Liberate the Southwest!

"When there is chaos in China," says an old Chinese proverb, "it strikes Szechwan first; when there is peace, it comes to Szechwan first." Last week chaos ruled in the southwestern prov ince of Szechwan. Peking wall posters reported that an extraordinary -- and almost unbelievable -- total of 10,000 persons had been killed or wounded in four weeks of fighting involving ma chine guns, hand grenades and poisoned drinking water. Among the casualties were 200 Maoists drowned in the Yangzte River on the way to a rally, the victims of Red Guards who had defected from Mao's Cultural Revolution and rammed and sunk the Maoists in flotilla-to-flotilla combat.

The fighting in Szechwan was only the most prominent of Mao's troubles last week, as spelled out in the big-character graffiti of wall posters. China-watchers did not believe all the vivid writing on the walls, but even at a discount the poster accounts added up to widespread turmoil. Some 35,000 autoworkers in Manchuria were said to have wrecked eight schools used by the Maoists as bases. The posters described clashes in Peking and Shanghai, claimed that fighting took place in Shantung in east China, in northwestern Sinkiang, the site of China's nuclear installations, in Inner Mongolia and in Honan, the largest wheat-growing province. Not surprisingly, the People's Daily last week warned that "anarchism" suddenly threatened to undo all the gains of the Cultural Revolution.

Barking at the Sun. In Szechwan, there were no gains to lose. Large, populous (80 million) and strongly separatist, Szechwan represents a challenge to Mao's central authority and to the validity of the Cultural Revolution. Its political and military boss since 1952 has been tough Politburo Member Li Ching-chuan, 59, who earlier tacitly aided the anti-Maoists and was linked with Red Army Marshal Ho Lung, a onetime warlord and bandit, in a purported plot to depose Mao last February.

Li's bastion is formidable. Isolated by a bordering ring of mountains and agriculturally self-sufficient, Szechwan has a long tradition of rebellion against central governments. It has often proved a handy retreat for Chinese rulers in trouble, from the Emperor Ming of the 8th century to Chiang Kai-shek in the 1930s. So independent are the Szechwanese, that, as one Chinese proverb has it, "in Szechwan the dogs even bark at the sun."

The Litmus. Red Guard wall posters demanded the ousting of Li, but he refused to budge. Up went posters demanding "Liberate the Southwest!", and last month Red Guards from Peking dutifully streamed into the Szechwan capital of Chengtu to spread the Maoist gospel and rally the peasants against Li. The peasants were not impressed, and in fact attacked the Red Guards, producing rioting and bloodshed. So serious is the trouble, and so vital is Szechwan as a litmus of the Maoist aspirations, reported Radio Moscow, that last week Mao dispatched his No. 2 man, Defense Minister Lin Piao, to the troubled province. It did not say whether he was to act as executioner or mediator.

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