Communism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==== China ==== After the [[Chinese Civil War]], [[Mao Zedong]] and the [[Chinese Communist Party]] came to power in 1949 as the [[Nationalist government]] headed by the [[Kuomintang]] fled to the island of Taiwan. In 1950β1953, China engaged in a large-scale, undeclared war with the United States, South Korea, and United Nations forces in the [[Korean War]]. While the war ended in a military stalemate, it gave Mao the opportunity to identify and purge elements in China that seemed supportive of capitalism. At first, there was close cooperation with Stalin, who sent in technical experts to aid the industrialization process along the line of the Soviet model of the 1930s.{{sfn|Brown|2009|pp=179β193}} After Stalin's death in 1953, relations with Moscow souredβMao thought Stalin's successors had betrayed the Communist ideal. Mao charged that Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]] was the leader of a "revisionist clique" which had turned against Marxism and Leninism and was now setting the stage for the restoration of capitalism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gittings |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=259WHxBah2wC&pg=PA40 |title=The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=9780191622373 |page=40 |author-link=John Gittings}}</ref> The two nations were at sword's point by 1960. Both began forging alliances with communist supporters around the globe, thereby splitting the worldwide movement into two hostile camps.<ref>{{cite book |last=Luthi |first=Lorenz M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dl4TRDxqexMC&pg=PA94 |title=The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-1400837625}}</ref> Rejecting the Soviet model of rapid urbanization, Mao Zedong and his top aide [[Deng Xiaoping]] launched the [[Great Leap Forward]] in 1957β1961 with the goal of industrializing China overnight, using the peasant villages as the base rather than large cities.{{sfn|Brown|2009|pp=316β332}} Private ownership of land ended and the peasants worked in large collective farms that were now ordered to start up heavy industry operations, such as steel mills. Plants were built in remote locations, due to the lack of technical experts, managers, transportation, or needed facilities. Industrialization failed, and the main result was a sharp unexpected decline in agricultural output, which led to mass famine and millions of deaths. The years of the Great Leap Forward in fact saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1961 being the only years between 1953 and 1983 in which China's economy saw negative growth. Political economist [[Dwight H. Perkins (economist)|Dwight Perkins]] argues: "Enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all. ... In short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster."<ref>{{cite book |last=Perkins |first=Dwight Heald |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cVywAAAAIAAJ |title=China's economic policy and performance during the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath |publisher=[[Harvard Institute for International Development]] |year=1984 |page=12 |author-link=Dwight H. Perkins (economist)}}</ref> Put in charge of rescuing the economy, Deng adopted pragmatic policies that the idealistic Mao disliked. For a while, Mao was in the shadows but returned to center stage and purged Deng and his allies in the [[Cultural Revolution]] (1966β1976).<ref>{{cite book |last=Vogel |first=Ezra F.|title=[[Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China]] |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2011 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3IaR-FxlA6AC&pg=PA40 40]β[https://books.google.com/books?id=3IaR-FxlA6AC&pg=PA42 42] |author-link=Ezra Vogel}}</ref> The [[Cultural Revolution]] was an upheaval that targeted intellectuals and party leaders from 1966 through 1976. Mao's goal was to purify communism by removing pro-capitalists and traditionalists by imposing [[Maoist]] orthodoxy within the [[Chinese Communist Party]]. The movement paralyzed China politically and weakened the country economically, culturally, and intellectually for years. Millions of people were accused, humiliated, stripped of power, and either imprisoned, killed, or most often, sent to work as farm laborers. Mao insisted that those he labelled [[Revisionism (Marxism)|revisionists]] be removed through violent [[class struggle]]. The two most prominent militants were Marshall [[Lin Biao]] of the army and Mao's wife [[Jiang Qing]]. China's youth responded to Mao's appeal by forming [[Red Guard]] groups around the country. The movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist party leadership itself. It resulted in widespread factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials who were accused of taking a "[[capitalist road]]", most notably [[Liu Shaoqi]] and [[Deng Xiaoping]]. During the same period, Mao's [[personality cult]] grew to immense proportions. After Mao's death in 1976, the survivors were rehabilitated and many returned to power.{{sfn|Brown|2009}}{{page needed|date=June 2022}} Mao's government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, [[Laogai|prison labour]], and mass executions.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Johnson (writer) |date=5 February 2018 |title=Who Killed More: Hitler, Stalin, or Mao? |url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/05/who-killed-more-hitler-stalin-or-mao/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205193203/https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/05/who-killed-more-hitler-stalin-or-mao/ |archive-date=5 February 2018 |access-date=18 July 2020 |website=The New York Review of Books}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{cite book |last=Fenby |first=Jonathan |url=https://archive.org/details/modernchinafallr00fenb/page/351/mode/2up |title=Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present |publisher=[[Penguin Group]] |year=2008 |isbn=978-0061661167 |pages=351 |author-link=Jonathan Fenby}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Schram |first=Stuart |author-link=Stuart R. Schram |date=March 2007 |title=Mao: The Unknown Story |journal=[[The China Quarterly]] |issue=189 |pages=205 |doi=10.1017/s030574100600107x |s2cid=154814055}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Evangelista |first=Matthew A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9IAfLDzySd4C&q=80+million |title=Peace Studies: Critical Concepts in Political Science |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0415339230 |pages=96 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> Mao has also been praised for transforming China from a [[semi-colony]] to a leading world power, with greatly advanced literacy, women's rights, basic healthcare, primary education, and life expectancy.<ref name="Bottelier">{{Cite book |last=Bottelier |first=Pieter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YMhUDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA131 |title=Economic Policy Making In China (1949β2016): The Role of Economists |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2018 |isbn=978-1351393812 |pages=131 |quote=We should remember, however, that Mao also did wonderful things for China; apart from reuniting the country, he restored a sense of natural pride, greatly improved women's rights, basic healthcare and primary education, ended opium abuse, simplified Chinese characters, developed pinyin and promoted its use for teaching purposes. |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pantsov |first1=Alexander V. |url= |title=Mao: The Real Story |last2=Levine |first2=Steven I. |date=2013 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |isbn=978-1451654486 |location= |page=574}}</ref><ref name="Galtung">{{cite book |last1=Galtung |first1=Marte KjΓ¦r |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qqqDBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA189 |title=49 Myths about China |last2=Stenslie |first2=Stig |date=2014 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=978-1442236226 |page=189}}</ref><ref name="PopulationStudies2015">{{cite journal |last1=Babiarz |first1=Kimberly Singer |last2=Eggleston |first2=Karen |display-authors=etal. |date=2015 |title=An exploration of China's mortality decline under Mao: A provincial analysis, 1950β80 |journal=[[Population Studies (journal)|Population Studies]] |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=39β56 |doi=10.1080/00324728.2014.972432 |pmc=4331212 |pmid=25495509 |quote=China's growth in life expectancy at birth from 35β40 years in 1949 to 65.5 years in 1980 is among the most rapid sustained increases in documented global history.}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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