Mao Zedong

[RedStarOverChina]

This is one of my essays for politics class. It is an intruction for readers new to his ideas; and it was intended to be as non-biased as I can offer. I can see why this can be rather critical to some comrades. Your criticism is welcomed.

Mao was perhaps one of the most controversial leaders of the century. Today most Marxists around the world would not hesitate to give him the highest honor while many others label him as the absolute worst leader.
Nevertheless the presence of Mao’s leadership talents shown throughout his career cannot be denied. His persistent view on the role of peasants in the Chinese proletarian revolution led the Chinese Communist Party to victory. Without his brilliant political and military tactics, a Communist revolution would have been next to impossible in the feudal China. Mastering the art of inference under the principles of dialectical materialism, Mao was able to see ahead of everyone else. For example, he predicted twice Chiang Kai-Shek’s betrayals of the Nationalist-Communist alliance, and twice did his predictions come true. His ability to accurately foresee events earned him much respect in the party and among the people. In addition, Mao was a master of mass mobilization. One little comment he made could mobilize a whole nation to follow his guidance. However, Mao could not resist rebelling against the authority, even when that authority is setup by he himself. Soon after he founded P. R. China, Mao started to perceive the leadership of the country as a faceless corporation and felt the urge to rebel against it. When a leader of a nation rebels constantly, it causes as much frustration for the nation as a military coup.
As one of the most splendid. If not THE most splendid poet of China at the time, Mao certainly had many personal qualities that could help him to attract support. When Mao was young, he gave out his father’s grains to hungry peasants and suffered the consequences for his rebellious act. This tells us a little about his personal ethics. Like many other Chinese communist leaders, Mao was famous for his startling thriftiness. Even after he became the leader of the most populous nation, his still wore patched up socks. His towel was used until it became completely frazzled. Then Mao used it to shine his shoes and did not throw it way for the rest of his life. In truth, he maintained a plain and decent lifestyle, unlike the sexual sadist one of his doctors tried to portray him as. However, Mao’s marriage with Jiang Qing, made possible by abandoning his previous wife who was receiving medical care in Moscow, was not the most admirable thing he had ever done.
As a politician, Mao completely understood the needs of the peasants, and represented their interest to the fullest extent. Most importantly, he recognized the essential role of peasants in the Revolution, at a time when they were largely ignored (and of course, they were ignored ALL the time). He explained that peasants of China fits the characteristics of proletariats, because most of them are not unlike serfs who owned practically nothing—not even land. Because of their terrible condition, the peasants are willing to sacrifice everything they have for the revolution--- most of the times, they have nothing to lose except for their chains. In this pre-industrial country, the peasantry composes the mass majority of the society. Anyone who could win the hearts of the peasants could win China. And Mao knows just how to do that. Other than his political stand, his contributions to China include his decision to go to war with India to protect China’s boundaries. That war had very little negative effect over China’s economy because of the crushing defeat of Indian invading force in a lightening speed. Many Chinese love him even today, because Mao was not willing to bow to foreign threats, may it be from U.S.A, U.S.S.R or India. He did not compromise when it comes to issues concerning China’s sovereignty.
One of Mao Zedong’s most condemned decisions was to launch the Great Culture Revolution. He decided to summon people to rebel against his own government when he thought the CCP was on the verge of being corrupt by Capitalist ideals. This movement contributed to the death of countless hard-core Communist officials and civilians, who were thought to have been corrupted. “The Revolution was feeding on its own children.” Mao’s rebellious spirit eventually made the leadership of the Communist Party weak and crumbly by inciting unnecessary class struggles. Another one of his mistakes was to organize the Great Leap Forward, which attempted to industrialize China and increase its productivity in an extremely short period of time. Not only the attempt failed, it messed up the whole food distribution process, resulting in famines in various places across China.
The major turning point in Mao’s life is Zunyi Conference, which took place during the Long March. In this Conference, Mao regained power within the Communist Party, taking power back from a Soviet adviser sent by Stalin. This is when the CCP recognizes Mao’s decisions in the past and willingly handover power to him.
It does not matter what an individual thinks of this rebel. Mao secured his position as one of the most important leaders and thinker in Chinese history. I believe that the Chinese people would one day give him a fair evaluation of this controversial man.

[RedStarOverChina]

The previous one is an analysis of Mao. This is his life story.

