Axis Birthday

A Chinese Communist reporter last week dropped in at Mao Tse-tung's boyhood village home in Hunan province. "As I visited the rooms where our beloved leader spent the years of his boyhood," he wrote, "I encountered many of his old acquaintances. Chou Pu-hsun, a schoolmate of Mao's, asked me to convey his regards, and said: 'How nice it would be if I could see Chairman Mao once again.' "

It was a week for regards to Red China's dictator. His senior partner in Moscow wired him "heartfelt greetings." Mao's response to Joseph Stalin was "heartfelt thanks." Thus the top comrades of the Moscow-Peking axis celebrated the first anniversary of their Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance.

In both Red capitals there was festive wining & dining. Mao himself was not reported present at any public show. Rumors: 1) he was on his way to Moscow, 2) he was in Moscow, 3) he had had a heart attack. But Mao's propagandists spoke up for him. They claimed huge economic gains in the year of Axis solidarity: coal extraction up 30%, steel production above China's prewar 1936 level. They added an unconsciously ironical boast: "The poor Chinese masses today are able to enjoy a similar kind of cultural life as that of the Soviet Union."

No one mentioned the hundreds of thousands of Chinese killed and wounded in the cause of Axis aggression in Korea.

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