DOCSLIB.ORG

Muddling Toward Democracy: Rural Sichuan Province, November 1995 1

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Muddling Toward Democracy: Rural Sichuan Province, November 1995 1 Mu ddli ng toward De m o c ra cy Political Change in Gra s s roo ts China Anne F. Thu rs t o n United States Institute of Pea c e Peaceworks No. 23. First published August 1998. The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace. UNI T E D STA T E S INS T I T U T EO F PEA C E 1550 M Street NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20005-1708 Phone: 202-457-1700 Fax: 202-429-6063 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.usip.org Co n t e n t s Summary iii Foreword vi Introduction ix 1. Muddling toward Democracy: Rural Sichuan Province, November 1995 1 2. The Roots of Political Reform in China’s Villages 4 3. TheVarieties of Village Self-Governance 17 4. The Requisites for Success 40 5. The U.S. Response to Chinese Political Reform 44 Notes 47 Acknowledgments 53 About the Author 55 About the Institute 56 v Su m m a r y mong the most significant pol i tical reforms implemen ted by the Chi n e s e governm en t since 1989 is the introducti on of competi tive electi ons into rura l Avill a ge s .Thi s study, ba s ed largely on fieldwork condu cted between 1995 and 19 9 7 ,e xamines Chi n a’s efforts to bring competi t ive electi o ns to the cou n try ’s rural area s and at tem pt st oexplain why local democ r acy has proved more succe s s f u li n some pl ace s than in ot h ers .Byfoc u s i n gont h ere a l i ti e sa n dcom p l ex i ti e sofru ra l Ch i n a ,t h e stu dy al s oa t tem pt storei n trod uce Chi n a -a s -China into public dialogu e . The basis for vill a ge electi ons is a law promul ga ted in 1987 by the Nati onal Peopl e’s Congre s s ,Ch i n a’ s nominal legis l a tu re ,wh i ch specifies that vill a ge leaders be directly elected by the vill a gers thems elves for terms of th re e ye a rs .E l ected vill a ge leaders are not governm ent off i c i a l s .Ra t h er, th ey are tran s m i s s i on belts between the governm ent and the vill a gers ,r eporting popular opi n i on and proposals to the govern m en t ,h elping to main- tain social order, and medi a ting civil disputes . The electi on law is less the result of popu l a r demand than of an unusual alli a n ce betwe en cons erva t ive party leaders,who beli e ve that democ ra tic electi ons will help maintain stabil i ty and thus pres erve party auth ori ty, an d you n ger governm ent reformers , who have been influen ced both by Wes tern pol i ti c a l values and by the succ ess of democ ra ti c reform in Taiw a n . At the centr al level,the task of overseeing the nationwi de implemen t a ti on of vill a ge - level democ ra cy has been assigned to the Min i s try of Civil Aff a i rs . For the fores ee a bl e futu re ,t he evoluti on of the electoral process will be dicta ted by governm ent off i c i a l s rat h er than gras s roots or nongovern m ental orga n i z a ti on s . China has some 1 milli on vill a ge s ,a nd they are rema rk a bly diverse .We have no idea how ma ny peasants live in vill a g es with democ ra ti c a lly elected leaders.In tern a ti onal obs er vers have witn e s s ed , at most, only a few dozen electi on s .Vi ll a ge leadership must be seen along a broad conti nu u m ,f rom the least to the most democ ra ti c .A t the least democ ra tic end of the spectrum are vill a ges where electi on s have failed and leadership has broken down ,a s well as vill a ges that conti nue to be governed by “loc al emperors .” At the most democra ti c end are vill a ges with popular and innovative new leaders elected by majority vote ,wh o work in tandem with vill a ge repres en t a tive assembl i e s .In between are vill a ges where elec- tions are merely nomi n a l .In some ,c a n d i d a tes are cho s en by higher- l evel auth ori ti e s wit h o ut regard to vill a gers’ wis h e s . In others, the distributi on of pa tron a ge guaran te es a ca n d i d a te ’s elec toral succe s s . The best of Chi n a’s vill a ge electi ons are very good ,h owever, recogni z a bly competi t ive even with their distin ct ly Chinese cha r acteris ti c s .Th ere is no obvious correla ti on between the level of econo mic developm ent and the level of rural democ ra ti z a ti on .Ra t h er, th e vill a ges that have staged