By Siao-yu
Illustrations by the author. Foreword by Dr. Lin Yu-tang. Preface by Dr. Raymond F. Piper. 206 pp. Historical Commentary and Notes, 44 pp. by Dr. Robert C. North. Syracuse University Press. US$6.00
Reviewed by Geraldine Fitch
This is a slight volume, especially at present high prices an American books. But Dr. Lin Yu-tang, writing his Foreword from Cannes, France, assures us that it is thoroughly authentic. As he puts it, "It takes a Hunanese to write about a Hunanese." It was Dr. Lin, incidentally, who urged the author to write his reminiscences of his boyhood friendship with Mao Tse-tung.
Dr. Siao is Director of the Sino-International Library originally located at Geneva. The Library was transferred in 1950 to Montevideo, Uruguay, after Switzerland recognized Communist China. It has more than 100,000 books, magazines and periodicals, besides extensive exhibits of the arts of China. In earlier years, Dr. Siao was Vice Minister of Agriculture and Mines, Dean of the National University in Peking, president of Hwa Pei University and director of the National Museum of National History. Of more significance as far as the book is concerned was his part in organizing the Hsin Min Study Association of China, along with his closest friend, Mao Tse-tung, and the Franco-Chinese Educational Association which helped literally hundreds of Chinese to get to France for higher study. Many of those who studied in France, like Chou En-lai, were under Communist influence there. Out of the Hsin Min Study Association in China, the Chinese Communist Party was born. Siao-yu refused to go along, and he and Mao went separate ways.
The book was translated into English part of it from Chinese, the remainder from the French, by Phyllis, his wife, graduate of Syracuse University, and onetime teacher in National Central University of Nanking. It was the last loving task of Phyllis Siao before her untimely death in May, 1957. She was primarily an artist, leaving some three thousand paintings besides extensive poetry and prose, yet Dr. Siao himself effectively illustrated his book with his brush and ink sketches.
Dr. Piper, retired professor of philosophy, remarks that he was startled "by the fundamental opposition which exists between the minds of Mao Tse-tung and Siao-yu, vividly apparent in their conversations especially during the period when they meandered as beg gars among the farmers and villagers of Hunan Province." He also says, "Siao possesses the fear-destroying faith and spiritual strength (which) made him the first Chinese to oppose communism, even before the birth of the Chinese Communist Party." Of his brother, Emi Siao, well-known Communist, the author once said: "He is my ex-brother. I have not known him for more than forty years."
After translating the book, Phyllis said: "Siao and Mao have two different ideas, (are) two entirely different characters.... The things which Mao likes most: power, politics, quick success, they are what Siao dislikes most. Yet the same region produced these two entirely different persons."
How the two boyhood friends evolved into such antithetical people is the fascinating theme of the book. Siao has a remarkably retentive memory. He has vivid recollections of Mao's early years, of their long friendship and even of the questions and answers which they batted back and forth in their all-night discussions.
Belonging to a poor farmer's family, Mao had only meager education in a country school, but having learned Chinese characters, he got hold of two books—the Shui Hu and the Sail Kuo Yen I—to which he became passionately devoted. He hid them behind an ancient tomb, and whenever he finished his stint of work in the fields, he would hide there in the shade of a tree to read his beloved books. This caused much dissension with his father, until Mao proved that he could do his full day's work in less than a day, and thus save some time for reading.
When the two boys met in the same school in Tungshan, other boys laughed at Mao for his size and for having only two books. He would not believe that the Sail Kuo Yen I was a romanticized novel. So important had it become to Mao that he stubbornly refused to admit it was other than true history. He suggested to the students that they start a movement to get rid of the teacher who disagreed with his ideas. He called the students "a bunch of cowards" when they refused, and threw a chair at one who supported the teacher's view.
As early as that, Mao revealed his set of mind by asking, "What does one do to get political power?" "What does one do to become president of the Republic?" "In politics, how does one attack one's adversaries?" A clever student replied, "You can't attack them with your two bare hands. It is necessary to have many loyal partisans who march to victory with you and are willing to work for you.... In a word, you have to organize a political party."
Rather serious thoughts for young school-boys. But on the walking trip through Hunan that summer, when Mao joined Siao in his plan to travel without money—begging for food and lodging—they had many long earnest discussions.
Analyzing Liu Pang who founded the Han Dynasty, Siao condemned him as a despot and mean spirit; Mao insisted it was necessary for him to kill the generals and friends who had helped him to power, lest they usurp his place. Again, Mao said the State comes before everything else: "The people are under obligation to protect their State... In the ideal State of the future, children will be taken from their parents (to be) brought up and educated at public expense."
