CHINESE HISTORY PROJECT

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

KARL A. WITTFOGEL, Director
420 Riverside Drive
New York 25, New York

Tel. University 6-0020

September 18, 1959

Dr. Henry Alfred Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Mass.

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

The enclosed article shows, what you may have assumed
anyhow, that I am among the readers of your writings. I am
indeed. In fact, I consider the response you are receiving one
of the auspicious symptoms that give hope for a basic reorienta-
tion of the American mind.

In recent years I have concentrated on the comparative
study of total power, but, of course, my starting point is still
the Orient. The American studies of Chinese Communism have been
in a rather depressing condition. Today they are in a serious
crisis. There is a chance (no more) that this crisis may lead
to substantial improvements.

Certain problems which we share with the students of
the USSR I have recently discussed with the Rand Corporation in
Santa Monica and also with Colonel Kintner. Colonel Kintner is
going to have another conference with me soon about these matters.
If your time permits I should also like to consult you. I am
sure, your ideas and experiences could greatly benefit those of
us who approach the Communist problem from the Far Eastern side.
Is there a chance that you may come to New York in the foresee-
able future?

[LC]

Reprinted from

the new
Leader

JULY 20-27, 1959

PEKING'S 'INDEPENDENCE'

By Karl A. Wittfogel

AS PREVIOUS ARTICLES in this series have shown, in 10 short years Mao Tse-tung's China has become a major power whose every move gives rise to endless speculation. Some Western analysts believe that Peking, although a primary factor in Asia, is only a secondary factor in world politics; others warn against under rating its global importance. The very argument il luminesces the significance of the issue. Elementary political considerations require that we obtain as thorough an understanding of Mao's regime as possible. What are the possibilities—and the limitations—for achieving such an understanding in America today?

Understanding is an intellectual exercise that involves two interrelated yet distinct processes: fact-finding and interpretation. An examination of American attempts to understand Communist China reveals that we are highly effective in gathering relevant data and highly ineffective in comprehending their meaning. Confronted with this double assessment, we are usually not too disturbed by the second stipulation (and this attitude underlines the over-all problem); but we are genuinely surprised by the first. Do we not, as Americans, have special dif ficulties in getting the facts, since our Government, be sides having no diplomatic relations with Peking, also refuses to let our nationals visit mainland China?

Under different conditions, this policy might indeed be a decisive limitation, but in the Chinese case its nega tive effect can be largely discounted because of the way in which the Communist system operates. Like other Communist states, the Peking regime virtually controls all spheres of life, including the movements of foreign visitors and their opportunities for independent inquiry.

This is the thirteenth of a special series which has in cluded articles on National Character, the Party, the Peasants, the Commune Controversy, the Party Leader ship, Education, the Economy, Literary Development, the Overseas Chinese, the Minorities, Justice and the Law, and Southeast Asia's View. Here, Karl A. Witt fogel analyzes the historical origins of a concept that has profoundly influenced Western views of Chinese Communism for many years—the notion that Mao Tse- tung's doctrine and practice deviated heretically from Moscow. Wittfogel, a frequent NEW LEADER contributor, is director of the University of Washington's Chinese History Project and author of *Oriental Despotism*.

Of course, these visitors see something—and what they see may have value—but generally they are unable to pierce the many smaller bamboo curtains that have been erected inside the Big Bamboo Curtain along the ter ritorial borders.

The Peking government makes independent personal contacts between foreigners and Chinese intellectuals almost impossible; and its terror potential is so well recognized that even the most casual opinion is ex pressed with great caution. Hence the assertions made up to 1957 by a number of journalists that, to judge from appearances, the Chinese intellectuals generally liked the Communist regime were largely guesswork, and poor guesswork at that. The "Hundred Flowers" episode of May and early June 1957 showed that the majority of all Chinese intellectuals, students included, hate their rulers.

