Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-08-10

T, By Cable to The Star and North American
Newspaper Alliance.
HANkOW, August 10.-The most
Interesting socialistic experiment yet
attempted in China is the peasants
revolution in Human. province of 3d.
600. 600 persons. where the land has
been nationalized and the govern
mental powers are administered by
village SovietS.
Human has gone through on
smaller scale everything Russia went
through in l911-l9lS. including the
terror. The province. which is ricn
in tea and rice. has consequently sur
fered extremely. trade has come TO
total stop and disorder is rife,
The first peasants unions 10 oe or
ganized in the province date IRON
1922 BY 1925 some Roadway hao
been made, thanks to the aid given
the Communists by the kuomintanG
propagandists. and the Winter OF 1920
1926 saw rapid extension OF the
union throughout the province untli
all Human had been so organized
BY February of this year all com
munal and gentry property IN tne
country had been divided among the
peasants. and in 80 out OF the %
districts of the province the only
government was the Peasants Soviet.
Emerge from Life of Slavery.
Human contains $4,000 600 peasants,
an unusual proportion of whom were
until the revolution tenant farmers,
living under conditions approximate
ing serfdom. The life of a Russian
peasant under the worst years OF the
Czarist regime could scarcely have
been worse than that Of the Hunanese
peasants in the remoter districts
The officials of the Human Peasants
Union whom I have seen in HankoW
admit that the first results OF the
revolution have been political-the
substitution of peasant rule for the
rule of the old governing classes-and
that the population Of Human has un.
dergone great suffering from the con-
sequent economic blockade.
No protection by the Nationalist
government sufficed after the revolu-
tion had been well started. The peas
ant mass. aroused at last. took things
into its own hands and proceeded to
confiscate and nationalize all agricul-
tural holdings.
The gentry, or Chinese land owners,
were executed or driven out the pub
lie granaries were seized. and the por
trait Of Lenin occupied a place OF
honor alongside the portrait OF Sun
Vat Sen.
Oil Monopoly Sought.
The Peasants Union. in spite of the
efforts of the Nationalist government
ut Hankow. proclaimed monopolies Of
all trade and industry. even declaring
an oil monopoly, which prepared to
"nationalize" the important oil stocks
of the Asiatic Petroleum Co. British
and the Standard Oil.
This action was halted in time by
the Hankow Nationalist government.
but in the meanwhile the foreigners
decided to evacuate all their movable
property, and the oil was taken out
under naval protection.
The inexperienced extremism Of the
Hunanese peasants had reduced HUI.
nan to such straits in May that some ,
change was inevitable. 1t came in the
shape of a military movement. led
by a general named Hsia Tao-Yin, a
subordinate and sympathizer OF
Chang kai-Shek, who revolted and
moved on Hankow. Another small
army captured Changsha, and on May
81 bathed the city in the blood of peas
ant revolutionists. The condition Of
the province now is anarchical in the
extreme.
Province in Unhappy State.
The unhappy province has seen the
most extreme revolutionary expert
ment it was possible to conceive-the
dictatorship of the lowest section Of
the proletariat. the serf.peasant. HUI
nan in some degree pre-fgures what
may be expected in other agricultural