Chairman Mao

[JonP]

So whats evereybodys opinions on Mao ? Is he really as bad as people make out ? I always hear a lot of stuff about how his "stupid" policies lead to the deaths of millions and how he lived in a life of luxury while the peasants starved. Is it all really true ? or just over exagerated commie bashing.

[LuZhiming]

It is exagerated a bit, there still would have been peasents dying from the famine. Although there is no doubt that Mao's policies completely multiplied the amount of deaths. Mao isn't a great guy, but I wouldn't say he is anywhere near the level of Stalin.

[Saint-Just]

I think the comments you are referring to are generally on the Great Leap Forward. He is a post I have previously made on Che-Lives describing the Great Leap Forward. Mao did cause starvation and death for millions of people, however it was an economic miscalculation. He saved more people through the economic successes they had. There were big famines before Mao came to power under the Koumintang. From 1962-1976 things went well under Mao (without him in charge of economic plans).

The CPPRC and Mao Zedong had great success with the first Five Year Plan (1952-57). The primary target of the plan was to industrialise China. Mao’s China was a powerful nation on the international stage, although less economically developed than the USA and USSR, its vast population meant it had the potential to match the two superpowers. In the first five year plan 4 of the 6 main industrial production targets (Iron, Oil, Steel, Coal Cement and Fertiliser) were met or exceeded, 2 reached 3/4 of the target (Cement and Oil).

In 1958 the Second Five Year Plan began. Mao states that in 30 years China could be as economically powerful as the United States. This 2nd economic plan was known as the Great Leap Forward. The purpose was to further industrialise China. Mao said that China must first pay close attention to agriculture so that enough food could be produced to deed the many peasants who would have to become industrial workers. Equally, industry would have to develop at the same time to produce machines to modernise farming and to produce enough fertiliser.

Peasant families formed big communes of thousands of people where machinery and land would be pooled together to increase efficiency. Political work was also carried out in the commune, people could hear political speeches as they worked from many loudspeakers. Health care and education was provided for children. There were 700 million people in Communes.

In the first year it was a massive success, production skyrocketed in both industry and agricultural production. However, a number of things began to fail. Famously, there were about 600,000 furnaces for various industrial tasks set up in communes. However, the metal these furnaces produced was done poorly and often not fit for construction of the machinery required. The furnaces used coal which should was needed for the rail network, meaning materials were left in the wrong place unable to be transported. In addition to this, the operation of these furnaces removed people from agricultural work. The furnaces served little purpose and only damaged the harvest and industrial production.

Most importantly, massive droughts and floods hit China in 1959 and 1960. In 1960 they abondoned this particular plan to reconstruct the economic and begin once more. By 1962 they had recovered. However, Mao was removed from his post as Head of State and the economy came fully under control of others.

[lostsoul]

study china before and after....
study the enviroment in which mao made his decisions and his reasoning

and decide if he is good or bad yourself. I think him and Gandhi, in modern times are the greatest things to ever happen for asia. but I have spoke to many people who think both were the stupidest and the world would be better without them.

study him yourself un-baisly...

[Fear]

Mao was one of three peasants to rise to the top and rule over it's billions
of people. He unified China and oversaw the greatest social reform in history.
Many consider Mao a great military tactician, with his writings on Guerilla
Warfare and the effect use of them during the Chinese civil war. Although most
of the population still lives in relative poverty, there are no beggars on the
streets.

Before 1949, the illiteracy rate was 80 percent, and life expectancy was
only 35 years. At Mao's death, illiteracy dropped to just seven percent, and the
average life expectancy would increase more than 70 years. In addition to these
facts, the popluation of China grew to well over 700 million people. Before, only
400 million remained the constant population from the Opium Wars and to the
Civil War. Even though Mao's programs devistated China, many still seem him as
a hero for the first half of his life. Although, in my personal opinion, he was a hero
through all of his life. Governing around a billion people is hard to do. I find it
quite impossible to blame every death on Mao, when famine did sweep China
several times(as noted in another post.)

Lastly, Mao Zedong may be the most powerful person who ever lived. He
controlled over a billion people for more than twenty-five years. He controlled
more than 9 million square kilometers of land. He overthrew an army of over 4
million to get it, and killed many more to keep it, although more Chinese died
during World War Two than Mao's programs did.

