CHINA: CENTURY OF REVOLUTION

[Music] 18:41 madness ceases the Japanese striking at Pearl Harbor they hope to force a merit today now China has a mighty ally America soon be theirs in Chinese soldiers beating an elephant with an eyedropper an American veteran calls it discouraged Chinese leaders say our Arsenal's make only 15 million bullets of money just for per soldier how can we fight Americans discover there are other reasons for poor Chinese morale graphed in their Army's generals corrupt incompetent the soldiers ill shod underfed and sick Major General Frank dawn recalls his training mission at the time a visiting American general from Washington asked me if he could see some Chinese troops marching on the road so we drove out and the first thing we saw of course was that the majority big majority of the truth men had dogs have one kind of description sighs anything that they could have stolen along the way on ropes on leashes on anything and he smiled and said here they are the GIS the world over they all love dogs and I said yes they certainly love these and he wanted to know what I meant by that and I said well this is their rations when they run out of rice and other food the dogs go into the cook pots commanding general for America is Joseph Stilwell a soldier soldier his mission is to train a Chinese army to strike back in India training thousands of Chinese flown back across the hump still will learns to know their true ability but he grows bitter at their government which cannot nourish them he feels they can attack and win they fled by honest officers insists that chung reorganized his army to throw incompetence out in chongqing this pressure irritates the Generalissimo he knows that victory is guaranteed by efforts of his allies his thoughts are on the aftermath of victory the final struggle for power yet to come a weariness of spirit seeps through his government something fades they wander alien through this anachronistic City the fronts are far away America's Flying Tigers guard the skies their background of big-city life cuts them from direct involvement with these peasant people little luxuries little pleasures occupy too many Minds too long exhausted by the years of sacrifice yet nonetheless the prestige of Jung's government grows foreign diplomat scored his favor do him honor in 1943 at Kairos wartime summit conference he sits with Roosevelt and Churchill except it now as equal of the great consulted on the strategy of global war assured of China's freedom China's greatness in the post-war world from yen ins Tony Hills the Communists watch all this and brewed unrecognized by foreign powers they know their strength is growing not foreign aid but peasant emotions give power and mouth to is hardening like Jang he thinks beyond the war to what must follow twenty years of flight and fighting have toughened him to hardship but his memory too was scarred by John by white men Russians and Americans alike his troops swelled daily behind enemy lines his self-assuredness freezes to dogma he has been right so often when others made mistakes his truths become for communists a holy script Colonel David Barrett chief of the American military liaison team again on watched all this and recalls they emphasized that they had to give the troops political training because the political consciousness of the peasants who made up the Chinese communist armies was very low so therefore they said we have to give them political training I told him I said in the United States Army we look with this disfavor on giving political training we think we should devote our whole time to military training when we said that is not the case in our army because we consider military training and political training as equally important and one cannot be neglected for the other juda agrees with mao power is what comes out of a muzzle of a gun but ideas politics must motivate the man behind the gun a concept the Nationalists only dimly grasp Theodore White recalls how powerful communist motivation could be I went with a group of chinese nationalist guerrillas who were organizing resistance behind the Japanese lines and there was a young nationalist lieutenant and two horsemen and myself we traveled behind the Japanese lines for oh I'd say two or three days and then the Japanese flushed us and we ran like mad and they chased us all day and by the time we arrived in a mountain village at night the horses were completely worn out saddle gold on their flanks eaving and we were as tired and just as scared and we asked the villages to give us water and fodder for our horses and I heard the young Chinese officer say woman shibai Lujan we are of the 8th route army and I said to him look we're nationalists not 8th route army guerrillas and he said shut up if we tell him we're nationalists they won't feed our horses or water them it was the first sense I'd ever had of the political grip the Communists had acquired on the minds and the hearts of the people in the occupied areas as war wears on American aid increases that Jang has plead reviewing the new division Stilwell has trained and equipped