Paddy Griffith struck again! In April, I participated in his SINK THE TIRPITZ affair, and now, in June, aided and abetted by Ned Zuparko, he placed me in China, 1927.
Ned and Merryl Zuparko carried Paddy's flag to the Washington, DC, area. They reside in California, and took a week to vacation on the east coast. They stayed with me for a day or so, and Ned hosted the China game, drawing on the notes he said Paddy had derived circa 1979.
In addition to Ned's acting as umpire/referee/host, there were eight of us in the game... each had been furnished with a folder of background data, each was to play a role in this 1927 scenario set in Po On province, each was a foe of the ruling Kuomantang Nationalist goverment, and each was a self-styled representative of the people, determined to bring peace and joy and light to the people via the communist route... even if all were all killed in the process.
Prior to Ned's visit, he had sent me a large packet containing a number of folders with the background information each participant was to read. I had given them out at random, but for some reason, no one would accept the folder of Mee Pee... Ho Hum's was given out, No Wei's was distributed, Chieu Kud's was assigned... and so on... but I was stuck with Mee Pee.
Ah, well... if Chairman Maio so wishes it, thought I, then I shall assume the humble role of Mee Pee. And it turned out that Mee Pee wasn't humble at all... a hard-headed communist activist, trained in Moscow, ready to light the fires of instant revolution.
The scene was China, 1927, and the cooperative agreement between the Communists and the Nationalists was going up in smoke. The poop sheets indicated that our fellow communists had been massacred in Shanghai and Nanking, and that this meeting of eight stalwart communists was being held to decide how best to start the revolution going in Po On Province before the Nationalist army wiped us all out.
There were some 200,000 Nationalist conscript army troops in the province, the total provincial population was in the order of 17,000,000, while we, the Commies, had a hard-core cadre of only 16,000 members. These numbers, of course, didn't frighten Mee Pee at all... this man had his orders to strike, strike quickly, strike NOW, and by the beard of Lenin, a first strike it would be!!
Let me state, by the way, that if Lenin himself had had eight assistants of the timbre and quality assembled around our table, the Czar and Czarina would still be prancing around Moscow. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, anyone could say without someone else taking issue with it.
How Lenin did it, how he obtained a consensus of opinion in planning US revolution, I don't know... but I certainly take my hat off to the old boy... he must have been one helluvan achiever.
The members of our learned council started off on the question of electing a new Secretary of the Party (the former Secretary, no doubt anticipating this meeting and valuing his sanity, had resigned). One would think you'd quickly elect the Secretary and get on to the more important business of the day, i.e., knocking off the Nationalists.
Ha!!
Do we need a Secretary? Isn't the election of a Secretary the beginning of the creation of an elite class? And isn't that against the egalitarian principles of the Party?
It took us the better part of an hour to decide this critical issue, and the final decision was to elect a temDorary Secretary so as not to offend the "anti-elitists".
Comrade Ho Hum (Barbara Hurst) was the chosen Secretary, and she performed admirably in the face of perversity, pig-headedness, irrationality, and know-nothingness.
Mee Pee (tha's me) had tossed his-name in the hat for Secretary... who better qualified than one who had been to Moscow, was firmly trained in the Party line, had personally known the Party leaders, etc., etc. But it was not to be.
Min Ji (Merryl Zuparko) took an instant dislike to Mee Pee... Min Ji was of the thought that the revolution should wait some five years (five years!) while we educated and trained the good people of the province in Marxist doctrine... she vehemently disagreed with Mee Pee's "strike now" policy... she actively campaigned against Mee Pee's candidacy, and was wonderfully successful.
Well, I thought, even if I didn't win, now that we had a Secretary, surely we'd proceed with the revolution.
Ha!!
This is hard to believe, but someone brought up the question of whether or not we needed a revolution! It was at this time that Mee Pee had fond thoughts about throttling several of those present... but unfortunately, thoughts aren't deeds. Mee Pee gritted his teeth and hung on.
Another half hour or so and we actually had a consensus of opinion! Yes, we favored a revolution! Hot Dawg! A great day in Po On Province! We were on a roll! Unbelievable!
Now we had a Secretary, and now we had a revolution... but a revolution with what?
It seemed that Comrade Secretary Ho Hum, Flower of the Far East, had reservations about using "high tech" weaponry, i.e., tanks, cannon, etc. She was an "anti-elitist", and her fear stemmed from the thought that the troops that wielded the weapons would form a "power elite", and would eventually run rampant over the people she represented... the poor peasants, the bare-footed workers who tended the rice vines, those who tilled the noodle fields.
