Joan Hinton: From a Farm in Sian:

Jan. 12, 1963
A Year Ends! A Year Begins!

In China, 1962 was the year when they got "over the hump" in harvests, in consumer goods and in the general economy, when people in all areas began to feel not merely recovery but the sense of a coming upsurge. Other friends will tell about it below. In the world, the main events were three at the year's end: the Cuban Crisis and the Sino-Indian Conflict and the beginning of the Great communist Debate.

1) In Cuba, Castro emerged as the world's MAN OF THE YEAR, for his courage and clarity in defending the rights of small nations. Most of my American friends missed this; they saw an alleged nuclear war-threat that was barely escaped. To us the threat seemed phony, a nuclear blackmail by Kennedy. The missiles, both in their installation and in the manner of withdrawal, seemed an injury to Cuba by confusing her Latin American support. The deal of the two K's ignored Cuba's existence as a Revolution and even as a nation. Castro, in his November First television speech, restored the dignity of his nation and therewith of the world's people. Even in faraway Nepal, a monarchy, Castro was applauded when he demanded that any "inspection" be equal, for American bases as well as Cuban bases. Castro became a world figure for his defense of the equal sovereignty of little nations.

The Sino-Indian Border Conflict was ended for the time by the collapse of the Indian armies and the incredible Chinese announcement of a Cease-Fire-Withdrawal, in the moment of full victory, back to the positions of Nov. 7, 1959, before the fighting began, with an additional withdrawal of 20 kilometers for armed patrols behind the "line of control". The West pours arms into India, encouraging her to a long, long war. Peking called on India for a negotiated border, and called on the Afro~Asian nations to help. This posed the question: Whither India?

3) The Great Communist Debate came into the open Dec. 15 when China, four times attacked by four European Party Congresses, climaxed by a fifth time by Khrushchov in the Supreme Soviet, finally made a public reply Dec. 15. The technique is important; the Peking People's Daily filled a page and a half on Dec. 14 with 38 attacks against China, made in the Prague Congress, and left these for 24 hours without reply for the readers to think over. Then came the editorial: "Workers of All Countries, Unite to Oppose Our Common Enemy!" and it was clear that an open worldwide debate had begun. Two weeks later the paper gave a page to Togliatti's attack on China and published a lengthy reply. So far the argument deals with basic principles not with personalities.
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All these struggles of worldwide importance took sharp form in late 1962 and will develop further in 1963.

1) Peace has not returned to the Caribbean. Kennedy rides high, for his nuclear blackmail won! The first victim of the Cuban crisis, say cynical Britons, is MacMillan. for at Nassau Kennedy, as a London paper said, "pushed Britain into the mud and made her pay for the mud"; the U.S. press openly disdains her as a second class power. American spokesmen gloat that a "firm policy pays"; they may try it next on Berlin. Yet--on the other side of earth, the people of a little half-nation, South Viet Nam, organized in a "Liberation Front", won a spectacular victory against Americans and the Ngo Dinh Diem armed forces just as 1963 began, bringing down several helicopters in an open battle not very far from Saigon. If the South Vietnamese ever heard of "nuclear blackmail", they figure it doesn't apply to them.

2) Peking's action on the border rallied wide support from Afro-Asian nations. Six nations met in Colombo seek peace. Their precise views vary but all unite on two things: a) that China and India should meet to negotiate their border; b) that the West should not be allowed to turn India into an armed Western base. As 1963 opened two high dignitaries came to Peking to discuss these matters. Mrs. Bandaranaike, the world's only woman prime minister, came from Ceylon to present the views of six nations; Vice-Premier Subandrio of Indonesia came separately to assist the lady and also to put in his own word for another Bandung Conference to strengthen Afro-Asian nations in their general anti-imperialist mutual help. So, out of the Sine-Indian border conflict, wider Afro-Asian unities may flower.

3) The Great Debate brings peril and also hope. If it is conducted by dictation and name-calling, it may confuse and splinter the world's progressive forces; this is already a dangerous trend. But if it concentrates on basic principles, and especially if it leads to another international conference of the world's Communist Parties, as Chinese propose, it will clarify issues that need clarification and illumine man's road to progress and world peace. With the multiplicity of socialist countries and revolutionary movements, differences are bound to arise and are nothing to be feared. The urgent problem now is to learn how to discuss them and settle them in a comradely way, on the basis of the common goals and the real lessons of world events -- as a normal routine method.

A Chinese leader told me: "The whole world now goes to school, the lessons are hard ones and people have to study them because they are needed for mankind's progress. If so many people study very hard, they should come up with fundamental answers."

The People's Daily called 1962 "a year woven of struggles and victories". 1963, I think, will see more of the same.