The Third Man

Into the echoing marble depths of Peking's Great Hall of the People snaked line after line of restless Red Guards, still in the capital despite earlier orders to repair to their homes. The Great Hall is usually reserved for formal occasions: anti-imperialist operas, speeches by visiting Albanian dignitaries and the annual rubber-stamp session of the Chinese Parliament. As 10,000 Red Guards stared up at a triple-tiered ceiling studded with stars, Premier Chou En-lai appeared onstage. What ensued last week was the stiffest rebuke that the Guards have received to date--and an indication that China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is in danger of choking on its own absurdities.

Dictates & Disciplines. "Do you have no feelings at all?" Chou demanded of three rival groups of Red Guards that he had summoned to the Great Hall in order to get them to merge. "Your methods of struggle against your leaders not only make it impossible for them to work but also for them to remain healthy." Chou was incensed at the frequent Red Guard abuses of government and party officials, who have been the prime targets for China's rebellious youth since the Maoist "revolution" began last year.

According to Japanese press reports from the Chinese capital, he cited a raft of Red Guard excesses. "You often try the leaders at kangaroo courts," he said. "On the death of Chang Lin-chih, minister for the coal industry, my mind is not at rest. He suddenly died--after a trial that lasted 40 days." Chou chewed out the Guards for other, less fatal outrages--against the minister for railroads, the minister for agricultural land reclamation and the minister for commerce, one Yao Yilin. "I have had to order him to take a rest," said Chou. "I understand you have issued a warrant for his arrest. Such a warrant amounts to one for the arrest of all members of the party's Central Committee. I must say I support your revolutionary spirit, but I must also say that you have to abide by the dictates and disciplines of party organization."

Errors & Alliances. Chou, with his multilingual facility (Russian, Japanese, French and English) and broad exposure to the outside world after eight years as Foreign Minister, ranks third in the Red Chinese hierarchy (after Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao) and is perhaps the most pragmatic of Peking's leaders. Though Chou has led many a Red Guard rally in singing The East Is Red and Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman, Chairman Mao, he has been the constant voice of what passes for moderation in China. While supporting the Cultural Revolution verbally, he has fought hard to keep his government administration intact throughout the madness of the past year.

It was Chou who first demanded that the Red Guards stop parading discredited bureaucrats through the streets in dunce caps; it was he who first insisted that Red Guards stop interfering with farm and factory production. Last January he demanded that officials guilty of "anti-Maoist errors" be permitted to retain their jobs after apologizing. Since then, emphasis in Maoist propaganda has been to cease the attack on the "old" culture (the party apparatus) and to forge an alliance between Maoist cadres and government agencies. Three purged party figures have already been returned to positions of responsibility, and last week even the Maoist polemical publication Hung Chi (Red Flag) urged moderation.

Clearly, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is slowing down. The spring planting is threatened by an absence of farmers. Last week peasants in Kweichow province looted stores of seed grain, sold the spoils and divided the profits. The People's Liberation Army is rent by internal squabbles (TIME, Feb. 24), and Heir Apparent Lin Piao seems to be too busy controlling the troops to take an active part in the revolution. Lin, who has not been seen in public since November, last week ordered the army to reorganize and give up "political activity" in favor of farming: the thought of Mao Tse-tung, it seems, now runs more toward seeds than violence. Chou, with his relative sophistication and shrewd political in-fighting ability, stands presently at the head of the government's new thrust toward moderation. Whether he will remain there is another, far more doubtful matter. He sounds almost too sane to survive.

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