I have differences with Henry Liu, as I have differences with you, and with Brad DeLong. That is normal. The issue is how are those differences managed.
I have signalled some reservations about Henry copying material from BDL to this list because the context of the words or the "thrust" is not clear, but BDL has now stated his position here. I do not think KCHL is the sole representative of the Chinese People and it is true there is a danger of this issue being represented too personally on this list. IMHO.
I happen to think that a broad list is strengthened by contributions from such differing viewpoints as the three of yours.
I suggest in this case you are too inaccurate in your criticisms as well as vulnerable to a charge uncivility.
Perhaps it is uppermost in your mind but my remark
>It is a question of respect for the Chinese people.
was not in the context of personal exchanges between you and HCKL.
I was saying that an issue like the Great Leap Forward cannot fundamentally be analysed only in terms of one man, however great, flawed, or wicked. The dynamic of China's socialisation in the 50's was one in which millions participated and had a momentum of its own, beyond the conscious control of any one individual.
I found myself in wrestling with the arguments, not so much wanting to defend Mao, as wanting to defend the people who had thrown themselves into trying to make steel in their local community. Really in the context of the human race, it was far from silly. What was silly, was Wordsworth imagining in his beautiful poem above Tintern Abbey that the coils of smoke rising from the woods came from a scattered troop of contemplative hermits.
But a marxist theory of human consciousness must imply that it is necessarily always partial and limited.
Chris Burford
London