Introduction
Much has been written by Chinese historians and
international political experts about Mao Zedong and Chinese revolutions that
entirely changed and shaped China, and reassessing Mao Zedong by the CCP
(Chinese Communist Party) he ran for more than four decades was unavoidable but
necessary at the start of post Mao-era because of the unthinkable experiences
of cultural revolution. In assessing Comrade Mao Zedong, it is likewise
important to neglect highlighting the significant portions of his ideological
influence in the Chinese Community as a whole, beyond the concrete resolution
of why the party came up with a conclusion that he was 70 per cent right and 30
per cent wrong. Still, many are wondering why human development in China is skyrocketing
and economists, along with the strategists rush to predict that China’s economic
power will exceed those of the United States of America in the near future. On
the other hands, historians come to point out the root cause of today's fashion
of China. It is thus assumed that Mao Zedong was the right man to put in the
list of who laid the foundation on which this great nation is constructed. More
precisely, once commencing the post-Mao era, it was essential for the party
critically analyzing and assessing of what Chairman Mao had succeeded and
failed in such a way that they would be capable to take lessons in order to
move forward, unlike the paths administered during the Cultural Revolution
(1966-1976), which damaged the image of the party and haunted the people with
great fear. The party was in need for a
robust leadership and determined not to duplicate the same mistakes as in
yesteryears.
As such, discussion of China’s transformation must
include a comparison of influence of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. However, between
1949 and 1976, Mao Zedong unified China militarily and politically. With that
strong change successfully cemented, China’s economic growth was relatively
inhabited for almost three decades. For it was under Mao’s leadership that
China instituted and strengthened the centrally planned bureaucratic, economic
controls (Raphael Shen 2000). Touching on the unequivocal achievement of Mao
Zedong and how he became an iconic leader of the country populous with more
than a billion in population from a rural setting, asking a variety of
questions worth our pausing to examine what was behind Mao Zedong. This essay,
however, will look at the concise history of Mao Zedong in the following domains;
such as, the gigantic achievements and initiatives, ideological transformation,
party principles and economic platforms, public perception towards Mao and CCP
and evaluation upon the CCP’s assessment in 1981.
Mao Zedong’s Initiatives and Achievement
In view of the general historical picture of China in
early periods of the 20th century, Mao Zedong came in the right time to trigger
revolution movement to fight against Western imperialism while China was too
much vulnerability to western colonization or settlement. To markedly describe
the principal shapes of his outstanding achievements, Long March (1934-35) in
which Mao Zedong became a prominent leader of CCP, the Yan’an years (1935-45),
defeating imperialist Japan in alliance with Guomindang forces and defeating
Guomindang (Nationalist Party), creating the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
in 1949, successful resistance during Korean wars in 1950-53, revolutions
within the party itself and unifying the nation of great diversity where the
main incomparable victory all of which ensured he effectively consolidated the
power until the end of his days. On the contrary, the party system
itself under Mao’s leadership rewarded him with iconic
status elsewhere (Andrew Ross 2005) that automatically paved the way for sheer
power.
Paradoxically, it is good to understand the notion of
an all-round dictatorship (Michael Dutton 2005) system legitimized by the party
and that provided not just the means to achieve change, but also strengthened
notions of state sovereignty which it was ceded to the Chairman. Of great
importance to the Chairman was the fact that Chairman Mao was bestowed with
ultimate power by which he engineered revolutions, including cultural
revolution, he believed, was dying as Mao had said in the past that it was
necessary to set fire every few years to keep the revolution alive (Jonathan
Spence 1999) because he steadfastly believed that revolution itself cannot die
but move always forward. Between the founding of the People’s Republic of China
in 1949 and Mao’s death in 1976, Maoism became the inspiration and hope of a
range of anti-colonial movements worldwide and was taken up enthusiastically by
many revolutionary hopefuls even in the western world (Michael Lynch
2002).
Ideological Remolding and Influence
One of the key parts of Mao Zedong’s success in
ideological remolding was embedded in the party constitution called Mao Zedong
Thought which was popularly recognized in the west as Maoism and that
represented the signification of Marxism-Leninism, the applications of its
universal principles to the specific conditions of China (Fairbank, John King
& Goldman, Merle 2006). This trajectory is followed by the early Thought
Reform (1942-44) designed to intensively indoctrinate in loyalty to a Communist
organization (Edwin E. Moise 2008) in which the reform of the inner self, the
thoughts, conscience, the morality and philosophy of the individual was the
objective of the campaign (Morcome, Margot & Fielding, Mark 1999). As
mentioned supra, all various organs of the party (CCP) as easily as the people
was unquestionably influenced by his ideological orientation prowess. Quite
aside from numerous other achievements, the dominant factors in this regard,
coupled by the immense gathering of Red Guards holding up Little Red book in
Tianan’men square in 1966 and CCP (Rebecca E. Karl 2010) construes Mao Zedong
Thought dogmatically, was relatively obvious. In this respect, Andrew Ross
cleverly figures out in terms of Mao’s influence over political, economic and
cultural setting that Mao Zedong Thought is still a required course in
university curriculum (Andrew Ross 2005).
