Nationalist China's diplomatic relations were in shambles as the disastrous year of 1949 came to a close. Major cities in southern China were falling rapidly to the Communists, Mao Tse-tung had arrived in Moscow on his triumphal trip and Chiang Kai-shek had fled to Formosa in bitter defeat. Only seven nations had established permanent missions in Formosa. Meanwhile, on the mainland a diplomatic never-never land existed; there were diplomats accredited to Peking, “negotiating representatives,” and ex-diplomats (in Chinese Communist eyes) whose countries had not recognised Peking.

Ch'en Shao-yü, Ch'in Pang-hsien (Po Ku) and others of the “returned students” group later claimed they had opposed the June resolution of the CC. According to a Japanese source, opponents centred within the propaganda and labour departments hastily convened a Central Workers' Conference in late June to criticise the Li Li-san leadership. The article stated that Li was able to override this opposition through the support of Hsiang Chung-fa, Chou En-lai, Hsiang Ying and others. However, in fact, Ch'en Shao-yü had urged a virtual replica of the “Li Li-san line” including the use of the Red Army two years earlier, and just a month before the June resolution he had written:

Only those who are willing to protect the militarists, and the Iiquidationists who basically oppose armed uprisings can scold the CCP for preparing armed uprisings to seize power or term these actions adventurism….

America's policy towards Formosa has come under fire in recent months from all three groups of Chinese. The Nationalists and the Communists alike share the heritage that China is one state; some of the facts of international life, however, have given American policy a preference for accepting two Chinas in the world. The apparent American support for the Formosan independence movement is favoured neither by Peking nor Taipei. On the other hand the native Formosans criticise the contradictions and indecisions of American policy which, they say, encourages their democratic liberal movements, but at the same time helps Chiang Kai-shek to stay in office.

Chiang Kai-shek rebuilt his régime on Formosa not through his military might alone. Rather, he succeeded through rallying a group of intellectuals who could help him consolidate his rule on Formosa, work on propaganda, attract foreign aid and organise military control.

Eighteen years ago Formosa was liberated from half a century of Japanese colonial rule. When Kuomintang soldiers and administrators arrived to reassert Chinese sovereignty over the island province in October 1945 they were enthusiastically welcomed as liberators by the For-mosans. Within a few months, however, the Kuomintang had succeeded in alienating virtually all segments of the native population by inaugurating a military régime that treated Formosa as a conquered territory rather than a liberated area. The mass pillaging, official corruption and political repression that marked the early period of Kuomintang rule in Formosa set in motion the tragic events that culminated in the revolt of February 1947 in the course of which at least 10,000 Formosans were massacred. The Kuomintang has since done little to heal the scars of 1947 and today most of the 10,000,000 Formosans look upon the nearly 2,000,000 mainlanders who fled to Formosa with the collapse of Kuomintang rule as foreign overlords and describe the Chinese Nationalist régime as a colonial tyranny far more oppressive than the former Japanese rule. That the overwhelming majority of Formosans favour the establishment of an independent Formosan state, without ties to mainland China and, preferably, without the presence of mainlanders, is a fact that can no longer be ignored in considering the present condition and future status of Formosa.

The ancestors of the contemporary Formosans abandoned the Chinese mainland with its poverty and inequalities, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and emigrated to Formosa in order to open up and settle in new territory. Yet they have had little independence. The Dutch East India Company conquered Formosa and used it as a commercial base between 1624 and 1661; Koxinga and his supporters expelled the Dutch in 1661 and used Formosa as an anti-Manchu base until 1683; then the Manchus of the Ch'ing Dynasty gained control of Formosa until 1895; the island was ceded to the Japanese in 1895 and it was not until the collapse of Japan hi 1945 that the Chinese Nationalist Government was able to rule Formosa.

Until recent events so rudely contradicted them, the Nationalists officially regarded Mao Tse-tung et al. as a puppet government whose strings were pulled from Moscow; the Communists, for their part, have found it equally convenient to look at the Nationalists as a rebellious local government suffering under American “occupation.” However, in spite of the often renewed vows of one side to eliminate the other a sporadic dialogue has gone on between Peking and Taipei. This is not so surprising when one remembers the many short honeymoons which have occurred during the oft-renewed marriage of political convenience between the Nationalists and the Communists.

Formosa has the unenviable distinction of having proportionally more men under arms than any other country. With resources and manpower being poured into keeping approximately 600,000 men in readiness for an eventual return to the mainland the military presence inevitably pervades Formosan life. Military needs conflict with personal freedom and restrain economic growth. Yet for all the efforts of the Nationalist government—sustained by huge amounts of American aid—the changing international scene and difficulties within the Nationalist forces make a return to the mainland less likely as time goes by.

Despite the noticeable progress registered since 1954 in the reorganisation of a civilian administrative structure in North Vietnam, after three years much still remained to be done. In particular, while the régime had, from the very start, repeatedly pledged itself to hold popular elections at the earliest possible opportunity to all organs of government, these promises had never been kept, probably out of a desire not to upset the delicate political balance between North and South engineered by the Geneva agreements and to give the South a convenient pretext for repudiating them. But, when the deadline set at Geneva for a referendum in both halves of the divided land on the question of re-unification had expired and it became apparent to Hanoi that it could no longer hope to gain control of South Vietnam at the polls, the last reason for postponing unilateral action in the North vanished. By 1957, official sources in the D.R.V. were openly acknowledging that the situation with regard to elections had indeed become anomalous and even admitting that

the state apparatus had not yet become sufficiently strong; in many places organs of people's power had not been re-elected for a long time. In some areas people's Councils have almost not been functioning at all or have functioned only formally. Some administrative committees were being appointed by higher organs, whereas they had to be elected by people's Councils.

The establishment of Communist power in North Korea represents one more example of the triumph of purposive political behaviour over impersonal economic and social forces and as such merits the attention of all those who are concerned about the survival of the theory and practice of a free society in a shrinking world. If purposive Communist behaviour can become the prime mover of history, then so can the dedicated efforts of those with different conceptions of ends and means in the solution of human problems.

An examination of the educational objectives of North Korea and the system which implements these objectives reveals the true image of a country only dimly perceived since it disappeared behind the Bamboo Curtain after its liberation from the Japanese in 1945.

If one were to believe the official histories written in North Korea during the past few years, political developments in North Korea after 1945 and even the entire history of the Korean Communist movement would seem to have been relatively simple. According to North Korean historians, the new proletariat took over the leadership of the struggle for national liberation after the bourgeois-led March First Movement of 1919 had failed. The Korean Communist Party, first organised in 1925, ceased to operate in 1928 because the sectarians in the Party leadership failed to establish a link with the surging movement of the workers and peasants. The national liberation movement recovered its vigour and direction in the 1930s only because Kim D-song, whose strategy and tactics were the most scientific and most in accord with the principles of Marxism-Leninism, provided leadership. Kim Il-song became the “beacon” of the revolutionary movement, and the Korean People's Revolutionary Army under him fought against the Japanese “shoulder to shoulder with the Soviet Army.”