LETTER TO HON. STANLEY K. HORNBECK FROM ALLEN W.DULLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R003800080063-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 1, 2002
• Sequence Number: 63
• Publication Date: May 11, 1958
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003800080063-6: t.;vn
o Iii 9 58
Dist:
Orig -Md.
1 - D
I - ER v sic-
1 - FI via R FADING
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CJh -RDP80B01676R003800080063-6
 1 11 in PQ 6i6RO03na800080063-6
Gommuntcr'. i Fo? leaMMR:
Too many people believe and many too many are
told that what has happened to and in China since
VJ Day has been and is acceptable to the Chinese peo-
ple because it is in keeping with their history and
their traditions.
As a matter of simple fact, the Chinese are a peo-
ple who, when "Communism" descended upon them,
had no history, no tradition and no living experience
of anything comparable to or resembling the totali-
tarian system which in and since that year the Com-
munist Party in China and the government which
that Party created have imposed upon them.
The Communist Party in China had grown from
seeds imported from Moscow in 1920. It had at-
tempted in 1927 to seize control of the Nationalist
movement. Thwarted in that effort, it thereafter had
operated for twenty years as an armed and militant
-opposition. Finally, after VJ Day, with Soviet moral
and physical support, it defeated the National Gov-
ernment in battle after battle, and, in 1949, it set up,
in Peking (Peiping), a new government, the "Cen-
tral People's Government of the People's Republic
of China."
China was at that moment a Land that had been
ravaged by warfare during most of more than 20
years. Its economy was in ruins. Its government
was overburdened and weary. Most of its people
and most of its foreign residents and their affiliates
.were ready to welcome anything in the guise or the
-orm of a "new deal." And that was what the Com-
-nunists- blaming for the ills that prevailed, first the
Nationalists, second the Japanese, and finally all of
-he foreign powers except the Soviet Union and its
satellites-promised: a new deal, a great new deal,
- Utopia.
What then was Communism? Well, whatever may
save been the concepts and intentions of the founders,
-ommunism had become by 1949 a device for despot-
5m, a system powered by and radiating an ideology,
n instrument employed and adapted, in each of
nany countries, by a few leaders and a small per-
entage of the local population-for acquisition and
xercise of political control. Incidentally, Yalta had
bntributed to its having become that.
The first conspicuous and unmistakable result of
ie Communist victory in China was' the retreat of
ze National Government to the island province, Tai-
-an (Formosa), and the beginning of the new phase
i which, although China, the country, remains China
zere are in China two governments each exercizing
athority over a part of the country and each claim-
ig to be the government of the whole.
BY STANLEY K. HORNBECK
United States Ambassador, Retired
The government on the mainland, i.e. the Com-
munist regime, has since 1949 made effective its juris-
diction over all parts-except only Outer Mongolia
and Formosa-of what had been in the days of the
Manchus the Chinese Empire; and it has given this
domain the first truly totalitarian organization and
administration that the peoples within its boundaries
ever have known.
In the course of eight years plus, it has made of its
domain a Land wherein the central authorities make
decisions which, implemented by a huge bureaucracy,
directly affect almost every aspect of the life and live-
lihood of the people-men, women and children, in-
dividually and collectively. With an elaborate system
of physical and psychological controls, the Party and
the Government exalt the "state", preach "Commu-
nism", tolerate no opposition or dissent, and prepare
the nation for what they call a "Socialist" order.
At the outset-while establishing order, the new
rulers for some time showed respect for principles and
proceedures of justice. But once they were well in
control they caused all agencies, including the courts,
to function as instruments of state policy.
To cause the nation to accept an authoritarian and
totalitarian regime, the Party and the Government
set out to impose their own version of the Soviet ver-
sion of "Communism." So they have made war-hot
and cold-upon the old culture and its manifestations.
In that process, they have done their utmost to ex-
tirpate all religions and all creeds-except the creed
which they themselves preach. They have persecuted
priests and teachers. They have expelled or imprison-
ed missionaries and foreign business men. They have
forced the closing of foreign diplomatic and related
establishments. They have burned and censored
books. They have liquidated millions of their own
people. They have enslaved many other millions.
And, right and left and up and down, they have con-
fiscated the properties of their victims.
Early and conspicuous was their carrying out of
"agrarian reform." First, landlords were denounced.
Next they were turned over to the populace for
trial and execution. Then their lands were di-
vided among the peasants. Next the peasants were
taxed, and they soon found the taxes more of a bur-
den than had been the rentals which they had paid
before-whereas from the paying of the taxes there
was and is no way of escape. In that context, and in
Reprinted from the Spring 1958 issue of WORLD AFFAIRS
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003800080063-6
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6
others, the regime has demonstrated strikingly that
power to tax can indeed be power to destroy.
