Mao's China

By Tony Jaques

"I Think The Communist Chinese have got a purer form of democracy than we have/' said Mr. Frank Thorn, President of the New Zealand Freezing Workers Union.

Speaking to a meeting sponsored by VUW Labour Party Club about his recent trip to China, Mr. Thorn said of their way of life, "I believe that their concept is what we are pleased to call a Christian concept in this country.

"The people there now do not have private thoughts, Their thoughts are public, Everything they do is design-ed to benefit others. They are trying to lift the standard of living of the Chinese people and of the country as a whole," he said

"Their living standard is definitely not up to ours in this country, but it is a fair-standard.

"The Chinese worker can walk with his face te the sun." he said. "He is not being pushed around and told what to do. but he is an integral part of the country and he knows it.

"These people have come out of the pit of despair and are now ordering their own lives. The Chinese workers are a thousand times better off than they were in 1938 when I was last there, and they'll die fighting before they go down."

Of the agricultural communes he saw. Mr. Thorn said, "They are the most efficient form of big-time farming I have ever seen and they will soon produce a food surplus. So far they are only about 40-50 per cent mechanised but the workers are not unhappy because they know that very soon they will get everything they want.

"In a number of the factories I visited I saw the factory director working down on the floor, maybe at a lathe," he said. He described a freezing works near Harbin where he met the director working on the chain, which he does one week every month.

"I was dumbfounded to read some of the newspaper reports in this country when I got back," he said in reference to articles on the Cultural Revolution which described mass demonstrations and "lopping off of heads" in cities which he was visiting at the time of reported disturbances. "I saw no sigh of unrest, and no sign of anyone being pushed around."

Asked if he thought that popular feeling towards Mao Tes Tung could be compared to the mass following of Hitler, Mr, Thorn said. "The adulation for Mao is not like that for Hitler. It is greater. Certainly his aims are much greater.

"Had I been a Chinese worker in 1938 and lived to the present day I would look up to that gentleman too."

He went on to describe China's attitude to America as one of apprehension at the prospect of being invaded.

"I want to see China left in peace." he said, "And I want to see trade with them. As far as I can see they haven't got any aims to go reiding anybody else."