By 5. MURRAY SMITH

Te soldiers of the Chinese
People’s Liberation Army
are scaling the passes and
traversing the plateaus of
Tibet while the press of
the capitalist world bemoans the
“invasion” of a land it concedes
is historically a part of China
‘and speculates hopefully about
embroiling India in the inter-
vention for which certain Amer!-
can interests are clamoring.

It has been to the interest of ~

imperialism to pretend, for the
past half century, that Tibet is
a. remote, “independent” country.
In actual fact it has long been
@ pawn of imperialist ambitions.

Throughout the 19th century

British secret agents, acting from —

bases in Northern India, pene-
trated Tibet on a number of
occasions. In the aggressive
surge of British imperialism
which marked the turn of the
century, a small army, disguised
as a “military mission,” marched
to Lhasa, and forced a “treaty”
on the administration there in
1904, :

From the early 18th century
Tibet had been part of Chinese
territory, with Chinese residents
in Lhasa. The Chinese govern-
ment, presented with this fait
accompli and itself in a. weak
and divided state, had no option
but to ratify this ‘treaty’. By
it both China and Britain agreed
not to “annex” Tibetan territory,
and China agreed to permit no
other foreign powers to interfere
in Tibet, over which she retain-
ed sovereignty. ;

Not surprisingly, in 1907, one
year after this agreement, Bri-

tain nevertheless concluded an —

‘agreement with Tsarist Russia
creating “spheres of interest” in
the country, This followed a
similar deal over the carcass of
Persia. é

When the Manchu dynasty fell
in China in 1911, groups in Lhasa
expelled the Chinese representa-
tives there. Nevertheless, Sun

Yat Sen on more than one occa- .

sion reminded the world that
_ Tibet is Chinese soil. Although
there were no direct representa-
tives of Chinese authority at
Lhasa until 1934, Chinese influ-
ence remained paramount in the
eastern part of the country.

"The intrigues of the British
continued. In 1914, talks were
held between the Chinese govern-
ment and the British at Simla.
Britain, while recognising once
more Chinese suzerainty, and ad-

mitting the right of the Chinese

authorities to garrison Lhasa,
nevertheless attempted to maneu-
ver the Chinese into recognizing

development

When Chu
Teh, comman-
der in Chief
of the Chinese
People’s Army
gave orders to
his troops to
march into Ti-
bet, he fulfil-
led a promise
of long stand-
ing to the Ti-
betan people.

ents in Tibet — the Dalai Lama
himself came under strong Bri-
tish pressure and encouragement
to resist the Chinese authorities
— were directed by a political
officer
1936, a British mission went to
Lhasa, Even after formation of
the Indian government this offi-
cer remained an Englishman,
and so highly do the British prize
their influence in Tibet that they
have insisted that the head of
the Indian mission in Lhasa be
an Englishman.

A recent indication of the de-
termination of the British to

stationed at Sikkim. In-

lh ae aie sd 78

Following this, in May this
year, a group of American of-
ficers arrived in India to super-
vise transportation of war ma-

terial to Tibet. The arms were
to be taken in sealed railway cars
to Darjeeling and from thence
to Lhasa, where they were to be
distributed to monasteries and
to the army. It is not known
how much material has actually
arrived in Tibet, but recent re
ports indicate that at least con-
siderable quantities of small arms
have been supplied. The agree-
ment for the right to transport
arms over Indian territory was

Intrigue in

Tibet —

“zones” dividing Tibet. Although

initialled, this convention was
repudiated by the Chinese gov-
ernment and never ratified.
However, any concession as va-
luable as this was to the British
could not be allowed to evapor-
ate. In 1921, Lord Curzon, who
had despatched the 1904 expedi-

tion, informed the Chinese gov- -
ernment that the British govern-.

ment considered the convention
binding. Anthony den, as the
British foreign minister, re-em-
phasized this in 19438 when he
sent a’ memorandum to T. V.
Soong stating that Britain “ag-
reed” to recognize Eastern Tibet
as part. of China, on the condi-
tion that the Chinese government
did not “compete with British
interests in Lhasa.”

e ’ :
From 1904 onwards, British ag-

— Socia

of America’s anthracite industry
raise their voice. Four hundred
million dollars have been invest-
ed in the antharcite mines, which
supply coal to heat 6,000,000 hous-
es inhabited by 35,000,000 people.
So the mine owners are uneasy,
they are afraid they might for-
feit their profits if atomic ener-
gy came to offer serious compe-
tition to anthracite.

hared

These apprehensions are share

py the big oil operators, by the

owners of: power stations, rail-

ways, shipping companies and so
on. > ‘

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce
has hastened to set their minds
b

paqioe ‘after due consultation
with physicists, that there ig no
need to fear the early replace-
ment of present sources of en-

ergy by atomic energy.

