Mao Zedong: Chinese Communism

Source: Five Prime- Chinese Communist Leader Mao Zedong on communism 

“In which John Green teaches you about China’s Revolutions. While the rest of the world was off having a couple of World Wars, China was busily uprooting the dynastic system that had ruled there for millennia. Most revolutions have some degree of tumult associated with them, but China’s 20th century revolutions were REALLY disruptive. In 1911 and 1912, Chinese nationalists brought 3000 years of dynastic rule to an end. China plunged into chaos as warlords staked out regions of the country for themselves. The nationalists and communists joined forces briefly to bring the nation back together under the Chinese Republic, and then they quickly split and started fighting the Chinese Civil War. The fight between nationalists and communists went on for decades, and was interrupted by an alliance to fight the invading Japanese during World War II. After the World War II ended, the Chinese Civil War was back on. Mao and the communists were ultimately victorious, and Chiang Kai-Shek ended up in Taiwan. And then it got weird. Mao spent years repeatedly trying to purify the Communist Party and build up the new People’s Republic of China with Rectifications, Anti Campaigns, Five Year Plans. the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. These had mixed results, to say the least. John will cover all this and more in this week’s Crash Course World History.” 

Source:Crash Course- talking about the history of Chinese Communism.

From Crash Course 

“In its post-revolutionary period, Mao Zedong Thought is defined in the CPC’s Constitution as “Marxism–Leninism applied in a Chinese context”, synthesized by Mao and China’s “first-generation leaders”. It asserts that class struggle continues even if the proletariat has already overthrown the bourgeoisie and there are capitalist restorationist elements within the Communist Party itself. Maoism provided the CPC’s first comprehensive theoretical guideline with regards to how to continue socialist revolution, the creation of a socialist society, socialist military construction and highlights various contradictions in society to be addressed by what is termed “socialist construction”.

While it continues to be lauded to be the major force that defeated “imperialism and feudalism” and created a “New China” by the Communist Party of China, the ideology survives only in name on the Communist Party’s Constitution as Deng Xiaoping abolished most Maoist practices in 1978, advancing a guiding ideology called “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

From Wikipedia 

North Korea ( or as I call them the Communist Republic of Korea ) is really the last standing among the pure communist states around the world now. They’re the only communist state where everything and all the power in the country is centralized with the Communist Party and central government. The People’s Republic of China, has had a functioning hybrid capitalist economic for about 40 years now, while still maintaining some state-owned industries and they still qualify as a communist state because of their not just lack of free speech and a free press, but they still don’t have free speech or any free press.

The Chinese Communist State, still owns and operates all the domestic media in the country. And of course opposition parties to the Communist Party are still outlawed. But even personal freedom with people being able to move freely around the country and make their own basic personal and even economic decisions for themselves in the country and being able to travel abroad, is on the rise and has been growing in China since they’ve moved in a capitalist first world direction economically and culturally the last 35-40 years.

Mao Zedong, is one of the last of the pure Communists as someone who believed int total state-control of the society and not just the economy to work on behalf of the people so no one would be rich or poor. This is what Communists and Socialists are talking about when they say they want a classless society where no one is rich or poor. And they believe you achieve that by putting the central state in control of all the economic resources of the country. And that everyone would be taken care of as long as they follow the communist rules of society. Meaning you don’t disobey the communist regime and speak out against it or be politically active against it. 

You can also see this post at The Daily Times, on WordPress. 

You can also see this post at The Daily Times, on Blogger.