MAOS CONTRIBUTION TO THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 1949-1976 - Essay Example

? Mao’s contribution to the Chinese revolution 1949-1976 MAO’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 1949-1976 At the end of the civil war, the Chinese communist party took over. The party had led a revolution called the communist revolution; however, this was a communist revolution of a different sort. The revolution was a pleasant one; it literally meant the “property less class” and included the landless and poor peasants. Secondly, the communist party of the Chinese acquired power as the head of the army. The army and the party were deeply fused in the revolutionary China in a manner that had never been witnessed with other regimes of communists. Two wars were fought against the nationalist Chinese rivals and against the Japanese. Up to today, the relationship present between the army and the Chinese people has managed to remain complicated and closely entwined. The late 1960’s was the worst time in the Cultural Revolution. The leadership of the party over and army gave way to a military rule. This paper assesses Mao’s contribution to the Chinese revolution 1949-1976. Mao Zedong is counted among the most momentous political actors of the modern world history. He was an acknowledged leader of the world’s most popular revolution. He remained a dominant figure even in the post revolutionary regime for almost half a century. He presided over the beginning of the modern industry transformation of the most populous land in the world. He influenced the lives of many people through his virtues, power, personality, thought and policies (Lynch, 2002 p12). Mao’s father was a rich peasant; he was born in Hunan province in the village of Shaoshan on the 28th of December 1893. In his early years, there was the rapid disintegration of the old imperial Chinese order; revolutionary movements and radical, reformist movements were on the rise. Ideologies and ideas that were being introduced were undermining the faith that Chinese people had on their beliefs and traditional values. As a young man, Mao studied deeply classical Chinese texts. However, he also became caught up in the iconoclastic intellectual and radical political currents that were sweeping the Chinese cities in the years that preceded and followed the revolution of the year 1911 in which the imperial system was overthrown. He was a student at the normal and middle schools in the capital province of Changsha in the years from 1913 to the year 1918. He eagerly assimilated a broad range of ideas from the west; he briefly pursued a career as a teacher before embarking on his lifelong career as a political organizer (Dittmer, 1996 p23). He established the “ new people’s study society”, which was one of the most important groups found locally, these groups proved to be so ideologically and politically instrumental in the making of “May fourth” radical movement of the year 1919. While, in Changsha, Mao became involved with a magazine called the “new youth”. This magazine was very critical in molding of ideas of a whole generation of the modern Chinese intellectual and political leaders. Mao became deeply involved in this magazine to the extent that he first published an article, which appeared in the year 1917 (Spence, 1999 p90). Late in the year 1918, he left Changsha for Beijing. University in Beijing had become the center for radical Chinese political and intellectual life. Mao became extremely politicized following the influence of the radical intellectuals and the group of activist student followers. He was not able to enroll as a regular student; he found work as an assistant librarian at the university and was introduced to Marxist theory during the winter of the years 1918-1919. He later became a member of the loosely organized Marxist group. However, he did not immediately convert to Marxism. He returned to Changsha in the summer of 1919 this was under the influence of radical and fierce nationalistic currents that were rising in china. He began to gain interest in the political messages of the Russian revolution and the accompanying Leninist version of Marxism (Spence, 1999 p90). The rise of Mao to party leadership, occurred in the mid 1930’s and was accomplished only after a very long and bitter struggle against a fraction of the Chinese communists, who had support from Moscow and were in direct defiance of Stalin. During the Stalinist era of the communist movement of the world, Mao was the only, communist party leader who gained the status of a party eldership without the blessing of the soviet dictator. A heroic and decisive phase in the history of the Chinese communist revolution was in no doubt his finest hour as a leader and military strategist (Lu, 1994 p555). Under the leadership, of Mao, and through the combination of social revolutionary programs and popular nationalist, the party of the Chinese communists won the popular support among the peasant of northern China. This formed the essential basis that they required for their victory over the nationalists. During the era, of Yanan, the distinctive variant of the Chinese in the Marxism-Leninism crystallized to form a formal body of doctrine. Powerful populists and nationalist impulses marked this ideology; these had greatly modified the inherited corpus in the Marxist-Leninist theory (Dittmer, 1996 p73). Those were some of the essential ideological and intellectual preconditions