Siao was for an ideal social structure "even if it takes a thousand years." Mao said, "I admire your patience, but I cannot wait even ten years."
Sometimes they were given money and stayed the next night at an inn. The widow of a scholarly Chinese kept such an inn, and her daughter refused to believe they were beggars. With prophetic discernment she said to Mao:
"You are very audacious and have great ambition, but you have no sentiment. You could kill ten thousand or even a hundred thousand people without turning a hair!" The two young men laughed at her predictions (She said Siao had "the air of a sage"), but Siao was to long remember the girl's gentle beauty—and also her prophecy of Mao.
Siao was at times in danger and suspected of being radical because of his friendship for Mao. When the Communist Party was being planned, the group realized the French police of Shanghai were on their trail, so they made a picnic trip to a small lake, less frequented than West Lake, and held their meeting of organization on a small houseboat. Siao went along to see Hangchow and West Lake, but would have nothing to do with the secret meeting. When Mao turned in to the room they shared late that night, Siao asked:
"Are you satisfied with the day's work?" "Yes," said Mao, "We were able to talk quite freely in the boat, at long last! Too bad you didn't go."
Siao pointed out: "You see you appreciated your 'freedom.' In Shanghai you were not free to talk with your colleagues, or to hold your meeting. The police followed you everywhere. You didn't like that, even for a few days, whereas in Russia it's like that night and day-every day, wherever one goes ... How is it you like your freedom so much and yet you deliberately decide to destroy the freedom of your countrymen, to make China a second Russia? What did you decide at the meeting?"
"We decided that we must make China into a second Russia. We must organize and fight to the end."
The die had been cast. The parting of their ways had come. Mao returned to Changsha. Siao went to Peking and soon to France.
STALIN AND THE SOVIET COMMUNIST PARTY
A Study in the Technology of Power
by Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov
Frederick A. Proeger, New York, 1959
379 pp. US$6.00
Reviewed by Alexander A Perouansky
The title of this book is slightly misleading. Much more fitting would be: "The History of the Soviet Regime, 1928-1959."
For it is a comprehensive review of the developments during the period from 1928 on, based on facts, including documents, eye-witness accounts, biographical and statistical data. At the same time, it is a dynamic story, told in a fascinating way by one of the most qualified experts on Soviet affairs.
The author, Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, has an intimate knowledge of practically all aspects of the Soviet regime. A member of the Communist party since 1926, he graduated from the Institute of Red Professors—the leading school of Communist theory in the Soviet Union-and has worked in the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee itself. In the Great Purge of 1937, he was arrested as an "enemy of the people" and spent five years in prison. He has personally known many of the leading Party officials, including members of the so-called Right opposition, and was involved in many of the events described in the book, beginning with a secret meeting of top party theoreticians at which Stalin outlined his plan for the forced collectivization of agriculture. At present, he is working with the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich, West Germany.
Step by step, Avtorkhanov describes the struggle for power inside the party and the rise of Stalin to omnipotent dictatorship. He leads the reader through the maze of inner-party politics and the intricacies of the Communist system, simultaneously supplying a wealth of information on such crucial developments as the liquidation of millions of farmer families during the collectivization, the Great Purge and the events preceding Stalin's death. The story, as told by Avtorkhanov, cannot but convince the reader that "Stalin's individuality cult," —the official party name for ruthless one-man dictatorship—was the inevitable outcome of the Bolshevik revolution and is engendered in the Soviet system itself. In fact, Stalin's terrorist methods alone have made possible the continued existence of Communism both in the USSR and in the satellite areas.
"Politically," says Avtorkhanov, "Stalin had merely carried Lenin's precepts through to their logical conclusion... But even Lenin, whose teachings had their moral roots in Machiavellianism, possessed no immunity against infection by Stalinism, and might well have succumbed to it, if he had been forced to act in the same circumstances, and with the same end in view, as Stalin."
Commenting on the total socialization of industry and forced collectivization of agriculture, Avtorkhanov writes:
"The political dictatorship of the Party ... had been enabled to become even more absolute than before by its establishment of economic dictatorship over the people. This, in fact, was the essence of Stalin's strategy. But the seizure of power from the Party in order to set up a personal dictatorship was not a question of strategy; it was simply the question of a technique for manipulating the Party apparatus."
The idea of party dictatorship was formulated by Lenin himself and was incorporate, as early as 1923, in a Twelfth Party Congress resolution which affirmed, "the dictatorship of the working class cannot be guaranteed otherwise than in the form of the dictatorship of its vanguard, that is, the Communist party."
