Chiang Kai-shek limped to bed with glee this week anticipating his happiest dreams in years. The reported brawls between rival Communist faction sin Nanking and Shanghai probably spread like wide-fire under those old eye-lids and there he was, standing tall, as his Navy crossed the Taiwan Straits and saved the strife-weary people of the mainland.

Chiang may not wake up for weeks, but other Peking watchers should soon sort out the exaggerated news reports and realize that China is likely to remain still communist and still mysterious for a long time. To this day we know little about the post-Stalinist power struggle in Russia; the upheaval in China should be as difficult to straighten out. To the beast of our knowledge this week's conflict is at least partially the result of a tug of war between provincial and national leaders in China, a tug of war in which the two teams temporarily have lost patience, dropped the rope, and rushed each other.

Factory workers in Shanghai and possibly Nanking walked off their hobs this week apparently at the instigation of provincial leaders want to increase factory and farm outputs and are evidently annoyed about a resolution to extend Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution into "the minds, the factories, and the countryside." The provincial leaders feel, justifiably, that this will hinder production and threaten their prestige.

The cultural Revolution is an nation-wide cram session in Maoist thought that has been largely an urban phenomenon for the first few months of its active life. According to the rules, everyone takes as much time off as possible to read and discuss Mao's writings, and all are encouraged to point our mistakes committed by their elders and leaders.

Mao and his heir-apparent, Lin Piao, pushed the resolution though the Central Committee last December 15. Fists and possibly knives and guns have crashed back into Chinese history this week because Mao and Lin have decided to give the Cultural Revolution some muscle as it hits the countryside. The muscle is provided by the "Red Rebel Workers," a post-adolescent version of the youthful Red Guards who have been pushing the cultural Revolution in the cities since summer. The Red Rebel Workers are factory hands, union men, who have been judged untainted by the technical, urban, non-ideological values Mao detects in many party officials. these workers have been asked to lead study sessions and week apparently did not please the Red Rebels, and fights broke out.

Judging from their stated aims, Mao Lin have shed few tears over the violence. The possible damage to the economy isn't so important to them. "What is the use of economic development if it only leads to capitalism?" a crucial New Year's newspaper editorial asked. Once the Cultural Revolution has everyone in tune with the interests of the peasants and workers, the work can go been criticized: In the long run, Mao argues, a socialist economy with a firm ideological base will surpass, any capitalist economy. the Russians have succumbed to the short-run lures of capitalism; the Chinese, Mao is convinced, must be more careful.

The provincial leaders don't see it this way, and neither do two of the nation's leading administrators, Chou En-lai, number three in the politburo, and Tao Chu, number for. Both were considered middle men the summer when Mao and Lin attacked the principle opponents of the Cultural Revolution. But now the opponents, led by President Liu Shao-chi, have possibly backed out of the picture, leaving Chou and Tao leaning dangerously on the wrong side of the fence. The two men want to keep the bureaucracy functioning and the leadership together, but they are in trouble. Mao has reportedly begun to speak out against s "second line" of opponents more insidious than the first line. T'ao was led through the streets of Peking in disgrace last week and even Chou, an urbane, indestructable Talleyrand, has been occasionally criticized in the Red Guard posters plastering the walls of Peking.

The government ministries are Chou's responsibility; the ministries would probably prefer to concentrate on the country's rice and steel quotas. But Mao and Lin's watchers, following events like soap opera devotees, wonder if Chou will be able to prevail up on Mao and Lin to soften the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the provincial chiefs and his own bureaucrats.

Few doubt that Mao and Lin can force some concessions from the stubborn provincials. The two leaders still appear to have the army on the side. Military personnel made up the majority of the 100,000 officials assigned to handle accommodations for the Red Guards coming in and out of Peking since this summer. Military officers probably also helped the organization of the Red. Rebel workers.

The Central Committee yesterday called for the army's support in the current struggle; This reflects both the seriousness of the crisis, and Mao' confidence that they army is on his side. The military's loyalty to Lin, a popular Defense Minister, should keep the country together, barring unpredictable events.

One such event is the Vietnam war. Observers disagree upheaval. They also disagree on which faction is more one in China is particularly sanguine about the, war factories, and the countryside," a thorough house cleaning before becoming involved in any direct military clash. In Mao's eyes, a fight with the United States is inevitable anyway. He apparently dreams old romantic dreams, like his friend in Taiwan, and sees himself waiting in the his with his nation's youth to snipe the American army to death-as it marches in.

Apparecently be hopes, even expects, that day will come that tell of peasant and leaders battling the enemy until the leader dies, whereupon the peasants pick up the banner and fight on even more fervently. Mao accepts the first part of the story as his fate; China stagers today because be worries that the second part will not come true.