While destroying, the new rulers have also created.
One of their first constructive achievements was that
of establishing a stable currency. Early, too, was their
enactment of a new Marriage Law-which greatly
improved the legal status of women but was very
damaging, as it was intended to be, to the old social
order.
They have emphasized education-Communist ed-
ucation. Schools, faculties, students, text books and
their authors and their publishers-all-they have
brought under government control. They have made
Russian a second language. They employ Russians-
some-as instructors in many of the universities. They
feature, as do the Russians, technical studies.
In place of the old books, they have published and
distributed more newly printed matter-officially ap-
proved, of course-than had ever before been circu-
lated in China.. Toward teaching, informing and prop-
agandizing all, and for the illiterate in particular,
official agencies turn out radio material, place loud-
speakers on the streets, and distribute vast quantities
of pictorial material-extending those services even
to the villages. They have studied-as had their pre-
decessors-various plans and proposals for either sim-
plifying the Chinese language or romanizing it or
both; but they have not thus far put into effect any
of these.
Of "Art", Chairman Mao Tse-tung has declared:
"There is no such thing as art for art's sake"; all
work should "serve the interests of the workers, peas-
ants and soldiers.". So-Art, in all its forms, is made
to conform to official concepts and to serve the pur-
poses of the State. In that framework, authors and
artists glorify the laboring man, feature the Commu-
nist struggle for peace, and with one accord anathe-
matize the United States.
In all the fields they have endeavored to eliminate
Western influence, except that of the Soviet Union.
They have made the experience, the practices, the
theories and the products of the Soviet Union their
patterns and guides. They have emphasized con-
formity. They have engineered "anti" campaigns and
"remodelling" movements, with processes of mob
trial, of self criticism and of confession. They have
used everywhere the procedures of spying, inform-
ing, accusing, condemning and penalizing. They have
compelled the people-especially the intellectuals-
to abase themselves and to denounce one another.
And these things they continue to do.
They staged in 1957 a "Rectification Campaign",
directed toward liquidation or suppression of critics of
the regime. Mao Tse-tung had in February expressed
himself in terms of a classic: "Let the hundred flowers
Dioom." I. he government had later invited criticism.'
There had ensued a month in which many intellectu-
als and many student groups indulged fervently in
freedom of speech. And then the regime clamped
down, in terms of "weeding the garden" or "suppres-
sion" of "rightists." Sad has been the fate, the brain-
washing and orthodoxing, of many of the men-and
some women-who in this context had expressed
themselves in words disagreeable to the regime.
The very latest manifestation of the regime's will
to dictate is being afforded in the so-called "relocation
movement." Announcement was made last November
that several hundred thousand students and likewise
large numbers of government employees, urban
workers, professional men and intellectuals were
"volunteering" to go forth, settle in rural areas, and
serve the cause of agriculture. "Volunteering" was,
of course, a euphonious rendering of "being sent"-
just as it had been in relation to the soldiers sent by
Peking into Korea in and after 1950.
Thus has Communism, authoritarian totalitarian-
ism, dealt with the people in mainland China. A few
Communist leaders and some millions of Communist
Party members, a "People's Government", dispose as
they see fit of the lives and property of 5-00,000,000
people, their subjects.
Among their purposes, the Communist leaders have
of course had that of making China prosperous and
powerful.
In the economic field, on the constructive side, they
have proceeded with a program modeled upon that
devised and already far advanced in the Soviet Union.
The objectives and methods have been: agricultural
reorganization and improvement; industrial rehabili-
tation and expansion; enlargement and improvement
of communications; exploitation of mineral resources;
and collectivization.
Toward implementing its program the regime
launched in 1953 a Five Year Plan. That Plan is
understood to have been prepared by Soviet experts.
It called among other things for doubling the gross
industrial output. Its techniques have been Soviet
in concept and in form. The means for proceeding
with it-including financing, equipment and instruc-
tion-have come largely from the Soviet Union. Re-
mainders from it are now being carried forward in
a second Five Year Plan.
In what it has done with the programs thus far,
the regime has greatly improved the physical face of
the country. It has emphasized the interests of the
state rather than the betterment of the lot of its peo-
ple. Incidentally, yet .pertinently, it has employed
on projects directed toward agricultural improvement
millions of men, women and. children recruited in
large part from the peasantry, and more millions
WORLD AFFAIRS, SPRING, 1958
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6
 from the slave la W(5I(@f tFRtoFPl @h?Q$9YPV9P
industrial expansion, of improvement of communica-
tions, and of exploitation of mineral wealth, it has
added substantially to the state's capabilities.