Peking is equally determined that foreigners have only "guided" contacts with the Chinese "toilers." In the summer of 1954, one of my friends accompanied the British Mission to the Chinese mainland led by Earl Clement Attlee. Meeting him later, I asked why none of its members had commented on the collectivization that was then gaining momentum. The delegates, he answered, had wanted to see the villages, but they were kept from doing so. A Swiss journalist, Peter Schmid, who visited China in the winter of 1955-56, when collectivization had been completed, was treated with great courtesy, but he also met with stony resistance when he wished, on the spur of the moment, to make a short excursion to a village. His guide—who otherwise was most amenable—told him that such a visit could be undertaken only after official permission was obtained from Peking, and he added almost indignantly: "I am sure, in Switzerland too, a foreign journalist cannot just go into the villages and talk with the people."

But while on-the-spot observations are restricted to the point of frustration, another type of inquiry—the critical study of Chinese Communist publications—is potentially very rewarding. The activists and officials of the Com munist regime must communicate with one another, and partly and unavoidably they exchange factual and evalua tive information through the press. Of course, they do this cautiously and in an Aesopian language that is supposed to inform insiders without betraying essential

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facts to outsiders. This, however, is no easy task, par-
ticularly when an issue must be treated concretely and
in detail.

Thus in veiled form, the Chinese Communist news-
papers and magazines contain much relevant information,
and this information is being most comprehensively
gathered and translated outside the Bamboo Curtain by
the American Consulate General in Hong Kong. System-
atically utilizing many dailies and periodicals—often
from the far corners of the country and inaccessible to
the foreign colony in Peking—this agency is assembling
a wealth of data on Communist China. If the members
of the Attlee Mission had consulted the Hong Kong
press translations, they would have been aware of the
advancing collectivization and the rising bitterness in
the villages which they were not allowed to observe. It
is not too much to say that our Hong Kong Consulate
is probably doing a better job of gathering facts on
Communist China than any other non-Communist or-
ganization.

But this excellent and important collection of raw
material does not have the impact it deserves, since no
adequate arrangements have been made to facilitate its
analysis. Whoever wants to use the Hong Kong material
must plow through mountains of data with only an
alphabetical listing of titles to help him. Readers of the
New York Times, which provides an index for everything
it publishes, are better served. The same country that
is willing to spend hundreds of thousands, perhaps mil-
lions, of dollars to gather vital facts is unwilling to spend
$50,000 on an analytic index to aid in their interpreta-
tion.

These disparate conditions reflect a national weakness
that is making serious students of American policy high-
ly apprehensive. Henry Kissinger is convinced that our
present political insecurity results from an extreme de-
pendence on empiricism and an equally extreme avoid-
ance of conceptual thinking. Robert Strausz-Hupé, James
Dougherty, William Kintner and Alvin Cottrell, in
their recent book, *Protracted Conflict*, deplore our in-
ability to utilize large concepts in formulating long-range
political strategy. I fully agree with the substance of
these criticisms. But I believe that we suffer less from
an absence of political concepts than from the inadequacy
of those we invoke, and that we are handicapped not
so much by lack of a long-range perspective as by a
complacent, *status quo* perspective that was under-
standable in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but that
is pathetically outmoded since the development of mod-
ern totalitarian systems of power.

The analyst who fails to distinguish between the con-
ditions and attitudes of our multicentered society and
those of the totalitarian world is like the person who
fails to see the difference between a young cat and a
young tiger. Such a person may note interesting details
of metabolism, eyesight or skin texture; and he may even

make meaningful comparisons between these features.
But, lacking adequate concepts, he will not recognize
the specific characteristics of the young beast of prey,
which, sufficiently matured, may spell the doom of the
incompetitor.

**M**ARXIST-LENINIST COMMUNISM is a system of analytic and interpretative ideas and a cluster of organizational and strategic devices for the establishment and maintenance of total political, economic and ideological power. The masters of the Communist apparatus-state stress power economy (internal and international) at the expense of subsistence economy. They constitute a ruling class whose proprietary and managerial control, social privilege and ideological self-glorification surpass the prerogatives enjoyed by any other dominant elite known to man. The class consciousness of the new "men of the apparatus" (*apparatchiki*) is matched, and perhaps surpassed, only by the class consciousness of the members of the totalitarian out-elite—the Communists in non-Communist countries whose hunger for total power is intensified by the difficulties they encounter.

