Chiang added that in his opinion Americans were being prejudiced by propaganda and warned Wallace against the new party line based on Stalin’s remark that Chinese Communists were not really Communists at all but agrarian reformers. He repeated what he had been telling Chou En-lai for many months, that if the Reds would allow their army to be incorporated in the Nationalist forces and would give up their separate government, he was willing to extend to them the same treatment as he did all other Chinese, with the right to maintain their political party. He wanted to warn Roosevelt that the Reds were the best propagandists in the world: the President must not be taken in, though American reporters in Chungking had already been misled. To continue pressing the Kuomintang to give in would only make matters worse. When Wallace brought up the matter of the blockade, saying that the Communists and the Nationalists should both be opposing the Japanese instead of each other, Chiang answered wearily:
“Please do not press; please understand that the Communists are not good for the war effort against Japan.” The Reds would not be so useful against the Japanese, he said, as the Americans seemed to think. Why did the Americans keep talking about the government coming to terms with the Communists? Why did no one ever urge the Communists to come to terms with the government?
On the other hand, he thought it possible to make a deal with Moscow; indeed, he said, the Chinese Reds were even more Communistic than the Russians. Might not Roosevelt bring about better relations between his country and the U.S.S.R.?
Chiang spoke emphatically of the inimical relations between himself and Stilwell, but he didn’t repeat his earlier request that the American general be recalled. What he wanted was an additional officer, someone more important, to act as his personal representative; somebody who would be able to communicate with Roosevelt direct, without going through the War and State departments—a liaison officer.
Wallace reported to Roosevelt, in sum, that the prospects of settling the Kuomintang-Communist dispute were very poor. Talks between the parties were imbued with prejudice, he found; the whole setup was extremely discouraging, and the Generalissimo was “bewildered in regard to the economic situation, unsure in regard to the political situation, and … distressed about military developments.” It looked as if the Japanese would soon take over East China with the American air bases, and he doubted if the Chungking government would survive the shock. He recommended Chiang’s idea of a personal representative appointed by Roosevelt. America must take determined steps immediately to save China unless she was prepared to write it off—determined steps militarily and politically as well. Otherwise there would be a political vacuum that would certainly be filled in ways the President would understand. Some sort of coalition was vitally necessary—Wallace was vague about this—but the emissary for whom Chiang was asking had better be appointed and sent without delay. And this man should not be Stilwell.
Prejudiced as Wallace was, he seems to have been stirred to something like compassion for the worried Chinese leader. He confessed later that he was “deeply moved by the cry of a man in distress.”
Yet his one sympathetic recommendation, to play down Stilwell, was ignored.
In Chungking the customary wrangles between correspondents and government on such fretful questions as censorship and telegram priority had suddenly been suspended by a remarkable fluke. A Chinese Minister of Information, newly appointed, came to his first press conference badly briefed as to the Generalissimo’s particular phobias. Quite casually he gave permission to one of the American reporters to go to Yenan and see things for himself. The hubbub that grew out of this, and the clamorings of the rest of the boys, showed him that he must have made a mistake. But he had given his word and he was not allowed to go back on it. Behind the scenes he got hell from his superiors, but the correspondents would not let him off.
The question was first mooted in November 1943. The Ministry managed to stave off the actual journey until May 1944, but then they were cornered and the party set out at last. It was not exactly a cross section of American public opinion. There were six non-Chinese, one of whom was a Russian, the Tass representative. Another was a stateless member of the Communist Party, of Polish extraction. Two others, Americans, were strongly pro-Communist. Of the other two one was a Catholic priest and the other worked for a Kuomintang department. The other four, needless to say, reported overwhelmingly in favor of the Red regime. Those pro-Communists who could not speak Chinese did not feel hampered. Had they not adequate interpreters?
The nine Chinese newspapermen, who did speak the language, were not quite so impressed by what they saw. But then, said the American, they were, of course, prejudiced.
“The Chinese Communist Party has never wavered from its policy of supporting Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the policy of continuing the co-operation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and the entire people, and the policy of defeating Japanese imperialism and struggling for the building of a free democratic China,” said Mao Tse-tung. “… But China has drawbacks and they are serious ones. They can be summed up in one phrase—the lack of democracy.”
What could be fairer than that? In a few days America’s leading newspapers bloomed with reports about the splendid spirit in Yenan, the determination to resist Japan, the wonderful development of the land. Tough, well-fed, hardened troops. Democracy. Democracy. Democracy.… A few months later there were four new volumes in United States bookstores telling the same story.
The reporters had not yet won their permission to visit this paradise; they had hardly begun to fight for it in January, when John P. Davies, a State Department officer, first mooted the idea of an American military mission in Yenan. He thought the Reds might consent, just possibly, if Roosevelt hurried to get permission, but he counseled haste. As he pointed out, it would be highly advantageous if the mission could get in and find out for themselves how strong the Communists were and what Russia and Japan were doing in that remote territory. Besides, if American officers were right there on the spot, the Nationalists might be prevented from attacking the Reds and forcing them to give up their autonomy. Mr. Davies seemed to think the Reds needed such protection.