: ain we can only say —
sich teat logic of capitalism. —

Atomic energy can greatly in-
crease and cheapen the produc-
tion of everything that man re
quires and can make his work
easier. This is to the advantage
of the vast majority of the earth's
inhabitants.

But where the super-trusts and _

es hold sway, words and
Doe ae twisted out of their
customary meaning. The word
“plenty” becomes a synonum of
“overproduction”, and the word
“cheap” comes to mean “crisis”,
Labor-saving machinery leads to

unemployment and to’ scientific,

— to
ances and discoveries
st ona more perfected methods
of exterminating human life.

@ iniam F. Ogburn, an Ameri-

can sociologist, writes that the
of atomic energy

“ig very likely to speed us fur-

announcing in OMe of |

thing upside down,

maintain their position in Tibet
was the refusal of the British
government to issue visas to Ti-
betan representatives who wish-
ed to travel to Peking via Hong
Kong, to discuss relations with
the’ Chinese government.

The British have always taken
care that certain chosen Tibetans
should receive military training
in the British staff colleges of
Quetta and Dehra Dun. One of
these puppets is Dzasa Yuthok,
trained by the British at Quetta,
who is at present in India,

American interest in Tibet has
expanded since the war, and last
year the American propagandist
and adventurer, Lowell Thomas,
undertook a journey to Lhasa,
with the blessing and assistance
of the U.S, state department, and
had “consultations” with the Da-
lai Lhama on the question of
American military assistance,

ism will

ther on the road to serfdom,
as the term is now used — to
tend to reinforce movements
towards monopoly and towards
cartels . . . It will tend to
strengthen the big industries

... I think maybe we ought

to consider declaring a mora-

torium on all pure science and

on the researches of all natural

science development until the

social sciences can tell us what
to do about it.”

So the idea is to shackle science
because it is advancing too rapid-
ly!

The British physicist Professor
Blackett tells of two American
engineers who not so long ago
suggested an international agree-
-ment to prevent the use of ato-
mic energy for industrial pur-
poses for at least one generation.
These two are not the only ones
who want to see the progress of
science and technology ham-
strung. Last March, the New
York Times Magazine published
an article by Bertrand Russell,
the British “philosopher”, under
the title “The Science to Save
Us From Science.”

This makes strange reading in-
deed to the Soviet citizen, who
welcomes every new scientific dis-
covery and invention, every new
achievement of the researchers
of our country.

But dimperialism turns every-
A boon be-
comes a curse, and great scien-
tific discoveries evoke consterna-
tion and a desire to muzzle
science. ‘ ‘ ’

We could say to Ogburn that
the social sciences have already

‘told us under what social sys-
tem science can and must become

a boon for mankind, not a curse.
“We could tell him how under
socialism science remakes nature
and puts its forces to work for

negotiated ‘directly between Neh-
ru and Hienderson, the U.S. am-
bassador in New Delhi.

No one, perhaps will ever know
the full history of British in-
trigue in Tibet. But even these
facts are enough to fill us with.
wonder at the hypocrisy of the
British ruling-class when the
London Times writes (July 29,
1950) that the “happy” Tibetans
should be ‘allowed to enjoy’ their
“independence”,

How “happy” are the Tibetans?
Tibet, a country of 465,000 square
miles and of some five million
people, is a feudal theocracy of
the most primitive kind. One-
half of the whole revenue is
absorbed by the lamaseries, and
one-quarter by the nobility.

There are more than 3,000 mo-
nasteries, with a priesthood of
one quarter of. the population.

work miracles

the good of the people at large.
e

I have endeavored to give the
roughest sketch of the benefits
that science will bring to man-
kind in the era of eternal peace,
when there will be no more wars
when imperialism, the source of
war, crisis and unemployment,
will exist no longer.

