War in Korea and Indochina } 87
saw the Korean War as masterminded by Stalin with full support by Mao.
Then came the “human wave assaults” by CPV forces, demonstrating, in
American eyes, stark disregard for casualties. Then the “brainwashing” of US
POWs, the “germ warfare” charges, and the demand for involuntary repatria-
tion of POWs. All these worked together to produce a deeply rooted demonic
American view of “Red China.”
On China’s side, parallel to material preparations for military intervention
in July and August, CCP leaders deliberated how to mobilize popular support
for a “resist America, support Korea” campaign. The result, kicked off in July,
was a full-scale, nationwide mass movement with a wide array of CCP-led
mass organizations—political parties and groups, labor unions, women’s
and youth groups—joining an umbrella organization to educate the people
of the whole country about the crimes of US imperialism against China and
other countries of Asia. Central themes of this campaign were the long his-
tory of US aggression against China, the decadent and decrepit nature of US
capitalism and imperialism, and the imperative need to “beat American ar-
rogance.” Many people had “illusions” about the United States, and the move-
ment aimed to eliminate these “illusions.” The anti-American movement was
paralleled by another to suppress “reactionaries and reactionary activities.”
This movement had been launched in March, before the start of the Korean
War, but did not gain momentum until the war began. By that point, all party
and government offices were instructed to pursue repression of reactionaries
as “one of the most important tasks.” They should “lead the people to mop
up ruthlessly all open and hidden reactionaries, thus establishing and con-
solidating the revolutionary order.^67 By May 1951, more than 2.5 million “reac-
tionaries” had been arrested and 710,000 executed.^68 This widespread terror
was justified, in part, as essential to defend new China from the US imperi-
alism in Korea. It also encouraged people to accept the CCP’s view of China
and the world.
Marxist propaganda had long been critical of the United States, of course.
But typically that propaganda had drawn a distinction between the US gov-
ernment and the people, stressing that the latter suffered oppression by the US
imperialists in common with other peoples of the world. The anti-American
propaganda generated by the CCP in the early 1950s depicted Americans
and American society as totally corrupt, venal, bestial, brutal, and violent.
American society was sunk deep in thievery, murder, lying, prostitution,
rape, racial oppression, religious discrimination, starvation, poverty, and so
on. One publication gives a good sense of this. The United States
is a world of gangsters, debauchees, and murderers, a factory where
criminals are made. Here morality, modesty have been thrown into the
cesspool. This is a society without scruple of [sic] shame, where morality
has been overwhelmed.^69