New Policy

Marshal Chiang Kaishek, political chieftain and military generalissimo of the Nationalist Government at Nanking, finally convoked last week the long expected Nationalist Party Congress (TIME, Jan. 2, Jan. 9) with only 25 of the expected 36 major delegates present. Standing before them, Chiang seemed more than ever slim, boyish and somehow brittle; but his prestige is that of the man who led a peasant and proletarian army to the conquest of half of China (TIME, Dec. 13, 1926). The partial collapse of that avowedly revolutionary movement and its diversion into a moderate and narrower channel resulted, last week, in the whistling of a new tune by Marshal Chiang. Obviously he was bidding for support by the rich merchant class when he said:

"The Kuomintang (Nationalist) policy was one of destruction. The people were used as tools in a class struggle and misled by various fallacious theories. In order to place the party on a firm foundation, this policy of destruction must be changed to one of construction and the class struggle must be replaced by mutual help and co-operation."

The Conference then began to draft a program of civil and military reorganization along strictly conservative lines.