These are elementary facts. Recalling them, we easily
recognize the misconceptions that underlie certain wide-
spread interpretations of Chinese Communism. Time
and again we are told that the Chinese Communists may
want to assert their independence from Moscow to the
point of open conflict. The upholders of this claim mis-
judge the primary attractions of total power, class in-
terest and historical perspective which—despite con-
tinuous conflicts on a secondary level—unite the Chinese
and Soviet Communists. Clarity on these facts facilitates
the realistic appraisal of the relations between Moscow
and Chinese Communism, because it permits a realistic
appraisal of the circumstances under which each of them
operates. It exposes the fictitious nature of the argument
that the Chinese Communists are conditioned to act in-
dependently of Moscow because, under Mao's guidance,
they created a tradition of acting originally, and even
heretically.

This argument, known as the "Maoist" thesis, is his-
torical in form, but political in content. It arose, and
persists, on the basis of inadequate concepts of Soviet
Communism (especially Leninism) and Chinese Com-
munism (especially the attitude of Mao Tse-tung). In
1948, John K. Fairbank, in his book, *The United States
and China*, suggested that Mao's policy, because of the
special role it gave the peasants, followed "the Chinese
tradition of revolution rather than the Marxist." In
1951, under Fairbank's guidance, Benjamin Schwartz, in
*Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao*, elaborated
the thesis that Mao pursued an unorthodox ("Maoist")
peasant policy. And in 1952, Conrad Brandt, Benjamin
Schwartz and John K. Fairbank bulwarked the Maoist
thesis further in *A Documentary History of Chinese
Communism*, which presents translated Communist texts

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in chronological order along with interpretative comments.

According to the authors of the *Documentary History*, Mao took his first conspicuously heretical step in a study of rural conditions in his home province of Hunan ("Report on an Investigation of the Hunan Peasant Movement"), which he wrote in February 1927; and allegedly he manifested his importance as an original theoretician in 1940 in his pamphlet, *On New Democracy*.

In his 1927 Report, so say the authors of the *Documentary History*, Mao did something "no previous writer of the Marxist-Leninist school had ever conceived of." He presented as "the 'revolutionary vanguard' of the bourgeois-democratic revolution . . . the poor peasantry," rather than the workers (*Documentary History*, p. 79). He thus committed "a heresy in act" toward one of the "vital core presuppositions of Marxism-Leninism" (Schwartz: *Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao*, pp. 191 and 199; cf. also p. 78).

These are extraordinary assertions. Any serious student of Marxism-Leninism knows that Lenin distinguished between several types of bourgeois-democratic revolution, and that after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 he devised a new type of peasant policy for the "backward" colonial and semi-colonial countries of the East. In contrast to Tsarist Russia, where there had been a proletarian minority that could assume revolutionary leadership, the Communists of "backward" Eastern areas should, with Moscow's aid, rest their power strategy on the peasants or other non-proletarian "toilers," if proletarian support was unavailable. In 1920, Lenin pointed out that the new policy he was outlining was based on limited experience; and quite logically he argued for it primarily in terms of the problem of organizing revolutionary Soviets. But he did not—as Schwartz in passing remarks—only "speculate" on the possibility of Communist-led Soviets in non-industrial areas. Far from it.

