Blucher v. Chiang

Bluecher v. Chiang

Slim, wasp-waisted, high-strung President Chiang Kai-shek of China seemed to crack suddenly under the strain of the Sino-Russian crisis one day last week. At a meeting of the Cabinet at Nanking he wrung his small bony hands and wailed out despairingly one of the most remarkable speeches ever made by a Chief Executive on the eve of war. "Tell me the reason," began Chiang excitedly, "tell me why Soviet Russia can oppress our people!"

While Cabinet ministers looked bewilderedly at one another, President Chiang answered his own question with a torrent of shrill words. "We are not united! We do not work hard to make our country strong. . . . Not only Russia but all foreign countries do not give us due respect. . . . If we do not strive hard to make a great struggle we shall be finished. We must confess that even in Nanking, our capital, we can ask ourselves: how many military and civil officials of our General Staff can be favorably compared in spirit and energy with the foreigners? How many of us know even the scientific way of running our daily Government business?"

When the tirade was over and President Chiang had been calmed, officials close to him explained that he had been trying to rally the national patriotic spirit. Later the same day he continued "rallying" in an address to cadets of the Central Military Academy at Nanking:

"We are not yet dead! We still have a chance to prepare to fight and sacrifice ourselves for the nation. . . . The Soviet peoples believe that we Chinese are Utopians, meaning that we have no sense of order and discipline. That is why they browbeat us. . . . Hundreds of years of degenerate culture have made the Chinese an effete race. Intellectually and spiritually Utopian and physically weak--that is what the world at large considers us. ... Fortunately Russia is in no position to con-duct extensive armed aggression against us. . . . We must wait and be prepared!"

What was the reason for such frenzied Presidential "rallying"? Without presuming to guess, observers noted as significant that last week the supreme command of the Soviet forces threatening China was entrusted to a Comrade-Commander who, paradoxically, once served in the Chinese Revolution as staff adviser to Marshal (now President) Chiang Kaishek. The Comrade-Commander is Vassili Constan-tinovitch Bluecher, onetime oiler of Tsarist locomotives, today the most important man in Asia.

During 1917-20, when the young Soviet Union was fighting for existence against White Russian Generals Kolchak and Wrangel, the spirit and energy of Comrade Vassili Constantinovitch Bluecher four times won him the highest Soviet military decoration, "The Red Banner." Five years later the Soviet Government sent Comrade Bluecher to Canton under the alias "General Galen." There he became military adviser to the Chinese revolutionaries who subsequently conquered all China and now constitute the Chinese Government headed by President Chiang Kaishek.

In their hour of triumph the Chinese Nationalists broke with the Soviet Govern-ment (TIME, April 25, 1927) which had so largely financed their successful revolution. Comrade Bluecher returned to Moscow. His assignment last week to command the Soviet Eastern Army, massed along China's Manchurian frontier, was a shrewd, logical stroke, well calculated to shake Chinese morale.

Swift to act, Comrade Blucher established his military headquarters at Novosibirsk. 1,500 miles from the Manchurian frontier, surveyed the situation. Soon he announced that the Red Russian positions were being constantly harassed by White Russian (ex-Tsarist) mercenary troops in the pay of the Chinese. Soon subordinate commanders on the Soviet front received this telegram from their new Generalissimo: YOU ARE DIRECTED TO EXTERMINATE ALL WHITE RUSSIAN FORCES WHICH ARE MENACING OUR LINES.

Doughtiest of Soviet commanders in the actual front-line sector, likeliest to start the game of putting White Russians to the sword, is Red Russia's greatest cavalry commander, Comrade Semion Micheilovitch Budenny, fierce, resourceful, reckless. His wife, from his own wild Kuban steppes, galloped and fought at his side when the young Soviet Republic was death-grappling with Wrangel and Denikin.

"Proletarians, to horse!" was the shrill recruiting cry of Mme. Budenny as she dashed on a plunging charger into tiny Russian villages, fired peasant lads with her tales of battle and glory. Soon every man who possessed a horse and gun (or even a pony and pitchfork) was galloping at her heels to join Budennevskaya Kon-armia (Budenny's Horsemen). Only last year, when the Soviet Congress was discussing a project for electrification of certain provincial cities, Commander Budenny strode in and stampeded the session by shouting: "What is all this talk of 'electrification?' What we need is 'horsification!' Give me enough horses for the Army!" On the Chino-Russian front last week Commander Budenny had "enough" horses and cavalrymen -- 30,000 according to one despatch.

Events quick-stepping after Red Generalissimo Bluecher 's prelude to battle were:

P: Chinese businessmen and bankers mass met at Harbin, pledged defense funds to Governor General of Manchuria Chiang Hsueh-Liang, cheered reports that every male in North China aged over 17 would be drafted to fight.

P: Mongol tribesmen in the region of Hurunbuir, allegedly instigated by Soviet secret agents, were reported from Harbin to have massacred 150 Chinese.

P: "Four Soviets and three Mongolian spies were captured and shot near Hailar" according to Chinese despatches.

P: Japanese troops were rushed from Port Arthur up the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway to strategic positions in central Manchuria where Japanese colonists have extensive vested interests.

P: President Chiang Kai-shek ordered a $1,000,000 "credit for war supplies" placed at the disposal of his field commander in Manchuria, Marshal Chang Hsueh-lian.

P: In an official note handed to the Ger man Ambassador at Moscow for transmission to the Chinese Government via the German Ambassador at Nanking the Soviet Government declared in part: ". . . While doing their utmost to prevent the crossing of the border by Soviet troops, the Soviet Government holds that the Chinese author ities must disarm the White guard detach ments and prevent all possible raids on Soviet territory by Chinese forces. Other wise the guilt of further complications caused by new raids will be entirely on the Nanking Government."

P: The British Consulate at Harbin, central Manchuria, received orders to prepare for evacuation of British citizens in the event that a Soviet offensive should actually be launched from the frontier 300 miles distant.