Born as a rich peasant’s son in Hunan Province of China, Mao was a rebel to his family and class. He saw his father as a greedy and oppressive landlord. He’s father often addressed him as useless loafer and beat him. He once gave away his father’s grains to hungry peasants when he was actually supposed to collect dues from them. Of course he got beatings for it afterwards. To protest against his father’s violence, he ran away from home. He was found three days later. To Mao’s surprise, his father treated him much better after that incident. He later concluded that if he stayed meek and feeble in front of his father, he would have suffered much more.
At the age of 18, Mao left his village for Changsha, the capital of Hunan province to peruse higher education. Later on he joined the army of Sun Yat-sen’s nationalist revolutionary army to overthrow what was left of the Manchu Empire. When the war was over, he lingered around without knowing what was ahead of him.
He was introduced to Communism when he worked as a librarian in Beijing. Under the influence of famous leftist thinkers in Beijing, he soon became a devoted Marxist. In 1921, Mao and 11 other young men founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The party rapidly grew for the next 6 years until the new leader of the Nationalists (KMT), Chiang Kai-Shek ordered a brutal suppression of Communists in 1927. Thousands of communists were killed while Mao was in rural Hunan where Chiang’s secret police could not reach. In response to the slaughter, Mao organized the famous Autumn Harvest Uprising, in which he led the miserable peasants to overthrow the landlords and setup the basis of the Chinese Red Army. For the most of the next 23 years, Mao lead this army, taking over territories, seizing the properties of rich landlords and distribute them among the poor. Believing that peasants (instead of workers) are the backbone of the Chinese proletarian revolution, he often ignored orders from the CCP central committee to takeover cities. On the contrary, he devoted his attention on annihilating KMT troops and expanding Communist domains in rural area. For a while, Mao Zedong was overthrown from his position in the army because of his disobedience. However, the new leadership’s approach and tactics soon led to disastrous results for the Red Army. In 1934, the Red Army was forced to relocate away from the communist base setup by Mao in Jiangxi province, due to improper military tactics employed by the new leadership. This is beginning of the famous Long March in which the Red Army’s epical adventure across China changed the fate of the nation. Mao regained his leadership position in the party and kept it until his death in 1976.
In 1949, the Communist took over China by defeating the gigantic KMT army. In October, Mao declared the founding of People’s Republic of China in Beijing. As the head of CCP (though not always the state), he has enormous influence over the party and the Chinese people. Though Mao was rarely the person with real power to perform political duties, he had an overwhelming spiritual influence over both the mass and people who did hold power. This is why many people label him as a dictator. He summoned the Chinese people to erect movements such as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural Revolution, which most believe lead to economical disasters. Some claim that the number of casualties resulting from these movements amount to as high as 30 million. Mao died in September 9th, 1976, at the age of 83.

[bolshevik butcher]

To me Mao stopped being "mao" when he took power, he started eroading the very rights he'd thought for, and a lot of his economic policies were terrible.

[RedStarOverChina]

"To me Mao stopped being "mao" when he took power"

thats wht Deng and other revisionists say(not that i have anything against Deng)...
I think Mao was still the person he was, and thats the problem. He got used to relying on the peasantry. He overestimated the peasantry, believing that they can achieve ANYTHING if they wanted to.

Pol Pot made the same mistake, tho i wouldnt compare him with Mao.

Sure, the man-power provided by the peasanty was a overwhelming and revolutionary force; but Mao excepted them to boost up industries, technology and everything else. THAT was the cause to his economical failure.

[Lee Harvey Oswald]

Now, how about that oppression of Taiwan?

[RedStarOverChina]

wht oppression?

[Lee Harvey Oswald]

Well, because of the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists, and China's insistance on asserting domination over Taiwan, the sovereign Taiwanese government has been denied international recognition and acceptance; the Taiwanese are forced to live under the Chinese flag.

That sounds like oppression to me.

[RedStarOverChina]

Taiwan has been apart of China and trust me, it will remain so untill true communism is achieved. We are of the same culture, same people, same language. Only thing that separates us is the Nationalist reactionaries' legacy of prolonged despotic capitalist rule. China is currently the saviour of the island province's economy, as will likely remain so.
Currently only about 24 tiny nations recognize Taiwan as a nation, which makes it illegitimate.
The island is currently being misguided and munipulted by a few nutjobs who risks the island's safty to promote his or her own popularity. Try reading a few of their speeches and decide for urself.