the most suc cessful electi ons are those that have received the grea test attenti on from higher-l evel officials most comm i t ted to making vill a ge democ- racy work .G enui n ely competi t ive electi ons seem to have a grea ter likeli h o od of success in more plura l i s tic vill a ges—th at is, vill a ges where neit h er econom ic nor pol i tical power is vi Summary overly concen tra ted and where vill a gers enga ge in a mul ti p l i c i ty of as s oc i a ti on s :rel i- gio u s ,po l i ti c a l ,e conom i c ,s oc i a l ,a nd familial. Thus ,vi ll a ges wher e wealth is crea t ed by ma ny entrepren eu rs are more likely to have competi tive electi ons than vill a ges where ente rprises are ostens i bly coll ec tively owned but are in fact managed by one person or a small group of peopl e .Ma ny vill a ge s ,t h o u gh ,a re elec ting their most pros pero u s mem b ers to lead them. Vill a ges with strong and active repres en t a tive assemblies are similarly more likely to fos te r a dispersi on of power, and thus to enco u ra ge genuine pol i t ical competi ti on .Th e vill a ge repres en t a t ive assembly offe rs a chec k against the power of both the party bran ch and the vill a ge chi ef , providing vill a gers with a significant voice in those deci s i o ns that most directly affect them, and fos teri ng grea ter tran s p a rency in vill a ge finance s .E n or- mous orga n i z a ti on al efforts will be requi red to expand competi tive electi ons into all of Chi n a’s vill a ge s .T he details of electi on procedur es must be taught ,su pervi s ed ,a n d le a rn ed .T raining is one of the major cha ll en g es current ly facing the Min i s try of Civil Aff a i rs .The ministry plans to train 12,000 nation a l - ,p rovin c i a l - , and cou n ty-l e vel off i c i a l s and 3,330 prefectura l - l evel trai n ers (for Chi n a’ s 333 prefecture s ) ,who in turn will trai n , within the prefecture s ,1.5 milli on towns h i p - l evel off i c i a l s .T he ministry’s goal is that by the year 2000 each prefecture will have one model cou n ty for vill a ge self-govern m en t , each cou n ty will have one model towns h i p, and each township will have one model vil- la ge .T hese models , the ministry hopes ,wi ll have a demon s tra ti on eff ect that will spread to all of Chi n a’s vill a ge s . Longer- term developm ent of ba s i c - l evel democ racy will requi re significant cha n ges at both the bot tom and the top. At the gras s roo t s ,dem oc ra cy will remain stun ted wit h o ut the developm e nt of a more plura l i s ti c ,c ivil soci ety.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Spring–Summer 2021 Contents
    HURST PUBLISHERS SPRING–SUMMER 2021 CONTENTS General Interest 1–17 African Studies 27–30 Current Affairs 18 Middle East Studies 31–34 History 19 Politics 35 Religion 20 Critical Muslim 36 Travel Writing 21 New in Paperback 37–43 War Studies 22–25 Recent Highlights 44–47 Sociology 26 Index & Contact Info 48 Cover image: ‘Protected Pangolin’ Illustration © Farai Wallace 2020. GENERAL INTEREST STEPHEN VINES Defying the Dragon Hong Kong and the World’s Largest Dictatorship Defying the Dragon tells a remarkable story of audacity: of how the people of Hong Kong challenged the authority of the People’s Republic of China, just as its president reached the height of his powers. Is Xi’s China as unshakeable as it seems? What are its real interests in Hong Kong? Why are Beijing’s time-honoured ways and means no longer working there? And where does this leave the Hongkongers themselves? Stephen Vines has lived in Hong Kong for over three decades, described by the last governor, Lord Patten, as ‘one of Hong Kong’s most distinguished and long-serving March 2021 journalists’. In this book he unpacks the 9781787384552 history of the Hong Kong–China relationship 216mm x 138mm and its wider significance—right up to the 352pp astonishing convergence of political turmoil £20.00 Hardback and international insecurity amidst Covid-19. Politics / China World English rights Vividly describing the 2019–20 uprising from street level, Vines explains how and why it unfolded and charts its enormous, global repercussions. Now, amidst the pandemic, the international community is reassessing its relationship with Beijing, at the very moment when Hong Kong’s rebellion has exposed the regime’s inherent weakness.