of the Chinese revolution. This revolution took the unprecedented form of extracting the revolutionary energies of the peasant farmers in the countryside to take over the conservative cities. In that, unique revolution process, with Mao Zedong as its leader, cumulated in 1949 when the numerous superior armies of the nationalists were defeated by the Red army. The peasant army of soldiers marched into the cities, for the liberation of the urban working citizen’s class that had been passively political since they were defeated in the year 1927. From that last victory, the people’s republic of China was officially formed on 1st October 1949. This unified China after a painful century of humiliation and disintegration. In the year 1949, their leader Mao Zedong stood at the top of the gate of heavenly peace he appeared to the Chinese people to be both a socialist and a national liberator (Lynch, 2002 p11). Mao Zedong dominated history of the new republic for much of a quarter of that century. This was until his death on the September of 1976, and he had dominated the history associated with the rural-based revolution, which had produced a new communist party-state. Most of what is distinctive and unique about the specific events and the general pattern of the prerevolutionary history of turbulent China is credited to the leadership of Mao Zedong. It is so rare in history to find an entire historical era so deeply stamped by a single individual. When one considers the policies and the thoughts of the leader Mao Zedong during the “Mao era”, one is struck by the enduring themes that are evident throughout his reign as a leader. It was a period that was animated with the notion of a “permanent revolution”, though the Maoist theory of continuous revolution had not been set forth as a part of the “Mao Zedong thought” until the year 1958 (Lee, 1979 p59). Essential components of the notion were evident from the beginning. It was impatience with a history that had expressed itself in an ambivalent attitude towards an assumption by the Marxists that capitalism was presupposed by socialism. It was a burning determination to pass safely through the “stages” of history that were Marxist defined in the most rapid fashion possible. It was the ardent faith that the people had armed themselves with proper spirit, will and believed that they could use this to mold the social reality. This was in accordance with the dictation by their conscience, and it was regardless of the circumstances, which they found themselves. They also had a tendency to take advantage of backwardness for the advancement of socialism. This notion was extreme expression in the celebration of Mao’s alleged Chinese virtues (Hinton, 2004 p55). The most distinguished feature of post-revolutionary Mao Zedong was the unique and historical attempt to try to reconcile with the means of modern economic development. When coming to the end of socialism, Mao emphasized on the continuous socialist transformation of the citizens of China and their social relations. This was essential in the modern economic development that was to achieve a socialist outcome. The social radicalism was responsible for the adventures of the Cultural Revolution and the cultural leap. Moa Zedong historically and morally bears the responsibility for the toll of suffering and death that took place because of the revolutionary events though those events were not intentional (Fenby, 2008 p2). The Maoist social radicalism had also served in installing the Stalinist institutionalization of the prerevolutionary order of China and keeping alive hope, which the people had in the realization of the ultimate socialist goals that the revolution had promised. It kept the pre-evolution order in a flux, and this provided the successors with considerable flexibility in the charting for a new course of development (Dittmer, 1996 p256). Mao’s era in the history of the People’s Republic is one that is filled with very turbulent times of modern history. This time remains one of the most controversial periods. The political passions, which have engendered from the era, have subsided, and most of the future historians are very likely to evaluate him more in the fashion that he is now portrayed by his successors. He is lauded as the greatest nationalist of modern China, and the leader of a revolution in which the enduring achievement had been to bring independence and national unification into the most populous land in the world. He is seen as a great modernizer, who in spite of the post-evolutionary blunders led over an initial modern transformation in the industry of one the once economic deprived lands in the world. He inoculated a long process that eventually made China a great world power. References Dittmer L. (1996). The Chinese Cultural Revolution revisited. Journal of Contemporary China, 255-268. Fenby J. (2008). The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power. Penguin ISBN 0141020091 , parts 2&3. Hinton W. (2004). On the Role of Mao Zedong'. Monthly Review , 50-59. Lee HY. (1979). 'Mao's Strategy for Revolutionary Change: A Case Study of the Cultural Revolution. China Quarterly, 77 , 50-73. Lynch M. (2002). Mao Zedong: Liberator or Oppressor of China. History Review, 10-15. Spence J. (1999). The Search for Modern China. ISBN 0393973514: Norton. Xiuyuan, L. (1994). A Step Toward Understanding Popular Violence in China's Cultural Revolution. Pacific Affairs, 67(4) , 533-563. Read More