CO129-512-2 Political situation in China- and Canton 31-5-1929 - 13-11-1929 — Page 50

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expelled from the Kuomintang by a resolution of the

Conference of the Party held in March 1929.

7. In South China in particular it is doubtful

whether they will be able to regain a foothold for

some time to come. The elements on which they

relied for support in the past, the Labour Unions,

the Hong Kong Strike Committee, the Peasants

Organisations and the "Iron Army" of Cheung Fat-fui,

are all deeply tainted with Communism and not merely

doctrinaire Communism at that. Its fruits were

the arson and massacre at Canton in December, 1927,

and the still more bloodthirsty Soviet of the Hoi-Luk

Fung districts. Ever since Marshal Li Chai-sum returned to power at Canton early in 1928, the

Canton Government has prohibited the maintenance by

Labour Unions of bodies of armed men and has attempted

to restrict their activities to legitimate work in

their own sphere. The anti-British Boycott

Committee, with its armed and uniformed 'pickets'

and its extra legal courts and gaols for infringers

of the boycott, has been dissolved and many of its

members executed or driven into hiding. Even the

milder 'Society for the severence of economic relations with Japan' has been dissolved and its

private gaols closed. The remnants of the Peasants Organisation, established by Borodin and his adherents

as the nucleus of a Red Army, have taken refuge in

mountainous districts and are now indistinguishable

from bandits proper. The 'Iron Army' is still in

being; but its excesses in December, 1927, are still

remembered

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