U.S. was talking
peace at Warsaw while plot-
ting war.. And then the "com-
mercial": "Therefore we must
work harder to produce more
food, more goods, to stop the
American attack."
At movie houses, sold out
days in advance, I saw news-
reels purporting to show
Chiang's "wanton attack" on
the University of Amoy?
without a mention of the Red
shelling of Quemoy.
One huge wall painting
showed the U.S. as a big crab
which waddled from side to
side in policy, another as a
giant that crushes the inno-
cent with atomic bombs, and
as an' insignificant insect
about to be squashed by the
weight of 600 million angry
Chinese.
Children in Rallies.
But they get the people into
the aet, too, from the cradle
to the grave. I witnessed doz-
ens of parades of seven and
eight-year-olds carrying red
flags and banners supporting:
"Premier Chou En-la_i's state.
ment."
An inmate of an old folk's
home I visited carried oh
quite earnestly that he didn't
want his old age security in..
vaded by war mongering
Americans.
Hundreds of thousands of
letters carrying hate-U.S. mes-
sages have been beautifully
brushed by hand and pasted
to walls of homes, plants, hos-
pitals and even seats of
learning.
On my first day in China I
was treated to a street show
by a truckload. of opera stu-
dents. They first drummed
up a crowd by beating on
drums and cymbals, then put
on- a skit with this cast of
characters: a corpse, repre-
sented by an actor dressed
like Chiang Kai-shek; a pomp-
ous, silk-hatted John Foster
Dulles and an Eisensower,
with painted gr,jn, army uni-
form and a g6lf stick as a
cane.
Poke Fun at Dulles.
Ike says: "Dulles, I auth-
orize you to do the talking."
Dulles tries to pump up
Chang with a the pump filled
with,dollars. But the impe-
rialiSta, are swept akvay by
victorious Chiriese workers
"producing 10 million tons of
steel this year," by farmers
"doubling their crops this
year" and by soldiers who
"won the war in Korea.v
Everybody howls at the
good clean Communist fun
aid the show moves on to
another stanoing - morn -only
performance on another
street.
Later I read a Chinese
News Agency diSpatch which
reported. with straight face
that workers in a tobacco fac-
tory in Canton completed 600
such opera skits and folk
songs on American aggres-
sion in just half a day?as
_king:sized .a blending of art,
nicotine and official poison
as any dictatorship could ever
boast!
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
IPy
Nation of Hate
IChina Reds Rant
At U.S. Reporter
Rural .editor John Strohm, found contempt for the U.S.
1.at every .turn of his highly privileged? tour of Red China. In
the first part of his exclusive report yesterday, he told how
a bitter -propaganda drive is fanning the flame of hatred
? for America. Today he reveals how the people reacted when
they learned his true identity.
By. JOHN STROHM.
Copyright 1958, NEA Service, Inc.
All rights reserved, including reproduction in Whole or part.
What of the Red Chinese attitude toward John
Strohm, the only American correspondent with both
United States and Chinese permission to travel in
China?
Amazement, first. For here was the mortal enemy
they were ranting about, calmly taking pictures of
their steel plants, their farms and their militia,
Curiosity, too. I was a crowd-stopper wherever
I vent. I must say that my ego dropped when I found
out that one group of school children who stood up
and clapped their hands when I
entered the classroom thought I
was a Russian!
In a few spots, the searing
blast of hatred continually di-
rected toward our country licked
at me personally. A cartoon of
protest was drawn of me and
placed in my hired automobile.
Once while I was being
shown through a farm imple-
ment repair shop by the vice-
director of one of the new com-
munes, a belligerent worker
pushed toward me and shouted, "Get out! Get out!"
On another occasion, I was surrounded and jostled
by students who were serving the state by running a
small blast furnace.
Scarcely anyone, oire my identity as an Ameri-
can was established, missed an opportunity to lecture
me severely about American imperialism and the
validity of Red China's aims. An engineer ?claimed he
once had seen U.S. soldiers rape girls in Peiping. In
Shanghai, I was conducted
through a street memorable as
the scene where a drunken
GI allegedly killed a pedicab
driver.
"This is not a happy time
for you to be here," was the
understatement of a factory
manager in Nanking.
