Mao Zedong`s Dictatorship

By altogether standards, monoamine oxidase Zedong belongs in the company of the few enceinte governmental custody of our century. Born and raised in the obscurity and restrictions of nineteenth-century rural chinaw ar, he travel to assume the attractorship of the Chinese Revolution, rule the largest population in the introduction with the most pervasive and intense government kn possess in history, and eventuall(a)y has clung to life long enough to reach the make it of the political heroes of the great generation of World War II. His life spans the emergence of raw China and his char seconder has shaped the cosmosner and style of the Chinese Revolution.His name has become the label for transformationary extremists end-to-end the world, the monoamine oxidaseists, yet it is monoamine oxidase Zedong with whom drawing cards passim the world seek audiences. The Pope in one day admits to his carriage more people than monoamine oxidase Zedong grants audiences in a year. Whe n Mao last appe ared publicly, more than a million people expressed tumultuous joy, and since thusly the occasions for allowing a select few into his presence permit been saucilysworthy throughout the world.The announcement that the American Secretary of State has had a cope with of hours of discussion with the Chair public is a signal to all that the Secretary has been favored, indeed, recognise and, of course, when a trip to China does not include a go steady with the Chair reality, the universal interpretation is that favor is cosmos withheld.The extraordinary appeal of Mao Zedong is hard to identify. Some may suggest that it lies less in the man and more in the nature of Chinese society, for the Chinese do search compelled to make all of their leaders into imperial figures. Yet, the fact remains that umteen non-Chinese, who have no affinity for his rural origins precisely represent a host of varied social and fibrel backgrounds, seem to find fervor for their polit ical lives in his words and his example. Restless youth scattered throughout the world who have more formal education than he had touch that in his revolutionary ardor and purity he speaks for them.What is the character of the man that lies behind all this greatness? Merely to raise the question is an act of sacrilege for many. For the Chinese and other worshippers of Mao and his thoughts, it is enough to dwell on his public virtues, read only hagiographies, and reject all else as being in bad taste. For his detractors, the whole spectacle is revolting, and Mao the man moldinessiness be the devil behind the Chinese version of socialist totalitarianism. Yet between these extremes there are those who are honestly curious.The public record reveals a man at home in rural China, a man of the peasantry, who knows the myths and folklore of traditional China. Yet, although he received a Confucian education, Mao was a like part of the first full generation of Chinese to explore Hesperian knowledge. From his rural isolation, he moved effectively into the chaotic, competitive world of Chinese student politics and revolutionary scheming. As soldier, ideologist, and contriver, he became the symbolic leader of the Chinese Communist guerrilla struggle. As victorious ruler he was a visionary who looked beyond immediate problems of administration to the goals of a new society and to the molding of a new form of man.The paradox of Mao Zedong is that while his claim to greatness is unassailable, in every specific sphere of influence whether as philosopher, strategist, economic planner, ideologue or even world statesman, his qualities are not the match of his right to greatness. Since Maos greatness lies so clearly in the realm of emotions, the problem of Mao Zedong is a problem in political psychology. To treat Mao merely as an intellectual or as a calculating strategist is to miss the essential dimensions of his historic role. Furthermore, if we are to understand how Mao came to be so successful in mobilizing the feelings of the Chinese, and of others, we must explore his own emotional world and discover the dynamics of his psychical relations with others.As an individual, Mao is intrinsically fascinating. His acts and his words are startling and unexpected. In his conversations he go away bring up the most unlikely subjects wherefore are some Africans more dark-skinned than others? Have not all the advances in medical science only increased the number of diseases? The Chinese people have always known Marxism because they have always appreciated contradictions.A dedicated materialist, Mao can suddenly speak as a conventional believer in the hereafter I shall soon be seeing God (Cheek 124). When we see God, or rather Karl Marx, we impart have to explain much (Cheek 115). At times he has depicted himself as an outstanding hero of Chinese history Yes, we are greater than Chin Shih Huang-ti (Cheek 79). We must look to the present to find our heroes ( Cheek 80).Intrinsic fascination aside, Maos character demands serious compendium because there is much in the history of new-made China that cannot be explained except in terms of Mao Zedongs personality. In the fluid dower of the Chinese Revolution, time and again events and processes took on decisive form in direct response to the personality of Mao Zedong. In stable societies with unassailable institutions the scope for the influence of personality considerations is constrained to the narrow limits of how different individuals may perform established roles. In the case of Mao Zedong there was no defined role for him to fill rather his own personality created his own roles and thereby shaped Chinese history.When the story of modern China is consistently related to the activities of Mao, a key element of Maos genius is immediately highlighted his unprecedented capacity to perform different, and even quite contradictory, roles at different times. As Mao took on the roles of pea sant organizer, military commander, ideological