Bloody Century of China - Research Paper Example

Genocide in China Introduction Mao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary reformist and a Marxist political philosopher. He was born of a moderately wealthy family in 1893. He cofounded the Chinese communist party in 1921, immediately after the collapse of the united front and the nationalist party in 1927. The two parties were the former allies that fought the civil wars until it ended on 1949. The CCP party took leadership in 1945 with Mao as the chairperson of the party and the president of the republic of China1. When he took the power, Mao declared that a revolution was to take place to relinquish the merciless nature of the political system of the country as well as the brutality of Japanese towards china. Mao had an astonishing regard to human life. In the early 1950s Mao reaffirmed that he was very willing to sacrifice up to a third of this country’s population in a nuclear war, if at all this would facilitate bringing a downfall of the world’s capitalism. However, two oppositions met Mao’s declaration. The pro-soviet communists returned from Moscow to work together with the bolshevization of the party. The second opposition was from the urban intellectuals who demanded greater freedoms after realizing the repressive nature of the CCP regime2. Instead, Mao benefitted fr0m this disputed decisions that had decided to engage into a civil war. Mao pushed for a party purge with a main aim of installing a new version of communism. This declaration compelled a few of the dissidents to commit suicide and others brutally killed. Mao pushed for a party purge whose main aim was to install a different version of communism. However, Mao apologized publicly in 1945 for the brutality that the campaign had caused and he set a precedent for future campaigns whether real or imagined. Later Korean engaged in a fight with the United States, which provided a backdrop for the class of warfare against the capitalism in china and abuse of the peasant farmers and workers who had endured the previous brutality in the country. Mao tried to preempt the outburst and released it as a dissatisfying criticism that had no solid background. Despite Mao’s claims, the intellectuals still called for greater freedoms. They organized for ant rightist campaigns in the subsequent years. The leaders of these groups together with the national minorities’ leader underwent persecution and lost their jobs immediately3. They got recommendation to register in the reeducation camps. This incidence led to large number of victims dead whereas others suffered permanent damages on their bodies. Others were absorbed in forced labor and the weak indulged in malnutrition camp. The genocide The greatest loss of life that occurred during Mao’s regime got bases from the deadly spring famine that was named as the Great Forward Leap. The genocide was by far one of the worst genocides in the history of the country. The estimates of the death were four times the number of people who died during the Hitler’s time. The genocide in china occurred between1958 and 1961. During the Great Leap Forward, most of the lives were lost, others were tortured, and many more went missing4. Mao formed a group of anarchist known as the revolutionary army in a bookstore located in Changsha. The cause of the genocide was a misguided economic policy of the Great Leap Forward. This great leap forward was to bring economic reforms but it however failed and instead led to serious economic disruptions. However, chair Mao failed to change in fear to lose his preeminent position in the heated debate about the economic reform in 1959. These debates convinced Mao that the alleged rightists wanted to overturn his government and replace him in the power5. Mao had to react very fast and he crushed these opponents very fast. It was then that he announced the Great Leap Forward late in 1959. However, the Leap collapsed on its own. The records of the killings could not be established until the numbers were determined through demographic data changes in the country. Most historians agree that the number of people who died from the massacre were mo re than 20 million but the higher estimates stand at 65 million. In the Great Leap Forward, china’s peasants had full incorporation in the operation. The whole of farm system was actually functioning. China thus launched the massive steel production campaign in the villages and a collective farming throughout china. This meant to bring China into industrial world within a handful of years. The great leap forward led to massive loss of lives of the people of China. The farmers and the industrialists were the main victims. Mao had designed political purges and campaigns that virtually reflected a wide range of targets. These targets were required to eliminate oppositions that were against his leadership. The Cultural Revolution during the Great Forward Leap was more than a purge although it laid a fundamental political conflict with the Chinese communist party. The catastrophe generated a considerable opposition to Mao’s radical policies from both the peasants and the moderate leaders in the party. The intention of Mao to launch the Great Forward Leap was for it to act as an alternative for the model of economic growth that focused on heavy industry advocated by other in the industry6. The small agricultural collections had basis in this economic program where they were to merge into large communes. The farmers were encouraged to work in large construction production that realized massive products. The