From the Western viewpoint, Mao’s followers had fought four different wars in close succession—against the Chinese Nationalists from 1927 to 1936; against the Japanese from 1937 to 1945; against the Nationalists in a second war from 1946 to 1949; and against the United Nations, beginning in 1950. But Mao and his colleagues saw this period as one prolonged war in which revolutionists were pitted against counter-revolutionary adversaries. The fact that the conflict had lasted for a generation did not disturb Communist leaders who envisioned a continual state of war “to save mankind and China from destruction.”
“The greatest and most ruthless counter-revolutionary war is pressing on us,” continued Mao. “If we do not hoist the banner of revolutionary war, a greater part of the human race will face extinction.”[228]
[228] Ibid.
Early in December, 1949, following Red China’s victory over the Nationalists, Mao arrived in Moscow for a series of talks with Stalin which lasted until 4 March 1950. The decisions reached in these conferences are not known, but it was probably no coincidence that the Communist puppet state in North Korea violated the world’s peace a few months later. It is perhaps also significant that the head of the Soviet Military Mission in Tokyo, Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko, was absent from Tokyo during the same period and reported in Moscow.[229]
[229] LtGen E. M. Almond Comments, 22 Jun 56.
It was the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar, and a “Resist America, Aid Korea” movement was launched in Red China when the United States came to the aid of the Republic of Korea. Every dictatorship must have some object of mass hatred, and Mao found the United States ideal for the purpose. A “Hate America” campaign was inaugurated after the CCF intervention, with the following serving as an example of anti-American propaganda:
This [the United States] is the paradise of gangsters, swindlers, rascals, special agents, fascist germs, speculators, debauchers, and all the dregs of mankind. This is the world’s manufactory and source of such crimes as reaction, darkness, cruelty, decadence, corruption, debauchery, oppression of man by man, and cannibalism. This is the exhibition ground of all the crimes which can possibly be committed by mankind. This is a living hell, ten times, one hundred times, one thousand times worse than can possibly be depicted by the most sanguinary of writers. Here the criminal phenomena that issue forth defy the imagination of human brains. Conscientious persons can only wonder how the spiritual civilization of mankind can be depraved to such an extent.[230]
[230] Excerpt from a series of three articles, “Look, This is the American Way of Life,” used as a primer in the “Hate America” campaign. Quoted in Walker, China Under Communism, 13.
Communist doctrine held that the people must be incited by such propaganda to a constant high pitch of emotional intensity for the sacrifices demanded by total war. The prevalence of illiteracy made it necessary to depend largely on street-corner loud speakers blaring forth radio harangues. Realistic broadcasts of the torture and execution of political deviates were also heard at times, and such spectacles were exhibited for the edification of the public.[231]
[231] Ibid.