THE RED HAND IN CHINA

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1926, Page 4

THE RED HAND IN CHINA

RUSSIAN MASTERS OF CANTON

By Sir Percival Phillips in the London “ Daily Mail.”)

Moscow paid for a footing in Canton and is now making Canton repay, with heavy interest, for having espoused the cause of Bolshevism.

One of the first acts of the Red Government directed by Jac-oh Borodin (the Lettish Jew sent by Russia to organise the Southern Chinese) was to seize all public funds and confiscate public property in order to finance tbe Social Revolution. The Chinese are accustomed to “ squeezing ” each other, but they never dreamed that their new friends would repay hospitality by squeezing them all.

Onee inside the door, Bolshevism showed its teeth, A capital levy of 1

per cent was declared on all private fortunes, and 40 Commissars were sent into Canton and "the Red territory outside to see that it was collected. Farms and city property were confiscated and resold at half price—proceeds to the Soviet—to help pay the new Red army. The hated middle classes (which had listened sympathetically to the propaganda promises of Borodin) found themselves in the mill they had helped to erect. Every student and clerk was mulcted of half a month’s salary if less than £4O a month, and twice as much if more than £4O, ostensibly to maintain the strikers and their families. This tax alone . netted about £375.000—0f which the strikers got C 0,250. The rest disappeared. TAXED YEARS AHEAD. In addition to these “extraordinary” levies, the Red Government is now collecting ordinary taxes up to the end of 1929, on the plea that it needs the money. Landlords have already paid as far ahead a 5.192?. Many of the towns in Kwangtung Province have special funds, which are available for repairing river dykes in case of Hood, supplying cheap rice to the poor in famine time, and tiding over the Government in other cases of emergency. These have been surrendered to Red “ Peasant Groups,” acting under the instructions of Borodin. Four wealthy members of the Fatshan municipality were thrown into prison because they refused to sanction confiscation of the famine fund.

The four leading trade guilds*!]) Canton (corresponding to trade unions) which supported the Red movement were authorised to force a “ loan ” of £90,000 from the local merchants and pawnbrokers. Alerchants belonging to tbe Rice Guild were ordered to make regular contributions of rice to the Rods.

All tenants in Canton had to pay a month’s rent in advance to raise an

‘‘emergency sum ” of £200.000 for. the Bolshevik treasury. Towns not responding promptly to the demand of money were fined. The too-tardy response of AVuiehow cost that municipality £15.000.

The Russians began two months ago to Bolshevise education. They demanded that miliiary science and Communism should be compulsory courses

at the university. Tin 1 Tail filing School was closed a month ago because it had not complied, and other schools are threatened with extinction. C()X?CRIPT COOLIES.

The greatest disillusionment, however. lias come to the labouring or coolie class, which was to profit most hv embracing Bolshevism. They have found that under Russian rule they must work or fight—or both—at a price to he fixed by their new masters. Hundreds of Chinese, lured from profitable employment in Hong-kong at the height of the anti-British agitation here, are now conscripts in the auxiliary Red forces and cannot escape. Strikers who joined the revolution-

ary movement at Canton with enthusiasm because enlistment carried with it a meal ticket have since had that bonus withdrawn. They arc being compulsorily enrolled in labour companies serving the troops at. tTie front, with the familiar alternative of sudden death.

One of the earliest and most important decrees of tbe Russian Administration was that all labour unions not belonging to the Third International would have to join without delay. The unions have since been re-organised on Soviet lines, with inner “ cells'” or g roups composed of trusted Bolsheviks, who keep observation on the other members, and report all disaffection to the new secret police bureau within the unions:

Nationalisation of industry is, o! course, on the Russian programme ol

“ reforms ” for Red China. They in tend taking the important silk indus try of Canton—among others—out ol the hands of private capital and making it a State enterprise, paying only a nominal wage to the conscripted producers.

The folly of this policy is apparent. The province of Kwangtung, with a population of 25,000.000. is largely Industrial. Already the industries oi Canton are dead or dying, and the workers dependent on them are penniless. Bolshevism offers them nothing in place of their livelihood from private capital. Force, and force only, can keep them quiet. BEDS’ POAYER GROANING. Four months of Russian rule have given Canton a surfeit of Bolshevism, but the burden voluntarily assumed cannot be lightly thrown oil'. The well armed troops surrounding Borodin and bis accomplices are secure from local counter-attack because their opponents are insufficiently equipped. Rwatow was voluntarily evacuated by the antil’ed forces this week; it had no ammunition left.

Help can come only from the northern provinces which at present are too busy with their inter-provincial quarrels to bother about the south. Meanwhile. the Reds gain strength steadily. They are more powerful to-day than they were two months ago, despite the growing antagonism, of the people they dominate.

Even the Whampoa Cadets are disaffected. Some of them held a. meeting at the end of September (at Canton) and demanded that Borodin, Gallent and Smirionoff be deported, and all Russians in other posts dismissed. They declared that they had been tricked into joining what they thought was a purely Chinese national movement. but which proved lo be purely Russian in sentiment and aim.

These dissenters were promptly weeded out of the Rod military machine. A similar fate befell the Chinese naval officers who protested against the river fleet being put' under “ Admiral ” EmirionofT. The fleet was taken to

AA’bampoa and the leaders of the op 7 position beaten before being kicked out-. Feeling against the Russians is very bitter among the small farmers and

market gardeners, who are sufF erin;

because their markets have been cut off. Nothing can be shipped to Hongkong. and there is no substitute market except the Red Government, which jiays for everything on the basis of sweated labour. Canton is Bolshevik, and with it Swatow and many intervening towns in that part of Kwangtung, yet if the district held by Russian hirelings could be honestly canvassed no Bolshevik sentiment would be found among the inhabitants. The minority rules, as in Russia.