mn

ODAY, in China, as the

time for spring offen-

sives arrives, the mili-
tary situation south of the
Yangtze worries the eee
minds of Washington
Nanking far more than the
remote possibility that the Kuo-
mintang might be able to retain a
foothold in North China, through
the large scale use of air power,
as advocated by General Chen-
nault. Today, the Yangtze Basin
holds high hopes for the Chinese
People. It also holds what may be
the most dangerous threat of
American intervention on a com-
bat basis since V-J Day.

North of the Yangtze lie three
Sreat units of the People’s Army
of Liberation, They are command-
€d by Chen Kung, by Chen Yi and

by Liu PoCheng, the one-eyed

raider who has spent the last two
years executing lightning maneu
vers that sometimes threatened

' the gates of Nanking, sometimes

Hankow and sometims the Szech-
wan border far to the west.

A year ago, those armies were
on the open offensive only part of
the time. Today, they have affect-
€d a triple junction and have
cleared a wide area of Kuomintang
troops. From north Kiangsu prov-
ince to south Shensi, 1,200 miles,
and from north of the Lunghia
railroad to the banks of the Yang-
tze, 600 miles, they have made it
Possible for the Democratic gov-
ernument to implement the new
land policies in behalf of the peas-
ants without interruption by
Chiang’s military forces.

There have been more direct,
Specific preparations. During the
Past year, elements of Liu Po-
cheng have crossed the Yangtse
Several times at different places
in small strength to carry out re-
connaissance in force. Last win-
ter” General Liu took and held
Positions along the river near
Hankow in spite of Chiang’s most
Vigorous efforts to dislodge him.
Those positions may easily be the

Springboard for the large-scale

ctossing operations when they
come.

Now, for two months since Feb-
Tuary 1, the three armies have
hot engaged in any offensives, In-
Stead, they are reported. resting,
reorganizing and recruiting, while
in south China peasant revolts

against Chiang have broken out

With new intensity. Those revolts
will pin down thousands of Kuo-
mintang garrison , troops that
might be brought to the Yangtze
88 reserves to help oppose the
Crossing operation.

WHEN will the crossing come?

Rumors in Shanghai and
Nanking put the date somewhere
in May. The facts of the Yangtze
valley make an early date plaus-
ible enough, but there are other
facts about the situation far to
the north which must have a dir-
ect bearing on the operation of
the three armies in the south.
The answer may be in Manchuria.

_The People’s Aimy of Libera-
‘on now holds 99 per cent; of
Manchuria. Changchun, the capi-
tal, and Mukden are the only im-
Portant centres it has not captur-
€d, and of more than ‘seven full
armies of Kuomintang troops
transported there by American
Shipping, only the four American-
trained, American-equipped  div-
‘sions of the Kuomintang General

§8n Han-chieh remain as a for-
™Midable fighting force. It_is more
than likely that the spring offen-
Sive in Manchuria will have the
des Yuction of these four divisions
as its object.

When that campaign is com-
Pleted, Chinese Communist troops
will certainly pour across the
Nie Wall into North China to
etn the forces of the famous
Chin-Cha-Chi base mop up Kuo-
Sane pockets of resistance in
he Peiping, Tientsin and north
Shantung areas.

Then, as if by chain reaction,
the

.

impetus of the offensive _

By
HENRY A.
STIMMS

When the Communists
cross the Yangtze

action, secure in the knowledge
that, from the Yangtze to Siberia,
Chiang had no force capable »of
attacking.

(CHIANG KAI-SHEK has shown
that he fully appreciates the
tremendous power of this rising
tide. On March 18, he called a meet-
ing in Nanking of his most ap:
portant military and political
leaders for the purpose of devis-
ing means to oppose the crossing
when it comes. Among those pres-
eat were Chen Li-Fu, chief power
of the notorious “C, C. Clique”;
General Pai’ Chung-hsi, minister
of defense, and, of course, Cheng
Kai-min, head of the Kuomintang
Gestapo.

Chiang is reported to have told

that meeting, “Unless we awake
and do everything in our power

to prevent the Yangtze crossing, |

our days are numbered.”

But is everything in the Kuo-
mintang power enough? Chiang
sits in the same Position, militar-
ily and ideologically, as did Hitler
before the Normandy landing.

From Ichang to the Yangtze's

mouth is 1,000 miles, and Chiang
has ‘the choice of either trying to
spread his troops thin enough to
meet the crossing wherever it
may come, or of preparing a de-
fense in depth with a mobile force
which might try to obliterate a
beachhead. But Hitler had more
than 20 miles of the turbulent
English Channel as an obstacle
for his opposition, Chiang has
only a mile of muddy water, nego-
tiable by sampan in a half-hour
and dark night.

Further, Europe is not China,
and a defense by depth would be
endangered by people’s revolts
in every province where the land-
ing might come. Hither plan will

be endangered by lack of enthus-

iasm among Chiang’s troops for

any kind of battle with the Com--

munists—so great now that even
Senator Vandenberg has felt it
necessary to suppress news of it.