My interpreter, who had
translated a hundred lectures
to me and must have been as
tired as I of the propaganda
monotone, consoled me in
these 'Words:
"You're the only American
most of them have ever met.
It's their chance to tell you
what they think."
What is it like to be an
American in a hostile land at
a time like the Quemoy crisis?
One moves in a constant bath
of virulent propaganda, from
the official radio to the irate,
ladies in the old folks' home. k
Hopeless One Man Battle.
To those who seem to
possess some power to reason,
you keep up a stiff counter-1
battery of patient argument.
But when day is over the
mind is exhausted and the
spirit flags even though you
know one man cannot expect
to offset massive Communist
"re-education" and thought
control.
The healing balm of honest
resentment is a luxury one
can enjoy only to a limited
row for the poor Chinese.
whose streets, homes, shops
and bodies have been cleaned
up miraculously while, at the
same time, their minds have
been blackened by hatred and
distortion.
Is there anywhere a few
drbps of good will for Amer-
ica? Many Chinese assured
me that they were quite fond
of the American people and
wanted to be friends but that
John Foster Dulles was pre-
venting Americans from get-
ting the truth about China.
I would be less than truth-
ful if I failed to say that the
vast majority of the Chinese I
met?even against ithe hateful
obbligato of the propaganda?
were most helpful tb me per-
sonally. They were courteous
and far less evasive than the
Russians on my visits to the
U.S.S.R.
Agency Cooperative.
The International Tourist
Bureau, a government agency
that handles all foreign visi-
tors, made every arrangement
I requested, took me every-
where I asked to go. While
traveling in the rural areas, I
would spot farmers working
In the fields and tell the
driver, "Stop!" The interpreter
and I would have a visit with
the farmers then move on,
often stepping unannounced at
an agricultural college or hos-
,.
Many of the Impromptu
conversations which resulted
became spirited give and take.
I pulled no punches in refut-
ing charges against the U.S.
but the debates produced no
winners.
As in my visit to the Soviet
Union this summer I raised
the point: "But war is so ter-
?rible today that there can be
no victors and so there will
be no war."
I found that this did not go
over as well in Red China as
it did in Russia because 'the
Chinese seem to have a fatal-
istic acceptance that if war
results from their effort to
take what they believe right-
fully belongs to China then
war it must be and the U.S.
will be at fault.
Party chairman Mao Tse- ,
tung has said that China is I
the only nation that can af-
ford a war: "We can lose 300
million Chinese and still have
300 million left."
A diplomat has reported a
grim conversation with Mao
in which the party leader said:
"World War I set up socialism
In Russia. World War II set
up socialism in the peoples'
democracies of Europe and
China. World War III might
see the death of capitalism
and the triumph of socialism
around the world."
How does one evaluate such
statements as these? I only
know this for sure: all this
war spirit is getting a fan-
tastic surge of production out
of the Chinese workers, known
officially as "the' great leap
-----
forward in agriculture and in-
dustry."
Pledge to Crush U.S.
In one rural commune they
had set up 5000 tiny blast
furnaces to make pig iron,
promised another 5000 by the
end of October as their an-
swer to American "aggres-
sion."
A letter by a worker in a
truck factory said: "We'll
crush American aggressors be-
neath the wheels of our
trucks."
Fukien province farmers,
close to the guns twined at
Quemoy, adopted the slogan,
"More grain to support the
front: heavy blows to beat
the U.S. wolves."
When I visited the big open:
cut coal mine in Fushun the
secretary told me the workers
were so upset they had voted'
to create "20 sputniks"-20
new types of machinery to
make for more efficient pro-
duction.
During the past month most
factories and communes have
organized militia units. I saw
them drilling with rifles or
wooden sticks. They. were,
these amateurs asserted, ready
to march out and repel the
U.S. Marines who were going
to land any day now on the
Chinese mainland "just as
they did in Lebanon."
Recall Chiang's Vow.
"But what makes you think
America has any idea of at-
tacking China?" I would ask.
And they would come back
with Chiang's statements that
he would lead his army back
to the mainland and quote
American admirals as boast-
ing that the U.S. was backing
up the Formosa government
with "the greatest striking
Ipower in history."
But sometimes they are dis-
dainful of American strength.
"When America talks so much
,of its power," a Hankow steel
official told me gravely, "it is
really a sign of American
weakness."