Referring to the Bolshevik experience in Central Asia, he stated as proven fact that Communists could successfully establish Soviets of peasants or toilers in "backward" colonial countries; and he insisted that, under comparable conditions, they continue to do so: In the non-capitalist colonial countries of the East, "Soviets are possible . . . they will not be Workers' Soviets, but Peasants' Soviets, or Soviets of Toilers" (Lenin: *Selected Works*, New York 1943, X, p. 198; cf. pp. 236, 241, 242, 243 ff.; cf. also p. 231). Lenin's thesis was repeated emphatically by such top-ranking Comintern dignitaries as Grigori Zinoviev, G. I. Safarov and Bela Kun. And while in February 1926 the Comintern leaders did not raise the slogan of Soviets, they went considerably beyond Mao, who credited the peasants with only 70 per cent of all achievements in the Chinese democratic revolution. They called the peasants "*the most important and decisive factor* of the Chinese national-liberation movement" (*International Press Correspondence*, 1926, p. 649. Italics mine).

In the doctored edition of his *Selected Works* which began to appear in the early '50s, Mao eliminated the sentence containing the 70 per cent formula, obviously because he considered it too modest. Adherents of the Maoist thesis suggest that he did so because, in retrospect, he considered it too high. The arbitrariness of this interpretation is apparent when we remember the Comintern attitude in 1926-27 and a later statement by Mao, for which, by the way, he invokes Stalin's authority: "The Chinese revolution is virtually the peasants' revolution." Not 70 per cent, but "virtually."

Lenin did not foresee the intricacies of the subsequent developments in large colonial or ex-colonial countries such as China and India; he did not foresee a political situation in which Communists would seize power in non-industrial regions of a country that also possesses industrially advanced regions; and, of course, he did not foresee the shifts in the interpretation of the slogan, "Peasant Soviets," that occurred during the intraparty struggle in the USSR in 1926-27. But the gist of Lenin's 1920 directives is very clear—and very close to what supposedly is the "Maoist" position: In the non-industrial areas of the "backward" East, the Communists should endeavor to seize power on a mass basis that essentially consisted of peasants or other non-proletarian "toilers."

Obviously, then, the authors of the *Documentary History* are wrong when they describe the Leninist position as rejecting the idea of an Eastern Communist-led democratic revolution based on the poor peasants. They are also wrong when they describe Mao's 1927 position.

In February 1927, Mao did not recommend the revolutionary policy we have just outlined, and this for good reason. Mao's Hunan Report was written at a time when the Chinese Communists were maintaining a united front with the Kuomintang, and, following Moscow's orders, they were making every effort to continue it. Mao, who was then a high-ranking dignitary in the Kuomintang (and, of course, in the Communist party), stressed the leadership of the poor peasants in the rural revolution and the importance of the peasants (70 per cent) in the national revolution under a hierarchy headed by the "revolutionary authorities," that is, the Revolutionary Nationalist government which was heir to Sun Yat-sen's Canton regime and which was controlled by the Left Kuomintang and supported by the Communists.

The authors of the *Documentary History*, who consider Mao's Hunan Report a "revolutionary classic," present only one-third (the first two sections) of the document without indicating that the original text is much longer. Yet even this third makes it clear that Mao is commenting on the peasant policy of the Revolutionary Nationalist government. In a later chapter which discusses local revolutionary organizations, only one party is mentioned—the Kuomintang. When both parties are mentioned, as happens once, Mao places the Kuomintang before the Communist party. In conformity

[Lc]

MAO TSE-TUNG AND CHIANG KAI-SHEK: MOSCOW INSPIRED A UNITED FRONT TO EXPLOIT ASIAN NATIONALISM

with the Moscow-imposed united-front policy, the earlier versions of Mao's Report do not refer to the leading role of the Communist party. Significantly, the few sentences that make this claim appear first in the documented version of Volume I of Mao's *Selected Works* published in 1951.

Thus the Hunan Report does not call for Communist leadership. Nor does it try to rally the poor peasants behind the Communists by promising them land. Complying with the Comintern line and with the official policy of the Left Kuomintang, Mao hailed the advance of the social and political revolution in the villages, and in this connection he was willing to use terror to the limit; but he hedged on the key economic question—the confiscation and distribution of the land. In the 1951 version of Mao's Hunan Report, we find a brief request that “the land question” of the poor peasants be solved. But in the earlier versions even this vague sentence is missing. More cautious than the Moscow leaders and some of his Chinese comrades, but congruent with Comintern directives not to disturb the united front with the Kuomintang by promoting a drastic confiscation policy, Mao, in the original Report, does not raise the land question at all.