[Lee Harvey Oswald]

But what gives you the right to control people who don't want to be controlled ? Why are you allowed to force your government on people who don't want it?

[Kaan]

The bourgeouisie must be oppressed out of existance after the revolution, that is the purpose of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communists do not approach soceity in a right/wrong fashion, but rather whatever benefits the working class and speeds up the process of creating classless communism. It goes without saying that the feudal lords and monopoly capitalists don't want to be controlled, but the workers and the peasants haven't wanted to be controlled for far longer.

[Lee Harvey Oswald]

So you want to free the oppressed working class by oppressing it?

[RedStarOverChina]

But what gives you the right to control people who don't want to be controlled ? Why are you allowed to force your government on people who don't want it?

The Chinese never claimed to want to "control" Taiwan. It was suggested that Taiwan should have a high degree of autonomy after the reunification. The reunification is important to the Chinese people because it is needed to wash away the shame and scar of the Chinese people due to Imperialism. (US imperialism is the main reason for today's situation in China.) Taiwan people are our own, why would we wish to oppress them?

I can see u are heavily influenced by western propaganda. Remember: things are not alway how they appear to be. The "democratic" leaders in Taiwan are promoting racism against Chinese(as if they are not Chinese themselves), and do not wish for peace between Taiwan and the rest of China, because like G Bush, the Taiwanese leaders want the people to feel as if they are war-time leaders

The Taiwan people are being misled. I'm sure in WWII many Germans felt they liked the Nazi government.

[Lee Harvey Oswald]

So you're saying the Taiwanese are Nazis?

[Wiesty]

i thought it was Mao Tse-Tsung

[RedStarOverChina]

The Taiwanese people arent Nazis. They are misled by individuals who suggest racism, promotes extreme nationalism and regional tension, which resemble Nazi policies.

[a_1_0_1_1_0]

wow, that lee harvey oswald guy really did not get what you're saying or the point of your paper.

[RedStarOverChina]

:D he's a good comrade nevertheless. A bit misinformed but i'm always happy to help. I was once like him in many ways.

[Hiero]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 09:17 AM
i thought it was Mao Tse-Tsung
Yes.

Mao Zedong for westerners.

[The Grapes of Wrath]

Umm, Lee Harvey man. Taiwan during the time of Mao was the Nationalist atronghold after they lost the mainland. And Chiang Kai-Shek was no lover of democracy and the Kuomingtang (Guomingtang in some translations) was certainly more inclined to be considered a fascist party than anything resembling democracy. In fact, German fascists helped train the bulk of the Kuomingtang army that was destroyed by the Japanese in the early 1940s. Taiwan did not become a "democracy" until the late 1980s, and didn't even embrace capitalism until the very late 1970s.

So any oppression under Mao would have been the same oppression experienced under Chiang. The Chinese were between a rock and hard place.

TGOW

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

HmmmI know this is kind of jumping backward, but I feel the need to address this:


not that i have anything against Deng

Why the hell not? That capitalist-railroader-fuckwit put China on the path to, well, where it is now - a totalitarian police state with a free market, and rich capitalist class living the high life while the peasants who Mao's revolution was meant to free are living in poverty not seen since, well, before the revolution.

Fuck Deng. Seriously.

[RedStarOverChina]

Tho i do not agree with Deng's policies, i try not to have any personal prejudice against him. After all, he helped the wrongfully persecuted revolutionaries to get back the respect they deserve.

I still see him as a Marxist, tho not a Marx-Leninist. As painful as it is to see the fruits of the revolution withering away, I think China is faced with no other option than to go thro a period of industrial development, meaning industrialization, meaning the suffering of proletariats.

A part of me dies everytime I see workers being paided 2 yuans per hour, slaving alway in the construction site; or when i see them losing their limbs due to hazardous working environment, and hardly getting any compensations for it. They are my countrymen!

Few, other than the workers themselves, had suffered the mental agony I had, watching my people under brutal oppression.

But I have no choice but to admit that the Marx-Leninists had made a mistake, trying to bring Marxism to a feudal state. They went against Marx's guidance, ignoring the natural progress of history.