In order to guarantee the establishment of such dictatorship, the Party itself paved the way for its becoming an obedient mechanism in the hands of one man. Avtorkhanov recalls that long before Stalin's actual rise to power, the Tenth Party Congress, in 1921, abolished the last remnants of the so-called inner-party democracy and placed the apparatus above the party by passing a resolution which said:
"The Congress directs all organizations to see strictly to the avoidance of all factional activities. Failure to carry out this resolution will result in immediate and unconditional expulsion from the Party."
Another resolution provided for the creation of control commissions, "in order to consolidate the unity and authority of the party," in other words, in order to combat any manifestations of freedom of thought within the party.
It is only natural, therefore, that Stalin made use of these resolutions, when he became the Secretary-General of the party, in his struggle against the opposition.
It is impossible in limited space to go into details of Stalin's ruthless fight for power, although Avtorkhanov devotes a major part of his book to this. It is important, however, to emphasize the parallels between the methods used by the late dictator in getting rid of the opposition in the 1930's and those applied by Nikita Khrushchev in establishing his own hold on the Communist party. It is essential to have a clear view of these parallels in order to understand fully the developments inside the Soviet Communist party in recent years.
Actually, as the author points out, the history of the Communist party repeated itself. To prevent the seizure of power by Trotzky after Lenin's death, Zinoviev and Kamenev had made Stalin Secretary-General of the Central Committee, while Stalin helped them to achieve their purpose. To prevent the seizure of power by Kamenev and Zinoviev, Bukharin and his group had pre ferred to retain Stalin as Secretary-General in the belief that he was a person of no distinction and lacking in ambition. Having gotten rid of the Zinoviev-Kamenev group in alliance with Bukharinites, Stalin later liquidated all actual and potential opposition, including Bukharin's group.
Now let us turn to the events following Stalin's death. To prevent a coup d'etat by Beria, the Molotov group, in alliance with Malenkov, had appointed Khrushchev Acting First Secretary of the Central Committee. To prevent Malenkov, with his strong personality and long experience in Stalinist party intrigues, from seizing the power for himself, the group then joined hands with the undistinguished Khrushchev by appointing him regular First Secretary of the Central Committee. This, in turn, enabled Khrushchev to build up sufficient power to get rid of the influential Molotov group.
"The June 1957 plenary session of the Central Committee saw the end of the era in party history known as the 'Collective leadership' of the Central Committee," adds Avtorkhanov. "By liquidating Molotov's group at the June 1957 session, Marshal Zhukov at the October 1957 session, and Bulganin at the September 1958 session, Khrushchev acquired as much power as Stalin had enjoyed toward the end of the 1930's."
But is Khrushchev actually a second Stalin, and is a complete return to Stalinist methods of ruling the country possible? The author provides the following answer to this crucial question.
"The Kremlin is entering upon an era of experimentation and reform from above in order to modernize the regime, lead it out of Stalin's blind alley, and thus forestall a possible eruption from below.. On the analogy of a socially similar phenomenon ......... the regime now emerging in the USSR may be tentatively called a regime of 'enlightened Stalinism,' on the analogy of the 'enlightened absolutism' of the second half of the eighteenth century...
"'Enlightened Stalinism' is also a transitional stage—pending a return to classical Stalinism, or its complete abolition. Not only does this dilemma constitute a serious danger but it is also extremely difficult to resolve. The present—and entirely new—situation in the USSR is such that a return to classical Stalinism would need a new dictator, but of a higher order than Stalin—a difficult thing to imagine, even in theory.... "
What Avtorkhanov is cautiously implying is simply this: A return to Stalinism is impossible because it would immediately result in an uprising and the ultimate downfall of the Soviet regime. On the other hand, the course presently followed by Khrushchev, which consists of limited liberalization and reforms supervised from above, cannot but lead to the disintegration of Communist party dictatorship. Noting that Khrushchev is writing a new chapter in the history of the Communist party, he asserts:
"Khrushchev's political experience suggests that this new chapter may turn out to be the last in the over-long history of the regime. So thought Molotov and Kaganovich; and it is also my view."
Avtorkhanov quotes Khrushchev as saying that "Men must first eat, drink, dress, and have a place to live before they can become interested in politics, art, and science." He concludes:
"Khrushchev has my sincere wishes for success in the practical application of this truth. He has them because I am a firm believer in the wisdom of the saying that revolutions are made not by those who go hungry every day, but by the well-fed who have had to go hungry for one day."
Mr. Avtorkhanov's book is a "must" for every serious student of Communist affairs.