I'll start off by stating as my thesis that I believe that Marxist-Leninism modified by Mao Zedong Thought (known outside as "Maoism") is the
closest to Communism ever achieved during the Cultural Revolution and now as well as Maoism continues to evolve grass roots democracy within the
People's Republic.
-Maoism is the theory that it is the Peasants not the Urban Proleteriat that are the vangard of the Revolution.
-Maoism differs from Mainstream Marxist-Leninism because of this and as a result of this led to strained relations between the USSR and the PRC and
escalated almost to full scale war during the 70's.
-These differences are also because that due to said emphasis on the peasants the CPC encourages the People to take power within their own hands to
bring down Class Enemies and Counter Revolutionaries inorder to encourage radicalism within the Peasant masses, instead of say, a secret army of
Secret Police to quietly make said enemies disappear.
-Because of this a greater degree of rural freedom and public involvment in politics has been possible allowing for the People to take part local
affaires, policies such as the Gradual Collectivication of the Land during the Great Leap Forward were the result where it was the people voluntarily
leaving towns and small cities by the tens of thousands to form collectives to smelt pig iron in their backyard. (though this had unfortunate and
unforseen results such as the Great Famines during a period of the worst Natural Disasters in Chinese History)
-Today, we see 80% of China's 1 Million Villages holding direct elections for their mayors, thats possibly some 600 million people living free and
democratic lives within the country side allowing for an unprecedented growth in the standard of living in the countryside and with the abolition of
agricultural taxes we will soon see the narrowing of the income gap.
-Revolutionary Zeal in Maoism culminated with the launching the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution where Mao tour down his own CPC institutions to
allow the revolutionary participation of the Masses vs corrupt beareaucratic elements within the government and an experiment in the direct
participation in government affairs by the people.
-Thus Because through Maoism that the People can be inspired to do great feats of enguinity and bravery almost spontaniously and see results within
months if not days, such as the elimination of nearly 99.99% of aids and pests from China and the general education of the population of STD's and an
overal improvement of village healthcare.
-----Criticisms-----
The thing with encouraging the Masses to do these acts is that your virtually playing with Mob rule, which I must say can be alot more grosum then
CPSU ever looked, and when things go wrong they go VERY WRONG VERY FAST. The Cultural Revolution itself went way to far and crossed the line in many
instances such as the destruction of thousands of Buddhist and Cunfucian monestaries and tens of thousands of artifacts were lost in the campaign
against reactionary elements of the 2 religions, (for example earlier interpretations of Confucianism placed the Husband above the Wife, and generally
placed women as inferior, Mao while a traditionalist in many ways and loved his culture and his heritage did not think that women were unequal and
felt that women should be treated as equals and one of the first laws passed with founding of the PRC was Universal Sufferage).
Economics was never Mao's strong point, CC members like Deng Xiaping and Chou En-Lai were undoubtably better suited for economics, though while Mao
has good intentions with his policies and had started many reasonable enterprises (such as gradual voluntary collectization), however the catch was
with its initial success he always felt that he had to GO FARTHER faster and often overdid an enterprise that originally was good enough.
While there was a high death it must be remembered that there are many mitigated circumstances, such as the main difference between the CPSU and the
CPC, NO ONE was starved to death by government orders, the CPC central government in Beijing never starved its own people to death as a matter of
policy. Though I must say that the starvations within the PRC in the 50's could have possibly been prevented with a more coherent system if Mao had
listened to his advisors, these were his major mistakes, but nevertheless, he was a great man who did great things, but he did make some catastrophic
mistakes and took responsibility for it.
I hope this should clear a few things up, if there are any other quests please post them, I've studied alot of history during the Civil War and know
alot of things that people may not know.
(NO MUD THROWING PLEASE, post coherent and rational replies)
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