young hordes these splendid forces they will be useful later still will violently objects he wants to use them now against Japan he has no interest in future civil war Stilwell feels unless Jung purifies his government not only is he no help in this war but once the war is over surely the Communists will win their quarrel grows from Washington flies a mission to heal the nasty breach under Major General Patrick Hurley an Oklahoma politician John sees this as more white man's arrogance a meddling in the politics of China no compromise as possible and still well as relieved of command in 1944 certain American involvement in Asia will be long and tragic the world rejoices as in 1945 the Japanese surrender the guns they hope forever still to sign the document of surrender aboard the Missouri the Allies America England Russia invite Japan's first victim China in their eyes China's only spokesman as john kai-shek who sends nationalist generals to represent his people the Communists are absent for Chinese this is but the curtain to enact the climax yet to come and clash with communists to stop this dreadful prospect General Patrick Hurley now named ambassador flies off tiene he urges bow the war is over let there be peace but Mao and John divided the country politically but unify both rival armies under a central government America will underwrite the deal Hurley puts a plane at Mao's disposal to explore the proposition in joke King [Music] the smell arrives our the first plane flight he has ever taken his safety guaranteed by Americans this is his first face-to-face contact with that woman done since the killings and uprisings of 1927 six weeks of negotiation will produce a parent agreement as John plays host to Morrow before departure the plans that lurk behind their smiles however deceive all Western eyes for in the field of races on across the land the broken Japanese must sign defeat yield cities Garrison's and guns but which Chinese will take the guns and occupy the cities communist or nationalists [Music] the nationalists with all the transport of america at their disposal and playing their troops to seize the cities of the Yangtze Valley this ease of movement will lead them on to larger appetite dispersion of their forces up from the Yangtze to seize the cities not only of North China but beyond Manchuria with its vital industry a trails know will the Communists sit still together Mao and jewel-like Jang decide the key lies in Manchuria they choose lianbao as field commander to make the - from Yunnan and North China they will strike east and north while Jang is readying troops to move from Yangtze ports and airfields by foot and pack train Lin Biao sets out the Russians have temporarily occupied Manchuria by the surrender terms with Japan communists expect to get from Russians surrendered Japanese equipment and guns and hold the countryside before John arrives the rumble of inevitable clash causes America to replace Hurley with General George Marshall this architect of global victory is sent to save the peace for which so brilliantly he labored received by John kai-shek marshaled ropes for American solution to the bitter revolutionary surges of a strange Asian nation torn by barbarisms a generation old - his Chongqing headquarters he invites a communist delegation led by Jo and live chief communists negotiator to meet with John kai-shek spokesman Marshall suggests and they agreed to an American answer for China's groping search for order a federal government peacefully permitting the two parties to govern provinces they now hold politically freedom of speech permitted everywhere and disputes resolved by talk not guns in January 1946 both parties celebrate a truce with a handshake no paper troops however can mend a nation ripped apart by 50 years of killing within two months troops are on the move again each side blames the other but a hundred savage skirmishes now flared a full-scale war Manchuria is the cockpit of the struggle the industry Japan has built and left as the greatest prize in China John's American equipped troops seized all major cities to find a hollow triumph the Russian occupiers have looted every factory before withdrawal ripped out sockets show where great machines once stood for Mao the fighting in Manchuria is prelude to the climax of his theories the day when guerrilla bands group into formal armies and shove frontal combat at a weary enemy he fights for more than safety now his ambition seeks to mold all China's to his theories I asked Mao Zedong what their policy was with regard to freedom of the press and he said they believed in absolute freedom of press and absolute freedom of speech and it wasn't going to be like Chongqing when they won everybody would have the right to say whatever he felt wouldn't be censorship the way john kai-shek had in chongqing so uh I said you you really mean that and of course we mean it and I said do you mean that if you come to power anybody will be able to print anything he wants in a newspaper or publish any newspaper he wants and Martha dong said of course he said except for enemies of the people nor