fountainhall
May 11th, 2016, 11:31
This month marks an important anniversary. After winning the long revolutionary war, Mao Tse Tung was the undisputed leader of an independent China. Despite the failure of his various campaigns, including the disastrous "Three-Anti" and "Five-Anti" movements to rid the cities of capitalists, "Let the Hundred Flowers Bloom" and the "Great Leap Forward" – in which more than 40 million died of starvation, Mao remained invincible. Yet opposition was growing. In May 1966 he launched the worst of them all in terms of the effect it was to have on the country - the Cultural Revolution.
When the first mini-campagn of the Revolution was launched, calling for the destruction of the "Four Olds"—Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas, much of the country's millennia-old culture was literally obliterated. To many tens of millions of youngsters - maybe more - Mao was a God. He was their mother and father. Then it became much more violent as children turned against parents, students against teachers, tenants against landlords. The social fabric of the country was being destroyed. Realising he had let the cat out of the bag, two years later Mao tried to rein in the excesses with his "Down to the Countryside" campaign. For more than 6 years, urban youngsters were removed from cities and sent to work with the farmers in the countryside, thus producing what has since been called The Lost Generation. But the Revolution continued.
As Mao became ill, the Gang of Four led by Mao's wife, the former actress Jiang Qing, kept the fires of Revolution burning. A month after Mao's death in 1976, they were finally arrested. Deng Xiao Ping had reemerged for a second time as the power behind the throne, becoming leader of the country in all but name.
I was thinking of this earlier this week as we saw yet again images from North Korea of the elite talking about the latest Kim as their mother and father. And if Mao could mobilise his country's youth to such destruction in 1966, there is no doubt that Kim can do the same 50 years later - if he so wishes. But Mao had crap armed forces. Kim is a nuclear power with a massive army - and Seoul is a mere 195 kms away.
The west continues to suggest that the solution to taming North Korea is held by Beijing. But that supposes not just that Beijing is not concerned about millions of refugees flooding its border - it is, but that China itself is now a settled country - it isn't. The power struggle between the liberals and the leftists continues, aggravated by the numbers of China's elite ensnared by President Xi's war on corruption and concern as to where Xi's sympathies really lie. As reported by The Guardian today, this came to a head a few days ago with a concert to celebrate Mao - and seemingly also the Cultural Revolution - held in the politically symbolic Great Hall of the People. At one point during the concert, a banner appeared -
People of the world unite to defeat American invaders and their running dogs!
One American writer based in Beijing says -
the show has exposed the chasm that still exists between those who view the Cultural Revolution as a catastrophe for which the Communist party has yet to fully atone, and a much smaller number of neo-Maoists who believe Mao has been unfairly demonised for what they continue to view as a golden period.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/10/cultural-revolution-anniversary-show-power-struggle-rumours-mao-china
When the first mini-campagn of the Revolution was launched, calling for the destruction of the "Four Olds"—Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas, much of the country's millennia-old culture was literally obliterated. To many tens of millions of youngsters - maybe more - Mao was a God. He was their mother and father. Then it became much more violent as children turned against parents, students against teachers, tenants against landlords. The social fabric of the country was being destroyed. Realising he had let the cat out of the bag, two years later Mao tried to rein in the excesses with his "Down to the Countryside" campaign. For more than 6 years, urban youngsters were removed from cities and sent to work with the farmers in the countryside, thus producing what has since been called The Lost Generation. But the Revolution continued.
As Mao became ill, the Gang of Four led by Mao's wife, the former actress Jiang Qing, kept the fires of Revolution burning. A month after Mao's death in 1976, they were finally arrested. Deng Xiao Ping had reemerged for a second time as the power behind the throne, becoming leader of the country in all but name.
I was thinking of this earlier this week as we saw yet again images from North Korea of the elite talking about the latest Kim as their mother and father. And if Mao could mobilise his country's youth to such destruction in 1966, there is no doubt that Kim can do the same 50 years later - if he so wishes. But Mao had crap armed forces. Kim is a nuclear power with a massive army - and Seoul is a mere 195 kms away.
The west continues to suggest that the solution to taming North Korea is held by Beijing. But that supposes not just that Beijing is not concerned about millions of refugees flooding its border - it is, but that China itself is now a settled country - it isn't. The power struggle between the liberals and the leftists continues, aggravated by the numbers of China's elite ensnared by President Xi's war on corruption and concern as to where Xi's sympathies really lie. As reported by The Guardian today, this came to a head a few days ago with a concert to celebrate Mao - and seemingly also the Cultural Revolution - held in the politically symbolic Great Hall of the People. At one point during the concert, a banner appeared -
People of the world unite to defeat American invaders and their running dogs!
One American writer based in Beijing says -
the show has exposed the chasm that still exists between those who view the Cultural Revolution as a catastrophe for which the Communist party has yet to fully atone, and a much smaller number of neo-Maoists who believe Mao has been unfairly demonised for what they continue to view as a golden period.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/10/cultural-revolution-anniversary-show-power-struggle-rumours-mao-china