And Quiet Flows the Yang-Tse

G P Deshpande LAST MONTH it looked from the incidents in the city of Wuhan on the banks of the Yang-tse that the Yang-tse was on fire again. Exactly a year ago this mighty river of China was on fire when Chairman Mao had his historic swim in it at Wuhan. The red guard who swam with him found the water exceedingly sweet, though those familiar with the muddy waters of the Yang-tse smiled derisively. While some enthusiasts were busy calculating whether Mao did really swim at the speed at which the official press claimed he did, that swim indeed set a historic process into action. Last month articles commemorating this swim recalled Mao's words: ''Yang-tse is big, but so what? American imperialism is big and yet we fought it once and if necessary we shall fight again." The swim marked the, beginning of a great movement, 'the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution'. The Yang-tse was on fire. All the revisionists within the Communist Party of China and all those power- holders who were taking the capitalist road had to be attacked. The fagging spirit of communism and revolution had to be revitalised. After millenia of flowing the Yang- tse had not slowed down. Why then had the revolutionary spirit of power-holders in China sapped? Something had to be done about it and fast.