The authors of the *Documentary History* do not comment on this crucial fact. Although they admit that in the late spring of 1927 the All China Federation, of which Mao was the director, committed serious “opportunistic” errors, they do not state that on November 14, 1927—after the collapse of the united front in June-

July and after the Communist-initiated Autumn Crop Uprising—the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party removed Mao from the Politburo because of gross neglect of the agrarian revolution: “In the area of the [Hunan] uprising, the program of the land revolution and of the establishment of political power was never considered. The lack of such a program led the peasants to think that the uprising was nothing but Communist trouble-making. . . . Comrade Mao . . . was in fact the central figure of the Provincial Committee of Hunan. For the mistakes made by the Hunan Provincial Committee he must shoulder the most serious responsibility; and therefore he must be dismissed from his position as candidate to the Provisional Politburo of the Central Committee” (*Kuo Wen Weekly*, Vol. 5, No. 3, January 15, 1928, pp. 6 and 7).

These developments explain why M. N. Roy, who in 1927 had visited China as a high Comintern official, could say that Mao “in the critical days of 1927 represented the extreme right-wing view of the leadership of the Communist party.” In Communist jargon, belonging to the extreme right wing of the Party means pursuing the prescribed political line with utmost caution.

Roy's appraisal fits not only the Mao of the crisis situation; it is indicative of Mao's entire political behavior from 1923 to 1927, the time of the united front with the Kuomintang. Western, and even more, Asian students of Marxism-Leninism could greatly benefit from

[L]

a realistic analysis of this period, which saw the first major attempt to utilize the forces of Asian revolutionary ("anti-imperialist") nationalism for Communist purposes. Mao played a prominent role in this fateful attempt; his so-called caution was nothing else than an extraordinary ability seemingly to support the Nationalist cause while actually promoting the interests of the Communists. (For a time, Mao was even acting head of all propaganda work of the Kuomintang!) Under these circumstances, it is most unfortunate, but entirely understandable, that Mao included in his *Selected Works* only two of his many writings of this period.

In their treatment of the early Mao, the authors of the *Documentary History* have distorted the historical record and contributed to significant political misconceptions about Chinese Communism. Concentrating on only one of Mao's writings of this period, and then only on one-third of it, and misrepresenting both Lenin's position and Mao's policy, they have succeeded in converting a primary source of political information, namely Mao's united-front career, into a primary source of confusion.

As just explained, the Maoist argument took as its starting point a faulty interpretation of Mao's policy of 1927. It was fortified by an equally faulty interpretation of Mao's policy of 1940 as expressed in his pamphlet, *On New Democracy*.

The key thesis of *On New Democracy* is simple enough. In the middle phase of the Sino-Japanese war (after the conclusion of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, which got the European war going and greatly strengthened Moscow), Mao Tse-tung, now the head of the Chinese Communists, was under less pressure to make concessions to the Chinese Nationalists than he had been in the pre-Pact period. In accordance with Moscow's desire to protect its eastern flank, Mao maintained the anti-Japanese alliance with the Kuomintang, but he felt free to discuss the future development of China in terms of a not-yet-completed revolution. The second stage of this development was the Socialist revolution, but the first and immediately significant stage was the bourgeois-democratic revolution, which aimed at the establishment of a democracy. Challenging the political ideas of his Kuomintang allies, Mao stated that the to-be-created order would be a "new" democracy, which would come into being through a new type of bourgeois-democratic revolution. Instead of being led by the bourgeoisie, this new bourgeois-democratic revolution would be led by the proletariat and, being part of the proletarian and Socialist world revolution, it would evolve into Socialism.

