Until reading Red Scarf Girl, I believed in that the ideal society could, no, would someday exist. But now I have been convinced otherwise. The youth of China believed that Mao’s purpose of the cultural revolution was to unify and strengthen their country. While this was later discovered to be untrue, they tried to accomplish that by bringing
Document 1 depicts the leader of the Chinese Communist party, Mao Zedong,’s written report that describes peasants’ strong nationalism. His written report uses strong words as “corrupt” and “evil” which describes peasants’ enemies, such as officials and landowners. Mao wanted to uprise the sense of nationalism by mentioning the peasants’ enemies. However, Mao Zedong is the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, so he might exaggerated the state of peasants in order to gain trusts from the peasants. According to document 2, a sense of nationalism is shown in the discussion between a teenaged peasant and his grandfather.
Spence, Jonathan. Mao Zedong: A Life. Reprint Edition. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Jonathan Spence is the Sterling Professor of History at Yale University.
We must uphold the socialist road 2. We must uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat 3. We must uphold the leadership of the communist party 4. We must uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought” (Document 10). This is drastically influenced by Mao
The Communist Party leaders became God like figures in the proletariat society. The building of
The Chinese communist party gained much power after going after and attacking the Kuomintang and its anti communist policies into Taiwan. With the growth of the communist party’s power, the peasant and lower class experienced major influence that would change the course of their lives forever. Chinese peasants and the Chinese communist party between circa 1925 and circa 1950 had a relationship in which the party fostered and cared the state of the people. This created a sense of nationalism and pride for the peasants, while they were advocating social equality, and showing anti-Japanese sentiment. First of all, the Chinese communist party greatly influenced the peasant class in sparking and igniting a sense of nationalistic unity into the
(Mao winning civil war? Command economy, totalitarian society, and Mao cult, How Maoist China actually closed itself off from the world) Economically Mao instituted a program named The Great Leap forward
He knows how powerful they are, and relates the peasants to natural forces of power such as the Hurricane, due to the fact he knows that when millions of people get together, they can be unstoppable. Mao Zedong believes in the peasants and their ability to overthrow people that have been holding them down for so long. Being the leader of the Communist Party is is far more confident with what he is saying, because Zedong believes that he is correct in every aspect of this topic. With an increase of nationalism, the peasants banded together and started forming army-civilian integration units, along with taking up guerrilla warfare. The Japanese found it, “extraordinarily difficult to separate the Communist bandits from the peasants” (Doc 3).
Chairman Mao Zedong’s Great Proletarian Revolution created scarring effects on the Chinese youth of the time. Chairman Mao’s propaganda encouraged the young population to revolt against the old systems, to give up their education and to support and participate in his revolution. Finally, Mao’s policies stripped the youth of their identities and created a generation of mindless and uneducated adults. These actions taken by Mao and his communist government failed to achieve their goals and forced the entire population to suffer through a decade of economic struggle. The youth of China were directly targeted and encouraged by Mao and the Communist government to destroy all old ideas, culture and customs by taking a violent role in the revolution.
In document 1, it displays hatred for the landlords and the nobility, or as Mao Zedong describes them, “evil landowners.” Communism is centered on the equality of classes and the fall of the bourgeoisie class, which creates a hatred for the landlords and the nobility of China. By 1950, many reforms to Chinese laws were made, including many laws that decriminated against landowners and protected the peasant class. The land redistribution and confiscation of wealth and animals are exmaples of the CCP’s prejudice and decrimination against the landlord class (DOC 8). In document 9, the CCP organizes struggle meetings in which peasants could express their previous struggles to their former landlords.
Elimination of Class and the Communist Manifesto As stated earlier, the ideas of Kant were the groundwork for German philosophers to follow, and this was true of Marx and Engels and the idea of communism. Communism is not a hard idea to grasp. Communism is the complete elimination of social classes in a society from a system of Masters (bourgeoisie) and Slaves (proletariat) into a classless system where everyone is equal in every way.
Andre Abi Haidar PSPA 210 INTRODUCTION It is always difficult to write about and discuss Karl Marx, or more importantly the applications of Marx’s theories, due to the fact that he inspired and gave rise to many movements and revolutionaries, not all of which follow his theories to the point. Although Marx tends to be equated with Communism, it might not seem righteous to blame him for whatever shortcomings occurred when his theories were put to the test; Marx passed away well before the revolution in Russia, and he played no role in the emergence of the totalitarian regime at the time. When discussing Marx, however, Vladimir Lenin is one of the biggest highlights when it comes to studying the outcomes of Marx’s theories.
Secondly, the Cultural Revolution and the chaos and disaster this had on the Chinese population, especially through the “Down to the Countryside movement” and finally, the Cult of Mao and what the idolisation and glorification of Mao meant for the future of China. Mao’s introduction of the Great Leap Forward policy and the impacts and effects this had on the Chinese population as well as its role in the introduction of the Cultural Revolution played a key role in shaping China into what it is today. The plan’s failure lead to Mao’s loss of power, which resulted in Mao introducing the Cultural Revolution in China. Unfortunately, Mao’s five-year plan was a disaster, and caused the death of an estimated twenty to forty
During China’s Cultural Revolution, a large proportion of urban youth were forced to go to the countryside as a result of the state’s “send-down” policy (Xie). This experience was distressing for some youngsters as it disrupted ordinary life and the process of educational attainment. Students couldn’t express their opinions or reason with the government’s decision, because they did not dare to question Mao’s authority, therefore they had no other option but to conform to the officials. Mao Zedong was the ultimate figure that impeded the students’ educational and career path. Parental social status or political capital did not spare youths in certain privileged classes from being sent down to the countryside (Xie).
China’s leader Mao implemented a program called Mao’s Great Leap Forward program this program told peasant framers when to plant crops, what to plant and how much to plant. Also peasants were required to turn over a third of their crops for taxed that was meant to feed the cities. In return the presents were made promises from the government such as the commune would provide workers with food, medical care, and other necessities. This contributed to the people starving and going to great lengths to survive such as trading children and killing and eating them, at this time famine was widespread and killing many people in China. Mao ruled for over twenty-seven years and during that time, “he had doomed China’s people to become some of the poorest on the planet”.
