Well I'm back from vacation..and news about the Olympics in Beijing got me thinking about China's reformism and some of the arguments used against. Mao. I've posted this two or three times elsewhere already. but I figured that it would be perfect for this forum: There are four main "atrocities" people tie Mao Tse-Tung in with, The Invasion of Tibet, The Hundred Flowers Campaign, The Great Leap Forward, and The Cultural Revolution; which happened in that order. I wish to present a case in Mao's defense for each: 1) The Invasion of Tibet: In 1950, the Red Army invaded Tibet, a British colonial possession, Mao Tse-Tung was widely blamed for the destruction of Buddhist temples and crack down of religious practices as well as the thousands of deaths during the invasion. On the contrary, the Red Army was democratic at this point, as was Mao’s wish, so Mao himself had no authority over when the Chinese army invaded the colony. He merely pretended to as to not appear weak to the western imperialists, which would have taken such opportunity to fund a counter revolutionary operation to remove the new communist government. As for the invasion itself and atrocities which occurred, since Mao had little control over the red army at the time, he obviously didn’t control when soldiers went out of line and torched a Buddhist temple, which were actually rare occurrences. Besides the deaths, which were mostly those of enemy combatants anyways, the Invasion actually liberated Tibet from harsh British rule, healed the poverty of the region, and promoted further rebellion against the British on the continent. 2) The Hundred Flowers Campaign: Once Mao had a firm grip on party policy, he launched the Hundred flowers campaign 50 years ago in 1956. It was started by Mao as an attempt to liberalize party policy and allow multi ideal practices in China. The hardliners of the party, which also held some influence, saw Mao as trying to restore capitalism, failing that a loose socialism, and aimed to stop him. Mao was forced to step back from full power because of bombardment by his enemies, and during this time, those who expressed their ideals to the party were attacked because of their "reactionary" thinking, and as a matter of fact, the failure to liberalize party policy and the deaths of those attacks in truth, greatly grieved Mao. 3) The Great Leap Forward: In the late 50's and early 60's Mao noticed that the Nationalists failure to commercialize the Agricultural network in China and the booming population would soon lead to a disaster. Noticing the coming problems, Mao launched a series of Industrial and Agricultural reforms to combat the coming starvation. In any other scenario, Mao would have prevented many deaths except for one problem; drought. During the middle of his agricultural reform, drought struck China and many died from Famine, a famine which Mao is widely blamed for. It can be noted and seriously debated however, that without the Great Leap forward, many more, as much as three times as recorded, could have died from starvation. Despite US propaganda at the time, the Great Leap Forward was actually a big success and saved many lives. 4) The Cultural Revolution: Before Mao died in 1976, he launched his final campaign which he called the Cultural Revolution. Mao saw reactionary capitalists gaining ground in the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) as well as external forces demonizing the party’s actions (Including attempts to overthrow the Congolese government, end Pol-Pot’s primitive reign over Cambodia, and send economical aid to Albania during the Sino-Soviet Split). Mao called upon the masses for a second revolution and for the proletariat and farmers alike to besiege party headquarters and end the reactionary threat. The people applied and formed the Red Guard which went beyond Mao's plans and attacked religious sites of worship, immigrants that were thought to be working for reactionaries, and even each other. Mao, foreseeing the coming anarchy, quickly moved to restore order in China and called the Cultural Revolution a "success" and asked the Red Guard to dismantle. Shortly after, Mao died of illness and China was left in a power struggle. In truth, had the Red Guard not gone out of hand and the Cultural Revolution been truly successful, China could have been on its way to a true Communist utopia. Arguably, it was the Cultural Revolution that was the closest period in time in which a nation was the closest to reaching true communism. I didn't write this, though. Just posted it here figuring it would be of interest to other anti-revisionists.
Just to add: Much of the destruction that occured in Tibet wasn't even comitted by the Red Army, but actual Tibetans that were sick of the theocratic society. During the Great Leap Forward, Mao for saw a lot of the danger that was going to potentially occur. He asked publications to remind the public not to go over-board with industrialization ( furnaces in backyards for instance ) and to be realistic that serious backlash could occur. During the GPCR, the CPC actually made a public statement telling people not to take justice into their own hands by physically attacking convicted reactionaries. It was intended to be a non-violent purge by the people, and for the most part, was. Thanks for posting this Brad!