When I tried to talk back
to this sort of thing by say-
ing "America never started a
war, why should it now?"
they would come back with a
knowing smile: "And what
about Korea?"
For many Chinese are per-
suaded that the US. started
the war in Korea, just as they
are sure that the Chinese
volunteers won It.
Chinese Humor Wanes.
"The American people are
afraid that the Communists,
want to force -thein form of
government on the rest of the
world," I argued.
Again the smile. "Ridiculous,
Lenin himself said commu-
nism cannot be -exported."
Only rarely aid I. encounter
..
',---
flashes of Chinese humor
which once was so endearing.
Once .in protesting that I did
not believe there would be a
war or I would not be travel-
ing in China, I pulled out a
photograph of my wife and
six children.
"Ohoh," smiled a factory
manager, "so you are a sput-
nik father."
Sputnik Is the Chinese label
given to anyone who overful-
fills the production plan.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
N.Y. Worliklegram & Sun Oct. 15, 1958
Nation of Hate
Ideas Are Target of Peiping Purge
Third of a Series.
Sy JOHN STROHM.
Copyrigh t 1955. EA Service. Inc. Al'
rights reserved, including reproduction
in whole or in part.
I had been chatting informal
Iy with a Red Chinese govern.
ment official for some time
when he
leaned forward
and asked:
"What did you
hear about
China before
you came
here ?"-
I decided
frankness was
the best policy.
So I replied:
"SAine good?but mostly bad."
"I realize your monopoly
press slanders our country,"
he said quickly.
"Well," I countered, "what
about all of those people you
shot? Isn't that true?"
"They deserved to be pun-
ished," he retorted. "They
would not cooperate with the
land reform and it was im-
possible to -liberate our potepr
tial productive capacity with-
out land reform."
So there it was, a flat? con-
firmation of one of the big
questions about the Red Re-
public, and uttered with. calm
assurance that no reasonable
person could be shocked.
The British, who recognize
Peiping and achnittedly have
more precise sources than
most Western nations, esti-
mate that Mao Tse-tung's re-
gime actually shot 800,000 to
1%. million Chinese during thel
"land reform."
The American figure is five
to 10 million, but it may in-
clude some sentenced to prison
or "rehabilitation."
A 'Purifying' Process.
All of these souls are gone
without a trace, but a new
kind of purge is evident every.
where. It is the purge of
Ideas.
"What we aim at is to wipe
out all harmful ideas opposed
to socialist construction?but
not the people who harbor
those ideas," a party official
told me.
"And what happens to
them."
"They're remolded," he said.
This "remolding" is perhaps
the most dramatic single enter-
priSe in Red China. Hundreds
of thousands?some say even
millions ? of government offi-
cials, writers, artists and busi-
nessmen have been sent out to
farms or construction projects
.,tc; work the "conservative"
;ideas but of their system's. Or,
'as the party puts it, "to purify
themselves rfor communism."
Three cabinet ministers, top
authors and movie stars .are
among intellectual elite put out
'ft' redeem themselves.
These are the ones who
spoke up when Mao published
a report in 1956 entitled: "Let
flowers of all kinds blossom.
diverse schools of thought con-
tend."
Their sin was in criticizing
the party. The current doc-
trine puts it this way: the de-
cision has been made that the
Communist party knows what's
best ,for the people of China.
So anything in China is sub-
ject for criticism except the
Communist party.
One who, as I, has just come
from an extensive tour of
Russia is at once impressed by
the speed of Mao's campaign
to communalize life. T h e
Chinese are hurtling toward
pure communism at a pace
that makes Russia look like
it's standing still. They are
intoxicated with the? thrill of
running their own show?
they're no Russian stooges.
The Russians, with their in-
terpreters tagging along, are
as "foreign" here as the
British or this correspondent.
In Peiping. 30,000 Russian
technicians live in their own
compound ? outside the old
Walled City. They even have
their own bus system.
Tito Denounced.
I heard more Marx quoted
In Red China than on any
trip to Russia, heard more de-
nunciation of Yugoslavia's Tito.
"You're heading for com-
munism faster than Russia," I
observed to a government
official.
"Don't forget we've had the
benefit of Soviet leadership"?
and then with a smile?"and
of Soviet :..istakes."