    [Show full text]
  • Tombstone-The-Great-Chinese-Famine
    RESOURCES BOOK REVIEW ESSAYS Tombstone in Wild Swans, as did well-known dissident and human rights advocate Wei Jingsheng in his translated autobiography. Mao’s physician, Li Zhishui, com- The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962 plemented such on-the-ground perspectives with his own invaluable be- hind-the-curtain account of the upper echelons in his 1994 book, The Pri- By Yang Jisheng and Edward Friedman (Editor) vate Life of Chairman Mao. These Chinese memoirs are both engaging and New York: Ferrar, Straus, Giroux, 2012 informative, but in them the Great Famine is treated only briefly as part of 656 pages, ISBN: 978-0374277932, Hardback a larger personal narrative, and in any case their experiences can only hint at the full effects of the famine. Tombstone accomplishes what none of the Reviewed by Clayton D. Brown foregoing have done—it delivers a comprehensive study of the Great Leap Forward by a member of the Chinese Communist Party, who interweaves etween 1958 and 1962, an estimated thirty-six million Chinese died his own traumatic experiences into the historical account. of starvation in what became history’s worst famine. Normally, such Yang is uniquely qualified to tell this story. The opening chapter of the epic tragedies would yield a vast body of historical works, memori- book, titled “An Everlasting Tombstone,” offers the reader a harrowingly Bals, interviews, memoirs, conferences, and documentaries. Yet this epochal detailed description of a teenage schoolboy returning to his hometown, event is largely ignored outside of China and, more appallingly, actively sup- which he finds silent and eerily deserted.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 NORTH KOREAN GENOCIDE, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and FOOD ASSISTANCE Milton Leitenberg in 1959 to 1961, Deliberate Policies Set By
    NORTH KOREAN GENOCIDE, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND FOOD ASSISTANCE Milton Leitenberg In 1959 to 1961, deliberate policies set by Mao Zedong and the Chinese government resulted in the deaths by starvation of 30 million or more Chinese, with some Chinese estimates being substantially higher.1 The policy decisions were multiple and occurred both before and during the famine. Although the “national” group specified in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide was China’s own population, the Chinese events can justifiably be considered a case of genocide as the policies were clearly deliberate. The same charge should therefore be leveled against North Korea as well.2 North Korean government policies, both the maintenance of Stalinist agricultural policies for the past 50 or more years and other policies, were unquestionably the cause of the famine in North Korea in the mid- to late 1990s. Estimates of North Korean mortality due to the famine ranged between 2 to 3.5 million in a population of 21-22 million.3 This subject is current once again because North Korea appears to be threatened with famine due to the same causes as produced the 1990s famine. In 2011 North Korea asked for international food assistance. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service provides a summary of the total estimated food aid to North Korean between 1995 and 2009. During that period 75% of the food aid was been supplied by four countries: China, South Korea, the United States and Japan. Figure 1. Total Estimated Food Aid to North Korea, 1995-2009 WFP Non-WFP Source: World Food Program’s International Food Aid Information System (INTERFAIS) database.