did he ever define I was too young to ask him to define what he meant by enemies of the people obviously now it means anybody who disagrees with him in summer 46 Jang returns his government to Nanking and once again as 17 years before reports the victory of his cause at Sun yat-sen's mausoleum the fighting in the north is only distant thunder in the Yangtze Valley American advisers urge he seize this moment to win the hearts and firm the loyalties of his people by new reforms thus and then King John convenes a Congress to write a modern constitution in one last try to govern China by the order Sun yat-sen has preached but the thrust of all his background is still military his troops must win by force of arms with American arms he feels the Communists can be crushed but his troops dig in to garrison rail junctions cities they have occupied American advisors insist such static defenses major error they say he pins down his best divisions where communist guerrillas will isolate them Queen City of Jong's victorious China is Shanghai restored at last to Chinese rule all foreigners concessions wiped out while battle players in the northern provinces Shanghai seems to thrive the long wars dislocation has filled the streets with hungry refugees and homeless laborers who offer muscle energy for little more than rice to feed them but after 50 years of suffering such sites are almost normal but worries Shanghai lenders most is this their money for slowly then more swiftly through 46 and 47 the cost of distant civil war destroys the value and the meaning of these bundled paper dollars inflation ruins the vital middle class of all the cities the one great source of Joan's political support novelist Stephen Becker remember to panic years the inflation was heartbreaking when I got there in August of 1947 the exchange rate was sixty thousand yuan to one American dollar and when I left in September of 1948 it was twenty million yuan to one but people are relatively fixed incomes were just ruined in the summer of 1948 my wife and I had a continental dinner at one of Shanghai's best hotels and the check came to 250 million yuan who lost China to the Reds ignorant men will someday ask but now in 1948 sorrow scrawls its signature clear to many years of death and flight to many dreams betrayed in 50 years of barbarism a gangrene of the Spirit has set in erasing pride and hope peace whisper the Communists to weary minds peace an end to roaming now submit peace they say accept our mastery and peace land they say to landless peasants refugees join us they promise and the land will be divided all through North China slip their cadres calling meetings to share out the landlords fields which soon they plan to snatch away again [Music] in summer 1948 Mao makes his master mold assault by frontal armies in Manchuria guerrilla bands emerged from hiding form up in full divisions equipped with captured tanks artillery and guns Johns Garrison's are isolated by ruptured railways hostile peasants November 1948 I'm Korea Falls panic begins among the cutoff nationalist Garrison's in North China surrendering by scores then thousands and full divisions the equipment America has given them falls to the Reds to America her second homeland flies Madame Chiang kai-shek in November 48 to make a last appeal for further help but Harry Truman has had enough reluctantly he tells her American involvement must end and now the Nationalists pursued by raft as they in years gone by did once pursued the Communists gather its yujo last bastion guarding access to the mighty Yangtze Valley for two full months Jung's troops fight on in January cutoff they must surrender half a million soldiers lost the Communists pour south his spirit heavy burdened Jang resigns his leadership hoping other men may caught the Communists for better terms on April 1st the Nationalists sent emissaries to Peking to plead with Mao Zedong but they have passed the point of no return no mercy say the Communists the new Mandate of Heaven requires all nationalists to lay down arms within three weeks three weeks later to the day the Communists uncoiled to cross the Yangtze first target is Nanking the hallowed capital of the warming down but in that capital the will to fight has turned to dust no man will stand the ramparts abandoning positions troops trudged away as silent people stand and watch too many warring armies have passed this desolate way to make them want to fight for any faith or any politics no mainland refuge now remains and fleeing nationalists embark what troops they can to cross the ocean for the island of Formosa Shanghai here's the message clearly as foreign businessmen board up their shops go now go quickly for communism marches take what you can but flee in pell-mell haste the Western powers evacuate the city they have built for good and bad alike must leave the businessmen come for profit as well as missionaries come to heal must say goodbye as out the Yangtze steams the last of Western influence and farewell to essentially [Music] May 27 1940 nine down Shanghai is princely avenues the pleasure boulevards of yesteryear rolls