unique feature of Mao was that he was uneducated and knew nothing about technology. Having this in mind, Mao advocated for implementation of unproven and other unscientific agricultural techniques. Mao’s aim was however, to win the superior countries. The net result was a compounded drought in some of the areas and floods were prevalent in other areas. These two pandemics left the rural peasants with very little food if any to eat. Therefore, millions of persons starved to death in that famine. It caused deaths of about thirty million Chinese peasants and the same number of unborn and aged7. Many children became emaciated and malnourished if they survived the death. Mao however disputed his knowledge about the incidence. He said that he was not aware of the situation that amounted to millions of deaths. One of the reasons of the genocide was that Mao wanted china to catch up economically with the top western world countries. He wanted to set the country in a pace that was higher than that of world super stars. He wanted china to be in line with the Great Britain. Mao through his government took the land from the farmers due to growth of communism but the country remained to be the main importer. The government instead focused on importation of metal, thus leaving little money for food production. This event led to great famine in china. Many people did not actually accept the rapid reforms but this could not hold water. Most of the county’s citizens died. Mao wanted nothing but change in china in the production level. He also wanted to destroy the Chinese family culture. This was because he claimed that it did not propose his utopian ideas. He held that, such thoughts were in the opposite direction of capitalism and focused on equal distribution a fact that was against Mao’s mode of governorship. This period of reform gained the name of Cultural Revolution and took place between 1966 and 1969. The event left only 30 million people life less. This clearly explains the worst genocide ever in the world. Mao’s Cultural Revolution was the most far-reaching attempt in china against his supposed opponents though poorly understood. However, most of the current politicians have used the same to scrub all that Mao had done. Immediately after the Great Leap Forward, so many leaders expressed their concern about its intended plan. Mao feared to lose his position because of the intervention of many leaders over his leadership inconsistency8. Mao branded the leaders who reported the true intention as right opportunist. A campaign was launched afterwards against the right opportunist. The campaign made peasants to be driven to camps and subsequent deaths. The number of deaths was controversial until the country called for an official census on mid of 1980s. The official census after being analyzed by the central government told it all about the scale of deaths in the country. Consequences The dire intention of Mao to set the Great Leap Forward was that he wanted the economy of china to rival that of major countries like Britain and America by 1980. Out of his tours in china Mao had concluded that Chinese were capable of doing anything but his main target was on agriculture and agriculture. He believed that for in order for the two to grow each must allow the other to grow9. Mao believed that the industry could only grow if the work force was in continuous supply. He also declared that the agriculture workers be supplied with modern tools. Mao reformed the country into immunes in order to achieve the development plan. However, things started going wrong in 1959. The Great Leap Forward brought many challenges. The first was the food shortage (although its caused had facilitation from other natural disasters). There were general shortages of raw materials for the industries and the goods produced were of poor quality10. The rectification of these problems obviously got underway. Political consequences were also part of the downfall where the chairperson of the CCP, Mao, stepped down. Mao bore the chief responsibility over the Great Leap Forward. Liu Shaoqi was elected as the successor of Mao. However, Mao remained as the chair of CCP. Economically china was confronted by total economic collapse. Liu however started reforms that saw the re-adjustment of the economic state of the country. Conclusion The soviet of china has recognition for having the highest killing ever done in the world at a go. Since its insertion, the CCP was fearful of the Chinese society that hampered policies, which even sought to remove the president from the power. Although the CCP had come into power through patriotic means, many citizens doubted its radical programs11. The CCP established a series of savage purges in order to remove the dangerous elements from the Chinese society. Mao had a powerful will to maintain the political power of his country as well as his utopian vision of Chinas communist. He fought to preserve some semblance of his vision. He had a large hidden conspiracy for the recreational of the social classes and the revisionist’s traitors who embarked to restore capitalism. Bibliography Rummel Rudolph, China's Bloody Century, (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers , 2007), 12-270. Jones Adam, Genocide.(New York: Taylor & Francis, 2010), 225-480. Charny Israel, Encyclopedia of Genocide, (California: ABC-CLIO, 2000), 408-718. Morrock Richard, The Psychology of Genocide and Violent Oppression, (California: McFarland, 2010), 109-254. Valentino Benjamin, Final Solutions, (New York: Cornell University Press, 2005), 129-317. Read More