    [Show full text]
  • ASA 17/09/90 £China @The Massacre of June 1989 and Its Aftermath
    N.B. This text has been scanned from the printed document and may contain some errors. AI INDEX: ASA 17/09/90 £China @The massacre of June 1989 and its aftermath 1. PREFACE This report updates Amnesty International's "Preliminary Findings on Killings of Unarmed Civilians, Arbitrary Arrests and Summary Executions since 3 June 1989", which the organization issued in August 1989. The complete text of the preliminary findings appears in this report, along with a preface summarizing information received since August and an appendix containing additional documentation. In August 1989, Amnesty International presented its concern about human rights violations in China in an oral statement before a meeting of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in Geneva. The Sub-Commission adopted a resolution on 31 August expressing concern about events in China and asking the United Nations Secretary General to transmit information about China to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Commission was scheduled to meet in Geneva during the first quarter of 1990. Serious human rights violations continue to occur in China. Amnesty International has not recorded any significant improvement in the human rights situation there since August 1989. Although the authorities have released some prisoners, thousands of people continue to be imprisoned throughout China for their participation in the 1989 pro-democracy protests. Arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention without charge or trial, unfair trials and executions have continued. Though martial law was lifted in Beijing in January 1990, the laws which permit the occurrence of such human rights violations remain in force.
    [Show full text]
  • Language and Politics During the Chinese Cultural Revolution: a Study in Linguistic Engineering
    LANGUAGE AND POLITICS DURING THE CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION: A STUDY IN LINGUISTIC ENGINEERING A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the University of Canterbury by Ji Fengyuan ? University of Canterbury 1998 CONTENTS Abbreviations vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 I PRELUDE 1. linguistic Engineering: Theoretical Considerations 1.1 The Language of Speech and the Language of Thought 8 1.2 Sapir, Whorf and the Categories of Thought 11 1.3 Concepts, Schemas and World View 24 1.4 Primitive Affective and Associational Processes 31 1.5 Code, Context and Relevance Theory 49 1.6 A Framework for Multi-factorial Persuasion: Information Processing and the Elaboration Likelihood Model 61 1.7 Timeless Theories and Empirical Case Studies 64 2. Linguistic Engineering before the Cultural Revolution 2.1 Origins of Linguistic Engineering in China 66 2.2 The Institutional Basis of linguistic Engineering 72 2.3 Formulae, Codability and Processing Efficiency 81 2.4 The Language of Class Analysis 84 2.5 Language, Love and Revolution 98 2.6 The Discourse of Collectivization 101 2.7 Discourse of the Great Leap Forward: From Martial Language to Disillusionment 103 2.8 Emerging Mao Worship: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution 110 2.9 Linguistic Engineering in China before the Cultural Revolution: an Assessment 117 ii II THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 1966-68: MASS MOBILIZATION, LANGUAGE AND INTERPRETATION 3. Context and Interpretation: Mao's Manipulation of Meaning 3.1 Background to the
    [Show full text]
  • From the Great Chinese Famine to the Communist Famines on Eating Bitterness and the French Translation of Mubei
    China Perspectives 2013/3 | 2013 The Urbanisation of Rural China From the Great Chinese Famine to the Communist Famines On Eating Bitterness and the French translation of Mubei Lucien Bianco Translator: Will Thornely Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/6289 DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.6289 ISSN: 1996-4617 Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Printed version Date of publication: 1 September 2013 Number of pages: 85-90 ISSN: 2070-3449 Electronic reference Lucien Bianco, « From the Great Chinese Famine to the Communist Famines », China Perspectives [Online], 2013/3 | 2013, Online since 01 September 2016, connection on 22 September 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/6289 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ chinaperspectives.6289 © All rights reserved Review essay China perspectives From the Great Chinese Famine to the Communist Famines On Eating Bitterness and the French translation of Mubei LUCIEN BIANCO Yang Jisheng, Stèles. La grande famine en Chine, 1958-1961, French transla - tion by Louis Vincenolles and Sylvie Kimberley Ens Manning and Gentil, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2012, Felix Wemheuer (eds.), 672 pp. [Mubei: Zhongguo liushi nian - Eating Bitterness: New Perspec - dai dajihuang jishi (Tombstone: A True tives on China’s Great Leap For - History of the Great Famine in China in ward and Famine, Vancouver, UBC the 1960s), Hong Kong Tiandi tushu, Press, 2011, 321 pp. two volumes, 2008, 1096 pp.] n 2008, research into the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1962 entered blast furnaces, in spite of the fact that he had previously been informed of a decisive new phase. Adopting the direction first taken by Becker, it the ineptitude and lies of the Great Leap.