[martingale]

One of the greatest (if not THE greatest) accomplishment of Mao and the communist movement he led is the complete defeat and expulsion of imperialism from Chinese soil (except for Taiwan) and restoring dignity to the Chinese people. The hatred of the West, and especially the US, towards China is due to this single earth-shaking development.

I found the following passage concerning the relationship between Chinese Nationalism and the Chinese communist movement very insightful. It is from the book "Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915 - 1949" by the French historian Lucien Bianco, published in 1971:

Quote:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Triumph of Chinese Nationalism

The triumph of Chinese nationalism was born of the extremity of the threat to China. The Japanese invasion not only helped China attain self-conscious nationhood, but also constrained the Allies, as reformed imperialists, to accord China the equal status that until then they had resolutely denied her. In 1943, the Americans and British renounced the extraterritorial privileges that Chinese nationalists had been inveighing against for a century. In the same year Churchill and Roosevelt conferred with their colleague Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo, thus seemingly according equality to a country that for so long had had little more than colonial status in the white world. The end of the war in 1945 brought even more striking recognition: China was officially proclaimed one of the victorious Big Four.

But did Chinese nationalism triumph in 1945 or in 1949? To ask the question this way is to answer it. Despite the official celebration, 1945 was too obviously someone else's victory, with Hiroshima bringing to a close an air and sea struggle in which China had had little part. The war itself had already shown the illusory character of the diplomatic successes China had been allowed to win. The abolition of extraterritoriality was followed almost immediately by an agreement between Chungking and Washington removing American servicemen from the jurisdiction of Chinese courts. The American presence in Koumintang-ruled China was far greater than it had ever been in the era of "unequal treaties." And the author of "China's Destiny" (Chiang Kai-shek), who had attributed all the ills of modern China to imperialism, was reduced to making constant requests for the reinforcement and extension of this detested presence. With the Nationalists, Chinese nationalism came to be recognized, but not to be taken seriously.

The Communists, for their part, after shedding the theoretical internationalism that had hampered their early efforts, could plausibly claim to be more nationalist than the Nationalists, and indeed the only real nationalists. Whatever may have been the hidden thoughts and real feelings of the two parties during the war with Japan and the civil war, the evidence is beyond dispute: it was the Chinese Revolution, and only the Chinese Revolution, that brought Chinese nationalism to fruition. Did the Communists exploit nationalism for their own ends? Of course they did. But it was through Communism that nationalism triumphed. True Chinese nationalists, far from reproaching the Communists for their sleight of hand, welcomed their contribution to the nationalist cause. Most of the Chinese emigre intellectuals in France, for example, who come largely from the landowning and literati families that were the ruling class of the old regime and are today "enemies of the people", prefer Peking to Taiwan, the China of today to that of yesterday; the People's Republic is their pride. Not a man or woman among them was not gratified by the nuclear explosions in Sinkiang. For the first time since they were children, China is strong, independent, respected and feared. Such considerations weigh more heavily in their preference for Peking than the regime's social and ideological orientation.

In actual fact, Chinese Communism is first and foremost the triumphant assertion of Chinese nationalism. It is a nationalism of explosive vitality, as aggressive as it is vigorous, as often ill-considered as profound. And this is as it must be. After all, whether we are dealing with classes or with peoples, how else can we imagine the triumph of the oppressed?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Fidelbrand]

He has good intentions.. but...
having the pesants to sell grain at a low price to the State, but to buy necessities at a high price really sucks~
The revolution was in the name of the people, but strategic planning was emphasized too much .

Don&#39;t fuck me, but i think Mao is both good and bad. ( I hate to give these kinda answers too. <_< )

[RED CHARO]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2004, 12:56 AM
study china before and after....
study the enviroment in which mao made his decisions and his reasoning

and decide if he is good or bad yourself. I think him and Gandhi, in modern times are the greatest things to ever happen for asia. but I have spoke to many people who think both were the stupidest and the world would be better without them.

study him yourself un-baisly...




Lostsoul-
It can bee hard to study Mao un - biasly, when all the books written about him are done by capitalist book companys&#33;-
I think these people you talked too are victims of this&#33;

[Fidelbrand]

RED CHARO,

try Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China, Ch. 3.
I think Mao is quite objectively disccused in this book. :)

[dark fairy]

:unsure: mao was ok with violence and that is cool i think he was better than he is made to look.. but that&#39;s just me

[crazy comie]

I think mao had good intentions but made way to many mistakes as well as that he invented stalinism for peasents (maoism) wich sucks.

