Tough Times Breed Nostalgia for Mao

Asia Times ^ | May 6, 2009 | Wu Zhong

[nickcarraway]

Although Mao Zedong died 33 years ago, the founding father of communist China seems to still be alive in the hearts of many Chinese.

A new wave of nostalgia for the late chairman is sweeping the nation ahead of the 60th birthday of People's Republic of China (PRC) and amid the global financial crisis. The leader, who led the PRC from its establishment until his death in 1976, is surging though his brand of socialism has long been officially abandoned and there has been criticism of "serious mistakes" such as the Cultural Revolution.

Chingming is a traditional Chinese festival for the dead when families tend to the graves of their ancestors. It normally falls on

April 4-5 each year. During Chingming this year, tens of thousands of visitors flocked into Shaoshan, Mao's native village in Hunan province, to pay homage. According to Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao daily, on April 2 alone at least 30,000 people from various places of the country visited Shaoshan.

The visitors ranged from retired party and government officials to primary and high school pupils. They first bowed and placed wreaths at a 10.1-meter-tall bronze statue of Mao erected in the village - the numerical figure 10.1 stands for October1, the date on which Mao declared the founding of the PRC in 1949. They then visited the mud-walled, clay-tile-roofed rural house where Mao was born. Many also went to pay tribute to the tombs of Mao's parents and ancestors near the village.

Another sign of growing nostalgia for Mao is the comeback in popularity of his Little RedBook among Chinese university students, according to a report by the France24 news channel.

SNIP

It found that 11.5% of the families surveyed had a shrine in their homes of Mao, in the form of a statue or bust.

[Niuhuru]

Mao would have exterminated the Panthers within months. These stupid paramilitary wannbes are nothing compared to what Mao and his cohorts were capable of. These dips only shoot police officers and citizenry that don’t have the ability to fight back.

I would love to see these idiots try something like that in China. Just to watch them screech for help from Zero.

I think Mao became nothing but a bureaucrat in the end. He lost his ability to connect with the people and stupidly didn’t think of the practicalities of his plan. Yes, he had manufacturing ideas, but there was nothing to manufacture and market products to. It’s the same with farming, he didn’t have professionals farming the land he had political enemies and scholars.

[Niuhuru]

“far more people are motivated by the search for security”

And stability. In China there’s a deep fear of chaos.

[ETL]

you almost sound like you admire Mao Zedong?

[ETL]

Mao Tse-Tung

AKA Chairman Mao, AKA 'The Great Helmsman'. (Tse-Tung can also be spelt Zedong. Translated the name means 'To Shine on the East'.)

Country: China

Kill tally: 14 to 20 million deaths from starvation during the 'Great Leap Forward'. Tens of thousands killed and millions of lives ruined during the 'Cultural Revolution'.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/mao.html

[Niuhuru]

I have read books about revolutionaries and these little pipsqueaks in their little paramilitary uniforms make me laugh and sick.

What makes me sick is that these dips are freaking out over nothing, worried more about whites who go about their daily life rather than people who would actually kill them. They are eternally looking for a fight and desperate for someone to start something. If a white cop shoots a black man they riot and if some idiot shoots Obama chances are they’ll mobilize and start terrorizing innocent people instead of letting the law figure things out. By mobilize I mean go on some stupid red alert and posibly start sending their ‘troops’ to make arrests. That’s why Obama’s Youth Corps scare the heck out of me. They assume an authority they have not earned or have the discipline to properly exercise.

What makes me laugh is that they hold these much vaunted rankings which they did nothing to earn and certainly did not go through any basic training or real disciplinary exercises. None of them have the self discipline it takes to really succeed in the real military.

I admire Mao only in the sense that he managed to unify the country, but butchering the citizenry was stupid as was not thinking through the practicalities of the Great Leap Forward and what it would entail. He took a short term instant gratification approach which wasn’t how the Chinese normally go about doing things. That’s why he failed and 70 million Chinese died.

He didn’t let the country heal naturally and that was his fatal mistake, what made him a failure in the end. He did however lead and survive the Long March and set an example that many Chinese wanted to emulate. He also expelled the foreign legations and smartly build up the patriotism and sense of unity among the youth.