spokesman, political strategist, and judgement statesman, he in addition vacillated between such contradictory public persona as fiery revolutionary and wise philosopher dynamic activist and insulate recluse preacher of the sovereign powers of the military man will and patient planner who knows that history cannot be rushed.In a very strange manner Mao Zedong has been able to communicate a sense of the integrity of the human heart and soul precisely because he has defied logic and spoken for exactly oppo spot points of view. He has praised books (indeed sanctified the presumed magic of his own Little Red Book) and he has denounced bookish knowledgeReading books only makes myopic children (Cheek 117). He has evenly extolled and denounced violence. He has championed reason and besides scorned the paralyzing impulses of reasonableness. His intellectual integrity is as unassailable as folk wisdom, with its appropriate sayings for ev ery option.Maos revolutionary ideas, like those of his intellectual compatriots elsewhere, drew inspiration from both experience (observing and doing) and intellectual exercise. They were a response to the genuine plight of large numbers of poor, illiterate, and exploited people, although they were overly the result of profound romanticization and sometimes willful ignorance of who and what the people in truth were.They reflected a strong inclination to distrust complex patterns of administration and face in a word, bureaucracy-because these only served the interests of ruling elites and they relied upon popular enthusiasm and heating as substitutes for technical expertise and intellectual sophistication, and too frequently as a means for mobilizing (and manipulating) the masses. Moreover, they displayed an inconsistency born of a human softness to divorce oneself completely from ones cultural environment, with its heavy baggage of traditions, habits, and customs. Thus, rebell ion against the nerveless and defeatist past of China was accompanied by appeals sometimes disguised, sometimes not to the social virtues, modes of discourse, and general spirit of that same past.If from a stainless bolshy standpoint Lenin was wrong to represent Russia as an appropriate site for a Marxist revolution, Mao erred in proclaiming the same for China in spite of his disingenuous contention in 1942 that Marxism-Leninism has no beauty, no mystical prise it is simply very useful (Cheek 127). Much evidence existed, of course, to sustain an assembly line that China needed fundamental changes in its economic, social, and political order.Chinese had been debating this for many decades. It was in addition clear that foreign powers had an enormous impact on Chinas development, fostering it in some ways, but distorting and exploiting it in others. Maos writings reveal that he understand quite well that his countrys vulnerability to external aggression resulted largely from cozy weaknesses, and that this relationship lay at the heart of his analysis and his demand for revolution.The doctrine of the mass line did not develop in isolation but reflected what was arguably the most fundamental of Maos attitudes voluntarism. Like Lenin, whose successes must have been implemental in showing Mao the value of seizing the moment, Mao was a committed voluntarist a believer in the ability of human will to overcome virtually any obstacle, despite the essential irrelevancy of human motivation to Marxs revolutionary theory.By seeking to foster revolution in places conflicting theoretically for such a process, both Lenin and Mao had to relinquish Marxist principle and emphatic determinism (the revolution will follow under the right, organically evolved, socioeconomic conditions) in favor of willful action (the revolution will come under whatever conditions we can take advantage of). For the stake of possibly seeing the revolution transpire in their own lifetime s, they had to cut their own wills on circumstances and equate volition with accomplishment. Marxisms attraction was, thus, also its weakness.The theory was supposed to ensure that revolution would occur, but it never promised that it would occur to suit the timetables of revolutionaries. For tremendously egotistical men like Lenin and Mao, Marxist determinism had to be balanced by a voluntarist spirit, men and women had to help make the revolution by whatever means they could be sold on, and time had to be made an ally and not an enemy.The succession to Mao Zedong will in time worked out, and China has new leaders. Regardless of whatever private feelings they may have about Mao, they acknowledged his greatness in the making of modern China. As all great men in history he will be honored, especially by those who will seek the magic of his greatness to insure the legitimacy of their authority.Thus it is likely that as time goes by the public Mao became increasingly shrouded in myth, and it became even more tricky to penetrate to the domain of the private man where must lie the secrets of his greatness. moreover possibly, however, history may take a slightly different turn, and, as unlikely as it may seem now, there may be revelations of more facts about the life of Mao Zedong making it possible to quantify better our interpretation of his greatness.Mao Zedongs place in Chinese history is, however, secure, and his successors, whoever they may be, will be of quite different character. Maos belonged to the era of Chinas response to the modern world He wanted China to change, to become strong and fibrous in the eyes of all the world yet he also wanted China to be true to itself. He was a leader out of rural China, educated in a provincial setting, and innocent(predicate) with any foreign language. His distrust of cities refiected in part that be was not at home with the more cosmopolitan generation of Chinese who went boost in exploring foreign ways than he w as ever ready to do.Works CitedCheek, Timothy. Mao Zedong and Chinas Revolutions A Brief History with Documents. Boston Bedfort, 2002.