Evan Osnos, The New Yorker: The Cost of the Cultural Revolution, Fifty Years Later
In 1979, three years after the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the United States. At a state banquet, he was seated near the actress Shirley MacLaine, who told Deng how impressed she had been on a trip to China some years earlier. She recalled her conversation with a scientist who said that he was grateful to Mao Zedong for removing him from his campus and sending him, as Mao did millions of other intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution, to toil on a farm. Deng replied, “He was lying.”
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WNU Editor: Poor Shirley MacLain .... she did not know that Deng Xiaoping had a way to always respond bluntly to stupid people. When I was working in China in the 1980s .... every Chinese official that I got to know on a personal basis eventually told me what they had to go through during the Cultural Revolution. None of their stories were pleasant to listen to. I in turn always told them what my family had to go through .... the Ukraine famine, Stalin's purges, etc. .... and not surprisingly .... this in turn opened many and all doors for me .... we all had something in common. The presence of Mao in China .... like the presence of Lenin in Red Square .... is deep and difficult to remove. And while I look forward to the day when they remove Lenin's mausoleum from Red Square, I know that many of my Chinese friends and contacts are also looking forward to the day when Mao's portrait in Tienanmen Square has been removed. Unfortunately .... in both cases .... I give it another 50 years before that happens. Sighhh .... the philosophy of Communism/Socialism may be dead and utterly discredited in these countries .... but its terrible legacy continues.
25 comments:
What would China look like today if Mao had never been born?
"I give it another 50 years before that happens." Lenin maybe, Mao not in our lifetime. Wouldn't it be odd if removal of Lenin happened to be done by a German firm.
James,
I doubt the Russian leadership would allow a German firm to do the removal. The Russian leadership is the world's best at using the media to get their message out. It looks to me like such a move would be "bad optics."
The advantage to being a master at working the media is one gets their message out very effectively. There may be a disadvantage, however, as it may enable one to blythly believe their own messaging meaning certain weaknesses can be temporarily covered up and not properly addressed.
B. Poster,
You're quite right about the optics, but then again the Germans put Lenin in Russia in the first place. Though I may have been tongue in cheek above, history does indulge itself in little ironies.
James,
While I have no reason to disbelieve you, I will need to research your claim that Germany put Lenin in power. I'm sure you understand this is an extraordinary claim and will extraordinary proof.
I think we can agree on the optics. Furthermore there are plenty of Russian firms who could do the job. As such, there would be no reason to go outside of Russia to do the job. Furthermore even if no one in Russia currently has the skill sets, the zRussian people are the most resourceful an innovative by far the world has ever known. Again no reason to go outside of Russia to do this job anc definitely no reason to turn to Germany for it.
A mal developed semi colony full of drug addicts, pimps and prostitutes.
Germany did not put Lenin in power.
The backward system in Russia up to that time pushed the workers, peasants and soldiers to do that. It was a grim struggle and deserves much deeper analysis than pro capalitalist, reactionary conspiracy theoried concocted to undermine a reak world example of a revolution and establishment of an alternative society.
Wether "we" like it or not.
B.,
If my memory serves me right sometime around 1917 the
Germans smuggled Lenin into Russia aboard a closed train. There was an informal deal between the Germans and Lenin that if this was done and the Bolsheviks gained power, Lenin would sue for peace and the Germans would withdraw their forces for use on the Western Front offensive to end the war. Which in the event failed and the war ended with Germany's capitulation.
So it could be said that the Germans re injected Lenin into Russia at the critical moment that the Provisional was collapsing. Lenin had tried to foment civil war in Russia before that, but had not been successful. That's from my memory which is notorious for inaccuracy.
RRH,
Of course the reason you state were the underlying driving force of the revolution, but from what I remember Lenin himself was the ideal catalyst for it to full fledged country wide.
WNU editor said:" Sighhh .... the philosophy of Communism/Socialism may be dead and utterly discredited in these countries .... but its terrible legacy continues. "
We are sorry to have give born two monster like Mao and Stalin.
Sorry even to have take down your ignorant tzar and modernize Russia.
Sorry to have defend and unified China, but your Chang Kai Shiek has much more interest in hunt our comrades instead to defend the country from the Japanese invasion.
Sorry to have sacrified our comrades lives in order to defeat nazi and secure peace to a warmongering and racist Europe for fifty years.
