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This month marks the seventeenth anniversary of the bloody crushing of the Chinese revolution by Chiang Kai-shek. It was on April 12, 1927 that Chiang, aided by every element of native reaction and by the imperialists whose servant he aspired to become, staged a savage coup d’etat in Shanghai. This event, which signalized the triumph of the bourgeois counter-revolution over the insurrectionary masses, was important not only because it represented a turning point in China's history, but also because of the consequences to which it led in the much wider field of international politics.
Without the crushing of the Chinese revolution, the subsequent invasion of Manchuria by imperialist Japan, followed by the attack on China proper, and then by the imperialist war in the Pacific, would in all probability never have taken place.
Flanked by a revolutionary China across the Yellow Sea, Japanese imperialism, suffering from incurable maladies, might well have collapsed. Taking fresh courage from the revolutionary example of China, as previously they had drawn on Bolshevik Russia for inspiration, the fearfully oppressed masses of Japan, would have settled accounts with their capitalist exploiters. A revolutionary Japan, allied with a revolutionary China, would have set the whole colonial world aflame. India most certainly would have been wrenched from the greedy, cruel grasp of British colonial despots. The fire of revolution would have spread rapidly to the Middle East, to Africa and to Latin America.
Finally, the liberating struggle of the colonial slaves of imperialism would have caused the profoundest repercussions in the imperialist metropoli. With the bases of imperialist power in the colonies destroyed or seriously undermined, the working class in the great capitalist countries could have moved forward to the offensive against their exploiters. Imperialism on a world scale could have been forced into retreat and finally vanquished by the revolutionary forces of the proletariat. Humanity would now be moving along the path of socialist reconstruction.
HOW THE KREMLIN AIDED THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION
But the Chinese revolution was not successful. Despite the tremendous organized strength of the Chinese workers and peasants, their will to struggle, their indomitable courage and capacity for sacrifice, the revolution went down in tragic defeat. The false and suicidal policy of the Stalinist leadership, which set false goals for the masses (limiting the purpose of the revolution to a simple struggle against imperialism in alliance with the bourgeoisie) and which acted as a brake on the revolution (restraining the masses in the interest of maintaining a “national united front” with the bourgeoisie), derailed the whole mass movement and facilitated Chiang Kai-Shek’s counter-revolutionary plans.
Japan’s invasion of Manchuria occurred less than four years after the defeat of the Chinese revolution and was followed a few years later by the attack on China as a whole. It occurred, Trotsky pointed out, as a direct consequence of the bloody suppression in China and was speeded by the Japanese imperialists out of their mortal fear of an impending revolution in Japan.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF 1927 DEFEAT
It is impossible to compute the cost to the peoples of China, the masses of Japan, the proletariat of all the world, of the debacle of the Chinese revolution. For China and Japan it has meant, to date, almost 13 years of destructive war, leading finally to the involvement of the entire Pacific area in the mad holocaust.
For China, the urgent problems which gave rise to the revolution in 1927 have been accentuated a hundred-fold. Freedom from imperialist domination has still to be achieved. Apart from the struggle for national liberation and without its achievement, there can be no fundamental reorganization of Chinese society in the interests of the masses. The two goals naturally combine, for the native bourgeoisie are repositories, perpetuators and defenders of every form of reaction and economic backwardness, while the imperialists are their allies.
In a recent speech at Chungking, Chiang Kai-shek admitted that the Japanese imperialists had not been driven from any part of China’s territory which they had occupied. This, he asserted, was a “disgrace to the entire nation.” The real reason for China’s failure to expel the invaders, however, is to be found in the rotten policies of Chiang and the bourgeoisie. At the beginning of the Japanese invasion they discouraged and stamped upon every independent movement of the masses. They have loaded the entire cost of the war on to the already overstrained backs of the workers and peasants. “Free China,” the China of Chiang Kai-shek, is as much a prison house as the parts occupied by the Japanese army. The prisons are packed with workers, peasants, intellectuals who have dared to criticize Chiang’s reactionary policies.
CHIANG’S POLICY IN CHINA’S WAR
China’s failure to expel the invaders is due precisely to these policies—the attempt to conduct the war on a pure military plane against a better-equipped foe, to hold the broad masses back from the struggle, while making them pay all the bills.
To the extent that Chiang suppresses the masses and denies them any independent initiative in the struggle against Japanese imperialism—to that extent he is forced into dependence upon the “democratic” imperialists who are also, for their own reasons, fighting against Japan. The influence of the Anglo-American combination in Chungking grows from day to day, especially that of the Americans. There is also a constant increase in American armed forces in the country. Washington openly proclaims its intention of using China as the main base of operations against Japan. Financially, Chiang’s regime falls more and more into servitude to Wall Street’s monopoly capitalists who see in China prospects of lush post-war profits.
Should this tendency continue, and should Chiang succeed in holding down China’s masses, there will exist the very real prospect of China being converted into a colony of the “democratic” imperialists once the Japanese have been driven out. Independent action by the masses under a revolutionary leadership, their active intervention in the national struggle, with a program and aims which reflect their own interests, represents the only hope for this betrayed and downtrodden people. Without such a revolutionary development, which can take place only under the banner of the Fourth International, all their sufferings and sacrifices will ultimately redound to the benefit of the exploiters and oppressors, both native and foreign.
THE ALTERNATIVE POSED BY HISTORY
At this very time, Chiang Kal-shek is keeping large forces stationed in northwest China to blockade the areas held by the Stalinist-controlled 8th Group Army. Chiang shows quite clearly that he is much more concerned about keeping the masses in check, holding them completely under the rule of their exploiters, than he is about waging war against the Japanese imperialists. Here we have the explanation for the prolonged stalemate in China’s war against Japan. The stalemate can be ended, with real benefit to the Chinese masses, only if the latter take their destinies into their own hands. Or it can be ended by the “democracies” gaining the upper hand-both over their Japanese antagonists and the masses of China. This is the alternative which history poses, and it is well to remember it on this, the seventeenth anniversary of the defeat of the great Chinese revolution.
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