Mao's Last Revolution

by Michael Schoenhals and Roderick MacFarquhar

Book Overview

The Cultural Revolution was a watershed event in the history of the People's Republic of China, the defining decade of half a century of communist rule. Before 1966, China was a typical communist state, with a command economy and a powerful party able to keep the population under control. But during the Cultural Revolution, in a move unprecedented in any communist country, Mao unleashed the Red Guards against the party. Tens of thousands of officials...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674027485
• ISBN13: 9780674027480
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 752 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The perils of ideology

Is there anything that is more over-valued than ideological purity? What happens when circumstances change? Rational people change approach to fit circumstances, stupid people are afraid of flip flopping (whatever that is) and stay the course no matter what. Common sense is not always all that common. Common sense was in short supply during the time of Chairman Mao's Great Cultural Revolution and the victim of ideological purity is always the common people. The Cultural Revolution came soon on the heels of the "Great Leap Forward" which itself lead to widespread famine, starvation, and countless acts of individual terror against the very people who could have provided some improvement to their circumstances. The failure of Mao's ideas in the late 50s and the horrors it inflicted on the Chinese people lead to the rise in power of both Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaping who were pragmatists and who wanted to undo some of the more glaring errors of Mao's programs. Deng made the statement that it did not matter what colour the cat as long as it catches mice. Such intelligent and pragmatic thinking was an anathema to an ideologist like Mao, however as the authors point out this was only a portion of the motivation behind the Great Cultural Revolution. Mao feared revision for three main reasons, that he could be sidelined from real power by Liu and Deng (much as Khrushchev was following his policy failures) was the first of these, followed by concerns arising the Sino Soviet split. He was willing the sacrifice the well-being of his country to satisfy an ideological whim Once Liu was gone and Deng sidelined, the people at the heart of the cultural revolution came under Mao's scrutiny leading to the minister of defense, Lin Biao's unsuccessful flight to the Soviet Union. Deng was back in 1973 and then he wasn't in 1975. In the end it was the leaders of the Great Cultural Revolution who were arrested, the so-called Gang of Four (which included Mao's wife and her cronies from Shanghai). These people were surprised when the country expressed delight at their passing. Ideologues are always among the most self delusional of people. This book by Roderick Macfarquhar and Michael Schoenhals aside from going over familiar ground also adds considerably to the understanding of this disastrous period in Chinese history in which experts were beaten and humiliated, temples were razed and no one was sure quite what was going on. Where new ground is established is largely over the role of Zhou Enlai, which was less activist than is currently portrayed in official histories. This is likely to be the definitive study of the subject until the archives in Beijing are opened for extensive inspection. Although Mao did view the Great Cultural Revolution as one of his great accomplishments it is not quite sure what was accomplished and why if any of the results should be considered praise worthy. Were Mao to have won his battle with history to maintain China in a state o

Great Accessible Book on a Hard Topic

This was a wonderfully easy to read book that gave me a much better perspective into the events and intrigues of the Cultural Revolutions. MacFarquhar and Schoenhals do a fantastic job of explaining the detailed events of this tumultuous time period while simultaneously providing the bigger picture. They also remain objective, but also hypothesize to the detail of some activities to which we still have limited information. Overall--a wonderfully written history of the Cultural Revolution that helps to explain a pivotal period that has deeply shaped China today.

At last the truth

At the time the Cultural Revolution(GPCR) was thought to have resulted from Mao being moved out of power. It was his attempt to destroy the existing elite and to take back the reigns. However now the judgment is in. Mao was never out of power the GPCR was simply an act of pure insanity which resulted in countless deaths, the loss of a years production and the destruction of countless archeological treasures. The aim was some notion in the mind of Mao that China might drift into revisionism. For that reason it was necessary to create a situation of civil war in which students closed the universities and large cities drifted into orchestrated civil wars. In the end the result was that the GPCR and Great Leap forward were such acts of lunacy that communism was totally discredited as an ideology or a value system in China. Whilst the Communist Party continues to hold power it is totally pragmatic in its approach to economics and China has evolved into a dynamic market economy. Not only is China a market economy but the years of disruption have led to a morality of total materialism. The end result is that the "cultural revolution" led to the discrediting for ever of the ideas that Mao held sacred. The book is a bit chaotic as it charges a chaotic event. Yet one sees for the first time the reality and enormity of Mao's appalling policies and misrule. Even recent biographies perhaps over rationalize a man who was not only ruthless but clearly deluded.