The serious student of Communism realizes at once that the just-mentioned ideas were initiated by Lenin as early as 1905 and that after the Bolshevik Revolution they were developed by Lenin and Stalin. Both men stressed two important new features: (1) the relation between the bourgeois-democratic revolution, Leninist style, and the proletarian world revolution; and (2) the supreme

importance of the Leninist bourgeois-democratic revolution for the colonial and semi-colonial countries of the East, including, of course, India and China.

The authors of the *Documentary History* are fully aware of the Leninist-Stalinist origin of the theory of the new bourgeois-democratic revolution and democracy; but they claim that Mao was less well informed. Indeed, they claim that he presented this theory as his own: "as a genuinely new contribution to Marxist-Leninist theory —a contribution which had originated in China and which presumably placed its author, Mao Tse-tung, in the ranks of the great theoreticians of Marxism." They dramatize their thesis by saying that "the gesture to create a new theory re-emphasizing 'the historic peculiarities of the Chinese revolution' originated with Mao Tse-tung himself. It was a gesture with profound implications. It suggested that innovations within the Marxist-Leninist tradition could originate not only in Moscow but in other sectors of the world Communist movement as well" (*Documentary History*, pp. 260 ff.).

Examination of the text of *On New Democracy* leads to very different conclusions. It shows that Mao, after describing the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution as part of the proletarian world revolution states that this "correct thesis" of the Chinese revolution was already being propounded in China between 1924 and 1927, but that "at that time the meaning of this theoretical proposition was not yet fully expounded, and consequently it was only vaguely understood" (Mao; *Selected Works*, III, p. 112). Thus, Mao does not claim that he created this theory in 1940, or that the Chinese Communists, who were vaguely familiar with it since the '20s, created it then. In fact, he states: "This correct thesis [of the Chinese revolution] propounded by the Chinese Communists is based on Stalin's theory." And to make his point crystal clear he reproduced two long Stalin quotations, the second tracing the key argument back to Lenin. In his concluding sentence, "From this it can be seen that there are two kinds of world revolution," Mao once more acknowledged that he received his "correct thesis" of the new democratic revolution and democracy from Stalin and Lenin.

The avowed purpose of the *Documentary History* is to provide textual documentation for the major developments of Chinese Communism. How then do its authors deal with these passages that are so important for establishing Mao's originality—or lack of originality? Very simply indeed. They omit them. After presenting Mao's exposition of the "correct thesis," they skip over his remark that it was poorly understood by the Chinese Communists in 1924-27 and over his decisive statement that it was "based on Stalin's theory." They also skip over Mao's quotations from Stalin. The passage they then reproduce begins with the words: "From this it is clear" [the official translation, as given above, is "From this it can be seen . . ."]. No reader would know from

[L.C.]

this arrangement that the summarizing phrase refers, not to Mao's presentation of the "correct thesis," but to its acknowledged Soviet source.

It may be argued that *On New Democracy* is a long pamphlet and that therefore a selective reproduction is legitimate. This is true with one obvious qualification: The selected passages should indicate the major points of the text; and if the introductory note stresses the importance of a certain thesis, then the editors are in honor bound not to omit passages that are crucial to the validity of this thesis. Anyone may reproduce whatever he wants from Hitler's *Mein Kampf*, but if he claims that Hitler was not really an anti-Semite and then omits passages that prove the contrary, he would not only violate fundamental rules of scholarship, but misrepresent history as well.

The authors of the *Documentary History*, who created the “Maoist” myth in 1951-52, had ample opportunities in subsequent studies of Chinese thought to correct their errors. But instead of doing so, they repeated their key conclusions, which, as we have seen, are in the main based on a misrepresentation of Mao’s behavior in 1927 and 1940. In a review of Mao’s *Selected Works* written in 1955, Schwartz failed to comment on the Hunan Report, which in addition to being much longer than the version published in the *Documentary History*, had been doctored by Mao in a way which made the Maoist interpretation of the Report completely problematic. In 1958, Brandt, in a monograph on the Chinese united-front period of 1924-27, repeats the claim that in the Hunan Report Mao “put himself on record with a view that conflicted sharply with Moscow’s” (Brandt: *Stalin’s Failure in China*, 1958, p. 107). And in the same year, the senior member of the group, John K. Fairbank, in a revised edition of *The United States and China*, repeated the two key theses of the Maoist school. According to Fairbank, in 1927 Mao asserted the van-guard role of the poor peasants “heretically”; and in *On New Democracy* Mao “put himself on the level of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin as an original contributor to Communist theory.”