In his day, K. E. Tsiolkovsky,
the great Russian scientist and
inventor, wrote in his book The
Future of the Earth and the Cos-
mos that “the earth is a desert”
and that “the earth will have to
be put in order.”

Our planet seemed a desert to
him compared to the flourishing
garden that he dreamed of mak-
ing it and that it can indeed be-
come. .He predicted that the
earth would be put in order when
“man becomes the master of the
soil, the oceans, the air, the
weather, the plants, and of him-
self.”

Tremendous are the
which man will accomplish when
he takes his fitting place in the
world.
these tasks will
against disease.

The two billion dollars spent
on the first atom bomb could
have been used to build a thou-
sand splendily-equipped institutes
for combating tuberculosis, can-
cer and other diseases which
every year takes a toll of millions
of lives.

But these thousand institutes
are an infinitesimally small mag-
nitude compared with what the

be the fight

world would gain if all the efforts _

of man armed with science were
dedicated to peaceful construc-
tive labor,

The war against death will be-

come the principal war waged
by mankind when there are no
more wars between human be-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 17, 1950 — PAGE 5

_ preme authority, appealed to the

‘tasks

And foremost among

The lamaseries own two-thirds of
the country’s cultivable land,
free from a rent which if levied
would amount to some $2,400,000.
The vast mass of the unfortunate
Tibetan, people are sunk deep in
serfdom, dirt and misery, com-
mitted to the support of a vast
parasitic class.

The Tibetan people have long
been stirring under these oppres-
sive conditions. In the feudal
conditions prevailing, it is not
surprising that sections of the
oppressing classes themselves
have taken a leading part in
the demands, In 1947, the monks
of the large Sera monastery re-
volted against the regent at Lha-
sa, but were suppressed by the
troops.

Last year, Tibetan representa-
tives attended the People’s Politi-
cal Consultative Conference in
Peking. At the end of last year
the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s su-

Chinese People’s government to
liberate Tibet from the sphere of
Anglo-American intrigue and in-
corporate it as a constituent part
of the People’s Republic of
China. He is at present in exile
in Tsinghai.

‘A number of Tibetan intellec-
tuals and others have called for
transformation of the present re-
actionary regime. Some have
suffered imprisonment - and
worse—for their ‘pains. Others
are working among sections of
the Tibetan people where they
are out of reach of the ragtag
troops of the Lhasa authorities,
which are directed by Nazis who
escaped from interment in India
during the war.

It is clear that present im-
perialist intrigues are aimed at
“proving” the right of the reac-
tionary Lhasa clique to rule
Tibet and to open it up for ex-
ploitation by them. It is no
less clear that the Chinese gov-
ernment recognizes and  de-
nounces these transparent plans,
and is determined to conclude
the liberation of the people of
Tibet from their age-old back-
wardness and misery,

ings. Man can and will lengthen
the span of life on this planet
of ours, which he will remodel
to make living a joy.

And as you think of all this,
it comes home to you with re-
‘doubled force how cynical and
revolting are the disquisitions of
those who are already counting
the anticipated profits of an ato-
mic war!

Portraying this war, some of
the novelists in the West conjure
up all manner of nightmares.
They paint prospects of soil that
has lost its fertility, of poisoned
water sources and contaminated
air, of ore deposits ruined by
radioactivity, of burnt-out forests
and fields, of towns destroyed
and of people reverting to sav-
agery among ruins that once
were homes, That is what these
gravediggers predict for the
world.

But they are singing these dir-
ges too soon. Mankind is en-
dowed with sufficient reason to ©
choose life, not death. It is not
in the least inclined to commit
suicide. ;

This is proved by the countless
signatures of men and women ©
who demand the prohibition of
the atomic bomb and the con-—
demnation as war criminals of
those who first start an atomic
war, “

It is declared, even more loud-
ly,
broadcasts and articles, by scien-
tists, writers, workers, peasants
in every corner of the world.

But the weightiest and most
convincing proof of it is the ra-_
pid progress of the Land of So- —
viets, the Land of Socialism, and —
the steady forward movement of
mankind to Communism, which
will transform our planet and
make it a happy home for every-
one who works. : i

in appeals and resolutions, —