Party Principles and Economic Foundations Laid out
In understanding the system of communist China,
leaders of CCP continually implemented core principles in line with the
foundations laid out by Chairman Mao Zedong and agreed that China must adhere
to the sacred “Four Principles”—dictatorship of the proletariat, democratic
centralism, the leadership of the party, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Thought
(Lucian W. Pyne 1988). And the core principle of CCP is indeed crystal clear
socialism, which is foundational to the legitimacy of the CPC, central party
congress as is the legacy of Maoist thought with its roots in Marxist-Leninist
doctrine (Davin Joshi 2012). Yet, when it comes to the economy, it was
recorded, however flawed, that the Maoist economy is nonetheless the record of
an era when the basic foundations for modern industrialism were laid (Maurice
Meisner 1999), including long-term vista plan and five-year plan (FYP) (Raphael
Shen 2000). Therefore, the economic legacy would be, as was revealed, the value
of gross industrial output grew thirty-eight-fold during the Mao period, and
that of heavy industry ninety-fold, albeit starting from a tiny modern industrial base whose output had been
halved by the ravages of foreign invasion and civil war (Maurice Meisner 1999
pp.413, 415). So, earlier struggles since Yan’an periods that produced embracing all people and party formation
gradually grew and became vital in party history.
Public Perception Towards Mao and CCP
So deeply was Mao Zedong’s influence embedded in the
minds as well as consciousness of people that people are sated with sorrow and
dread when heard of the somber announcement of the death of Chairman Mao on
September 9, 1976 (Rebecca E. Karl 2010). To quote from John K. Fairbank’s
observation during his visit to China in 1972, “The Maoist revolution is on the
whole the best thing that has happened to the Chinese people in centuries”
(Arthur Waldron 2005). This view discursively reflects how the people adored
Mao Zedong and his leadership. But after years were gone by, the Chinese today see
their system as unambiguously hierarchical with the CCP clearly in charge: “The
party committee waves its hand [hui shou],
the government gets to work [dong shou],
the people’s congress standing committee votes [ju shou], and the people’s consultative congress claps [pai shou]” (Susan L. Shirk 1993).
Evaluation Upon the CCP’s Assessment: Critical and
Authoritative
The reassessment was a must-to-do from the party due
to the capital loss sustained by the entire nation, tracing the great famine
from the effects of the cultural revolution. Yet, taking all contributions into
account, it is probably unacceptable to fail to count, as for the party, the
achievements of Chairman Mao Zedong in ways of party formation, unifying the
land, economic platforms being constructed, ideological transformation.
Reasoning from the general to the particular based on several accounts of
cultural revolution and Mao Zedong, the resolution of the Sixth Plenum of the
11th Central Committee of 27 June, 1981 played a vital role and
getting the most authoritative statement from Beijing that the Cultural
Revolution was initiated and led by Comrade Mao Zedong, and furthermore, the
indictment holds that Comrade Mao Zedong’s prestige reached a peak and he began
to get arrogant. The party insisted that Comrade Mao Zedong was a great
proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theorist. In spite of making gross
mistakes during the Cultural Revolution, his contributions to the Chinese
revolution far outweigh his mistakes (Lucian W. Pye 1986). This resolution, to
some extent, surprised the Chinese public. No matter what happened, Mao Zedong
Thought, which is his guidelines and disciplines, had to be reinforced (David S.
G. Goodman 1981), although his mistakes
could be criticized in a speech delivered by Deng Xiaoping during the party’s
sixth plenum in 1981. On a deeper level, David continued to argue that Mao was
both the cause and the solution for the revolutions.
Personal Perspective
It was distressing for China that the stacks of
millions of people were massacred during Mao Zedong’s rein in power,
particularly from 1949 to 1976. Nevertheless, always controversial as a
cultural revolution was, the official line remains ambivalent in stressing the
“good” sides of Mao even during the Cultural Revolution. As discussed in Arif
Dirlik (2012) that Mao made serious leftist errors, but they were exacerbated
by the behind-the-scenes machinations of Gang of fours, led by Jiang Qing, wife
of Mao Zedong. In search of personality, it was unlike other communist state leaders
that Mao Zedong implemented party-based creation of succession, although it was
Mao’s selection, giving the party leadership to Hua Guofeng by leaving word;
“With you in charge, I am at ease” (Trevor Sowdon 2009), while other
international communist countries, such as Cuba, North Korea and Romania are
still inclined with family-based succession (Ding Dong 2012), while his
fiercest rival, Chiang Kai-shek passed state power to his son. The party, CCP
had had thoroughly examined Mao Zedong and his single-handedly run-revolutions,
and it is clear that today-China might not perhaps be seen as it is without Mao
Zedong. According to Lucian W. Pye (1981), he said that it is inconceivable without the
horrendous events of that period that post-Mao China could have deviated as
much as it has not only from the Soviet model of communism but also from any
known concept of communism. Although yet almost the entire citizens were
agonizingly suffering from the reverberations of the revolutions during the
periods of Mao Zedong in power, it appears for today's generation leaders that
the bumpy road was already established. That the party during 1981 could have
the concerted consensus that his contributions to the nation far outweighed
therefrom.
In conclusion, leading away from Long March,
ideological campaign during Yan’an years, creating People Republic of China
(PRC), economic reforms, defeating Guomindang, resistance in Korean wars to the
revolutions waged within the party are the authentication of his incomparable
achievements. Even so, it should be acknowledged that there are a number of
people who still considered him as cruel dictator and given a severe criminal
offense for the butchery of millions of his owned citizens on the other hand.
Mao Zedong for the party was hailed as the true leader for the sake of the
country; China—eradicating archaic gentry-landlord class from historical scene
and liberating the great bulk of the Chinese people from ancient styles of
economic development and social subjugation. Overall, this would be one of many
reasons that involved in party decision making—not to repudiate Mao Zedong, but
instead, keep his guidelines and teachings in the bloodline of CCP leadership
at stake.
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