These faulty views have gained wide currency in the United States. Their damaging consequences are not restricted to their impact on purely academic understanding. For the political confusion they have engendered has strongly affected opinion-molders and policy-makers in this country, and has thus hampered the development of a clear, consistent and far-sighted policy for coping with the Chinese Communist threat. In this important respect, these views have done a distinct disservice to the free world.

It is vital to our survival that the record be set straight, and a small but growing number of Far Eastern specialists are doing just that. A realistic comparative study of the historical roots of Chinese and Soviet Communism is possible. And such a study enables us to remove the

widespread misconceptions regarding the character and intent of the present Chinese and Soviet regimes.

We know that Chinese Communist society, like other Communist orders, is faced with many conflicts. We know that numerous conflicts existed—and continue to exist—between the Chinese Communists and Moscow. But we know also that any analyst of these internal and international tensions is apt to misjudge their significance as long as he believes that, because of a peculiar "Maoist" tradition, the Chinese Communists tend to be heretically different from orthodox Communists.

This belief has supported the feeling that Mao's land policy of 1949 expressed again his inclination to be an agrarian reformer—actually, he deprived the peasants of the land newly distributed to them as soon as he was strong enough to do so. It has strengthened the view that Mao's collectivization was different because it was gradualistic—actually, the gradualistic pattern was outlined by Stalin as early as 1930, and it was put into practice in East Europe after World War II. It has encouraged the pleas for U.S. recognition of Communist China as a means of weaning Peking away from Moscow—actually, recognition would bulwark Mao's conviction that the West is stupid and tottering and will be destroyed faster through the combined efforts of the Communist bloc. It has favored the idea that Mao was different and perhaps heretical, when in 1957 he made an analysis of contradictions under socialism—actually, this problem was comprehensively discussed in the USSR, particularly after Andrei Zdanov's speech in 1947—and when he listed among them contradictions between the government and the people.

In the last instance Mao elaborated a point that Khrushchev had made in his criticism of Stalin on February 24-25, 1956. But Mao generalized and explained in public what Khrushchev had treated specifically and behind closed doors. Thus Mao's procedure displayed distinctive features, and this was also the case when he set out to organize super-collectives: communes.

These problems deserve the most careful consideration. But our analysis will be adequate only if we are fully aware of the conceptual and evaluative mistakes of the past and if we systematically develop the tools needed for the comparative study of Chinese doctrine and strategy.

The survival of the free world hangs in the balance today. Though this is no time for name-calling, it is no time, either, for withholding vital criticism such as has been made here. It has been said that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Today, the ideas which the scholars and opinion-molders hold are no less crucial for the decisions the policy-makers will make. Where, then, we may ask, are the schools, the universities, the foundations and research centers that will determine victory—or defeat—in the present cold war?

•••

September 7, 1960

Mr. Karl Wittfogel
420 Riverside Drive
New York 25, New York

Dear Mr. Wittfogel:

Many thanks for sending me re-
prints of your articles for World Politics and
The China Quarterly, both of which I am looking
forward to reading upon my return from Japan
at the end of this month. My visit to the Far
East should enrich my reading of your piece on
Maoism.

Kind regards.

Dictated by Mr. Kissinger but signed in his
absence.

