Red China: Appalling & Alone

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Even before Mao Tse-tung unleashed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Red China had managed to isolate itself from most of the world. The weird rampages of the Red Guards made the alienation virtually complete. As no other major nation in modern times, Red China stands alone, with other Communist countries possibly even more appalled by its actions than anyone else.

Even the Communists of Eastern Europe, who in the past were content to condone China's aberrations in order to gain more leverage from the Sino-So viet split, are now roundly denouncing the Red Chinese as "insane." Hungarian Communist Boss Janos Kadar calls the events in China a "national tragedy." East Germany has accused the Red Chinese of "encouraging the cult of Mao to boundless excesses."

"Winds of Madness." There was speculation last week that Red China's last friend in Europe was having second thoughts. Albania's party press has avoided any mention of the Cultural Revolution—perhaps because it could not bring itself to say anything good about it.

The Russians were almost breathless in their shock at the events in China.

Pravda and Izvestia were providing some of the most detailed—and accurate—reports as the Red Guards continued their odd operations. The whole Cultural Revolution, charged Izvestia last week, is "a monstrous discreditation of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism."

Communist parties in the free world also bitterly denounced the events in Peking. The Japanese Reds, reportedly ordered by Mao himself to risk their cherished legality by initiating a campaign of terrorist attacks, responded by purging pro-Peking leaders and tearing down pictures of Mao. The French Communist newspaper l'Humanité said the new wave is "stirring disquiet and stupefaction in our ranks." Asked a Spanish Communist spokesman: "What winds of madness are these, sullying the authentic Chinese revolution?"

The West's China-watchers awaited with fascination the reaction in Hanoi. The pickings were slim, because Ho Chi Minn's propagandists were largely silent. Yet Hanoi's official newspaper last week obliquely endorsed the concept of a united front of the world's Communist parties for aiding North Viet Nam in the war. Since the united-front concept represents the Soviet view, some experts interpreted Hanoi's statement as a tentative attempt to escape Peking's go-it-alone policy. North Korea's latest statement was more direct: it ripped the Red Chinese for "leftist extremism" and "dangerous Trotskyism."

Internal Alienation. Peking has reacted to the criticism from abroad with hysterical cries of delight. "We love precisely what the enemy hates," exulted Peking's Red Flag. "It is an honor for the Red Guards to be attacked wildly by enemies abroad." Just to show their total disregard of world opinion, the Red Guards razed a European cemetery near Peking.