China lost her Soviet experts. But this did not mean the end of foreigners working in China. Instead of employing engineers and technicians from the motherland of Socialism, the Chinese Government is now employing a motley assortment of foreigners, almost exclusively from non-Communist countries, as language teachers and as “polishers” for foreign language publications.

In recent years, Communist China has been advocating chemical fertiliser application as a means of raising land yield for grains and cotton in order to feed her growing population and to provide sufficient raw materials for light industry. Domestic production of chemical fertiliser increased fivefold during the First Five Year Plan period of 1953–57 and again expanded threefold during the Second Five Year Plan period of 1958–62. More than one half of the total consumption of chemical fertiliser has been imported mainly from Western European countries and Japan. The average rate of consumption per hectare is still low in comparison with other agriculturally advanced countries but the rate of increase has been impressive. On the other hand, such a drastic increase must be exerting great pressure on agricultural practice in China. What incentive, if any, does the government provide to encourage the application of chemical fertiliser? How high is the fertiliser price? How much can fanners expect to gain from an increase in fertiliser application? Does the government gain tax revenue from promoting fertiliser application?

One of the most heated debates in Chinese Communist historiography concerns the evaluation of the peasant movements in Chinese history. As in many other aspects of mainland intellectual life, the issues debated in this question seem artificial. Yet even in terms of the interpretation of Chinese history new problems have been raised, if not solved. More important, in terms of contemporary intellectual history, the discussions of the Chinese peasant wars form an important part of the documentation for the most massive attempt at ideological reeducation in human history, the effort to inculcate attitudes of struggle in place of the traditional emphasis on harmony.

Although there is no detailed definitive Chinese Communist interpretation of the thinkers of the 100 Schools Period, this does not mean that one cannot isolate certain constants from which deviation is not permitted. The sayings of Marx-Engels and Mao Tse-tung which are directly relevant to the early thinkers, if not strictly about them, have obviously been the primary guidelines for the scholar in Communist China. Especially in the material produced since 1957, when relatively intensive study of the period began, one becomes aware of more specific trends in interpretation. With the basic tenets of Marx and Engels as tools for interpretation, it is axiomatic that understanding the class struggle of a given time is the key to understanding the thought of that time. The “contention” among the 100 Schools is taken to be a reflection of the intensity of class struggle in the Warring States Period. It is also axiomatic that the history of the struggle between progressive and reactionary forces is reflected in the enduring philosophical struggle between materialism and idealism. But the philosophical concepts associated with materialism and idealism are not native to China; nor are their Marxist definitions universally accepted in the history of Western philosophy. Therefore, in interpreting the thought of the 100 Schools Period, scholars most frequently cite Marx-Engels definitions as support for their own interpretations or to criticise those of others. Engels states that all those who take spirit as prior to the existence of the natural world and thus in the last analysis admit a creator (Old Testament variety or the more sophisticated Absolute Spirit of Hegel) belong in the idealist camp.

There have been enthusiastic reports in the Chinese Press about the collectivisation movement in agriculture and animal husbandry among the forty million people of the national minorities in China. But it now appears that the socialist revolution has not developed successfully in the non-Han frontier regions of the country.

The traditional alliance between politics and scholarship that Professor Fitzgerald has referred to as “characteristically Chinese” has become a most explicit alliance in contemporary China. Not only is scholarship to serve immediate political interests, but it must do so within the frame-work of an all-pervasive ideology. In no field of scholarship is this union more explicit than in the study of history. The application of Marxist-Leninist theory and the “thought of Mao Tse-tung” to the study and understanding of the Chinese past is the appointed task of Chinese Communist historians, and they would no doubt be the first to acknowledge that historiography cannot, and indeed should not, be separated from ideology. The most relevant portion of this body of ideology for historians is, of course, the materialist conception of history. It is from the assumptions of this theory that the Chinese Communist interpretation of history ostensibly begins.

In considering the organisational evolution and functional development of the office of the people's procuratorate in Communist China from 1951 to 19S4, a clear-cut distinction must be drawn between the two subsidiary stages into which this phase of the institution's history readily breaks down. The first spans the years 1951–52; the second extends through 1953 and 1954. For purposes of analysis, it would be best to keep them separate, for reasons that will soon become apparent.