Trouble in All Directions

As usual, the accounts were sketchy, sometimes contradictory, and -- as in the reports of pitched battles between forces totaling 50,000 men around Chungking -- often exaggerated. But their message was clear. After a brief respite of army-imposed order, violence and civil strife are again spreading across China.

To judge by the official government press, all but nine of the country's 26 provinces and regions are beset by some degree of unrest. Peking has officially described the province of Kirin in Manchuria as "very disturbed" and warned the citizens of far northern Heilungkiang, which is rich in both industry and agriculture, that "bad elements are trying to sabotage the people's dictatorship and spread lies and rumors." In Inner Mongolia, counter-revolutionary bands have sprung up, murdering, sabotaging government installations and passing out anti-Mao leaflets. Mao Tse-tung's men charge that in far-off Sinkiang, where Army Strongman Wang En-mao has never paid much heed to Peking, "Soviet, Indian and Mongolian agents have united with local traitors and nationalist elements" to stir dissent and create disturbances.

In the south, major fighting has been reported in Szechwan, Honan and Kwangsi provinces, and travelers returning from the Canton Trade Fair--which ended last week--say that there is fear of an invasion of the city by armies of dissident Red Guards. In Fukien, where there has been trouble in the past, five Peking officials sent to investigate new violence were kidnaped by local Red Guards. Newspapers in Anhwei report that Central Committee directives are being derided and that Mao supporters are under open attack. In Shantung, according to Peking radio, "people claiming to be revolutionaries" are stirring up "trouble in all directions."

Army Slipping. The violence has not yet approached the massive defiance and anarchy of the summer and early fall, when Mao, on a tour of the provinces, was reportedly shocked into the admission that "some people say this is not a civil war, but I say it is." Still, there are new dimensions in the current strife that make it potentially even more dangerous than the old. The battles are no longer being fought just in the cities, but throughout the countryside as well. Nor is the fighting any longer confined to the ideological rivalry between pro-Mao and anti-Mao forces. It has degenerated into a sort of blood feud, curdled by the atrocities committed by each side against the other, motivated by revenge and the determination to seize--or retain--power for its own sake. The erstwhile Cultural Revolution that started it all has splintered into literally thousands of factions, each with militant followers, many equipped with heavy weapons raided from local military armories.

No less ominous, the hopes have been shattered that Mao's 2,700,000-man army can restore order at will. The peace imposed by the army lasted only through the harvest season--a time in China when all energies, including those of the army, must be devoted to bringing in the crops that will feed the country through the winter. The harvest is now over, and the army's control appears to be slipping as violence spreads. Despite its enormous manpower resources, the army simply does not have enough men to contain strife across a land of 750 million people and 3,800,000 square miles.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.