the estimation of the general situation in China. I have but very scanty data on hand, supplied me by Comrades who have devoted much attention to the Chinese question.
If we take the big industries for example, we find that these increased gradually between 1918–23. Thus, for instance, the number of spindles in work in the textile industry amounted to 478,000 in 1918, 1,749,000 in 1921, and 1,802,000 in 1923. It must further be observed that the big industrialist owners are of the following nationalities:
In 1924 the Chinese textile factories formed 61 per cent of the total number, Japanese 34 per cent, and British 5 per cent.
The output of coal also shows an increase, though not a very rapid one. The output was 18 million tons in 1918, 22,6 million tons in 1923
The nationalities of the mineowners are as follows (the number of mines is not given here, the amount of capital invested is taken as a standard): Fifty million dollars are in the hands of Chinese coal owners, 22 million dollars belong to the English, 27 million dollars to the Japanese, and 250,000 dollars to the German. The capital is thus in the hands of Chinese owners to about the amount of one half, the other half being in the possession of non-Chinese.
An inquiry into the social power represented by the working class is extremely difficult, the data referring to the number of the industrial proletariat are exceedingly contradictory, and reliable figures are not obtainable. It may be assumed that there are about 5 million industrial proletarians in China (agricultural labor thus not being included).
The question of the structure of the agrarian conditions in China is of much greater interest. You are aware that in a country like China, and in such a revolution as the present one, the peasantry is bound by the logic of events to play a leading part, and the
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