Roosevelt did ask Chiang hastily, as he had been advised, but the Generalissimo didn’t take to the idea. Since that January correspondence, however, what with one development and another, Chiang’s intransigent attitude had changed. In spite of all resistance the newspapermen had got through and were still in Yenan. The worst they could do was already being done. Therefore, though he warned the Vice-President that a military mission to the Northwest carried implications that would encourage the Communists to an undesirable extent, he consented. The American group went forthwith; they were greeted with enthusiasm by Mao Tse-tung.
“Any contact you Americans may have with us Communists is gold,” he said to John Stewart Service, and proceeded to explain how very unreasonable the Kuomintang was being.
“How about going to China and fixing things up?” Marshall asked Stilwell.
It was the second of July, soon after Wallace had recommended Stilwell a recall. Marshall was fighting back effectively on his general’s behalf; the War Department, touchy like most military people, resented criticism of their boy, especially in the light of his recent exploit in Burma. Moreover, they could point in support of their suggestion to Wallace’s own statement. He had admitted that the situation called for drastic treatment if China was to be pulled out of peril. No other American had Stilwell’s experience in the China theater. But this time, they said, he must have full authority over the Chinese forces; there must be no more interference from the top, no more hamstringing.
In their eagerness to reaffirm their trust in Stilwell, they ignored the danger of appointing to such a post the man who could write in his journal, at just that moment, “The cure for China’s trouble is the elimination of Chiang Kai-shek.”
Roosevelt too ignored it. He simply forwarded the proposal to Chungking. For his part, he was making Stilwell a
full general, he said. What about it?
If, in Wallace’s phrase, Chiang had been “a man in distress” before, what did he feel like now? The plan must have seemed almost grotesquely insulting, and mad besides. A foreigner to have complete command of his forces was extraordinary enough. But that it should be this particular man, Stilwell, who hated him, who had once nearly been recalled at his request, who constantly urged him to make it up with the Reds and let them fight shoulder to shoulder with the Kuomintang troops! A man who had no conception of what Communism really was! The Generalissimo didn’t need a spy to find out what sort of thing Stilwell wrote to his superiors.
In a different department of his life, he now learned, there were other ugly criticisms. Chiang was not interested in gossip: it was Madame who heard it and told him, in great distress, that the talk about his private affairs was reaching such a pitch that she didn’t think he could afford to ignore it any longer. Her missionary friends were advising her to do something about it. Everybody was talking all of a sudden; where the scandal came from it was impossible to say, but there it was everywhere, sprung up from the ground overnight. They were saying that he had a concubine, or two, or three; that he was openly visiting some woman regularly every day. They were saying that the Chiangs were going to be divorced. Mayling’s pride was hurt.
It is safe to say that no leader has ever before taken control of a delicate situation in just the way Chiang did. It was just before his wife set out for Rio de Janeiro, there to meet her sister Madame Kung and try to find relief for her skin trouble. The Generalissimo did something extraordinary for him; he gave a big tea party, and invited a large number of foreigners and Chinese. When they were assembled he proceeded to make a speech. It had come to his attention, he said, that there were these rumors. He wished to deny them publicly, and to chide his friends and associates who had kept him so long in the dark about the matter: they should have told him before. “In leading my fellow countrymen, I rely not on power or position, but on my character and integrity. As a member of the revolutionary party, I must abide by revolutionary discipline. As a Christian, I must obey the commandments. Had I violated the discipline and the commandments either in public or private moral conduct, I should have been a rebel against Christ, against our late father Sun Yat-sen, and against the millions of my countrymen who have given their lives to our cause. Any one of them should impeach or punish me in accordance with discipline and the commandments.”
“It was very impressive, and in a cockeyed way convincing,” a foreign guest said later. “There he stood, talking in the most logical way, saying in effect that if he were guilty of such conduct he was unworthy to be the leader of China. But he was the leader of China. Therefore he could not be guilty of such conduct. Oddly enough, I was convinced.”
In the hush that greeted this speech Madame stepped forward and said her piece. She declared that she had never for a moment entertained a doubt of her husband.
It wasn’t exactly a gay tea party, but it made its mark. Fully two weeks must have gone by before people started whispering again that a divorce was in the offing. That was ten years ago, and they are still saying it.
Petty malice was one thing; the threat from Washington was quite another. With the Americans, Chiang could not afford the luxury of blowing up and speaking his mind. Instead he replied calmly; he said that he didn’t like the suggestion. But if he had to accept it, the extent of General Stilwell’s authority must be fully defined before they started; Communists should not be included in his command; and control of Lend-Lease material must be transferred to himself, for Chiang was afraid that Stilwell would give the best of the supplies, if he could, to the Reds.
