Red China: A Little Disorder

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All week long, Peking throbbed with the fever of crisis. A sea of demonstrators jammed the streets carrying red banners and pictures of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Mao himself turned up briefly at one rally and was greeted by the singing of the nation's newest hit, We Rely on the Helmsman When We Sail the Ocean. After he left, crowds rushed forward to try to shake the hands of those who had shaken hands with Mao.

Behind the frenzy was some kind of struggle in Peking's high inner councils. Hints emerged that certain party officials were arguing for a softening of the ten-month purge that has swept the country. One day Peking's newspapers were nine hours late reaching the stands. The reason for the delay, according to rumors in the capital, was a decision to withdraw a front-page picture of Chairman Mao.

Thus at week's end, when a message crackled from Radio Peking that an important announcement would follow in a few hours, Sinologists the world over jumped for their monitoring sets. What had been going on in Peking, said the broadcast, was the first meeting in four years of the Central Committee of Red China's Communist Party.

But if there were any differences within the party, they did not show up in the Central Committee's communiqué. It disclosed that the oft-postponed third Five-Year Plan is under way at last, and commended Mao for his "brilliant" policies. As for the purge, the committee declared that "an invigorating revolutionary atmosphere prevails in the whole country, and the situation is one of a new all-round leap forward emerging." If things seemed to be a bit chaotic as a result, what did it matter? "Dare to make revolution and be good at revolution," cried Peking. "Don't be afraid of disorder."