And so "should we use high tech weapons?" was the next topic of debate. I must state that Mee Pee's blood pressure was up to boiling... he couldn't take much more of this wishy-washyness. Did Comrade Secretary Ho Hum think the revolution would be won by her weaponless peasants strangling each Nationalist supporter, individually, with a long noodle?
And not only was Comrade Ho Hum holding up the proceedings... but Comrade Ho Chen (Beth Nelson) also refused to concentrate on the revolution... she had other worries. Comrade Ho Chen's problems centered on the fact that there was an insufficient amount of irrigation water in the province. The way she put it was to the effect that "we've got to fix the hydraulics"; let's get those "hydraulics" in working order, she advocated, and then we can have a revolution.
Comrade Ho Chen, Lotus Blossum of the Sun, the moment she focused on her "hydraulics", was the instant target of several of the more radical members of the council... Mee Pee among them. She was threatened with death and dismemberment, and, worst of all, with being purged from the Party. This was enough to put the fear of Lenin into her, and we heard no more of her "hydraulics".
As I had previously mentioned, Comrade Min Ji (Merryl Zuparko), Fragrant Water Lilly of the Flowing Brook, while she wasn't against the revolution, didn't actively campaign for it, what with her initial desire to wait five years (five years!) before getting it off the ground. Comrade Min Ji, however, was, as she expressed it, "flexible", and eventually she cut her five year waiting period down to six months.
Another no-help council member was Chieu Kud (Ed Raley), great Marxist theoretician, who had all sorts of mumbo-jumbo dialectic to share with us, but refused to see that the "act now" policy was the right one, and that any delay was fatal. It was obvious to Mee Pee, as Chieu Kud put forth his words of wisdom, that Chieu Kud's mind was fogged by too much theory... he took very little account of the real, practical world.
It was Mee Pee's thought (unvoiced) that if Chieu Kud, master theoretician of Marxist doctrine, could be placed in a barrel and stored in a dry, quiet place, then Chieu Kud could theoretize to himself twenty-four hours a day, and the council could get along with its business in uninterrupted fashion. If the truth be known, Mee Pee thought this barrel-thought about several other prominent council members.
Comrade Pong Ping (Fred Haub) didn't say much, but proved to be quite, helpful. Apparently, he was' pushing the use of "high tech" weaponry, and to this effect, he wanted to get the direct assistance of Soviet Russia... arms and men. Comrade Pong Ping didn't have to say much, for the other activist members of the council did all his work for him.
Comrade Pong Ping didn't get it all his way, however, for the majority of those present, while agreeing that Soviet arms would help, didn't want the presence of Soviet personnel. It was feared that the advisors would "taint" our revolution, and cause us to veer from our own Chinese brand of communism, and move along the party lines as laid out by Moscow.
Mee Pee's thought was that, in our present state of helplessness, well evidenced by the discussion taking place around the table, assistance from anywhere, was a good idea, especially from Mother Russia. Mee Pee, being Moscow trained, wanted all the Russian advisors he could get... unfortunately, he got none.
But to Mee Pee's mind, the unkindest cut of all was the post-game revelation that Comrade No Wei (Bob Hurst) had done him dirty.
Each time Mee Pee shouted "Act now!", No Wei would echo: "Act now!". And when Mee Pee shouted "Let's attack the town!", No Wei would echo: "Attack the town!. And when Mee Pee shouted "We need high tech weapons!", No Wei would echo: "High tech weapons!". In short, Mee Pee thought he had a staunch ally in his childhood friend No Wei, a true believer in the revolution.
But No Wei, that slithering son of a sinuous centipede, turned out to be a traitor! He was a spy for the Kuomintang! He was a Nationalist! He was an anti-communist mole whose mission it was to derail the revolution!
No Wei later revealed that he thought that if he voted outright against the revolution, the accusing finger of reactionism and/or revisionism would soon point his way. And so, when Mee Pee and others advocated such things as a direct attack on the town, No Wei - knowing that the Nationalists were well prepared for the attackers and would virtually annihilate them and thus make an end to this foolish uprising - backed all of Mee Pee's radical actions.
Capitalistic turtle-snake! Unholy member of the oppressing classes! Enemy of the workers! Yes, Mee Pee was truly devastated to learn that his High School buddy No Wei - with whom he shared some wonderfully pleasant moments in the past, such as pulling the legs off frogs they had captured in the village pond - was a Nationalist. Is there no one to be trusted?
And that was the way it went... a very enjoyable three hour affair in which Ned kept us all on course... no little thing in itself.
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