1. Land & History

Pre-Liberation

Significant environmental influences

China maps http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/china.html

North South Rivers Historical significance of irrigation

Significance of irrigation: Wittfogel

“Wittfogel believed that such "hydraulic civilizations" – although neither all in the Orient nor characteristic of all Oriental societies – were quite different from those of the West. He believed that wherever irrigation required substantial and centralized control, government representatives monopolized political power and dominated the economy, resulting in an absolutist managerial state. In addition, there was a close identification of these officials with the dominant religion and an atrophy of other centres of power. The forced labour for irrigation projects was directed by the bureaucratic network. Among these hydraulic civilizations, Wittfogel listed ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and pre-Columbian Mexico and Peru.”

http://www.riseofthewest.net/thinkers/wittfogel05.htm

Context: Where and how did Chinese

civilization arise? What was the basic structure of

traditional Chinese society? Who was Mao Zedong, and what

forces shaped him as a young man? What was China’s situation in the first

half of the 20th century?

Traditional Chinese social structure

emperor officials/magistrates scholar gentry clan family

Was traditional China “feudal”?

Comparable to Europe in:– landlord/peasant division– periods of warlords– imperial order– strength of tradition

But:– Some social mobility– Meritocracy in exam system

Who was Mao? Son of upwardly mobile middle

peasant father and Buddhist mother Rebellious Intellectual Marxist

China’s situation: first ¼ of 20th century

Population 94% rural Half of land owned by richest 10% Foreign domination, especially in ports KMT and CCP formed The White Terror

Why Marx?

Marxism: dialectical materialism

Dialectics (from Hegel):– Struggle of opposites– Thesis-antithesissynthesis

Materialism (from Epicurus, Feurbach)– Vs. idealism– Matter precedes spirit (ideas)

Society based on economy– Forces and relations of production

Marx’s Historical Materialism (“vulgar” version, based on statements in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)

Primitive Communism (classless)

Slavery (masters vs. slaves)

Feudalism (lords vs. peasants

Capitalism (capital vs. labor)

Socialism (dictatorship of the proletariat)

Communism (classless, stateless)

“Class struggle is the motor of history”

Basic Marxism Modern society is capitalist, based on

conflict (contradiction) between:– Bourgeoisie (capitalist class)– Proletariat (working class)

Capitalists run this world economically, politically, and culturally, in the interest of expanding and accumulating capital (getting richer)

“bourgeois democracy” Marxist idea that democracy is a political form that

corresponds well with the development of capitalism

Is “bourgeois” in the sense that it primarily protects property rights; laws and ideology favor the bourgeoisie

Mao: “If anyone asks why a Communist should strive to bring into being first a bourgeois-democratic society and then a socialist society, our answer is: we are following the inevitable course of history.” (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_13.htm )

But why Marx in China?

Lenin– Anti-imperialism– Revolution in “weakest link”

Russian revolution– Base area for others– Stalin

Contradictory attitude among Chinese intellectuals toward West and modernization

Mao adapted Marxism to Chinese conditions

Why not stick with the Guomindang (“nationalists”)

for the bourgeois stage?

White Terror showed they were not bourgeois democrats

Mao: need stage of New Democracy; “people’s democratic dictatorship”

CPC represents leadership of the proletariat (essentially Leninist idea)

Marxism: revolutionary praxis

Experience Revolutionary Theory

Revolutionary Practice

Maoism: Mass LineYou may ban the expression of wrong ideas, but the ideas will still be there. On the other hand, if correct ideas are pampered in hothouses and never exposed to the elements and immunized against disease, they will not win out against erroneous ones. Therefore, it is only by employing the method of discussion, criticism and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas and overcome wrong ones, and that we can really settle issues.

Mao Zedong, ON THE CORRECT HANDLING OF CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE

PartyDiscussion, criticism, reasoning

Party Cadres

MassesDiscussion, criticism, reasoning

Needs Policies

Central contradiction facing the Chinese

revolutionaries

Leaders

Masses

Yanan helps resolve that contradiction