The most venturesome of the politico-economic
undertakings has been and is that of the agricultural
collectivization. This has called for organizing of co-
operatives within the Chinese farming pattern and for
creation of large mechanized farms in areas where
that is practicable. It has been implemented widely
and at a fast pace. It gives rise to, and it still leaves
open a question: whether the regime can deal success-
fully with the human factor, can cause several hun-
dred million peasants to cooperate in an undertaking
which calls for abandonment of their traditional as-
piration to land ownership and of their accustomed
manner of tilling each his little plot of ground. To
reconcile the peasants to this it will have to be shown
them as individuals that they profit by it. Otherwise,
each can offer resistance-at least in its passive form.
There has been from the outset some forceful re-
sistance, in some places, to some of the regime's ef-
forts. There is disagreement as to its character and
extent. The Communists themselves have reported
from time to time on "liquidation" of "subversive
armed forces," in terms invariably of not less than
"tens of thousands." Those reports signify only that
there is some overt resistance and that where it occurs
it is stamped out. That there can be much-in the
absence of leaders, of organization and of weapons-
is not likely. Mass suffering and popular resentment
do not of themselves produce formidable revolt.
There could develop a conflict within the Party.
There could come disaffection within the armed
forces. There might occur the long planned assault
from Formosa. In the event of any one or more of
such conceivable developments there might ensue a
widespread popular rebellion. There is, however, no
indication that any of these is imminently likely.
Probably greatest among Communist China's in-
ternal problems is that of food for its already huge
and fast increasing population. China has more land
than is now under cultivation but it also has too many
people in and clinging to the most favorable areas,
and the trend of population movement recently has
been from the land to the cities rather than the re-
verse. The regime is working on that problem. It is,
with engineering, selection of crops, etc., bringing
hitherto uncultivated or long neglected areas into .
production. It has destroyed many grave sites and
cemeteries. The population, though, is increasing at
a rate which outruns that of the processes of reclama-
tion. The answer would be: slow down the birth
rate and speed up the agriculture. Birth control,
WORLD AFFAIRS, SPRING, 1958
PRESENT-DAY CHINA
though, while much talked about, is not sweeping
the country.
In the realm of mineral resources, China is in
terms of absolute amounts reasonably well endowed,
but in terms of relative amounts and of advantageous
juxtapositions is less well off than are several other
countries. What she is known to have is enough to
support an extensive but not a "super" industrializa-
tion.
In the realm of foreign trade, there has been and
is in some quarters much wishful talking about the
possibilities of China as a market. If one looks at
figures of world trade, historical and actual., one
finds that the China market never has amounted to
really much. Nor is it likely to in the near future.
China has not much to export, and, therefore, not
much with which to pay for imports. There may
come a time when she will have the wherewithal-
but that time is probably a long way off. Currently,
what the Communist regime most wants from abroad
is strategic goods; what it gives most of in return is
raw materials and food stuffs; and most of what
trading it does is with the Soviet Union and other
Communist countries.
Communist China's armed forces-ground and air
-are the foundation and guarantors of the regime's
authority. They add up to a large establishment.
Organized on the Soviet model and with Soviet as ,. q
sistance, they draw heavily upon Russian sources for
equipment.
Outstanding is the abiding fact that the Communist.
regime in the Soviet Union has supplied the inspira-
tion, the pattern, the guidance and much of the
equipment and funds that have made possible first=
the existence, second the victory, and third the thus
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6
 A rov d For Release 2002/07/29 ;CIA-RDP80B01676R003800080063-6
far-successful post-vr ~ry Punctiomng of (a) the glimpses a smile. Reports currently (in February
Communist Party in China and (b) the regime which 1958) being made in Peking by officials of the regime
now is implementing that Party's purposes and plans. show clearly that there has been and is "widespread
Whether Communist China now is a satellite or discontent.
is a partner of the Soviet Union is a question of no The regime is certainly in no position now to con-
very great importance. The two are allies. Com- tinue the pace at which it thus far has exploited the
munist China is in many respects dependent on the people and the land in the interests of the Party, the
Soviet Union; the Soviet Union has in turn need of Government and the State. Nor are the mood of the
and uses for Communist China's assets; and the lead- people, the capabilities of the Land, and the relations
ers in the two countries have in common several por- between those who govern and those who are gov-
tentous objectives. For the present, those leaders erned such as would warrant ~)ursuit by Communist
cause the Bear and the Dragon to lie down together, China of a foreign policy involving a risk of war
lie abroad together, stand together, forage together, with a power capable of bombing its industrial and
and profit together, in a climate of-for them-con- military concentrations and blockading its ports. The
venient and advantageous "coexistence." They could regime can, however, and does make trouble for
-some day-quarrel and go apart; but not now. and among its neighbors and in the forum of world
Together, they are encouraging the Peking Gov- affairs.
