Imperialism, environmental destruction, and disaster. Lajos Magyar on the human causes of a series of floods in China during 1931, the ‘natural disaster’ killed untold thousands and came during the Chinese Civil War and Japanese invasion. Magyar was deputy head of the Eastern Secretariat of the Executive Committee and a leading voice on the national-colonial revolution in the Comintern.

‘The Flood Disaster in China’ by L. Magyar from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 11 No. 47. September 3, 1931.

Such a flood disaster as that which has overtaken the Yangtse valley has never been experienced before in world history. It is not known exactly whether 60 or 80 million toilers have been affected by this catastrophe; only rough estimates are to hand regarding the extent of the disaster. 16 provinces are involved. South China has also suffered tremendous damage. But the flood disaster has caused the greatest ravages in the valley of the Yang-tse-kiang and of the Yellow River. The second largest industrial centre, and perhaps also the second largest town in the country, Hankow, is under water. Indescribable tragedies are taking place there. Electric cables, water pipes, industrial undertakings, all are destroyed. Houses are collapsing daily. Thousands of corpses have been swept away by the streams. The whole of the Yangtsekiang has become a huge sea, miles broad, sweeping everything before it. The poor quarter in Nanking is under water. In the valley of the Yellow river, Kaifeng has suffered the most. The Western part of Anhwei is also under water. In addition, the dams of the tributories of the Yangtsekiang and the Yellow River have collapsed. The damage caused there is not known up to the present. The rice harvest in Central China, the wheat harvest in the valley of the Yellow River are destroyed. In an area in which about 60 to 80 million people live, the peasant has sown but he reaps nothing.

Sixty to eighty million people are as good as handed over to death from starvation. Such a tragedy is unprecedented even in the history of China, which is so rich in famine disasters. From year to year these tragedies have been repeated on a larger scale: In 1927 9 million, in 1928 34 million, in 1929 57 million, and in 1930 30 million people were a prey to famine, and in 1931 60 to 80 million are faced with death from starvation. Even such god-fearing missionaries who do not wish to agitate against the imperialist robber-campaigns and the bloody rule of the Kuomintang are compelled to recognise that from 1928 to 1930, in the three North-West provinces of China alone, about 8 to 10 million people died of starvation. The province of Kiangsu has lost half of its population. Three successive years China was visited by drought. This year it is the victim of unprecedented floods. China needs help! The imperialists will not give help. The United States intend to place 15 million bushels of wheat of the enormous store in the hands of the Farm Board, at the disposal of China by way of loan. This will suffice to provide every starving person with 4 to 5 kilogrammes of wheat, and this only in return for payment. Nor will the ruling class of China help. The Kuomintang government, which annually squanders hundreds of millions on wars of the generals, the government of the Chinese capitalists and landlords intends to grant 10 million Chinese dollars for the purpose of “ameliorating the misery”. That is to say, every victim will receive about three halfpence in “relief”. Only the working people of the whole world can aid their Chinese brothers in their need!

The agents of the imperialists, the ideologists of the Chinese counter-revolution, the petty bourgeois charlatans, the missionaries declare: it is a disaster due to natural agency. Is it really so? Is it a purely natural disaster? No, a thousand times no. What has occurred in China in this respect in the last few years is only the result of the exploitation of the country by the imperialist robbers, by the militarists, landlords, usurers and capitalists. In the last decade there have been only two good harvests, two normal years in the North West and Northern districts; in other years there has been an uninterrupted chain of drought and floods. This is due to the fact that China has been denuded of forests. Even bourgeois experts for decades pointed out that the unexampled deforestation would be bound to lead to ever fresh disasters. And in spite of this deforestation still proceeded. Nothing was done in order to safeguard the country against these disasters. Individual peasants and villages are quite unable to carry out such afforestation. This is a task which must be carried out by the State. The State, the government, the ruling class however have not done anything in this respect, but have ruthlessly cut down the few remaining forests. This has led to a disastrous irregularity of climate, so that from one year to another China is visited by floods and droughts. In Shantung, in Ciautchou, the Germans in their time commenced afforestation, as a result of which the climate of these districts was greatly improved and normalised. Now the last trees are being felled in Shantung. This is one of the causes of the gigantic disaster which we are now witnessing.

The history of China is a record of uninterrupted heroic fight of the toilers against the danger of inundation. In the history of the exploitation of the Chinese workers the erection of dams against floods has played a tremendous role. The oriental despotism of the Chinese ruling classes mobilised millions and millions of peasants in order to erect and keep in repair the gigantic dams against inundations from the Yellow River and the Yangtsekiang. For decades, however, these gigantic works have been allowed to fall out of repair; nothing has been done to maintain them. Since 1911 there has been no central government whatever. The Nanking government is certainly not a central government. The militarists, who rule in the provinces, likewise do not bother about maintaining the dams: all their thoughts are directed to squeezing taxes out of the people, to taxation, usury, land robbery and wars. The policy of the imperialists has still further increased the feudal dismemberment of the country and the constant wars of the militarists. Individual peasant undertakings, individual villages are not in a position to control the whole river system. Thus it came that the old irrigation system decayed, and therewith there disappeared more and more the preconditions for agricultural production in the big districts of China. Thus it came about that the dams of the Yellow River and of the Yangtsekiang began to crack. For years the most prominent experts of China predicted that a disaster would occur if the dams were not repaired. Nothing was done. Thus the catastrophe came, which is not an elementary catastrophe but a catastrophe resulting from the exploitation of the country by the imperialists and the Chinese exploiters.

Immediately before the terrible catastrophe in the valley of the Yellow River and of the Yangtsekiang a number of generals’ wars took place in China as well as various campaigns by Chiang Kai-shek against the Chinese Soviet districts. If these huge sums expended on these campaigns and wars and the huge armies had been employed in repairing the defective dams, such a gigantic inundation would not have taken place, or at any rate not on such a scale. In order to prevent any further wars of intervention it is necessary to annihilate the rule of the Kuomintang and their militarist agents, it is necessary to destroy the rule of the imperialists in China. The victorious Soviet revolution in China will see to it that by proper afforestation, by the erection of strong dams, by the restoration of the irrigation system the country is preserved from any further famine disasters.

Once again hundreds of thousands of human lives have been destroyed owing to the robber rule of the imperialists and Chinese counter-revolutionaries: 60 to 80 millions are faced with death from starvation. The Chinese workers and poor and middle peasants will, under the hegemony of the proletariat and under the leadership of the courageous Chinese Communist Party, put an end to the barbarous order of society which renders such tragedies possible. At present, however immediate help is necessary. Millions are waiting for help. The imperialists and the Chinese ruling classes are not likely to help. The toilers of the whole world alone must seek to alleviate the misery of their Chinese class brothers by means of an immediate and energetic collection campaign.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1931/v11n47-sep-03-1931-inprecor.pdf