In addition, Chiang reminded the President of his earlier request for some high-echelon officer to act as liaison between the White House and Chungking. To this part of the message Roosevelt replied without hesitation: he would certainly send someone, and was thinking it over at that moment. (Ultimately the choice fell on General Patrick J. Hurley.) The other conditions, he said, could be ironed out in the course of time. Communist aid would be valuable. But the main thing for the moment was speed: the Japanese were now past Hengyang.
Chiang didn’t agree. Impatient with what they considered his stalling, the Americans went ahead anyway. They were keenly interested in furthering their latest idea, of a combined war council that was to include Communists. In the face of the unanimous approval of the State and War departments Chiang’s hesitation to permit them to employ Reds in the actual fighting seemed to be ‘way behind the times. The military mission to Yenan through their spokesman Service were reporting most encouraging things about Mao Tse-tung’s men. It was Service’s strong recommendation that the Communist army be aided by America: the Reds would be a great help against the Japanese, whatever the Kuomintang might say in objection to this plan.
Carefully Chiang talked it over in detail with Ambassador Gauss. In a long interview on August 30 he repeated his summary of the situation and his warning. Washington still did not seem to understand the danger. The Observer group in Yenan was merely making everything much more difficult; the Communists, encouraged by their presence and attitude, were slipping farther and farther out of the mood to compromise. The Americans simply didn’t realize what the Reds were really after. “He thought we were acting in a way which could have very serious results,” said Gauss in his report, “for the Communists were out to dominate all of China and to sovietize it.”
The Ambassador listened patiently, but he was not impressed. It is not easy to figure out just what American policy was at this point, possibly because the State Department itself was not sure. If put to the question the members would have reiterated that Chiang Kai-shek was head of the acknowledged government, yet many of them felt, subconsciously, that a change was desirable and inevitable.
When General Hurley came out in August, he traveled by way of Russia; he visited Moscow on purpose to find out if he could what the attitude there was toward Chungking and the Chinese Reds. With Donald Nelson, who was going to Chungking with him, he interviewed Molotov. Nelson explained that his mission was to plan and organize production for China, with an eye to the situation after the war. What did Molotov think of the prospects of China’s being unified? Molotov was most amiable. Russia’s feelings for China had always been friendly, he reminded the Americans; it was the fault of the suspicious Chinese Government that Soviet proffers of friendship had been spurned. Nothing could be less true than that Russia was responsible for the Kuomintang-Communist friction. Hadn’t he himself aided Chiang to get out unscathed in the Sian kidnaping affair? It wasn’t Russia’s fault that so many Chinese were miserable. Chinese Communists weren’t real Communists anyway. Let conditions be improved in China, let the American Government give them a helping hand, and you would soon see how quickly they forgot Communism. Molotov seemed sublimely uninterested in the Chinese Reds; he wanted no part of them.
Hurley was sure Chiang would be overjoyed to hear the news, but Chiang didn’t seem to take much stock in it.… Well, naturally, the Americans concluded, he wouldn’t welcome the prospect of reform, would he? It would mean loss of his own power.
“I judge Kuomintang and Kungchantang [i.e., the Communist Party] by what I saw,” wrote Stilwell.
“[Kuomintang] Corruption, neglect, chaos, economy, taxes, words and deeds. Hoarding, black market, trading with enemy.
“Communist program … reduce taxes, rents, interest. Raise production and standard of living. Participate in government. Practice what they preach.…
“Chiang Kai-shek is confronted with an idea, and that defeats him. He is bewildered by the spread of Communist influence. He can’t see that the mass of Chinese people welcome the Reds as being the only visible hope of relief from crushing taxation, the abuses of the Army and Tai Li’s Gestapo. Under Chiang Kai-shek they now begin to see what they may expect. Greed, corruption, favoritism, more taxes, a ruined currency, terrible waste of life, callous disregard of a
ll the rights of men.”
On September 9, having arrived in Chungking with Nelson and Hurley on the seventh to discuss taking up his new command, he wrote, “Disaster approaching at Kweilin, nothing to stop the Japs.… It’s a mess and of course all they think of is what we can give them.… What they ought to do is shoot the G-mo and Ho and the rest of the gang.”
On September 12 Chiang agreed to appoint him commander-in-chief.
The points raised by Chiang when he first objected to the appointment had not yet been settled. That was up to Hurley, and now they were raised again, the subject of many a long talk. The Japanese resistance in Burma was turning into an offensive operation against the Yoke Force, which had been driven back to the Salween River it had recently crossed. Hurley told the Generalissimo that he must send in more men; the Generalissimo, on the contrary, was in favor of recalling those already committed. And there was still the fretful question of Stilwell’s precise position. Was the American to have authority to reorganize the troops as he wished? That was what Stilwell naturally demanded, and what Chiang, equally naturally, was reluctant to grant. Moreover, the matter of the Communists could no longer be ignored. Hurley tried to persuade Chiang to lift the blockade of the Northwest so that the Nationalist soldiers would be free to turn against Japan, which in itself would be a major operation. He also asked that the Americans be permitted to equip the Reds themselves and use them in the fighting—what Stilwell had long been demanding.