the victorious red tide in six more months all China will submit red star triumphant hoisted over the world's most ancient nation silently the crowds observed their newest conquerors today in 1967 the marble altars of Peking still beseech the will of heaven as always Chinese still gather here to listen to the voices that interpret heavens will [Music] for 18 years this man alone has tried to shape their thinking has offered them his universal truths a Dogma changeless as Confucius to freeze their muffled discontent and end their quenchless modern turbulence the image shown his people has been a teacher grandfather benign it all have learned that those who cannot read his lessons will be crushed his aging mind still lusts for permanent strike the theme he preaches to old and young alike is hate we are small militia men fighting u.s. imperialism uncle we must grow up quick and go to liberate Taiwan Taiwan the object of their hate we call Formosa this rocky island 90 miles off the mainland has many meanings to statesman it is the last remaining read out of the gorman dong where john kai-shek with American Arms has reacquired an army 600,000 strong and dreams reconquest but Jang is pawn to American policy he cannot move these troops or few of them unless America lets him do so now 80 John kai-shek B speaks for mainland China another threat to Formosa in his flight Jang has carried the ancient Imperial Museum of Peking the treasures of 800 years of Chinese art symbol of another China beauty past it is this echo of the past that has bedeviled Mao who seeks erasure of all past yet how Mao's struggle goes we cannot tell at the American consulate in Hong Kong there are Cascades mountains piles of translations that come in from the Chinese and these are sandy gritty gravelly little bits of information that a meaningless because we don't know who does what to who in Peking we don't know how they think or how they make up their mind because no matter how hard we study China we cannot predict such a thing of a great leap forward in 1958 we can't predict such a thing as the Red Guard purge of 1966 as if there were a struggle of sea monsters going on deep deep beneath the surface of our vision and only these bubbles come to the surface to tell us that these are terrible struggles but we don't know what they're struggling about today in total ignorance we strain to know of China as once our ancestors strain to peer across the mysterious wall not knowing myth from fact we know industry grows steel productions swollen ten times to twelve million tons a year light industry soaring but what comfort it gives the people we cannot judge [Applause] we know beyond this wall lived people of dazzling historical ability the forefathers of these students first invented paper printing books gunpowder the clock the compass in 1967 they loft rockets in 65 they synthesized insulin in 64 they unlocked the atom secrets from behind the wall rise boastful statistics but we know that China's people hunger have barely survived one of the worst famines in all history that driven by communist cadres peasants work in communes today still beasts of labour as their fathers were [Applause] within these walls tyranny has tried to reach beyond the body to the inner recesses of the soul I woke at midnight and saw my little brother smiley I asked him why he smiled and he said I dreamed of Chairman Mao [Music] [Applause] the purpose of all learning is to fathom what goes on in Chairman Mao's mind this mind holds all the truths that ever were or will be neither age nor place nor class has allowed escape from pounding the chanting of Mao's litany and railroad stations in stores at work even those who built the wall so long ago must be forgotten they have been told no history but mouths the aging leaders who shared the hills of hiding 40 years ago trekked the long march withstood Japan America the Guam and done us now again passed judgment on their revolution they ride and split [Music] within these walls they clash they seek replacement for a chief whose triumphs make him think himself the voice of heaven the universal sage this is their bomb in ten years time there will be more the nightmare problem of our time shapes clear to reach the minds of mouth' successors with reason before unreasoning bombs take up the dialogue it does no good to mourn the past we pass along a road of time which always turning never brings us back to the crossroads mocked again perhaps we should never have disturbed the slumbering civilization of China or else that awake of itself and reach for us perhaps China is too vast to be governed by mercy yet if the Chinese mind craves order they must be brought to recognize they are the biggest factor in the world's disorder and we must untangle the madness of their mind the most difficult task in the world is to reach the minds of men who hate you we do not flinch from the immediate tasks to that our skies defend our friends we cannot flinch from tomorrow's task to reach to the mine we race today to reach the moon to reach that mind is a task of equal difficulty and far greater urgency [Music]