Mao Zedong
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It has been argued that there are essentially two Mao Zedongs. The first Mao was the Communist Party leader prior to 1955-1956 who formulated and implemented policies based on pragmatic experimentation, trial and error, and patient persuasion in accordance with the dictates of "practice" and the "mass line." After 1956, it is asserted that a new Mao, more rigid and dogmatic, impatient and impulsive, and intolerant of criticism and debate emerged. At issue herein is a reconciliation of these two images of Mao. Such a reconciliation emerges from the recognition of the fact that many of the theories and practices of the Chinese revolution as developed by Mao diverged from strict Leninist orthodoxy (Schram, 291). Mao changed over time from a revolutionary leader who was intent on obtaining power to a leader insisting upon permanent revolution in order to retain power. It is this transformation that will be identified as creating what amounts to two different Mao Zedongs, each responsive to changing circumstances. In the period prior to 1955-1956, Mao Zedong (1, 1) emphasized the relationship between knowledge and practice or knowing and doing. Mao believed that Marxists such as himself held that man's social practice alone is the criterion of the truth of his knowledge of the external world. In other words, in Mao's (1, 2) own words, "what actually happens is that man's knowledge is verified only when he achieves the anticipated results in the process of social pra
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he mass line.
Dali Yang (21-22) sees the pre-1955-1956 Maoist program as based upon the Stalinist development model which emphasized investment in industries and saw the rural sector as providing the savings for industrial investment and raw materials for light industry. These savings did not occur and Mao, ever pragmatic, moved from land reform to the commune despite the population's longing for individual farming and land ownership. According to Yang (23), the failure of land reform and communal agriculture led a more dogmatic post-1955-1956 Mao to undertake collectivization in which agricultural growth was not achieved to the extent necessary or desirable. This in turn led Mao to create a cooperativization campaign and a grain procurement campaign that paid little attention to Mao's ideological view of the necessity of convincing the masses that a change was needed (Yang, 28).
In writing about the changes occurring in Mao's policies and regime, Philip Short (544) makes reference not only to the Great Leap Forward, but also to the Cultural Revolution. Here, Mao used violence rather than persuasion. However, Short (544) makes note of the fact that in the 1960s, "violence served the same purpose as it had in the Hunan
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Chang Halliday, Party CCP, Communist Party, Mao Zedong, According Yang, Dali Yang, Edgar Snow, Revolution Mao, Cultural Revolution, Alfred Chan, chang halliday, land reform, mass line, mao 2, leap forward, prior 1955-1956, goals objectives, masses masses, short 544, hunan peasant movement, peasant movement, short 544 makes, mao 2 3, chang halliday 324,
Approximate Word count = 1688
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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