On May 5, 2009, at 7:51 PM, wrobert at uci.edu wrote:
> On the other hand, I feel that I am, by in large, in sympathy with
> the spirit of Doug's comment, which I suspect is a critique of the
> authoritarian nature of the state apparatus that Mao contributed
> considerably to, but that authoritarian structure was linked to a
> very radical project of social transformation, one that continually
> outstripped the material ability of the society to transform.
Yes, that's what I was really talking about. It wasn't just the material ability of the society to transform - there evidently wasn't a whole lot of mass support for the agenda. The ease with which Mao's successors transformed China into a quasi-capitalist state - though obviously not one in the Anglo-Saxon sense - is evidence that his revolution had very shallow roots.
Doug