[1] Collectivize means controlled farming, where the peasants are only hired hands. CHAPTER III _Communist Personalities_ The Central People’s Government of the Chinese Communist Party is the ruling class. It makes the policy, enforces the laws and governs with dictatorial power. Mao Tse-tung, at fifty-six, is Chairman and Supreme Commander—for the time being at least. Directly responsible to him are six Vice-Chairmen among whom is the famous Madame Sun Yet-sen. Under these Vice-Chairmen are fifty-six Supreme and fifteen Administrative Councilors, twenty Ministries and a political Consultative Committee of one hundred and eighty Active Members. Mao Tse-tung, or Chairman Mao, is a rotund little figure, rather dejected looking, with an undistinguished face, topped by a broad forehead and a luxuriant crop of black hair. Now installed in Peking, he dresses less slovenly than in those earlier days in Yenan when a sloppy appearance was considered a badge of honor. His name, pronounced “Mout-zz-dung,” is easily mispronounced by foreigners. Once, during the Japanese war, when Mao was in Chungking for a short time, ostensibly to coordinate the Communist forces with the Generalissimo’s war effort, he was consistently called “Mousy-dung,” by Ambassador Hurley. In conferences, and with the best intentions in the world, Hurley would keep saying, “Mr. Mousy-dung,” this or that ..., while the Generalissimo would politely cover his face with his hand to hide his smile and Mao would blush. “Mousy-dung,” in a more common Chinese dialect means “the hole in the water closet.” Earnest and zealous, Mao, a “China for the Chinese” promoter, and therefore basically at odds with the Russians, speaks in a distinct, sometimes shrill, high-pitched voice. He has a habit of quoting from his wide reading. His oratory is forceful but, like Hitler’s, not polished. Although brilliantly educated in the Chinese Classics and familiar with ancient Greece and Rome through translations of their history and literature, up to the time he left Yenan he had never learned to speak or understand English. Nearly all foreigners relied upon his interpreter when speaking to him. In spite of this, he held one group of reporters spellbound for nearly three hours as he talked to them in the Foreign Office cave, gesticulating nervously and cracking watermelon seeds endlessly between his square white teeth. Sometimes his sober countenance and intense preoccupation would amuse foreigners. Hurley, after long hours of serious discussions, always through an interpreter of course, would, on leaving, bow in sweeping Western style and invariably say in English, “Good night, you sad little apple you,” to his politely bowing host.