[Anarchist Freedom]

maos teachings were great but he strayed from his teachings or as they say wait hows it go absolute power corupts absolutely...


:che:


CGLM&#33; (http://www.cglm.tk)

[crazy comie]

I don&#39;t think he intended to live by his teaching&#39;s.

[Retro]

I&#39;d like to see half of the people here try and actually govern that many people. It&#39;s not as easy as you think, and with that many people, deaths can be expected. He was rough, but he was no Stalin by far.

Famines don&#39;t help either, but i assume that most people think Mao could have accounted for them :blink:

[SittingBull47]

I think Mao had eccentricity, but he became a little punch-drunk with power.

[crazy comie]

That is the point he had to much control more pepole should be running the country.

[Comrade Zeke]

In my oponion Mao did some good stuff but most of his experiments failed, his people starved to death and he was a womanizer,a pig, a glutton, only took a bath 4 times in his life, had several diffrent wifes and he ended up dying from Parkison&#39;s deises. He was good but mostaly bad and I don&#39;t admire him at all.....he is nothing compared to the acomplishments of Fidel Castro, Tito or Ho Chi Mih. He was just anthor Stalin.

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 12 2004, 03:09 AM
In my oponion Mao did some good stuff but most of his experiments failed, his people starved to death and he was a womanizer,a pig, a glutton, only took a bath 4 times in his life, had several diffrent wifes and he ended up dying from Parkison&#39;s deises. He was good but mostaly bad and I don&#39;t admire him at all.....he is nothing compared to the acomplishments of Fidel Castro, Tito or Ho Chi Mih. He was just anthor Stalin.
mao was a peasant. During his time most of them did not take "Baths" they used to get a wet towel and clean themselfs. It was not only him it was about 600 million other chinese.

Nor did they brush their teeth(as tooth brushs were not widely used) they used to raise their mouth with tea.


I always look at Mao&#39;s political life as a way of judging him, not his personal life.

[crazy comie]

How would parkinsons dissease affect his political performance it is stupid to state that. He was however a woemaniser.

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 12 2004, 04:27 PM
How would parkinsons dissease affect his political performance it is stupid to state that. He was however a woemaniser.
so Che liked cigars...

Mao liked pussy.

He was no rapist, the girls wanted to fuck him and he fucked them.

I consider that part of his personal life, and therfore out of scope when judging his political life.

[Comrade Zeke]

He still is nothing compared to Fidel or Tito or any of the DEMOCRATICALLY elected leaders in other countries. Hugo Cavez for example now he is cool&#33;

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 13 2004, 06:22 AM
He still is nothing compared to Fidel or Tito or any of the DEMOCRATICALLY elected leaders in other countries. Hugo Cavez for example now he is cool&#33;
I disagree with you. Mao is alot compared to those other leaders you mentioned. Study china and imagine china without mao and then compare him with mao. One class(the rich or the poor) has to be fucked up, and one type of mentaliy needed to be killed(the slave and master mentaly).

From my studies, in my opinion, i don&#39;t think Mao enjoyed his life, he always had to make tough choices...but someone had to make them.



and also i don&#39;t remember Fidel being democratically elected.

I thought like mao, he led a rebellion and once his armies defeated the enemy he was put into power.(after they got power they both also held elections in which they both won)

I agree with you on Mr. Cavez, he&#39;s a good guy...but still not in the same level as mao. Cavez stands up to capitialist aggression, Mao tried to kill it.



I&#39;m sorry if i come acros like i&#39;m extremely pro mao...i&#39;m actually not...Its just after studying him for a while, i don&#39;t like it when people don&#39;t give him his proper respect.

He may have done some bad things, but in my opinion he was a true communist...He scarficed himself for the people. He was prepared to die for them. His entire life was to better 600 million peasants livies.

In the process, he costed many livies..which cannot be forgiven...but he was conducting a test...an experiment...in which some parts he was extremely succesfuly and other parts he failed.

[Comrade Zeke]

I only ment Chavez as Democratically Elected. Not Tito or Fidel

[crazy comie]

Mao made to many mistakes.

