Price of Revolution

There can be no construction without destruction.

--Mao Tse-tung

Two years ago this week, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and the first wall poster, dripping with vitriol, blossomed on the east wall of Peking University's dining hall. Fearful that China was losing the purity of its first revolution and sliding down "the capitalist road" taken by "bourgeois" Russia, Mao set out to purge his vast nation of 750 million people. His weapons were the People's Liberation Army and the youth of the Red Guards, whom he mobilized by closing down the schools. His targets were the party and governmental structures of China, the handiwork of President Liu Shao-chi, who became the all-purpose symbol of everything "revisionist" in China that Mao aimed to destroy.

Mao's purge is still in progress. Radio Shanghai recently announced that seven "renegades and active counterrevolutionary criminals" had been executed while 10,000 Maoist onlookers "shouted slogans at the top of their voices, rejoicing and clapping their hands." Despite such salutary lessons, however, Mao has been unable to stifle his opposition. The Cultural Revolution Bulletin reported, in fact, that he narrowly escaped being captured by rebellious troops last July when he went to Wuhan, China's transportation hub and fifth-largest city, to bring a revolting commander to heel. Nor is Mao's dream of a China holding hands in a single, beatific chanting chain any nearer. The many months of character assassination, chaos, instigated lawlessness and near civil war have taken a terrible toll on nearly every human, political and economic resource in China.

Local Loyalties. Just before the Cultural Revolution began, Peking had published an official list of the 26 top men in China. Today, only 13 remain in office, the rest having been purged and ousted from responsibility, ranging from Liu Shao-chi to Army Chief of Staff Lo Jui-ching. Among other notable weedings of China's leadership:

> Of six men on the all-powerful Standing Committee of the Politburo, only two, Premier Chou En-lai and Defense Minister Lin Piao, survive.

> Of the eleven regular members of the Politburo, only five remain, and only two of the original six alternate Politburo members survive.

> Of the 91 members of the Central Committee, only 14 appeared at the recent May Day celebrations in Tienan-men Square--usually a reliable index of Who's In.

> Of the six regional party bosses, five have been purged and one demoted.

> All 27 party committees in the 27 major administrative units of China have ceased to exist.

> The post of party propaganda boss has been purged three times, that of the army chief of staff twice.

> Of the 39 heads of such government ministries as food, education and machine building, only four remain on the job.

The result has been the creation of a leadership vacuum so great that China today is less a nation governed than a nation harangued. The army's effort to step in and run local politics-has only partly helped. The best estimate is that only in six regions, or half the country, is the P.L.A. still loyal to Mao.

Dreary Standstill. Despite Mao's order to reopen the schools last year, many are still closed; those that are open teach little more than Maoist slogans. China's cultural life has been brought to a dreary standstill by the Cultural Revolution; not a single book of any major value has been published for two years, and the only new play that showed promise, The Madman of the New Age, was condemned by the critics as an oblique attack on Mao.

The economy, too, has suffered ruinously. In February, Chou En-lai warned that China's vital coal production had fallen off alarmingly. Transportation has been totally disrupted, and sabotage of trains is common as the Maoists and anti-Maoists fight. Trucks are often idle for lack of fuel. China's biggest oil refinery at Taching was partly destroyed by sabotage and is still operating well below capacity--and below China's needs. Shortage of oil cut power to three hours a day in Canton in January, left Peking without heat for much of the winter. Steel and textile production are also down, and only the best weather in a decade last year prevented a fall-off in grain production that would have meant famine in many places.

Finally, the Cultural Revolution has profoundly affected China's relations with the rest of the world, isolating China even more than before--if that is possible. By Oct. 1 of last year, China's appropriately named National Day. Cultural Revolutionary China had managed to pick quarrels with no fewer than 32 countries. Among them were Indonesia, Ghana and Tunisia, which broke off diplomatic relations with Peking. In fact, only five foreign governments sent their traditional delegations to National Day: Albania, the Brazzaville Congo, Pakistan, Tanzania and North Viet Nam. Of the 45 nations around the world with which China still maintains diplomatic ties, only one --Egypt--is graced by the presence of a Chinese ambassador at his post.

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