aim: how did “ revolution ” create a different type decolonization? case study: china
TRANSCRIPT
Mao’s Communism: Differences with Lenin and Soviets
• Peasants as the revolutionary elements – true or making lemonade from lemons?
• The revolutionary countryside will surround the bourgeois city
• “We must not digest Western ideas raw” • Similarity: “Leninist-type” political party
Is Mao a “Fanon-ist?”
Great Leap Forward 1959-61
• Abandons “slow but steady” approach; discards Soviet model of Five Year Plans
• Collectivizes land into giant communes of 20–30,000 people
• Decentralization of economy – Communes are supposed to be self-sufficient
• Idea that “revolutionary enthusiasm” was all that was needed
• Mao rejects reports that it was not working – mass starvation in countryside
Cultural Revolution 1966-76
• Mao unleashes “the youth” against Party bureaucrats to regain power
• Period of “Learning from the ‘Little Red Book’”• Education and learning denigrated – high schools
and colleges shut down for ten years• Intellectuals sent to the countryside to “learn from
the peasants”• Massive disruption of society – anyone can be a
class enemy
Similarities and Differences with Stalinist Russia
• Internal opposition suppressed, even within Party
• Radical changes implemented
• Overwhelming state force and propaganda utilized
• Stalin seems more of a natural bureaucrat
• Mao more of a natural anarchist