Mao is Dead -- Be Like Him!

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>Justin Schwartz
>
> > I'm ex sort of quasi-Maoist myself, many years back. We know more than 
>we
> > did then. In those days, lots of reputable info on Maoist China made it
>look
> > better than it was. Mind you, despite his (and the CCP's) crimes,
> > insanities, and errors, the accomplishments of Maoist China were
> > considerable . . .
>
>Yeah, he, like Stalin, brought parts of his country into the modern world,
>fed many while starving others, rewarded those who were not deemed Enemies
>of the State and executed. I concede all that; just like I concede that
>Hitler and the National Socialists helped to pull Germany out of poverty 
>and
>gave the Fatherland a new sense of purpose after the humiliation of
>Versailles. Of course millions perished in the process, though in Mao's 
>(and
>Stalin's) case, the body count was far higher than Nazi Germany's. Yet he's
>seen by some as a hero of the left. Whatever.
>
>DP

Making me out to be a Stalinist apologist is a losing proposition. I'm the 
house liberal democrat, remember? I didn't say the Great Helmsman was or 
should be a hero of the left; I said that the accomplishments of Maoist 
China (I didn't say of Mao) were considerable despite (in that order) 
crimes, insanities, and errors. Your analogy is defective: the CCP (and the 
Chinese people) pulled together a totally undeveloped nation that had been 
devastated by period famine for centuries, that had no functioning 
governing, that had been not mere occupied but torn into balkanized factions 
by predatory factions and greedy warlords. The Party's policies largely 
wiped out famine. There was the disaster after the Great Leap Forward--not 
entirely due to Party insanity and error, as it coincided with an El Nino 
drought--but they learned from that error, and mass starvation was abolished 
in China for the first time _ever_. The Party brought immense advanced to 
women. Unlike the case of Nazi Germany, there was no credible alternative to 
what the Communists offered. I acknowledge that the price was terrible, 
excessive, and awful. I am not sure that it was not justified. What would 
you have recommended in China in 1949?

The most reliable figures I am aware of do not support your death tolls. The 
figures on the Stalin Terror unearthed by Getty suggest that the deaths were 
in the hugh hundreds of thousands. You are doubtless counting in the 
Ukrainian collectivization famine, which probably boots the figures up to 
eight or nine million. Even that is lower that the the acknowledged toll of 
just the Nazi death and labor camps and the Einsatzgruppen (about 12 
million), and why be so nice to the Nazi? Why not blame them for the 25-50 
million, civilian and military (depending on how you count it) who died on 
the Eastern Front? Plus elsewhere. I don't know the latest figures on Maoist 
China, but I don't believe the absurdly high estimates (60 million) touted 
in the right wing press. far as I can tell that balmes every death in China 
under Mao on Maoism. In saying these things I do not, obviously, excuse the 
crimes of Stalin and Mao. But there's no point in exaggerating them; they 
should be charged with the crimes they did commit.

jks

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