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This is the lesson to be learned very easily in China today.
The rally of communist forces in Canton,
3.
reported in my telegram of the 23rd February, is aptly hinged upon the visit to that city of the delegation of the Third International including Mr. Tom Mann. This delegation
was received by the Provincial Government and Kuomintang headed by General Li Chai-sun, the author of the action for the suppression of picketing mentioned in the first paragraph of this despatch, and the usual anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist slogans were acclaimed. Today a public demonstration of welcome is to be held, for which all newspapers, schools, shops and factories are expected to give a holiday. There has, moreover, been a fresh armed clash involving the use of machine guns and bombs between the Railwaymen's Union which flies the "Hammer and Sickle" flag and the Mechanic's Union - a comparatively moderate organisation. These events fit in exactly with the "Lenin" posters and the activities of the Peasants Army at Sha t'au kok (see my Secret despatches of the 12th and 17th February) While Comrade Eugene Ch'ên poses as the mouthpiece of a sane enlightened and powerful party and talks of treaty revision and reform, his Russian friends are working steadily to bring into actual being the Utopia of anarchy they have preached so long. An attempt to communize Canton was made in May last year and narrowly failed. Recruits are now being gathered for a new attempt.
4.
In the forefront of this movement is the Seamen's Union. Encouraged by its complete subjugation of the river steamer services (see my Secret despatch of 24th December, 1926, and my telegram of 10th February) this Union is now engaged in forming definite sub-unions on the "cell" system in each river steamer. The Union proposes that the inauguration
* * No 45 in Housteratie 144.
+ Nos C. 30001/27 [No.38 and 39] 21
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