The experience of the Yellow
River last August has showed
Chiang that allowing the people’s
army any kind of beachhead may
be most disastrous. Eight weeks
after the initial crossings had
been effected by the Communist-
Jed troops, the Democratic gov-
ernment had been installed in an
area one-half the size of France.

e

N his dilemma, Chiang would

like nothing better than that
the U.S. navy provide gunboats to
patrol the Yangtze and that the
U.S. Army Air Force be prepared
to help him resist the Yangtze
crossing.

General Wedemeyer, who has
never advocated anything but

military force as U.S. policy in
China, apparently saw the possi-
bilities of the Yangtze crossing

long ago when, he advocated Chi-
ang’s withdrawal into South Chi-

na. The appointment of T. V.

Soong as governor of Kwangtung
province and as chief of the Gen-
eralissimo’s headquarters is Can-
ton, the building of Formosa as
a military base, President Tru-
man’s advocacy of a $60,000,000
loan to rebuild the Canton-Han-
kow railroad, and the plans of the
National Resources Commission
to build factories in Kiangsi and
Hunan provinces are all pieces
that fit into the picture of the
Wedemeyer plan.

That plan calls for a _ strong

Kuomintang base in South China,
from which Chiang may launch
campaigns against the People's
Army in the future when Ameri-
can officers.and American arms
have rebuilt his army. So it is this
base that American imperialism
will fight hardest to defend, and
the threat to ‘that base of the
Yangtze crossing, once it is ac-
complished, will alse carry the
strongest threat to date that Am-
erican troops may be thrown
against the Chinese people by
would-be world conquerors in
Washington.

For already. the people’s forces
in Kwangtung are reported as
holding and governing 70 per cent
of the rural areas of the province.

Does this have a familiar ring?

OvR Nuremberg autopsy of

Hitler Germany exploded
some popular misconceptions
concerning the rise of Naziism.
One of the most widely held
myths is that when Nazism ar-
rived in Germany, it came full
blown—to a people predisposed
to its virus, _

The truth, however, is quite
different. And because I feel
that there are some omnious and
sickening __ parallels between
Germany, 1933, and America to-
day, I think it would be helpful
briefly to retrace the principal
stages along the road to Hit-
ler’s seizure of power.

To begin with it must be re-
called that the Nazis’ coup
detat im January, 1933, was
achieved without their ever re-
ceiving a majority vote; in fact,
between the elections held in
July, and again in November
1932—the eve of the coup—the
Nazi party had lost some two
million votes. How then did Hit-
ler accomplish his advent to
power? :

The decisive tactic used by the
Nazis to divide and conquer the
opposition was that old, but ever
effective bugaboo, the red scare,

The German press and radio
were inundated with tales of at-
rocities, of the Reichstag fire,
of plots to deliver up the Ger-

man folk to Russia. The cam-
paign was so effective that, af-
ter a while the mere use of the
epithet “Communist” produced:
a mechanical blind hate reac-
tion.

Having created this condition-
al reflex the Nazi propaganda
machine proceeded to the second
step: the label “Communist” was
pinned indiscriminately on all
opponents of the Nazi party in-
cluding, ironically enough, the
inveterate enemies of the Com-
munists, the Social Democrats.
It was unnecessary to prove the
charge—it was enough to make
it.

In spite of a popular illusion.

to the contrary, Hitler was punc-
tilious in disarming his enemies
by “legal” means—at least dur-
ing the early days of his regime.
It isn’t. that he particularly
wanted to be legalistic, but the
German people, like our own,
were€ great believers in their
laws and in their constitution.
One of the first laws passed
in the spring of 1933 outlawed
the Communist Party and de-
nied jobs. to all Communists.
Soon thereafter the Social De-
mocratic party was dissolved.
This took care of the organ-
ized: opposition, but there were
still dissenters whose only crime
was that they were critics of

the regime. How to take care of
-them;—legally, mind you. The
resourceful Nazis cooked up a
néw one. It was called the Loy-
alty act—does it have a familiar
ring? That law provided loss of
job and penalties for those
found to have

“... Violated their duty of loyal-
ty to the Reich and the German
people”,

Every whisper of dissent was
interpreted as disloyalty and was
punished by that effective form —
of economic pressure, loss of em- —
ployment. -

Thus the Nazis proceeded by
legal means, ostensibly aimed at
the Communists but actually de-
signed to eliminate the last
vestige of opposition in German,
until the only voices left were —
those of Hitler, Goebbels, Goer-—
ing and Company. % :

It is a tested historical phe-
nomenon that, once the disinte-
grating process of civil
liberties sets in, whether the
avowed target is the Christian or |
the Communist, or whoever, it
tends to continue until all civil

liberties are destroyed. It is a aS

Nazi industrialists at

Nurem-__
berg. e

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 7, 1948—PAGE 7