[LC]

FESTSCHRIFT FOR
KARL AUGUST WITTFOGEL

G. L. ULMEN
FAR EASTERN AND RUSSIAN INSTITUTE
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 98105
U. S. A.

March 24, 1965

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
Department of Political Science
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Professor Kissinger:

On September 6, 1966, Professor Karl August Wittfogel will be seventy years old. This date will mark almost fifty years of research and numerous publications on social and institutional history. While Professor Wittfogel is primarily noted as a historian and orientalist, his diverse interests have led him into many different fields, and thus his work has had an impact on almost all of the social and historical sciences.

To honor their professor on this day, the students of Karl August Wittfogel will present him with a volume of contributions by the foremost scholars in the many fields influenced by his work. Such outstanding scholars as Professor Herbert Franke, Professor Nicholas Poppe, Professor Donald W. Treadgold and Professor Hellmut Wilhelm have already consented to contribute. It is my pleasure to invite you to contribute to this anniversary volume.

If possible, your article should not exceed 15 typed, double-spaced pages. The publisher has requested that all manuscripts be submitted one year in advance; thus your article should not reach my desk later than September 1, 1965. I would appreciate receiving your consent as soon as possible and the title of the article you have in mind.

It is my hope that you will be able to assist in honoring this scholar who has made such a great contribution to the social sciences.

GLU:hb

24 März 1965

Herrn Professor Doktor Henry A. Kissinger
Department of Political Science
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Sehr verehrter Herr Professor Kissinger!

Am 6. September 1966 wird Professor Karl August Wittfogel seinen siebzigsten Geburtstag feiern. Aus diesem Anlass wollen wir seine beinahe fünfzigjährige Tätigkeit als Wissenschaftler und Verfasser vieler Beiträge zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte würdigen. Obwohl Professor Wittfogel hauptsächlich als Geschichtsforscher und Orientalist bekannt ist, hat er auf Grund seiner mannigfaltigen Tätigkeit auf den verschiedensten Gebieten auch viele seinem Forschungsgebiet benachbarte Fächer beeinflusst.

Um Professor Karl August Wittfogel zu ehren, beabsichtigen seine Schüler ihm eine Festschrift zu überreichen. Sie wird Aufsätze führender Gelehrter aus den von Wittfogel behandelten Gebieten enthalten. Angesehene Gelehrter wie Professor Herbert Franke, Professor Nicholas Poppe, Professor Donald W. Treadgold und Professor Hellmut Wilhelm haben mich ihrer Teilnahme schon versichert. Es ist mir eine Ehre, auch Sie um Beitrag zu dieser Festschrift zu bitten.

Wenn möglich, soll der Umfang 15 Seiten je 30 Zeilen nicht überschreiten. Der Verleger hat die Bedingung gestellt, dass die Manuskripte ein Jahr vor Erscheinen eingeschickt werden, sodass Ihr Beitrag spätestens am 1. September 1965 bei mir eintreffen sollte. Ich wäre Ihnen sehr dankbar, wenn Sie mir Ihre Zusage sowie den Titel Ihres Aufsatzes so bald wie möglich mitteilen würden.

Ich hoffe, dass Sie sich an der Ehrung dieses Gelehrten, der so viel zu unserem Gebiet beigetragen hat, beteiligen können und bin

mit ergebenen Grüssen Ihr

G. L. Ulmen

GLU:hb

November 23, 1965

Mr. G.L. Ulmen
Far Eastern and Russian Institute
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington, 98105

Dear Mr. Ulmen:

I can only now reply to your letter
of October 14th because I didn't return
from Vietnam until last week.

I will be glad to have you add my
name to the _Tabula Gratulatoria_ for Mr.
Wittfogel.

Best regards.

Henry V. Klaasinger

Sincerely yours,

Best regards.

Wittfogel,
name to the Tapula Gratulatoria for Mr.
I will be glad to have you add my
from Vietnam until last week.

of October 14th because I didn't return
I can only now reply to your letter

Dear Mr. Ulmen:

Seattle, Washington, 98102
University of Washington
Far Eastern and Russian Institute
Mr. C.I. Ulmen

November 23, 1962