In most factories I saw
Russian machinery. In every
Wel I ate in the same dining
.00rn with Soviet technicians:
lowever, I saw no more evi-
dence that Russia is running
China than that American
technical assistance people are
running Nehru's India.
spent a month traveling
in Russia before touring Red
China. There is a significant
contrast. Russia seems to. be
backing off from pure com-
munism, using profit and in-
centive of private ownership
to . get more production, espe-
cially in argiculture.
This? is "capitalistic devia-
tion" in China, where there
is a whirlwind campaign to
organize communal groups of
about 2000 families each
where all farming, trading, in-
dustry, schooling and militia
are consolidated.
Wives 'Emancipated.'
I was told that the com-
munes are run by committees
elected by "representatives of
the people." These "representa-
tives" themselves are elected
by the residents of the com-1
mune who have "proved them-
selves worthy" to vote.
Farmers are paid like fac-
tory workers. Canteens feed
them three times a day so
housewives can be "emanci-
pated" from their grinding
stones and rice pots to work
with rake or lathe.
If a farmer rips his pants,
he gets them mended in a
communal tailor shop. Laun-
dry is done the same way.
The kids, are parked in state
kindergartens sometimes for
the day, sometimes all week.
Some of the communes are
experimenting with a system
whereby the farmer and his
wife work apart all week and
only live together weekends.
Russia tried some of these
stunts early in the- revolution
but the Chinese seem bent on
starting communism at "A"
despite anything that may be
said about learning f rom
Russian errors.
Impressive Progress.
The real test may come
when the Chinese peasant, who
was first given the land after
his landlord was shot, then
asked to give it up, next is
asked to part with the family
pig which usually is tied out-
side his front door. The Chi-
nese farmer and his pork are
not lightly parted.
To the traveler returned to
China after two decades, the
changes one sees cannot help
but impress. The old China
was a dirty place, with open
sewers, flies on the meat and
the same village pond water
used for washing and cooking.
In the new China they are
putting the sewers under-
ground and city streets are
constantly being washed and
swept. Policemen and school-
girls carry fly swatters and
the common fly is practically
public enemy No. 1.
Tips Are an Insult.
In the old China, petty
thievery was cOmmon. In 1958,
I did not bother to lock my
hotel room door. A hotel em-
ployee made a dash to the
railroad station to return a
dime notebook I had left. The
honor system is being intro-
duced for distributing stamps,
candy, cigarets and other
goods.
"Cunishaw" was a way of
Chinese life; today tips are
an insult.
Alcoholism is unknown. Gone,
too, are forced marriage of
the young, selling of children
by poor peasants and prosti-
tution. Homes have been set
up in Shanghai to re-educate
"the girls" to what is gravely
described as "a more useful
profession."
T w o Swiss businessmen
made passes at girls in Shang-
hai a few months ago and
they are still in jail!
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
N.Y. World-Telegram & Sun Oct. 16, 1958
Nation of Hate?
Red China Leaping Forward,
Fourth of a Series.
. By JOHN STROHM.
Copyright 1958, NEk Service. Inc. All
rights reserved, including reproduction
in whole or part.
"M altliu s," said the pro-
fessor, arid my startled' look
must have amused him.
"We're not
worried about
Malthus."
The speak-
er was an eco-
nomist from
the .Economic
Research In-
stitute of Pei-
ping and he
spoke scorn-
fully. His ref-
erence, of course was to
Thomas Albert Malthus, a
British curate who died 124
years ago but whose theory
that an unchecked population
far outruns the growth of
food supply is still the stuff
that population arguments
are based upon.
Red China's future hopes
?to feed its expanding
masses and to become a mod-
ern industrial powe r?rest
squarely on the ability of 500
million hoe-swinging peasants
to prove the thoughful curate
wrong.
Theirs is an awesome task:
to feed 640 million persons.
And every day another 40,000
mouths demanding rice!
Problem for Future.
Population experts project
a population for mainland
China in 25 years of one bil-
lion. By then the proble in
will be to feed this horde with
only three-tenths of an acre
per person. (The U.S. today
has. two acres of cultivated
land per person.)
Over and over I asked the
question during my 7500-mile
trip across lted China, visit-
ing farms in the major food-
producing areas. Invariably
the answers exuded the brash
confidence of one fertilizer
factory engineer who boasted:
"We can feed 15 billion peo-
ple if we have to."