Sorry to have took down many of yours colonial regimes and give a greater push to social reform in all the world.
Also sorry to have bring humanity into space... aliens seems disgusted.
My grandfather live as farmer that has no interest in politics, but fascist took them from is family and psychologically tortured him forced him to see the torture done to others. His mind broken, after four years he commit suicide.
Different from Mao generation, Europe has know democracy, but it end in a greater horror, so?
Is a race in atrocity you want to put us? Then we come more after capitalism (nazifascism included), Christianity and Islam.
Young Communist .... sighhhh .... walk in my shoes and you will recoil in horror with what you have just said in regards to the Soviet Union. Or better still .... listen to Deng Xiaoping .... who knows what the history of Communism is all about in China. Listen .... and try to understand why people like Deng Xiaoping says what he says .... or be ignorant .... and choose to discard and ignore.
Germany did help Lenin get into Russia .... and they did want him to ferment civil war and be a viable alternative to the Tsars. The peace treaty that he signed with Germany was a bonus. As to the revolution in Russia itself .... if there was no Lenin the revolution would not have been successful. The Bolsheviks/Reds/etc. was a movement started by Russia's intellectuals .... which at the time was primarily Jewish. Aside from Lenin, much of the inner circle at the time was Jewish .... and Jews were not an ethnic group that most Russians .... especially Russian peasants and foot soldiers .... would follow. Lenin was the leader and the public face .... he had to be.
WNU,
"much of the inner circle at the time was Jewish" but not for long.
Started under Stalin in the 1930s .... ended with the assassination of Trotsky in 1940 (in Mexico) as a message to everyone to not oppose Stalin.
Lenin was not in the pay of the Kaiser. This is old false propaganda with roots in the counter-revolutionary forces at work in Russia during the revolution of 1917. They are being vomited up again and given new life in contemporary political discourse because, once again, capitalism is in crisis. It is important to strike out at past revolutions and the characters of their leaders so that those seeking alternatives to today's system are drawn away from, or repulsed by, real world examples of change that upset the ruling class.
Lenin despised the German Kaiser and ruling class. He openly and vigoursly refused funds from German intelligence sources--look up the name Parvu-- that were offered to the Bolsheviks among other organizations active in Russia. The party was near broke and it's orgsnization outside of Russia was made of of little more than six people (including VI's two sisters!!!.). They could barely raise the money to publish their paper let alone support anyone among them attempting to distribute their publications across very tightly monitored borders.
Lenin, whatever his faults, was a principled revolutionary who's activities and impact on the world stage deserve a much deeper investigation and understanding than regurgitated 100 year old lies (A German agent!!! Horseshit!) conjured up by the enemies of the revolution among tsarist, provisional government, and other counter-revolutionary sources.
Sighhhhhhhh,
Editor,you're a "good shit" as we say in mines but,
Listen, and try to understand, what China was BEFORE the revolution Mao led.
His "crimes" were of no less magnitude than those committed during the establishment and maintenance of capitalism.
It's all about what the "crimes" are committed in the name of.
Besides the horrendous history that personally touch my life and those of my grand (and great great etc.) parents, I recoil in horror at what has transpired in the world SINCE the collapse of the USSR. I disagree as well that communism is blasé in the PRC. I have contacts there too in the academic community and Maoism-Marxist-Leninism is once again on the agenda.
Deng was sent to fix tractors. Good. A good many of our so-called leaders don't even deserve a trade.
It's a class thing Editor.
If you believe no "horrors" equal to, or greater than, those committed by the Russian/Chinese revolutionaries were committed (and continue to be committed) by liberal capitalist "democracies" (puh!!), I have some property in the east side of Detroit you may be interested in.
as for Stalin,
the debate continues and the pro sude involves more than just crusty old communists sulking in tge basements of crumbling apartment blocks.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mobile/news/article/russian-communists-pay-homage-to-stalin-in-moscow/561798.html
And Deng
Even he admitted Mao was right more than he was wrong.
Za Rodinu!! Za Stalina!!
https://stalinsmoustache.org/2016/04/23/trending-in-china-today-international-conference-on-chinese-marxism/
Learning using Mao Zedong thought. Even to critize Mao's mistakes.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-12/27/c_132999212.htm
And the status quo makes people hungry and mean enough to do so.
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