A man looks at a giant statue of late chairman Mao Zedong under construction near fields in a village of Tongxu county, Henan province, China, Jan. 4, 2016. PHOTO: REUTERS/STRINGER
New York Times: Golden Mao Statue in China, Nearly Finished, Is Brought Down by Criticism
ZHUSHIGANG, China — Days after photographs of a giant, golden statue of Mao spread across the Internet, drawing ridicule for its grandiosity amid the bare fields of Henan Province, the statue has been quickly torn down.
Demolition teams arrived Thursday morning, villagers said, and by Friday morning only a pile of rubble remained.
The 120-foot-tall statue, erected at a cost of $465,000, according to the local news media, had been under construction for months and was nearing completion when it began to attract attention.
WNU Editor: Everyone who is over the age of 55 in China remembers what life was like under Mao .... that is why this golden statue was torn down. I have been going to China for years. I lived there in the mid-1980s. I have gotten to know hundreds of people while I was there. When I bring up Mao .... there is zero support/sympathy/understanding for him. He may be on the Chinese money and have his portrait in Tienanmen Square .... but he is despised by the generation who lived under him. The younger generation has a different point of view .... and that is because many of them do not know what life was like under him.
More News On The Destruction Of The Golden Mao Statue In China
Giant Mao statue 'removed' from Henan village. -- BBC
'Mega Mao' no more as ridiculed golden statue destroyed -- The Guardian
Mao Zedong Statue Destroyed: Chinese Leader’s Giant, Gold-Painted Statue Lacked Government Approval -- IBTimes
Giant gold Mao statue 'demolished' in China following public outcry: report -- DW
Chinese village destroys lavish golden statue of Chairman Mao -- Mashable
8 comments:
I know a person who had a choice of one major in college.
It is the only major the post Mao leaders considered.
Mao had so destroyed secondary education that the leaders realized they had to send an enormous numbers of student abroad.
Still there are people that claim socialism or communism have not been tried the right way.
These people could go communist in the U.S. at anytime. They lack the conviction, the brains or something.
There are at least 2 well known functioning communes in the U.S. last time I checked. All they have to do is grow through births or recruitment. They can legally incorporate their businesses as ESOPs or something.
One of the communes had to pay a wage differential for dirty jobs. Still I give them their due.
Some Mennonites practice communism and it works so long their communities stay under a certain psychological/sociological threshold of 150 people.
I could have no problem with communism so long they obeyed the vote. They could collectivize if they win and privatize if they lose. But it seems that it is one vote, one time. then over time is devolves into oligarchy/ aristocracy.
The only good Bolshevik is a dead Bolshevik.
Mensheviks are different or so I think.
Aizino, it doesn't (shouldn't) matter what they call themselves or what party they belong to. What should matter is whether they obey the laws of the land and commonplace morality or not. The thing about the great 20th century revolutionaries - Bolsheviks, Nazis, and Mao and his ilk too - is that they explicitly renounced morality and had zero qualms with breaking the law. But to give them their due they were very consistent about their immoral and unlawful behaviour, as anyone who witnessed their works could testify. When they talked about how morality and ethics "in the old sense" don't matter and only efficiency in pursuing their goals does, they MEANT it. Which says all.
Mao had 10 children. He did not take care of but 1 or 2 of them.
Come to think of it, he did not treat the people any different than his wives and mistresses.
He sued them and discarded them like used tissue paper.
Ahhh, bourgeois morality.
It's so bourgeois.
As for Mensheviks:
A chicken for every pot.
An ice pick for every Trot.
http://www.inquisitr.com/2691415/giant-mao-statue-removed
Apparently, the removal had more to do with lack of permitting and not everyone was happy to see it go.
Frankly, I don't believe Mao would have approved of it anyway.
Mao destroyed 50 million people. He kept the country in an uproar to maintain power. His theme of constant revolution was as much practice for him to maintain power as theory.
He destroyed the education system.
He destroyed 2 route armies simply to have no rival for party leadership.
To destroy whole armies so that you can maintain leadership within the party is unconscionable.
"As for Mensheviks"
I said I could be wrong. It has been a while since i read up on the Russian Revolution.
I am sure I can ask the resident expert on doctrine, but they do not care to talk about such subjects.
"bourgeois."
that is about as funny as the Dark Ages and the Medieval ages.
The Dark Ages were not so dark as we were led to believe. Case in point the constant spread of tech mills during this period.
A lot of historians are maimed people. That is they are literate, smart but still ignorant. There is a saying that the more ignorant you are, the easier it looks to accomplish things. For all their education I don't think the historians know what it takes to build, innovate, rule, etc.
At some point we might be able to run Monte Carlo simulations of society. We might see that human progress was not needlessly slow nor exceptionally fast given the parameters that we operate under. So you might withdraw your bourgeois sneer.
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