Warlords Demoted

Though many small-fry deviationists have crumpled before Mao Tse-tung's firing squads. Red China's masters in 30 years of party organization have yet to undergo a true Russian-style purge. Yet there were mighty stresses and strains in seizing and subduing a vast and unwieldy country of 600 million hungry people. Peking's first solution of the problem was to divide China into six administrative regions, all but one of them in the charge of a first-line army general. The six leaders were, in effect, local warlords bound together by Communist discipline.

The first hint that all was not going well between Mao and his military proconsuls came last February when Liu Shao-chi, the party theoretician and No. 2 in the hierarchy, warned: "Some of our high-ranking cadres . . . regard the region under their leadership as their individual inheritance or independent kingdom." Last week, after months of maneuvering, Peking abolished the six regional areas and substituted 26 provincial administrations, which Peking can more easily control. The six regional bosses gathered in the capital for reckoning and reassignment. Mao Tse-tung immediately appointed them to the People's Revolutionary Military Council, where he could keep an eye on them.

Caught in the reshuffling were some of Red China's biggest names:

Kao Kang, chairman of the Northeast

China region (wealthy, industrial Manchuria), the only civilian regional boss, member of the Politburo and since January director of China's lagging Five-Year Plan. A fast riser, he is now considered to be riding for a fall.

General Peng Te-huai, chairman of the Northwest China region (China's Wild West), No. 2 army general (after Chu Teh), former commander of the Chinese army in Korea and member of the Politburo.

General Chen Yi, military ruler of the East China region, conqueror and mayor of Shanghai, commander of the third field army and perennial squabbler with his political commissars.

General Liu Po-cheng, battle-scarred, one-eyed "liberator" of Tibet, chairman of the Southwest area and commander of the second field army.

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