ernment to essay a role in world affairs utterly un-
familiar in modern times to the Chinese state, that
of an affirmative heavy-weight contender. In this,
some features of the foreign policy, the strategy and
the tactics of China's Communist leaders are obvious:
Among these are: acceptance of Soviet leadership;
support of positions taken internationally by the So-
viet Government; effort to make secure the newly
re-established Chinese imperial domain; effort to
achieve for that domain a great power status, with
universal diplomatic recognition of its Government
and occupation by that government of China's seats
in the United Nations; and, in general, effort to en-
large the influence of the Communist bloc.
What plans the Peking authorities may have, if
any, for forceful external adventuring they alone
know. They are emphasizing preparedness. They
are expressing opinions and giving advice abroad-
in support of Soviet opinions, advice or action. They
presumably will be guided by their and Moscow's
reading of developments and opportunities in the
"cold" war. Meanwhile, they propagate at home and
abroad the thought that China is again a great power,
that it must "liberate" Formosa, and that it must and
will defy the United States.
However, it seems reasonable to believe that for
the present the regime 'is fully preoccupied with its
program and its problems at home.
It is not true that "all is well along the Yangtze."
It is not true that in mainland China's cities "there
no longer are flies." It is not true that the people
have enough to eat and enough to wear and are
happy. Qualified observers note with one accord
that the programmers and implementers are now
encountering grim realities in terms of shortages. One
such who, having known the old China,. has travelled
extensively in the new, remarks nostalgically that in
the new - he hears no laughter and he seldom
The victory of the Communist Party in China in
1949 and the jurisdictional dichotomy which ensued
gave rise to many problems in the relations of other
countries with China. All other Communist states
and several not-Communist states promptly trans-
ferred their diplomatic recognition from the National
Government to the newly created Communist Gov-
ernment in Peking. As of today, the United States
and with it a majority of other countries still abide
by the recognition accorded over the years since 1928
to the National Government.
On several occasions, once very recently (in Janu-
ary 1958), this country's Secretary of State, Mr.
Dulles, has declared that it is the policy of the
United States in this context: to continue our recog-
nition and support of the National Government; to
continue our withholding of diplomatic recognition
of the Communist "People's Government"; and to
continue our opposing of admission of the latter to
the United Nations. (Mr. Dulles also has explained
why, has shown that we do not ignore Communist
China, and has-added to the effect that "no" does not
necessarily mean "never.")
That policy takes appropriate account of the record
and the attitude of the National Government and it
shows respect for our obligation and our commitment
to that Government. It takes account likewise of the
record and the attitude of the Communist regime on
the mainland. It is in line with the over-all purposes
and efforts of American foreign policy in defense and
promotion of freedom, peace, security and justice.
The Communist Government in Peking follows
the lead of the Soviet Government in Moscow in the
war which the Communist world is making upon the
free world. They two work hand in hand toward
victory for "Communism" throughout the world.
They make use of a great variety of weapons and,
WORLD AFFAIRS, SPRING, 1958
. Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6
 with many methodns ppress t ei For atta eori0012a0 y29anCdl~-eF ZRn In% toF 093300g80 o s and many
fronts. They demand concessions but they make no
concessions. They talk of "peaceful co-existence"--
but those words do not mean to them what they
mean to us. Nor does "Communism" mean "com-
munism": it is simply a name, the name of a system
devised and employed toward enslavement and ex-
ploitation of the many by a few.
The United States is the world's most powerful
and most committed champion of freedom. In de-
fense of freedom-our own and that of other peo-
ples-it is. simple common sense that we be prepared
methods, both positive and negative. Surely we
should not give militant Communism aid and com-
fort. Surely we should refrain from any action im-
plying that we assent to its purposes and efforts to
consolidate and extend its gains. Surely we should
not accommodate it at the expense of any of our
allies. Surely we should make difficulties for it.
Surely we must be prepared to counter with effective
force if, when and wherever it resorts to use of force.
against any free people. And we must make clear to
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003800080063'-S-
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6
n ,, work i1_J cLi i,y .lE , JoIR:. unistl at ri n
ling, ~~ Y c :oen re printed in the
%on.Frress tonal -."..ecord of .:ec"nesday, .I'Dri1
3 , at 6 44-h,21i6
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6
 STATINTL Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6
Next 2 Page(s) In Document Exempt
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003800080063-6