[kingbee]

deng, lu shaoqi.

strange that capitalist roaders were once denounced, then all of a sudden, were in control of the party. i dont like the way china is going, but i still do defend the place on many issues. a lot of people are very misguided on what is happening. indeed, in tianamen square, many people were carrying pictures of mao, claiming that things wouldnt have been that bad under him, and that the leaders at the time were betraying him.

would you say deng was a wrongly persecuted revolutionary?

(one thing i do like about deng is the fact that in the photo posters, they had to stretch his legs in order for him to be as tall as the comrades. very short man ;))

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

i try not to have any personal prejudice against him.

Fair enough - personal prejudice doesn't get much done. But on an ideological/political level, I hold him to some contempt.

*Sigh* After the revolution, we can get this political business over and sit down and chat over beer/coffee . . . and I won't mind in the least not having any 'revisionists' to denounce :lol:.


. . . in tianamen square, many people were carrying pictures of mao. . .

. . . and singing L'Internationale. Naturally, the Western media ignored this, and played it up as a call for bourgeois-"democracy".


very short man ;)

I am in love with somebody who is only five feet tall.

[bolshevik butcher]

Red Star over China, what about the numerous human rights abuses?

[RedStarOverChina]

Red Star over China, what about the numerous human rights abuses?

All governments are oppressive in nature. Thus every government's primary duty is to preserve itself when faced with threats.

However, overall I side with the Chinese government because currently it represents the interest of China as a Nation.

if u ever go to China, as a taxi driver or an old man who plays chess beside the streets, wht does he want for China? They would say stability and prosperity.

I am firmly against the so-called democrats, or intellegencias who call for "democracy", because i have studied their rightings, and decided that they are nothing but a group of reactionaries with little principle or even intellect. They are not fighting for the rights of the masses but instead the privileges of the few.

Hence, i call for our comrades to reexamine what the western media has tought us.

[RedStarOverChina]

(one thing i do like about deng is the fact that in the photo posters, they had to stretch his legs in order for him to be as tall as the comrades. very short man )


lol? i dont think thats even necessary. Everyone knows his short. And from my readings, he doesnt really mind talking about his physical disadvantage. He sees it as a result of being oppressed by factory owners in his days in Paris :D (he wasnt getting enough bread back then)

[KuliNeMeL]

u against Democrats? or against Democracy in general?
one thing i dont get,
y cant a leader like Mao or any other marxist dictator (after taking power) use democracy and let people vote for stuff?

if u say that the leader (lets say.. Mao) represents the masses, then the masses will get more votes and their wills will be done...

[bolshevik butcher]

Killing everyone that stand in your way and stopping freedom seems a bit beyond being oppressive in nature. Mao was a dictator in the stalin mould.

[KuliNeMeL]

the whole idea is to oppress the "enemies" perhaps at the start, but then after taking power u dont have to be this giant dictator who everyone should obey to... u can use some kind of democracy...
one of the main reasons i hate Stalin and Mao's regime is the 'pure dictatorship' thing... y? y? y?

[RedStarOverChina]

I'm a big fan of democracy. Marx said "democracy is the road to socialism." I think it is one of the most fierce weapon against the bourgeoise. However, if u'd read my statement above, i do not recognize these Chinese "democrats" as the fighters of the people.

If u think western democracy is democracy, then u have lots to learn. To vote for a leader every four years and forget about making a change again for 4 years is not democracy. With only two corporate parties legitimate to run the office, the American people certainly does have the choice of letting either Hitler or Mussolini come to power.

Believe it or not, in the 1950s when the Communists came to power, it gave some degree of democracy to China. Many were allowed to vote for their community leaders. It was changed with the leftist extremists' victory over other marxists headed by experienced and practical revolutionaries.

I do not intend to justify dictatorship. I only wish for a more subjective look on China.


if u say that the leader (lets say.. Mao) represents the masses, then the masses will get more votes and their wills will be done...

What is voting to 400 million peasants who werent even able to feed themselves? Mao offered them the most they'd ever wish for, food and respect. That's why they love him, and according to what i know, they still do.


Killing everyone that stand in your way and stopping freedom seems a bit beyond being oppressive in nature. Mao was a dictator in the stalin mould.

This statement is emotional and exagerated. I hope u could abandon the propaganda fed to u by the western media. Then and only then, u will observe and judge history as accurate as possible.