China has two secret weap-
ons for dealing with what
must surely be the biggest
food problem any nation ever
faced: (1) the "great leap
forward in agriculture," and
(2) birth control, the "guat
leap" backward in babies.
Grain Output Tripled.
The "great leap" is Corn-
munist jargon for the most
gigantic mobilization of man-
power in history. By compari-
.sion the building of the Pyra-
mids of Cheops and the Great
Wall of China were ambitious
doodles.
Backward at Same Time
China claims her food grain
production was tripled in the
past tWo years. Few Western-
ers believe this.
"The more people we have,
the more workers we have to
produce food and industrial
products," the Peiping eco-
nomist went on.
Lack of Machinery.
Every doctor I met in farm
and factory told me frankly
that he gave birth control ad-
vice to the women.
What is the picture on these
farms which must do the im-
possible in order. that Red
China may "leap forward"?
It's sweating, bare-backed men
swinging heavy hoes . . .
- barefoot women cutting heads
of rice by hand . . . wispy
beared oldsters using wooden
rakes and pitchforks ... chil-
dren winnowing grain with
the help of the wind ... wiry
men straining to pull a wood-
en plow because they had no
donkey or cow ...patient
peasants pumping irrigation
water by treadmill.
The lack of machinery is
appalling; not once did I get
close enough to a working
tractor ot take a picture.
How much food do the
farms turn out? On a farm
cooperative near Peiping,
where 1602 workers farm 1661
acres, they say they produced
250 bushels of wheat per acre
and then grew a crop of sweet
potatoes.
A co-op near Shenyang said
they got 200 percent more
food production this year
than last by jumping irrigat-
ed acres from 600 to 1600
acres.
Fantastic Yields.
? A vegetable cooperative
near Shanghai says they har-
vest from 12 to 21 crops of
vegetables a year. A com-
mune near Hankow told me
their two crops of rice made
2Z5 bushels per acre. Their
cotton was 360 pounds per
acre but next year's goal is
1800 pounds per acre.
China claims its fantastic
yields this year are built on
three things: More irrigation,
more double cropping, more
fertilizer, and deep plowing.
A Red farm planner told
me: "In the Old China we ir-
rigated 39.4 million acres.
Last year,. 85.8 million acres.
And this year 160.2 million
acres, or 55 percent of our
total acreage."
Weary peasants ordinarily
take a month off at Chinese
New Year's in February. This
year more than 200 million
people, swarming like ants,
dug canals, built dams and
reservoirs, made terraces on
mountainsides. The farm
force was augmented by mil-
lions of office and fact or y
workers, artists and writers,
movie actors and bureaucrats
because the new Chinese Com-
munist line is that everyone
must do some hard physical
labor.
Big Irrigation Jump.
Their implements? Big hoes
to dig; baskets slung on a
springy carrying pole to car-
ry the dirt. Their results?
They claim their irrigated
acreage jumped by a whop-
ping 74 million acres.
Of chemical fertilizer, I saw
little. And the only fertilizer
I a ct or y I visited wouldn't
give production figures. Ev-
ery other factory seemed
happy to boast of its progress.
China is importing all the
fertilizer she can afford to
buy and is trying to buy
fertilizer plants and equip-
ment abroad.
Experimental plots have
given the Chinese a great
psychological -b o o s t. Each
farm was encouraged to see
how much it could raise on
a test plot of rice, sorghum,
cotton and tobacco.
I was quoted yield figures
on some plots I saw which
my farm brothers are going
to read and say: "Somebody's
lying?that impossible!" For
example: Corn, 3850 bushels
per acre, when the top re-
corded U.S. yield is 300 bush-
els per acre. Wheat, 1100
bushels per acre, when the
world record is 230 bushels.
Most fantastic claim of all:
On a commune near Tientsin,
I saw a rice plot estimated
to yield 11,000 bushels per
acre. They had jammed rice
sprouts at the rate of 360,-
000 to the acre, root to root.
Could Spell Trouble.
Few Westerners will be-
lieve the Chinese yield fig-
ures. If they are anywhere
near right, China's hopes and
plans may go forward. If the
real crop is much less?and
I'm afraid it is?I'm sure Dr.
Malthus would agree it could
spell real trouble for Mao
Tse-tung's optimistic econo-
mists.
