Evening star., 1923-12-31
EAST Is EAST
BY FRANK II. HEDGES

II - -
Communism has lost. rather than
gained ground in China. The past
fourteen months of Moscow directed
propaganda and negotiations in the
republic of the far east have acted as
a boomerang. Russia, not China, has
suffered most therefrom.
A year ago one OF the finest brains
at the command of the soviet regime
was eagerly absorbing information on
China, for Adolf Abramoyitch Joffe,
premier bolshevist diplomat and mem
Der of the central executive commit
tee Of Moscow, had been commits
stoned to visit the far east. Mr.. Joffe,
who, despite the title Of ''comrade" in
Russia, delights in being addressed
as your excellency." packed his
trunks and made the long journey
over the transsiberian railway to
Peking. With him went his stem
ographer-wif and a large staff, a staff
organized, it has since been learned,
to man the embassy which Mr.. Joffe
noped to establish at the capital of
China.
Heavy-set, dark bearded and intel
lectual in appearance, Mr. Joffe
alighted from his special car at the
gates of the Tartar city of Peking on
August II last year. He was -un-
o1ncially welcomed by representa-
tive or the foreign office and vocifer-
ously acclaimed by little group of
university professors, the chancellor
OF the national university hailing
MIN as teacher"
Inc bolshevist diplomat set to
ro NJ pegihning a long series of notes
70 the Chinese foreign office that
stated the aims and wishes of Rus.
s,a. IN less than a month, however.
an interruption came, for Mr.. Joffe
was wa. sent UP into Manchuria to negoti-
ai,e. unsuccessfully, with represents
Japan SoFelhhieht OF
III, He returned to Peking a sick man.
uut from his bedside he Continued
ene direction of notes to the foreign
othsr @ tne reading of speeches and
bluntIy that his object was tn bmiid
up friendship with the Chinese people
.asher than with the government Tn
'fis ne mas failed signally.
x n X
Inc notes became increasingly in
suiting to the foreign Office and the
speeches gradually revealed Moscow's
true chinese policy. Many Chinese
mad believed Mr.. Joffe when he had
said russia was China's one friend
asainsc the rest of the world. Had
hol RUSSIA renounced extraterritori-
ior her citizens and all claims
TO the Chinese eastern railway?
But time went on and Mr.. Joffe
hedged on these statements He as
serted that the renunciation did not
mold good forever. Russian troops
Wei, wete occupying Mongolia and the So
armed invasion by reds of the rail
way zone ioomed as a possibility. Mr..
Jones early following began to fall
away: The professors and other in
bad 1c'uais who had welcomed him
brought relief to their soreiv dis
tressed country, but they insisted on
using their own powers of obserya
.iTn s,n ana Judgment as the case de-
and certain other instances of fail
ure to act convinced them of their
mistake What appeal he might have
tS nao Ior the masses he sacrificed on
the altar of his Ignorance of Chinese
psychology. Desire to gain ambassa-
dorial dignity cost him the confidence
or the unthinking masses. He found
tnat laDor trouble in China is often
polticai, but that IL is not voluntarily
SO. rather, clever Chinese politicians
make use of labor for personal ends,
Communism holds but scant atfrac-
tion to nation of small land owners
ana happy. albeit somewhat poverty
stricken, workers.
X X x
The Moscow statesman realized
that China could never be .'bolshey-
lied" He acknowledged it publicly
in joint statement with DIR. Sun
Vat Sen. What is more important,
he acknowledged it privately when
he was not considering the effect
on any audience. He was invited
to Japan ''for his health" and he
went. His failure in that country
has brought about his replacement
by another soviet statesman, but
that is another story. So are the
basic reasons why the Chinese is not
psychologically prepared to adopt
communism, and SO is the possibility
that non-communist China may
come to some sort Of Il working
agreement with communist Russia
as regards trade and commerce.
But it is tremendously apparent
that Mr.. Joffe's visit to China, that
the presence of an able holshevist
diplomat in that nation, has reacted
unfavorably for Moscow and has cost
the soviet much of the following it
once had in the Asiatic republic.
themselves and once they were in
possession of facts rather than theo-
ries and reports they rejected the
doctrines of Marx and Lenin.