Voice from Chungking

Tiny, gentle Mme. Sun Yat-sen speaks rarely. But when she does speak up for the liberal, democratic program of her late great husband, her words can be strong as bitter tea.

In a message which reached the U.S. last week, this independent member of the potent Soong family (sisters, Mmes. Chiang Kaishek, H. H. Kung; brothers, T. V. and T. L.) spoke in her sharpest vein. Said Mme. Sun:

"Reaction and fascism in China are strong. . . . This is proved . . . by the diversion of part of our national army to the task of blockading and 'guarding' the guerrilla areas, by the fact that some still hold private profit above the national interest, by the oppression of the peasantry and by the absence of a true labor movement. . . . Some Chinese reactionaries are preparing [civil war] to destroy a democratic sector in our struggle. That sector is the guerrilla bases in North Shensi and behind the enemy lines. . . ."

This statement amounted to a direct attack upon Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's policy toward China's Communist Army, a demand that the U.S. supply the Communists as well as Chungking's nationalist forces. In Chungking, no one but the Generalissimo's revered sister-in-law would have dared to raise China's most explosive problem in such a fashion, and even she must have had some pressing urge to do so.

The Gissimo's Minister of War, bespectacled, anti-Communist General Ho Ying-chin, told New York Times Correspondent Brooks Atkinson: "There will be no civil war. . . . The Generalissimo's plan to solve the Chinese Communist problem by pacific and political means is progressing satisfactorily with every chance of succeeding."

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