[Xvall]

&#39;Good&#39; and &#39;Bad&#39; are suggestive concepts. Make up your own opinion from personal experience and your own research. This is like asking if something tastes good to you.

[crazy comie]

Pepole do often agree on what is good and what is bad.

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 18 2004, 05:13 PM
Pepole do often agree on what is good and what is bad.
capitialism or communism?
death sentence for criminals?
gay marriages?
war?
etc..

people don&#39;t often on agree what&#39;s good or what is bad. There is no standard guildlines which people follow.

[Saint-Just]

Thats such a complex subject, you can say that people agree on what is good and bad but have different ideas on how to define the things they think are good or bad. For example, even fascists claim to love democracy and freedom but they have a different concept of what it is. And so on.. its not worth talking about unless one is a philosopher.

[crazy comie]

i agree with mao yet again on this.
for most of those it is a debate on wich is fair and fairness is considerd to be good but pepole dissagre on what is fair.

[Jesus Christ]

I believe that Mao, along with numerous other leaders, had the best intentions, but just became corrupted by their greed and thirst for power.
All these leaders that are now labelled as bad people, or evil people, all had the capability to do their best, but became perverted politically in the process of their reigns, and I apply that to Mao.

[crazy comie]

He was perverted yes but i don&#39;t think he was corrupted that much he just had lots of stupid ideas.

[lostsoul]

crazy comie - i don&#39;t think he was refering to mao&#39;s personal sexual life


I don&#39;t think mao got currupted with power. I think he was pretty much the same person from when he started his revolt in hunan province til his death. His logic seems to always be consistant.

You must understand that he was trying to do something that no one is the world could or have ever done. I admire mao for his attempt at finding a solution to the problems of his countries..but we must all look objectivily at his results and see in the end he did not get the results he wanted.

mao spend his entire life working for socialism. I understand near the end of his life when he saw what happened to Russia, and in his own country, he feared that when he dies all his work would be erased, and thats why he took a more active political role in the end of his life and hense was more extreme.

I don&#39;t agree with it..but we must understand it.


This topic is stupid..mao cannot be labeled "good or bad", in my eyes he was a scientist. Like Gandhi, Marx, Lenin, etc.. He saw a problem and tried his best to fix it. In some cases he showed the world what works, and in others he showed us what does not work.

[crazy comie]

I agree he couldn&#39;t be labelled as good or bad but he can be labbled as having stupid policies and being to extreame in some cases.

[Chips]

is killing thousands through famine caused by accidents and mistakes as bad as genocide?

[DRAGOON]

Mao Tse Tung wwas a thorough communist revolutionary. He led the chinese people to liberate themselves from both feudal and capitalist economic relations. He was an internationalist, who encouraged the Chinese masses to fight to protect the battle for liberation in Korea. He consistently looked to the future, demanding that the revolutionary forces fight for the interests of the proletariat. He broke with the dgmatism and mechanicalism of Stalin, and applied Marxism-Leninism, on a higher level to the conditions of China. From the experience of the revolution in China and while the proletariat held state power (1949-1976) Mao and the Chinese communists raised the level of understanding of both practice and theory for revolutionary communists throughout the world. Today, the main revolutions in the world are inspired by Mao Tse-Tung Thought, now referred to a Maoism. Included in this is Nepal, Peru, India, and the Phillipines.

Mao TseTung was a great man, and like all men he made mistakes. However these baseless accustaions of him being a womanizer should not just be accepted. Everything that is known about Mao, everything he has said on the subject of women&#39;s liberation flies in the face with such claims.

And around the &#39;killing of thousands of peasants&#39;. Is Mao now a God? Did he command nature to cause a drought in China? It is true that some policies of the Party had mistakes within them. Though they were not completely wrong. However the conditions before socialism were even worse, and still even worse than this during a drought&#33;

People should read Mao, he is inspiring. Did you know that for a period during the sixties the Red Book or his quotations outsold the Bible&#33;? Check him out and check out the inspiring revolutionary leaders of today that follow in his footsteps. Leaders like Chairman Bob Avakian (www.rwor.org) and Chairman Prachanda (www.cpnm.org).

