The West and Comrade Chou

DURING the civil war in China in the late 1930s and 1940s, almost all of the foreign correspondents reporting from that country saw the conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists as a struggle between the forces of Reaction and the forces of Progress. In their view Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) was a reactionary, autocratic force (privately they came to call it fascist), which not only stood in the way of China’s victory over the Japanese invaders, but would inhibit China’s postwar reconstruction and modernization. Only the Chinese Communist Party could throw off the heavy mantle of China’s feudal past. Indeed, a victory by the progressive, democratic forces of the CCP was not only desirable but inevitable, for the Juggernaut of History would not be turned aside.

Both principle and expedience dictated that the United States support the forces of Progress for the sake of postwar understanding.

SW

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Steven W. Mosher

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DURING the civil war in China in the late 1930s and 1940s, almost all of the foreign correspondents reporting from that country saw the conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists as a struggle between the forces of Reaction and the forces of Progress. In their view Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) was a reactionary, autocratic force (privately they came to call it fascist), which not only stood in the way of China’s victory over the Japanese invaders, but would inhibit China’s postwar reconstruction and modernization. Only the Chinese Communist Party could throw off the heavy mantle of China’s feudal past. Indeed, a victory by the progressive, democratic forces of the CCP was not only desirable but inevitable, for the Juggernaut of History would not be turned aside.

Both principle and expedience dictated that the United States support the forces of Progress for the sake of postwar understanding.