CHINA: Manchuria in the Vise

Ever since Chinese authorities seized the Soviet-operated Chinese Eastern Railway (TIME, July 22) and expelled Communist agents from Manchuria, Chinese and Russian soldiers have scowled at each other across Manchuria's barren border, fired occasional shots, made desultory raids. Last week tension snapped. Soviet strategists, choosing a moment when civil war wracked half of China, sent four modern divisions, complete with tanks. over the line. Two divisions moved west from Vladivostok, two east from Chita to clamp Manchuria in a Soviet vise.

In Hailar, first important town occupied by the Russians last week, correspondents reported 12,000 Chinese casualties, lines of demoralized troops fleeing for the interior, looting as they went. In Dalai Nor several hundred terrified coal miners took refuge at the bottom of a shaft before the Soviet advance. Soviet troops stopped the pumps, drowned the lot. Crowds of refugees gathered at all stations along the Chinese Eastern Railway. Special trains chuffed 'back and forth, rushing Chinese citizens to safety, making no effort to collect fares.

Earlier in the week President Chiang Kai-shek left Honan where he had been directing operations against the People's Army (northern rebels, supposedly under the direction of Generals Feng Yu-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan) for Nanking. Following the Soviet invasion of Manchuria came a second report: military leaders of all Chinese factions had ceased fighting, concluded a speedy truce to present a united front against the Russians.