Like the RCP slogans say:

Our ideology is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism&#33;
Our Party is the Revolutionary Communist Party&#33;
Our leader is Bob Avakian&#33;

[CCCP]

I&#39;m unsure if the great things he did for China in the early part of his life make up for The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. He was necessary tho either way.
China could not exist as it does today if he had not fought the Japanesse and obtained the support of the people in the process. He did defeat the Nationalists and end the civil war. He did make China into a superpower. However, at the end of his life he really fucked things up.

[LuZhiming]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2004, 08:57 AM
I&#39;m unsure if the great things he did for China in the early part of his life make up for The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. He was necessary tho either way.
China could not exist as it does today if he had not fought the Japanesse and obtained the support of the people in the process. He did defeat the Nationalists and end the civil war. He did make China into a superpower. However, at the end of his life he really fucked things up.
Wow, I imagine you also think Hitler&#39;s advancements in Germany make up for his his victims.....

[CCCP]

Nope, Hitler knew what he was doing was evil and wrong. He simply needed a target to blame all that was bad upon so he could gain power. Mao wanted to bring about true communism, he just didn&#39;t take the best approach.

In all fairness to Mao, it&#39;s easy to judge people when we look back upon history...

[Solace]

Hitler knew what he was doing was evil and wrong.

Nope.

The same way Mao only wanted to bring out communism, Hitler wanted to make things great for his country. In his eyes, it was not evil. It was something needed to liberate his country.


simply needed a target to blame all that was bad upon so he could gain power.

Wrong, again.

The antisemitism, even if widely spread in Germany, was accepted as a policy par défaut. People did not back up Hitler for his instance on the Jewish question, but rather because they saw him kinda as the "savior" of the nation

[CCCP]

Hitler did get power by putting false blame on others. He blamed the new government because they aparently signed the Armistice too early and didn&#39;t allow the German army to keep fighting.

They saw him as a saviour because he promised everyone something and because he was a good speaker. To say that he won based on this alone would not be true. His ability to spew hate so passionately was a large help to him.

Lastly, Hitler had dealt with Jews alot while he was attempting art because they were giving him the best deals. Hitler was not that completely delussional to believe that what he was doing was morally right.

You are entitled to your own thoughts, but from what I know and have read, these are the opinions I have formed.

[Solace]

Hitler did get power by putting false blame on others. He blamed the new government because they aparently signed the Armistice too early and didn&#39;t allow the German army to keep fighting.

He blamed Hindenburg’s government, France, England and the Jews for a shitload of things. (That Armistice thing might be a tad a “personal” blame.)

He was not completely wrong and the blame is not that all false. Every cabinet under Hindenburg was weak and could not do anything for the country. The “democracy” installed was feeble and it was doing no good. Every cabinet under Hindenburg was weak and could not do anything for the country. Add to that, the big slap in Germany’s face that was the Versailles Treaty. The country had good reasons to reject it.


They saw him as a saviour because he promised everyone something and because he was a good speaker. To say that he won based on this alone would not be true.

Hitler came into power by a continuity of lucky acts and scenes. There are numerous reasons to explain the support he got. None of them, taken alone, can justify it though.

Hitler stood out between the unsuccessful democracy and the evil communists. He proposed a third path to the population and exploited the nationalism by placing Germany as the poor little victim. He promised to give back to Germany the status it had prior to the war.


His ability to spew hate so passionately was a large help to him.

Come on&#33;

This hate, the antisemitism was expansed in Germany since (roughly) Bismarck’s era. Hitler came at the right time at the right place. Sure, he knew how to speak, but he didn’t “inject” anything in the population


Lastly, Hitler had dealt with Jews alot while he was attempting art because they were giving him the best deals.

Totally irrelevant. Not to mention not credible and highly doubtful.


You are entitled to your own thoughts, but from what I know and have read, these are the opinions I have formed.

What you present are not opinions, but rather biased “facts”. You are missing parts of what actually happened.

[lostsoul]

What hitlers goal not to conquer and rule?

I doubt mao&#39;s goals were the same. Mao only wanted the poor, which were ignored by the world, to get the same chances everyone else had.

Until maybe 2 years ago, i used to think mao was bad also from speaking to some asian friends. But lately I have meet many chinese who came from peasent backgrounds and now their doctors, engineers, etc...and they highly thank mao for it.

