A Time of Summing Up

There were all the boys atop the reviewing stand at Tienanmen Square as usual, dressed in their formless grey tu nics, trousers and caps and led by Mao Tse-tung himself. The grouping showed no real change in the hierarchy, but last week's celebration of China's Na tional Day was still unusual. Only 500,-000 gathered at Peking's Gate of Heavenly Peace, compared with last year's 1,500,000. The parade lasted only two hours instead of the previous four. In place of last year's 20-ft. colossus, there was a new statue of Mao that was merely larger than life.

The accent of the festivities was on the People's Liberation Army, and not on the Red Guard units that dominated last year's celebration. In fact, Mao said not a word; he left the speaking to Defense Minister and Heir Apparent Lin Piao. Lin's message: Now is the time to ease up on the Cultural Revolution and consolidate. "The revolution," said Lin, "has won a decisive victory. It has spread to the whole of China. Hundreds of millions of people have been aroused."

Death on TV. They have indeed been aroused, but not quite in the way that Lin and Mao would have wished. Some Sinologists, taking advantage of National Day to sum up their feelings on China, are now convinced that a halt has been called to the Cultural Revolution--but that the chaos and dis order it has spawned among China's restless masses are far from finished.

With the Cultural Revolution, Mao originally intended to sweep away the musty party machinery and replace it with a more revolutionary and popular-based organization. The nucleus of his new organization--a "grand alliance" of loyal government workers, military men and Red Guards--is well established in Pe king, Shanghai and five of China's 26 provinces and regions. But in other areas, the Cultural Revolution has only succeeded in breaking down local organization without supplanting it with any workable substitute.

In such areas, chaos still reigns. Several provinces have reported fighting between Maoists and anti-Maoists, and peasants are said to be massing for anti-Mao drives. The army is trying to restore order in such major cities as Canton, and thus is emerging as a more important force than the Red Guards, who often fight each other. Radio broadcasts have told of rallies at which the pronouncement and execution of death sentences on ten anti-Maoists were cheered by huge crowds; proceedings were carried on television as a warning to Mao's enemies.

Old Deeds. Aside from the outright violence, Mao is faced with the breakdown of the collectivization and central authority that he so brutally imposed on his countrymen. Many factory and farm workers alike are deserting their jobs and turning on Mao. Some peasants are flaunting old land deeds and demanding their farms back. Others are enlarging private plots, expanding their own private markets. Still others are disappearing from their farms altogether and fleeing to the cities. The result is that much of this year's grain crop, which should otherwise equal last year's 180 million tons, is in danger of remaining unharvested in the fields. In some areas, food prices are up as much as 20% from this spring.

Industry is in even worse shape. In Anshan, which normally produces half of China's 12 million tons of steel a year, several blast furnaces are reported to have been destroyed by recent rioting. There have been consistent reports of trouble in coal mines and of shortages of coal, and a full-scale battle was reported in August at China's biggest oil center, at Teaching in Manchuria. "Demons and monsters," Peking's People's Daily stormed a few weeks ago, "deliberately incite one group of the working masses to oppose another and upset the order of production." Not only should workers guard against such "sabotage," but, Peking radio suggested, it would be helpful if they stuck to their jobs and conducted their revolutionary activities afterhours, on their own time.

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