By BERT WHYTE HE EXTENT of Soviet aid to the People’s Republic of China was outlined in ‘etail for the first time by M. .. Suslov at a plenary meeting f the CPSU Central Committee n Feb. 14 this year. Because I saw the results of iis aid during the four years iat I lived in China, and be- ause the Chinese are today at- smpting to belittle the tremen- ous assistance they received ‘om the USSR (and even to “ame the Soviets for their own srors in socialist construction) ’ may prove of some interest » Tribune readers to add to xcerpts from Suslov’s reports ay own first-hand observations. “In a short period of time tae USSR helped China build ‘ver 200 large industrial enter- ; rises, shops and other projects, quipped with modern machine- vy,” said Suslov. “China “has \ailt with Soviet aid whole ‘ranches of industry which China had not had before: air- ivaft, automobile and _ tractor- } uilding industries, power-pro- ‘ucing, heavy machine-building ind precision machine-building ‘adustries, instrument - making snd radio-engineering and vari- tus branches of the chemical \ adustry. “The factories built and re- . gnstructed with Soviet assist- ace enable China to produce anually 8,700,000 tons of iron, - 400,000 tons of steel, and 2,200,000 tons of coal and hale. Enterprises built with the ‘elp of our country account or 70 percent of China’s tin utput, 100 percent of its syn- hetic rubber output, 25 to 30 ercent of its electric power aitput, and 80 percent of the -ucks and’ tractors produced mnually. The defense factories -uilt with the technical. assist- -ace of the Soviet Union consti- ated the core for the building China’s defense industry.” _ Naturally I did not see—nor id I ask to see—any defense ants in China. But,I did visit teel mills near Peking and ai Soviet aid played a major 2eport on aid to China Why the Soviet Wuhan, the great power project at Sanmen Gorge, machine- building plants and the huge ~ tractor factory in Loyang; in all, dozens of industrial enterprises. In the spring of 1961 a direc- tor of the Loyang tractor plant showed me around, told me the plant had been constructed with Soviet help and produced a replica of the Soviet T-54 trac- tor,.a 54 h.p. caterpillar ma- chine. “The plant is designed to turn out 15,000 tractors a year, but we are only able at present to produce about 8,000, plus a million spare parts,” he said. In 1963 when I revisited the plant vice-director An Tao Ping was not so frank. He made no mention of Soviet as- sistance and when I asked him about this, and about produc- tion, he said shortly: “We did most of it ourselves. Anyway we have improved on _ their tractor. We are producing to. designed capacity. No, we don’t issue any production figures. These are-Chinese tractors, pro- duced by Chinese. Our equip- ment is mostly made in China.” This ‘we did it ourselves” routine, almost absent in 1960 and 1961, began in 1962 and had become an obsession by 1963. Suslov said: “Bent on erasing the memory of Soviet assist- ance among the people, the Chinese go to the. length of re- moving trade marks from So- viet lathes and other machinery, and allege that the Soviet Union delivered obsolete equipment to China.” : Is Suslov exaggerating? Not very much, if at all. In com- pany with a dozen other corres- pondents from several countries (Britain, USSR, Rumania, Hun- gary, GDR, Czechoslovakia, etc.) I toured several industrial cities in 1963. Walking through the eight main workshops of the Loyang Mining Machinery Plant, I noticed that most of the heavy machinery came from the USSR and Germany, though some small lathes were. of Chinese make. In a few cases name plates had been removed. At the briefing we were told role in developing China's steel - dustry. Photo shows a worker at the small steel rolling mill at nashan in northeast China. senile eaee SS en eo QUT LLL TUNES EL Soviet-Chinese cooperation reached its peak after Stalin’s death in 1953, when “elements of inequality” in relations be- tween the two countries were removed on the initiative of the CPSU and Premier Khrushchov. Mao Tse-tung said in 1957: “In the Chinese question, the credit for removing the disagree- able and the extraneous belongs to N. S. Khrushchov.” that “95 percent of the ma: chinery was made in China.” Again, at the Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Plant, director Chen Fung Tsai said that the plant was designed in China and equipped mainly with Chinese machines. Yet an_ inspection showed that the key machines came from Germany (Schiess), Hungary, Switzerland, Czecho- slovakia (Skoda), Japan (a huge vertical lathe made by Karatsu Iron Works) and the USSR. There were a number of small Chinese-made lathes. “More than 10,000 Soviet spe- cialists were sent to China for varying terms between 1950 and 1960,” said Suslov. “Some 10,- 000 Chinese engineers, techni- cians and skilled workers, and about 1,000 scientists, taught and trained in the USSR’ between 1951 and 1962. More than 11,000 students and post- gradutes graduated from Soviet educational establishments in this period. “Soviet - Chinese cooperation reached its peak after 1953, when elements of inequality in the relations between our coun- tries imposed during the Stalin personality cult, were removed on the initiative of the CC,CPSU and Comrade N. S. Khrushchov. ‘In the Chinese question,’ Mao Tse-tung said in 1957, ‘the cre- dit for removing the disagree- able and the extraneous belongs to N. S. Khrushchov.’ “In 1959 the proportions of Soviet-Chinese economic con- tracts were nearly double those of 1953, while deliveries for the building projects increased in that period as much as eight- fold. Between 1954 and 1963 the Soviet Union turned over to China more than 24,000 sets of scientific and technical docu- ments, including 1,400 projects of large industrial enterprises. These documents contained the vast experience accumulated by the Soviet people, by its scient- ists and technicians. When I arrived in China in March, 1960, the effects of. the mistakes make in the Great Leap Forward of 1958, and the People’s Communes, and the new General Line (‘going ali out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results to build so- cialism’’) were being felt in were. ‘authorities against violatin lower living standards and se- vere rationing. Refusing to face facts and admit that grave errors had been made both in industry and agriculture, the Chinese leaders: tried to shift the blame from their own shoulders by ener- getically pushing a “technical innovation” campaign. Osten- sibly this was to release the latent resourcefulness and_ in- ventiveness of the workers — a laudable objective. Chinese workers responded by coming up with many ingenious and often worthwhile ideas and in- ventions. But when, as inevitably hap- pened, wrong ideas were put forward and vetoed by foreign (and Chinese) engineers and Specialists, the workers were told they could “outvote and overrule” the “reactionary and conservative” experts. Soon the specialists were no longer in control of the plants, and their position became untenable, I recall one incident in a steel plant where a Chinese worker was cited for saving a few cans of. grease — he had “discovered” that the Czech machinery ran “just.as well” on half the specified amount. I need not describe the sad sequel. Said Suslov: “The last years of our specialists’ stay in China coincided with the ‘big leap’ policy and caused departures from accepted technical stand- ards. The Soviet specialists could not help seeing the dan- gerous implications of this pol- icy. They warned the Chinese the technical requirements. But their advice fell on deaf ears. “Due to the fact that the re- commendations of the Soviet specialists were ignored and that the Chinese officials grossly violated the technical standards, large breakdowns occurred, some of them involving a loss of life. This happened on the building site of the Hsinantsiang Hydro- power Station, where hundreds of thousands of tons of rock crashed down because the tech- nical requirements were scorn- ed, and work on the project was considerably delayed. The dams burst and the pit was flooded cat power project for the same reason. In both cases there was May 8, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Pa ~ advocating one policy (te the speed with which @ © _ and Virgin Lands, and ist Party in power today the Hsinfungtsian Hydro- loss of life. It is only ol that the Soviet engineet® technicians could not tre@ this with indifference. They tested, but being ignore ie began asking to be sent hoy I had heard stories of a of the happenings Suslov fi about above, but didnt ny first-hand knowledge. Fro own contacts, however ! : of similar’ disasters in a Peking. On one occasion, 4 reveal, a dispute reache@ high level, with Chou a furnace should be put into ob ation) and Liu Shao-chi a Liu’s adventurist policy ae ed, the furnace was opene soon — and led to dias Chinese engineer (he has left China) was criticiZ" | conservatism and almost sit led a “Rightist” for caution. F In the summer of 1900 Soviets recalled their SPT ists. Immediately, inside 1 the Chinese leaders beg blame their withdrawal f0 % their’ economic ills. BUY Suslov said: “Everybody knows that hi economic difficulties 1 arose before the Soviet i tha ists had been recalled, am they arose due to the dane ‘big leap’ experiment. Se” the greatest difficulties i eso economic branches where sp? were very few or no SOVIG cialists at all. “How, for example, could r recall of the Soviet spec” affect the coal, oil, timbe® and other industries, 2% culture as well, if, i? wor there were two: specialists enre? ing in the coal industry, fi in the Ministry of State “|, one Mi in the departments of es, ‘ istry of Agriculture and © ry? Yet it was these ict branches, and especially #8 at ture, that suffered the 3 failures. “Is it not high time eo Chinese leaders to stop ie f ing their party, their peoP world opinion, and to sP&% F truth about the real reaso® the difficulties? “These reasons stem ft? fact that the CPC leaders ed the objective laws economic policy.” ‘hs A key task for any comm" win the economic strugé! tween the capitalist and S| ist world — to suceed task of socialist’ constt™ Because socialism, as 4 ° is superior to capitalism: uf confident that the comm Party of China will eve? 9 return to a correct pel” win this struggle : But i should not be overt ed that the wrong eco policy of adventurism wh Chinese leaders took 1? hurt. their own people but harmed the — anti- imp® 7 struggle on a world scal@ fact cannot be concede” any number of “revolute phrases.