Because of mao they got electricity into this area(which before him no one even considered they needed or wnated to spend money to give), they got free education, free health care, etc...

Maybe he was bad, or maybe he was good..I don&#39;t know. But i never heard him say he was a saint. More then 90% of china&#39;s population was poor peasents, Mao&#39;s goal was to impove their lives. The rich people who get sent to labour camps, etc...Mao did not care about(for further insight on that, read more about his theory on class struggle).

I read many books on people who were rich and had a few houses, and then at some point during mao&#39;s life, all their property was siezed and given away to the poor. These type of people write many books and live around us in north america.

I&#39;m sure if you ask a mainland chinese people the respond will be different. My college is mostly mainlanders, and I have had this converstation with many of them from diverse backgrounds in china, and they all agreed Mao was not the best person, but he cared and did his best for china and is and should be treated like a hero. (except one guy, who said mao was bad and KMT was alot better since he could have been rich.)

I know these are not facts, they are just things that changed my thinking on Mao. I suggest someone tries something simlair. Read a book, talk to some people who expirenced his policies(directly experienced it, not some guy living in a country telling you over a message board :-), and then choose.

[crazy comie]

In my opinion ma did more bad than good.

[Hiero]

The people who think Mao was bad, cna they point out what he did wrong and then state what he should of done.

[crazy comie]

he shouldn&#39;t have started the cultural rexvoulotion as it caused so mch damedge he shouldn&#39;t of made peasents prouduce steal he should have improved the factorys insted.

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 6 2004, 12:48 PM
he shouldn&#39;t have started the cultural rexvoulotion as it caused so mch damedge he shouldn&#39;t of made peasents prouduce steal he should have improved the factorys insted.
I agree but some things are easier said then done.

The great leap forward, if done succesful, could have within a short period of time, put china as a world superpower. (but it was not succesful, because of man made problems but also by drougths and other wheather issues)

The cultural revolution was bad, but nessarary. Many of my friends who&#39;s family&#39;s got fucked up during the cultural revolution all say it was good(even though they were targets during that time). Mao knew, he was a hero in china and I &#39;m sure he was very scared that once he died that china will take the soviet union&#39;s path, after stalin died. I think he feared that all his life&#39;s work would be reversed thats why he was trying to destory the 4 olds.

The "4 olds" were old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.

Mao gave hints of possible targets(such as the hospitals that were only treating rich people, to the factories that were skimming money), but mao never directly pointed at anyone. He basically let the red guards(mostly univiersity students) do what ever they wanted, and give them pass&#39;s so they can travel all over china for free.

I don&#39;t nessarily agree with Mao, but I just want to point out what he was doing had some kind of logic behind it. I have a hard time coming to this board still when people write posts without studying him and just try to make him out to look like a crazy killer, that killed for fun, pleaser and/or power.

His life is a leasson, we can learn what to do, and what not to do.


Take Care

[LuZhiming]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2004, 12:54 AM
He blamed Hindenburg’s government, France, England and the Jews for a shitload of things. (That Armistice thing might be a tad a “personal” blame.)

He was not completely wrong and the blame is not that all false. Every cabinet under Hindenburg was weak and could not do anything for the country. The “democracy” installed was feeble and it was doing no good. Every cabinet under Hindenburg was weak and could not do anything for the country. Add to that, the big slap in Germany’s face that was the Versailles Treaty. The country had good reasons to reject it.
Don&#39;t forget he also blamed Gypsies for a ton of stupid things in the same way he did the Jews. Everyone always forgets the Gypsies, they suffered just as much as the Jews did.

[DRAGOON]

People here have some really confused views of the Great Proletarian Culural Revolution. It was not bad&#33; It was a step forward in the development of our class. We need more than industry to develop socialism, we need line and ideology.

I would hope people don&#39;t take the lessons of their school books as factual protrayals of the the GPCR or the Great Lep Forward, but it seems like many have.

Check this out

http://rwor.org/a/v20/960-69/966/redgrd.htm

[Solace]

Don&#39;t forget he also blamed Gypsies for a ton of stupid things in the same way he did the Jews. Everyone always forgets the Gypsies, they suffered just as much as the Jews did.