For not only the needs of
today but the dreams of to-
morrow depend upon a pro-
digious increase in food.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
Nation oT tut - ? ---
V
Red China Air Scented by Steel
Fifth of a Series.
By JOHN STROHM.
Copyright Int, NSA Service, Inc.
All rights reserved including
reproduction in whole or part.
Almost everywhere you go
In Red China your nostrils
are assailed by a sulphurous
smoke that re-
minds you of
Gary or East
Chicago.
Red China is
out to make
the "great
leap forward"
in steel pro-
duction by
twin pro-
gram s, one
old, one new.
In farmyards, on school
playgrounds, college cam-
puses and vacant lots, the
belching vest pocket blast
furnaces of the old way polka-
dot the landscape with smears
of smoke. And those who
stoke them with hand-crushed
ore, coal and limestone are
the farmer and his wife, the
school children a n d college
kids.
Thus did America produce
pig iron in the mid-1800's on
myriad "plantations" close to
the land (for ore) and the for-
est (for charcoal). They are
not new to China, but the pro-
gram has exploded in size.
I must have keen more
than 1000 of these furnaces
during my tour of Mao's do-
main. They range from three
to 30 feet high, their output
from 100 pounds to 100 tons
daily.
How They Reason.
Red China's economists rea-
soned thusly: To save trans-
port, take the furnace to the
raw materials and only move
the pig iron to the factory.
The iron pigs are fed to the
great new rolling mills like
those I saw at Hankow and
Anchan.
But Red China is by no
means betting on its back-
yard iron-mongers. At An-
chan I visited a sprawling
mill where 100,000 workers
making an average of $32 a
month turn out one-third of
China's iron and steel.
Indeed, the Chinese are
demonstrating an aptitude
for manufacture that few
Westerners once would have
believed. I talked with busi-
nessmen I rom Denmark,
Britain and Germany and the
consensys of their comment
was: "Chinese learn fast, can
operate machinery well."
Several Red engineers and
plant managers told me they
keenly desired to see U.S.
plant inr1 hut ronl.
? Declassified and Approved
Ized that was impossible, be-
cause, as one put it, "Your
Mr. Dulles has erected a Bam-
boo Curtain that would pre-
vent it." (This assertion that
the Bamboo Curtain was
erected by the U.S. and not
Red China is a recurrent Red
refrain.)
Higher Goals Set.
"Before the liberation," a
Chinese plant official told
me, "we produced only 923,-
000 tons of steel and 1.8 mil-
lion ton of pig iron. Last
year we produced 5.3 million
tons of steel. This year's
goal is 10 million tons and
next year's is 20 million? al-
most as much as Britain."
Britain's net tonnage of
Ingots and steel for castings
In 1957 was 24,300,000. Arneri-
ca'ss was 112,700,000. Thus
Britain's production is the
first plateau the struggling
Chinese hope to. reach. They
talk about achieving eco-
nomic parity with Britain in
10 to 15 yeam A few opti-
mistic Communists even talk
of five.
Who knows whether these
goals are solid prospects or
wishful planning? One only
sees today that there is a vast
flexing of musc/o, a tremend-
ous state-directed upsurge- of
effort n cl that the first signs
on an industrial civilization
are beginning to stamp.them-
selves upon mainland China.
China's industry may not
look impressive to an Amer-
ican but there are indications
the Russians have._ begun to
sit up and regard it with
some seriousness.
And the visitors from the
rice paddy and ox cart coun-
tries of Asia who come here
to visit stand around in gog-
gle-eyed amazement at Red
China's trickle of industrial
wonders.
An Atomic Reactor.
Theret an atomic reactor
(which I did not see) and
they're turning out television
sets, jet planes, automobiles,
tractors and machine tools.
At an export exhibit in
Shanghai I picked up sales
literature in English for 6500
products which were said to
be exported to 82 countries.
Copies of American tooth-
paste, sewing machines and
fountain pens were easily
recognized.
China makes The "East
Wind" automobile but you
can't own a car in China so
everyone except high govern-
ment officials walks, bicycles
or goes by pedicab.
An industrial exhibition
showed a giant crane with a
five-square-yard bite. But out
on the dams and irrigation
ditches construction was by
tens of thousands of men and
women, digging, carrying and
tamping in ways no different
than when the Great Wall
was built in 300 A.D.
