DANGER ZONES: Mao's Troubles

Mao Tse-tung's Chinese Communist government, already beset by problems in Korea and Formosa (see above), discovered it had still more trouble on its hands inside China:

¶The official Communist New China News Agency last week railed against extensive sabotage, bribery, wastefulness and negligence, causing millions of dollars damage to the Red economy during the past year. In Manchuria alone 303 mine accidents occurred; one disaster killed 174 miners because of Stakhanovite competition that neglected safety conditions. All told, the agency reported, state properties suffered 6,100 cases of loss or damage; 30% of this was blamed on sabotage, 60% on negligence and other "malicious" factors.

¶ In a report to Peking, the Communist chairmen of South China's Kwangsi and Kwangtung provinces told of heavy Nationalist guerrilla activity, depression and unemployment in cities, peasant resistance to rice-tax collection. Last spring, they said, rumors of a Nationalist comeback, of a Japanese "invasion" of Manchuria and a U.S. "invasion" of Shanghai excited mobs to massacre 105 commissars in two counties alone.