They were surely as persecuted as the Jews, by the thing is that the Gypsy issue is not restrained on the Nazi era. It started a long long time Hitler was even born. Some laws in Spain, Czech Republic and Norway(&#33;) limited their liberty in the beginning of the 19th and 20th century.

So, that maybe why we talk less about the Gypsies genocide.

It ain’t something new we can give “credit” to the Nazis for, ya dig?

*steps off the stage and stops deviating the thread from the main subject*

[crazy comie]

The main problem with the cultural revoulotion was that it was baisicly led by teenagers who thought that evryone in any position of authority was bad. Even teachers even though it is neacceacary for teachers to have authority.

[cubist]

he was the worlds laziest politician thats about all i know about MAO, though he did have aids and slept with people anyway which is pretty DUMB,, wrong. he wasn&#39;t a womaniser HE was the OLD DAVID BECKHAM everyone wanted to fuck him

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 7 2004, 10:16 AM
The main problem with the cultural revoulotion was that it was baisicly led by teenagers who thought that evryone in any position of authority was bad. Even teachers even though it is neacceacary for teachers to have authority.
I used to think the exact same way. But after talking to the mainland chinese people around me, they told me that when the red gaurds messed up their families, it was because their families really deserved it.

They admited their parents were cheating the system(some of them were taking bribes, some where pretending dead family members were still alive so they can keep getting their checks from the goverment, etc).

They admited this, and said the red gaurd came to their parents and yelled at them infront of other people, and in some cases made them publicy confess their sin to a crowd of people.

Although the teenagers led it, from what i heard from people, they were not crazy killing psycho&#39;s. (but when i read books, i hear otherwise, they make the red gaurd look like people who killed anyone without any proof.)

The people who were against the cultural revolution whom i meet were rich upper class&#39;s people, who were sent to farms to work. Everyone told me these people&#39;s families were send to work in farms for 2 reasons. One, they were considered not in touch with the people and to make them no in touch, mao decided to send them to the social "university"(during mao&#39;s time in power, all students had to spend 1 year working in the farms with a farmer, and all the students whom i speak with who had to do this said they learned alot from it). The second reason, is because tensions were really bad with Soviet union and with America, Mao suspected China may be nuked, and therfore, tried to move the educated away from the big citiies, So if china does get nuked then they cna rebuild, instead of having a stotage of skilled labour.

I really don&#39;t know what to believe, the books or people. I&#39;m just letting you know what i heard. I hope this provides some insight.

[crazy comie]

I would have thought pepole from the prc would have been slightly brainwashed from goverment propagahnda.

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 8 2004, 11:27 AM
I would have thought pepole from the prc would have been slightly brainwashed from goverment propagahnda.
yea, sorry i should have mentioned that them being brainwashed could be a possiblity.

but maybe we&#39;re brainwashed but our own goverments to think it was bad.

If you want to think like that, then we&#39;ll never know the answer.

[Red Guard]

Definitely good. One of the greatest leaders in history and a military genius. China desperately needs another leader like Mao and another Cultural Revolution to weed out the capitalist trash.

[GUTB]

Let&#39;s keep in mind that Mao&#39;s revolution failed, and the capitalist restoration occured in China a full ten years or more before the USSR.

Mao&#39;s communists had a progressive role overall, but they failed to pursue the revolution to its end.

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 07:33 PM
Let&#39;s keep in mind that Mao&#39;s revolution failed, and the capitalist restoration occured in China a full ten years or more before the USSR.

Mao&#39;s communists had a progressive role overall, but they failed to pursue the revolution to its end.
true, but is that mao&#39;s fault?

[crazy comie]

sorry double post

[crazy comie]

Originally posted by lostsoul+Apr 13 2004, 03:40 AM--> (lostsoul @ Apr 13 2004, 03:40 AM)
[email protected] 12 2004, 07:33 PM
Let&#39;s keep in mind that Mao&#39;s revolution failed, and the capitalist restoration occured in China a full ten years or more before the USSR.

Mao&#39;s communists had a progressive role overall, but they failed to pursue the revolution to its end.
true, but is that mao&#39;s fault? [/b]
Yes. The thing is the mere fact we are socilist means we are less likely to be brainwashed.