Private Business Is Out.
In Shenyang 1. saw a mod-
ern lathe factory where 5000
workers were said to be turn-
ing out 4000 precision lathe's
a year.
There is no private business
left in Red China. Everything
Is government or joint owned.
This last is a device whereby
the conscientious capitalist
'may petition the government
to make him a joint owner.
"How did you become a
joint owner?" I asked a
woman of 45.
"I realized that as a capital-
ist I was exPloiting my em-
ployes. I. had to worry about
getting materials, about com-
petition. So I petitioned the
government."
"And how has it worked
out?"
"Oh much better. Our pro-
duction has gone up. I get
the same salary as my in-
come when I owned the shop.
(This is $92 a month, almost
twice what the factory mana-
ger is paid.) And I'm paid
5 percent interest on the
value of the property for five
years."
Money a Big Problem.
The biggest problem seems
to be capital. What help the
Chinese get from the Rtis-
sians and other "people's
democracies" costs dearly. So
therefore, her industrial ex-
pansion must be based large-
ly on *hat can be wrung
from the hides of peasants
who have struggled for cen-
turies just to keep alive.
For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/05/02 : CIA-RDP80M01009A001502550016-5
N.Y. World-titegram & Sun Oct. 18, 1958
Nation of ate:
Red Chinese Find Food Adequate, Housing Better;
Schools and Churches Are Under State Thumb
This is the last article of an exclusive six-part
report on Red China by John Strohm, the first author
ized U.S. newsman to penetrate Mao's border.
By JOHN STROHM.
Copyright 1955, IVISA Service, Inc. ?
Alt rights reserved, including reproduction In whole or part.
UESTIONS often asked me since my 50-hour
flight home after a tour of Red China are:
"How do the Chinese people live, eat and work
under communism? What's happened to religion, the
schools? Are they docile or will they ever revolt?"
A consolidated reply would be something like
this: The food is adequate, the housing vastly im-
proved. Schools, churches and all means of public ex-
pression. are in the complete service of the state.
There was no visible evidence of any disposition to
resist complete regimentation.
Light, office work earns a rice or flour ration of a
pound a day. Workers in steel plants and coal mines get up
to two pounds a day. Every individual can buy 40 cents
worth of meat (half a pound) every
week, with sometimes an extra ra-
tion for Sundays. Each family gets
a pound of beef monthly per person.
The cotton cloth ration is up to
six yards a year per person.
Chinese wages are edging up. In
the two dozen plants I visited wages
average,about $25 a month: The low-
est paid workers get about $12; the
highest paid, $40. Factory managers
and top officials get $60 to $75 a
month. The idea of high wages for
managers, artists and intellectuals
such as are paid in the Soviet Union
would be sinful in China.
The new regime is putting a sur-
prisingly high priority on apartment
buildings for industrial workers.
Near Hankow a hundred apartment buildings ,were put up
before they started building the new steel mills.
"Go ahead, knock on any door you like," the secretary
told me when I asked to visit homes of workers. The door
I knocked on opened into a large, clean one-room apartment
for a family of seven. A bed?big but a bit crowded for
seven?stood in one corner. Their clothes hung in wardrobes.
They had an alarm clock and a thermo's bottle for hot water,
two important symbols of an approved standard of living.
Three families shared a hole-in-the-floor toilet and a
stone tub laundry. They share t1.4 same kitchen and cook
over a mud mortar stove, or over a small jar filled with
charcoal. Their rent bill is $1.25 a month.
In another worker's apartment in Shenyang, the family
of eight has a big room with two beds and a tiny separate
kitchen equipped with gas and a stone sink and running
water. For monthly rent of $4 they also get a private latrine.
No Inside Plumbing.
A diploma on the wall testified that mother has learned
to read, and is now teaching others. Her husband operates
a lathe, gets, a very high salary of $48 a month. Beside the
diploma was a red paper entitled Faintly Program and
Budget, listing outgo as $14 a month for grain; $10 for
vegetables; $4 for Water, gas, electricity and rent; $2.80 for
transportation.
There were some miscellaneous expenses and a little
left over for savings. Also, the housewife' agrees to keep
rooms clean, observe sanitation rules and teach them to the
family, educate her childien and be a good mother.