[RedStarOverChina]

China had "Pure dicatorship" is only true to some degree. For a long time, Mao was not even the Chairman of PRC. What he had was spiritual influence. He mobilized people tho normally people in his position could not have.

I believe that one of Mao's failures is inciting excessive class hatred even after the revolution has succeeded.

That led to conflict and violence which Mao thought was necessary to crush the bourgeoise. This is why his reputation is in ruins: the bourgeoise screamed out of their lungs to condemn him after 1976, while the majority of the population who benefits from his leadership are silent. they are all peasants and had no access to the media.

[RABBIT - THE - CUBAN - MILITANT]

what about Tibet? ... i'm a fan of Mao but i think like every communist/socialist leaders the older they get the more detached they get from the people and start to make really fucked up decisions ... and yes the same can be said about Castro ( forgive me ... but is true)

[RedStarOverChina]

"i'm a fan of Mao but i think like every communist/socialist leaders the older they get the more detached they get from the people and start to make really fucked up decisions"

I agree. Their decision may some times be unwise, but their heart is with the people.

Regarding Tibet, I will find the time to write an article about it to defy western propaganda.

For now, I should inform my comrades that Tibet has been an self governing province of China for the past couple of hundreds of years, except for a brief period of time during the British invasion of Tibet and Dalai's proclamation of Tibetan independence in 1943 (no single country recognized Tibet as a independent nation. thus, it was illegitimate.)

The point is, even tho a hollywood movie called "seven years in tibet"(based on a Nazi's adavanture in Tibet) suggests that there was a massacre committed against the Tibetans after the reunification of 1950 (or 51), it never happened. The Chinese Communists werent dumb enough to incite racial hatred.

Persecution against Buddhist Monks did not happen until late 1950's land reformantion, in which Buddhists were forced to abandon old feudal ways and distribute land to the serfs.

Did u know that Dalai was a slavemaster? hundreds of serfs was forced worked in his orchard for nothing. all except one of them suffered from harsh physical abuse. In 1950, 18 of the serfs attempted an escape. Dalai made an circular order for their apprehension. After they were captures, they suffered tremoudus physical and mental abuse. 5 were beaten to death, while the rest were either mimed or suffered from mentle disorder.

This is what Dalai stands for. The world had been fooled by this terrific liar. i could list tonnes of other sins he had committed, but i should leave it for another day.

I had personally been to Tibet and I have great love for its people (tho I never liked the priests. They suddenly became so rich recently, that they feel as if they are superior to others. Their soaring of income was due to tourism and a revival of Buddhism)

I think that, the beauty of the word "Chinese" is that, it is not the name of a specific nation (ethnic). Instead, it includes all 56 ethnic groups of China, such as Hans(majority), Tibetans, Manchus, Miaos, so on and so forth. This means that it's possible to be both a Tibetan and an Chinese just like how I am a Han and also a Chinese.

[bolshevik butcher]

Red Star over China, Mao wasn't a whole lot better than Stalin, I like what he wrote but he commited some terrible acts. He didn't alow for any opposition to is rule either, what he said was final.

[flyby]

I have a rather different view of Mao than some in this thread.

I think he was one of the greatest revolutionaries of our time.

And the high point of his work was the great proletarian cultural revoltuion -- that broke new ground in opposing capitalist restoration and fighting to move from socialism to communism.

here are some sources:

Mao -- the greatest revolutionary of our time (http://rwor.org/a/china/mao.htm)

the Great Chinese revolution of 1949 (http://rwor.org/a/v21/1020-029/1024/china.htm)

How Maoist Revolution wiped out drug addiction (http://rwor.org/a/china/opium.htm)

there is more, but that'll do for now!



:D :D :D :ph34r: :D :D :D

[RedStarOverChina]

True. Mao's revolution did bring positive changes. The elimination of corruption, prostitution, drug addiction, banditry, polygamy, food shortages (the food distribution process after 1949 was a tremendous success. Pres. Truman claimed that "no government could be able to solve China's food problem". However, widespread famine was elimated after 1950.) were among some of the positive changes.

[Kaan]

Class struggle is not about holding hands and singing folk songs, violent change happens, people die, thats what a revolution is. The opposing class has to be crushed and so does their influence, thats what Chairman Mao tried to do but sadly failed at. Killing everyone who stands in the way of the revolution is necessary, but a lot of people here seem to think that this makes a good revolutionary like Mao a monster.