[democratic-socialist]

Originally posted by Comandante [email protected] 12 2004, 06:09 PM
Definitely good. One of the greatest leaders in history and a military genius. China desperately needs another leader like Mao and another Cultural Revolution to weed out the capitalist trash.
I think it is utterly absurd that any of you belive that man, whos policies killed MILLIONS can be good?? Stalin and Mao were both completely bad. To start with, how can you even see Mao as a true communist? He&#39;s a dictator for a start, something that in my opinion instantly rules china out for being communist. That also brings me to fidel castro. Fidel of course is a much better man than Mao. He had and has good intetions, but I still think that what he does is wrong, becasue he is a dictator, and surely a true communist country would not have a dictator. It would be run by the people. Problem is, no other political party could oppose the communiost one, so whreres the democracy in that? This is just one of many reasons why a fully communist state is doomed to failure... Not that a truly communist state has ever, or will ever exsist.

Todays thought = Mao/dictators are bad&#33;

:redstar2000:

[crazy comie]

There is no problem with a truly communist state as it would have governence of the workers and you can have multiple party s in the dictatorship of the prolitarian if you want.

[Rasta Sapian]

Mao was a hero, he was the Che of Asia&#33; We have to look at the big picture here:

Only a man as brilliant and as ruthless (in terms of military organizer) could chase impirialism out of China, and spead new ideals of equality and humanity, taking China from its age old pesent tribes and warlords to the nation that it is today, industrialized, educated, and strong. China owes much to this great man

[crazy comie]

Yes but he mucked evrything up afterwords

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by crazy [email protected] 5 2004, 02:56 PM
Yes but he mucked evrything up afterwords
how so? He made china powerful, the goverment that followed him had a choice of what road to take. They took the wrong one.

[peaccenicked]

Interesting linkhttp://marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/w...ticles/raya.htm (http://marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/articles/raya.htm)

[crazy comie]

Originally posted by lostsoul+May 6 2004, 12:06 AM--> (lostsoul @ May 6 2004, 12:06 AM)
crazy [email protected] 5 2004, 02:56 PM
Yes but he mucked evrything up afterwords
how so? He made china powerful, the goverment that followed him had a choice of what road to take. They took the wrong one. [/b]
Yes but he sacraficed millions in stupid plans like making steel in pepoles back yards.

[Salvador Allende]

Chairman Mao is a hero. He fought for over 20 years defending against Imperialism. He defeated Japan and then defeated the corrupt Chiang Kai-Shek. He also saved North Korea from US imperialism in 1950. His first five year plan recovered the Chinese economy from the 26 years of war and also produced much more than expected. Mao pointed out a counter-revolution had taken place in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and stood up to Kruschov and Brezhnev many times. Mao also put in place the Thousand Flower Campaign which focused on allowing freedom of speech. Mao&#39;s only bad thing was the Great Leap Forward, which only failed because the Soviets withdrew all funds and personel. This is proven because China experianced huge economic growth in 1959 followed by the collapse after the Soviets withdrew everything in 1960. None the less, the economy recovered by 1964. When Liu Shaoqi turned out to be a traitor the people rose up and bombarded the headquarters. While these Red Guards did do many bad things, Mao had no control over what they did. Officially the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, 7 years after Mao told them to stop.

Overall, Mao showed the world the counter-revolution in the USSR and showed that a counter-revolution is easily possible at any time. Mao took what Lenin started and improved it. Mao was the only person in the East with the guts to stand up to Kruschov and get countries like Albania and Cambodia out of the Soviets imperialist grasp. Mao improved things for 20% of the world&#39;s people (at that time). He is a hero to be admired in the current revolutions in Nepal and Peru.

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by crazy comie+May 6 2004, 07:02 PM--> (crazy comie @ May 6 2004, 07:02 PM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2004, 12:06 AM

crazy [email protected] 5 2004, 02:56 PM
Yes but he mucked evrything up afterwords
how so? He made china powerful, the goverment that followed him had a choice of what road to take. They took the wrong one.
Yes but he sacraficed millions in stupid plans like making steel in pepoles back yards. [/b]
strange. I don&#39;t remember reading anything about him telling people to kill themselfs to make steel.

All he did was encourage people to work hard, and suggested to everyone to increase their steel output.

It was the people who thought by scaficing their pots and pans they could get more steel. In response, the leaders of the cities told him, who appoved the creation of public halls for food, etc..

[Raisa]

His red book was pretty excellent.