The old homes in the cities and in the country are not
nearly so nice, have no runnig water, or inside plumbing.
Theiresidents carry water from open wells or from ponds
where they do the family washing. The New China does in-
sist that all water be boiled before drinking and the typhoid
rate Is sharply down.
Textile workers in Peiping invited me to visit their
bachelor girls' apartment. Six giggling girls in pigtail's( trou-
sers, and wearing no makeup, shared the room with double-
decked,beds. Rent, 15 cents a month each. The girls had
joined the militia and were learning to fire rifles. One of
them showed me a poem she'd written about Chinese in-
dignation over American "imperialism" palle,l "Angry
The Chinese food wag wonderful. And I became quite
adept at reaching out with my chopsticks to snare a bit of
bamboo shoot, goose gizzar4 -or sweet-sour pork .as we all
ate out of the same dishes. Such delicacies as bird's nest
soup and sharks' fins are available for a doilar a plate, but
must be ordered in advance. And they apologized that
snakes, a Cantonese delicacy, are not:available until winter
"when their fat helps keep you warm."
Cultured Laborers.
I shopped the stores in every town and was amazed at
the quantity and variety Of goods available and the fact
people were buying them. Here are some price tags?judge
thee-Against the wage earner's average monthly salary of
$25 a month:
Socks, 20 cents; towels, 40 cents; wool sweater, $9.20;
ham, 80 cents a pound; chicken, 44 cents a pound; rubber
boots, $6.80; Chinese cloth shoes, $7.40; rice, 5 cents a pound;
umbrella, 50 cents; ladies' cotton jacket, $5.45; leather
jacket, $10; blue cotton cloth, 1.6 cents a foot; cotton goods
50 cents a yard; basketball, $3.60.
- The Chinese assert they are stamping out illiteracy, and
many counties claim they already have. Most communes
and factories hold adult .classes in reading and writing.
Education is compulsory for seven years; middle school is
optional; college entrance is by examination only.
The schools of China today from kindergarten to college
are glorified workshops. This follows the general Commu-
nist line, greatly intensified in recent months, that "educa-
tion must be combined with productive labor."
So schools adopt mountains and 10 to 12-year-olds take
a month's trip to plant trees.
The College of Engineering near Hanko'w in five years
of existence has an enrollment of 7500. -"We don't give de-
grees," the secretary told me, indicating degrees :vere out
of step with socialism. In classroom factories the students
manufactured electric motors and punch presses.
"In this way students develop into cultured laborers
with socialist consciousness," I was told by a professor of
the new line. "Besides," he added, "the work-while-you-study
program creates wealth for socialism."
Every Chinese going to school today must study agri-
culture on the theory that "all must work on the farm, some
time."
Opera Is a Sellout.
-Educators have tackled the monumental task of putting
Chinese picture writing into the Roman alphabet. It takes a
gigantic typewriter to type Chinese, and then only a limited.
3000-word vocabulary. So all papers and reconcls are hand
written.
Another problem is the score of spoken dialects. My
interpreter had to have an interpreter in Canton!
Every factory has a "Worker's Palace of Culture" where
they Show movies, have rooms for discinsion groups on new
factory methods or Marxism, for playing.ping pong or cheSs.
The Chinese Opera is still drawing sellout crowds in
Peiping where I saw the most famous Chinese actor of the
past 40 years: Mei Lan Fang. He's in his 60s, always takes
a woman's part, sings and talks in -high falsetto to accom-
paniment of the discordant two-stringed violin and ear-split-
ting cymbals.
One Sunday morning in Nanking I attended the Church
of Christ, a Buddhist temple and a Catholic church with a
"Friends of World Peace" sign over the door. So those who
are religiously inclined have churches to go to. ("Most of us
. have discarded the old superstitions," a Communist official
told me.)
There are about five million Catholics in China, but
foreign priests have been deported and many Chinese priests
have joined the "Patriotic Priests" movement, which seems
headed toward a state church.
Protestant faiths have been consolidated, with the logic
"If you have the same God, why not the same church?"
A member of the Nanking Union Theological Seminary
told me: "Compared with the spirit of competition and even
befitility that existed between some of the church .bodies in
the past, we s.ee this consolidation as nothing short of an
act of God Himself."
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