[bolshevik butcher]

Kaan I was actually talking about after the revolution, and fellow commnist, who came tor ival his power and influence.

[Kaan]

The problem is, comrade, that you mistake the revolution as only the seizure of power, when in fact it goes much deeper than that. Even after the proletariat have seized power, bourgeouisie culture still exists and must actively be fought or revisionism will take hold, this is what Mao was doing, and what must be done, the bourgeouisie must be liquidated entirely.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2005, 02:17 PM
The problem is, comrade, that you mistake the revolution as only the seizure of power, when in fact it goes much deeper than that. Even after the proletariat have seized power, bourgeouisie culture still exists and must actively be fought or revisionism will take hold, this is what Mao was doing, and what must be done, the bourgeouisie must be liquidated entirely.
I mean people who held similar views as mao though, mao wanted total power.

[RABBIT - THE - CUBAN - MILITANT]

this is one of those topics that leftists will never agree on :lol:

[flyby]

Originally posted by RABBIT - THE - CUBAN - [email protected] 7 2005, 08:34 PM
this is one of those topics that leftists will never agree on :lol:
you know, I don't expect to unite "leftists."

When we actually make a revolution in the U.S., many "leftists" may be on the other side, and many will be for it.

Certianly this has been true in the past.

Mao said: "unite all who can be united against the real enemy"

In other words, he is describing the kind of broad unity that is needed for revolution. But that doesn't start with some kind of "unity of the left."

Many of the divisions (on the left) actually reflect some deep class differences.

And in fact, Mao is a "dividing line question" -- in particular upholding his developments to the science of communism (which is now called Marxism-Leninism-Maoism).

different lines lead to different roads, different roads lead to different places.

To get to communism, we need a communist line and road. And that involves looking deeply at the world, understanding how it works, and then (with our feet firmly planted among the deeply oppressed who have "nothing to lose') looking at how to radically remake all of human society, to liberate humanity.

[RevolutionaryLeftist]

All i have to say is The Great Leap Forward. Talk about a good idea gone wrong.

[flyby]

well, when something major is dismissed with one or two sentences, I always suspect that someone hasn't looked into it deeply.

So when someone says "All i have to say is The Great Leap Forward.". you have to forgive me when I point out YOU DIDN'T ACTUALLY SAY ANYTHING.

What IS your analysis? And what have you based your opinions on?

Have you studied the advance represented by the Peoples Communes (created by a vast mass movement during this period)?

Have you investigated the degree to which some difficulties of the Great Leap were caused by drought (not by "an idea gone wrong")?

So you have a sense of how the Chinese revolution ENDED semi-permanent famine among Chinese people? (I.e. anticommunist historians act like mao and the communist revolution casued famine, when in fact the population doubled in two decades because of the sudden, historic change in the people's access to food!)

Do you know the degree to which problems in China (during this period) were caused by the cutting off of aid from the revisionist Soviet Union , and the degree to which radical new forms of industry needed to be considered and developed to create a truly independent and self-reliant Chinese socialist economy?

I dn't know what you know or think about the Great Leap Forward -- because you don't even bother to say. But your approach to this makes be suspect that you have swallowed (whole!) the standard anti-communist writings on this period -- and have not really looked at it very deeply.

Perhaps we should do that together, comrade. What do you say?

[RevolutionaryLeftist]

The Great Leap Forward was a big mistake. Look what came out of it. 25 million dead from it. Most of it was caused by human error, such as the new agricultural skills they were trying to use. Things such as digging the holes deeper, which made things worse because the deeper down, teh worse the soil is for growing. the tons of watering holes were virtually useless and used up land that could have been used for farming. Also, since the people weren't working on their own farms and no matter what everyone got equal pay, most slacked. The Great Leap Forward was plagued by droughts, but that only accounted for 30% of the disaster. The other 70% was human error. So yes i do know about the great leap forward and Collectivization. All proved to be one big cluster fuck and did not really improve things. Oh, and also the backyard steel mills. The Chinese used everybit of metal they had to make steel, from door nobs, hinges, etc. Well this proved to be inaffective because all of the metal they made was useless, some people forget about that part.

[flyby]

i can't sum up all the historical and factual details at the moment.

However, i just want to say that what you are putting out is rather one-sided.

