1. land & history pre-liberation. significant environmental influences china maps
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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
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