    [Show full text]
  • China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy
    China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy Kerry Dumbaugh Specialist in Asian Affairs October 8, 2009 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R40457 CRS Report for Congress Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy Summary The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is vitally important, touching on a wide range of areas including, among others, economic policy, security, foreign relations, and human rights. U.S. interests with China are bound together much more closely now than even a few years ago. These extensive inter-linkages have made it increasingly difficult for either government to take unilateral actions without inviting far-reaching, unintended consequences. The George W. Bush Administration addressed these increasing inter-linkages by engaging with China, regularizing bilateral contacts and cooperation, and minimizing differences. The Administration of President Barack Obama has inherited not only more extensive policy mechanisms for pursuing U.S.-China policy, but a more complex and multifaceted U.S.-China relationship where the stakes are higher and where U.S. action may increasingly be constrained. Economically, the United States and China have become symbiotically intertwined. China is the second-largest U.S. trading partner, with total U.S.-China trade in 2008 reaching an estimated $409 billion. It also is the second largest holder of U.S. securities and the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries used to finance the federal budget deficit, positioning China to play a crucial role, for good or ill, in the Obama Administration’s plans to address the recession and the deteriorating U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Systematic Genocide
    Systematic genocide JASPER BECKER FRIDAY, 24TH SEPTEMBER 2010 You don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things, and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices and paths, OK? It is about your choices and your path. It is a measure of people’s continuing admiration for Chairman Mao that last year the White House communications director, Anita Dunn, unashamedly described him as a ‘favourite political philosopher’ because, as she told an audience of American high- school graduates, Mao showed that You don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things, and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices and paths, OK? It is about your choices and your path. In a brilliant work, backed by painstaking research, Professor Frank Dikötter, has trawled through the Chinese archives to reveal some staggering new details and insights on how Mao bravely ignored everyone’s advice. He launched the forcible massed collectivisation of Chinese peasantry in 1958, a movement dubbed the Great Leap Forward, which in four years killed 45 million people. Mao did this even though his earlier rounds of collectivisation had already killed millions of peasants by seizing their food; and against the advice of Soviet leaders who well remembered how Lenin and Stalin’s collectivisation policies had killed tens of millions. Prominent famine experts, like Justin Lin Yifu, now the chief economist at the World Bank, have excused Mao, arguing that, unlike Stalin, he wasn’t a monster who did this deliberately or knowingly. Instead, the deaths were the result of mismanagement; peasants should have had the right to leave the communes voluntarily but the plan was basically a great idea.
    [Show full text]
  • A Conversation with Frank Dikötter
    The Chinese Historical Review ISSN: 1547-402X (Print) 2048-7827 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ytcr20 History as Humanity’s CV: A Conversation with Frank Dikötter Qin Shao & Frank Dikötter To cite this article: Qin Shao & Frank Dikötter (2017) History as Humanity’s CV: A Conversation with Frank Dikötter, The Chinese Historical Review, 24:2, 166-182, DOI: 10.1080/1547402X.2017.1369230 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1547402X.2017.1369230 Published online: 18 Oct 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 3 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ytcr20 Download by: [175.159.164.191] Date: 25 October 2017, At: 21:07 The Chinese Historical Review, 24. 2, 166–182, November 2017 HISTORY AS HUMANITY’SCV:A CONVERSATION WITH FRANK DIKÖTTER QIN SHAO The College of New Jersey, USA FRANK DIKÖTTER The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong This wide-ranging and often thought-provoking conversation takes us beyond Frank Dikötter’s record of publication in the field of modern Chinese history to look more at the personal experience and background that has shaped his work—his fascina- tion with language, his lack of a “mother tongue,” his permanent status as a foreigner, his accidental encounter with the China field, his views on a host of topics, ranging from the issue of agency, evidence-driven history, archival research, historical memory, the nature of the humanities and the responsibility of the histor- ian to the key driving values of our modern world.