Mao Zedong: master Machiavellian, mad Marxian

Mao Zedong, a utopian Marxist philosopher, who was Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, was appalled at Khrushchev's post-Stalinist "revisionism". But he was furthermore alarmed when the Soviet central party apparatus deposed Khrushchev. Feeling threatened, Mao reacted against his own strong centralized party. Unlike Stalin who in the 1930's merely purged the old Bolsheviks from the upper ranks of the Soviet Communist Party, Mao set out to destroy the Chinese central party apparatus itself with his "great disorder under heaven", as he called his Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. Mao fully expected that a new party would spontaneously emerge from the induced violent social chaos. But the chaos was so great that officers of the People's Liberation Army under Lin Biao ended up taking most of the positions in the emergent party apparatus. This controlling role of the army also alarmed Mao. When Mao signaled that Lin would soon be purged, Lin Liguo, Lin Biao's son and senior army officer, hatched a conspiracy to assassinate Mao. The attempt was never carried out, but the conspiracy was discovered. Lin Liguo wrote the following description of Mao contained in a document later uncovered: "Today he uses this force to attack that force; tomorrow he uses that force to attack this force. Today he uses sweet words and honeyed talk to those whom he entices, and tomorrow he puts them to death for some fabricated crimes. Those who are his guests today will be his prisoners tomorrow. "Looking back at the history of the past few decades, [do you see] anyone whom he has supported initially who has not finally been handed a political death sentence? "Is there a single political force which has been able to work with him from beginning to end? His former secretaries have either committed suicide or been arrested. His few close comrades-in-arms or trusted aids have also been sent to prison by him.... "He is a paranoid and a sadist. His philosophy of liquidating people is either don't do it, or do it thoroughly. Every time he liquidates someone, he will put them to death before he desists; once he hurts you, he will hurt you all the way, and puts the blame for all bad things on others." (P. 334) Chairman Mao's Great Revolution was more damaging to China than Chairman Mellon's Great Depression was to America. Both produced reversing reactions from their respective extremes: The reaction to the Cultural Revolution was less intervention in the Chinese economy - the revisionist "capitalist road". The reaction to the Great Depression was more intervention in the American economy - Keynesian fiscal policy. This book is probably one of the best chronologies of the Cultural Revolution period in China, until the Chinese Communist Party archives are opened, as occurred after the fall of the party in Russia. Thomas J. Hickey

An enriching pleasure for any history fan

I tore through this book like it was a detective novel, no small recommendation considering that it's a hefty tome with hundreds of pages of notes, sources, glossaries and indices. The Cultural Revolution, as grandiose and awful a spectacle as any produced in the 20th century, abounds with mind-blowing anecdotes and statistics that seem as though they must be sensationalized. MacFarquhar and Shoenhals were actually present for many of the events they write about, and seem to have personally interviewed (or read the diaries of) about half of the GPCR's participants. The end is a magnificent book where every paragraph rings true. The prose is a pleasure. Take this as an example, from a chapter on the Tiananmen incident of 1976: "Arriving in the square, groups held a short ceremony, dedicating themselves to the ideals they attributed to Zhou. Then they joined the throngs reading the individual tributes. By April 1, the tributes crowded the square: Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane. Their ranks were not serried, but in their peaceful and massive profusion they demonstrated solidarity more impressively than the terracotta soldiers of Xi'an." For anyone interested in China, this is a worthy purchase; for students of modern Chinese politics and social development, it is essential.