It was not just "one big cluster of human error" -- it was a serious attempt to solve some serious problems: developing industrial independence from the Soviet Union, making the next leap away from capitalism in agriculture, involving millions of people in consciously transforming their lives and society, rupturing out of millenia of "traditional techniques" to bring in new ways of raising food (plowing, orchards, public works projects for irrigation) that relied on group efforts. etc.

One problem we have is that far to many people read the anti-communist works and assume they are all true.

Another problem is that too many communists assume they are all "just lies."

The reality is that we have a rich and heroic legacy of attempting to change the world, powerful mass movements, great revolutionary achievements, daring experiments.... And we need to see them as OUR experiments, even while we evaluate them criticially (and even while we prepare to "do better" next time around.)

If you just dismiss it all (one-sidedly) -- the problem is not mainly that you have adopted the outlook of bourgeois historians -- the problem is that we don't then learn the rich lessons for our future that we can learn if we look at the revolutionary history critically and all sidedly.

[shadows]

If nothing else, Mao's contribution to communist method is highly refreshing. I refer to his 'On Contradiction' essay, which clearly articulates materialism in practice. How we consider the world is based on our class location, so that 'line' becomes a signifier of class, not just mistaken notions. (Though mistakes in ideas do occur; 'line' is not directly a result of class but is mediated by lots of variables, including where one lives, how one lives, etc.) It was perhaps this very contribution that was not so dialectically appropriated by New Communist groups in the seventies and led to idealism: too little stress on practice, too much on 'line' as an independent variable or objective force. Yet, surely, even those who deride Mao and Maoism (not necessarily identical) recognize how his ideas and his leadership, even mistakes, shaped the communist movement. The Sino-Soviet split was not entirely principled, perhaps, but it did reveal an ongoing ossification of the Soviet party and Soviet society. Maybe the question now is the Shanghai Commune, in its early period, when its model, according to PL, was the Paris Commune. Was this unrealistic for the time? How did Mao determine that though this experiment was 'communist' it was advanced idealistically? I don't consider myself 'Maoist' by any means, yet I can appreciate the practical critique Mao made of revisionism, even of 'socialism in one country' as the USSR practiced chauvinistically. After all, the CCP for awhile actively aided the anti-colonial struggles, and was embraced even by what today one might refer to as 'anti-authoritarians' in the latter's rebellion (it is right to rebel, after all, against the past that hangs so heavily on the present and impedes the future). Knee-jerk anti-Maoism is ahistorical.

[The Grapes of Wrath]

I think the major problem with Mao, and in essence most self-proclaimed communist regimes was they tried to do too much too fast. The Great Leap Forward was Mao's attempt to move 100 years into the future (both industrially and socially) in 5-10 years. That's impossible. The same goes for the Soviet Union and their series of 5 Year Plans ... this led to nothing more than alienation and eventual oppression of many ordinary people who, in truth, probably committed no real crime other than attempting to hold onto a small semblance of tradition when bombarded with radical change.

The Great Leap Forward's main ideas were great. Building industry, greater local administration, modernization are all good things. But he tried to do it in a few years. It probably would have been better to implement changes in several provinces that could handle it, all the while building up the abilities of other provinces before moving on to them, and then others, etc etc.

I personally think there is a lesson to be learned here. When flyby said:
If you just dismiss it all ... the problem is that we don't then learn the rich lessons for our future that we can learn if we look at the revolutionary history critically and all sidedly. ... she was dead on.

We need to realize that the world can change, and change for the better. But it will not take place overnight. We cannot force this. Mao is an example. Lenin and Stalin and their mistakes are examples. Robespeirre is an example. These are lessons to be learned.

Remember, radical change is relative. Someone's small change could be someone else's radical change. We obviously can't (and we shouldn't) cater to those who's beliefs foster no change, but we must keep them in mind all the same.

A fine line between too much change and not enough is in order. A Revolutionary government must be able to walk this tight rope, and not alienate too many people from its line, because no matter what, someone is going to be alienated, it all just depends on how many and for what reasons.

TGOW

[RevolutionaryLeftist]

im haven't swallowed all that anti-communist shit. i am just stating that facts of what happened. Yes Mao did try too much too fast. I for one am a communist and i do think Mao was trying to do the right thing. It just didn't work out good.

[celticfire]

Kick-a** article RedStarOverChina!


http://celticfire.t35.com/