China Strike Wave

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A series vi press reports in recent weeks have made it clear that during July and August the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party faced major unrest in a number of industrial centres coupled with sharp struggles within local party organisations.

Hangchow, an industrial town of over a million people on the coast of central China, was reported to be the scene of widespread industrial sto prees, partly factoed the freezing workers' wages and the shortage of goods. These were accompanied by intense political battles between rival factions in the party organisation.

"Radicals" protected - with the aid of massive poster campaigns in the factories - against the restoration of "moderate" figures removed from Party positions during the cultural revolution. At one point railway workers cut the main line linking Shanghai with Canton and the nther norts of southern China. sought to suppress the trouble with the urban militia, but the militiamen themselves became involved in the political struggles; as did the standing army garrison of the area. Finally the local troops were withdrawn and units of the First Army were brought in from Wuhan, 350 miles away. 11,000 troops were sent into the factories to restore order.

The reports in the capitalist press, of course, must be treated with considerable caution, since they are subject to manipulation to serve the anti-communist ends of press tycoons and the information and propaganda agencies of imperialism. But the scale of the reports indicates that a national, not just local, crisis was involved Industrial stoppages were reported from Wuhan and Chungking, two key cities in central China, and from Mukden in the north. And in mid-August troops were sent into the coal-mining area round Suchow, north-east of Shangai.

The industrial struggles in launched against "capitulationists" (widely interpreted as referring to the 'moderate" leaders brought back since the cultural revolution).

The idea of "unity" as a supreme principle within the Party was also challenged. But, like many recent campaigns, the criticisms were not explicit but veiled in the form of commentaries on works of classical Chinese literature.

The Stalinist character of the controlling leadership within the Chinese Communist Party was underlined last week, though, with the visit of a major trade delegation from Chile to Peking. It intends to arrange for the sale of greatly increased amounts of Chilean nitrate and copper to China, and to establish 'normal' commercial relations between the two countries.

China never broke off diplomatic relations with Chile after the military coup which overthrew Allende's 'Popular Unity' government in 1973. Not only that, but Allende's ambassador to Peking was forced to leave the country, and the Chinese embassy in Santiago (the Chilean capital) refused , to give political asylum to the left-wingers who were being hunted down by the military dictatorship - even though a number of western states, such as Sweden, offered

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