    [Show full text]
  • The Great Leap Famine and Amartya Sen
    Grand Valley Journal of History Volume 7 Issue 1 Article 2 September 2019 The Great Leap Famine and Amartya Sen Chang-Dae Hyun University of Toronto, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/gvjh Part of the Asian History Commons Recommended Citation Hyun, Chang-Dae (2019) "The Great Leap Famine and Amartya Sen," Grand Valley Journal of History: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/gvjh/vol7/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Grand Valley Journal of History by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Great Leap Famine and Amartya Sen Cover Page Footnote Works Cited Bell, Daniel. The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the limits of Democracy. Princeton University Press, 2015. Dikötter, Frank. Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62. Walker & Company, 2010. Gang, Qian. Bandurski, David. “Uneasy silences punctuate 60th anniversary coverage.” China Media Project. 10 Sept. 2009. http://cmp.hku.hk/2009/09/ 10/1740/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2016. Guiness, Bunny. “Correct plant spacing for a fabulous border.” Telegraph. 30 Nov. 2009. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/6692693/Correct-plant- spacing-for-a- fabulous-border.html. accessed 1 Nov. 2016. Jones, Susan. “Fertilizer Burn.” American Orchid Society 2008. http://www.aos.org/orchids/orchid-pests-diseases/fertilizer-burn.aspx. Accessed 1 Nov. 2016. Lardy, R. Nicholas; Fairbank, K. John. "The Chinese economy under stress, 1958–1965.” The People's Republic, Part 1: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1949–1965, edited by Li, Zhi-Sui.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Famines in the USSR and China a Comparative Analysis
    Political Famines in the USSR and China A Comparative Analysis ✣ Andrea Graziosi This article provides a comparative analysis of two of the twentieth century’s largest political famines, which deeply influenced the history of the two largest Communist states, as well as—albeit indirectly—their posture and behavior in the international arena.1 The time frame is defined by Iosif Stalin’s Great Turning Point (GTP) and Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward (GLF) and the crises they caused, that is, 1928–1934 in the Soviet Union and 1958–1962 in China. However, I have extended the coverage backward to account for what I term the “hidden” five-year plan launched in 1925, which led to the crisis of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the Soviet Union, and the Socialist High Tide (SHT) and its failure in China (1955–1956). I have also extended the chronological hori- zon forward to include at least some of the long-term consequences of these avoidable tragedies, analyzing their impact on subsequent Soviet and Chinese history.2 The article presents an in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences between these two events, offering sufficient detail about each famine to allow for meaningful comparisons. Because comparative studies of the two events are recent and few in number, my contribution is difficult to position among them. As usually happens when a new field is opened, all of the recent com- parative studies are useful.3 Readers interested in my view of the much wider, 1. In addition to the 1931–1933 Soviet famine cluster and the Chinese catastrophe of 1958–1962, two other Soviet famines occurred (in 1921–1922, caused at least in part by civil war requisitions; and 1946–1947).
    [Show full text]
  • Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball
    Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball Monthly Review, September 2006 Over the last 25 years the reputation of furnaces” (small‐scale steel furnaces built in Mao Zedong has been seriously undermined by rural areas). ever more extreme estimates of the numbers of Mao admitted that problems had occurred deaths he was supposedly responsible for. In his in this period. However, he blamed the majority lifetime, Mao Zedong was hugely respected for of these difficulties on bad weather and natural the way that his socialist policies improved the disasters. He admitted that there had been welfare of the Chinese people, slashing the level policy errors too, which he took responsibility of poverty and hunger in China and providing for. free health care and education. Mao’s theories Official Chinese sources, released after also gave great inspiration to those fighting Mao’s death, suggest that 16.5 million people imperialism around the world. It is probably this died in the Great Leap Forward. These figures factor that explains a great deal of the hostility were released during an ideological campaign towards him from the Right. This is a tendency by the government of Deng Xiaoping against the that is likely to grow more acute with the legacy of the Great Leap Forward and the apparent growth in strength of Maoist Cultural Revolution. However, there seems to movements in India and Nepal in recent years, be no way of independently, authenticating as well as the continuing influence of Maoist these figures due to the great mystery about movements in other parts of the world.
    [Show full text]