Customer Reviews:
 MAO THE MONSTER January 7, 2008
Michael JR Jose (the UK)
Delia Davin is reader in Chinese Social Studies in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds, and the author of other works on China. This 107-page book, published 1997, is easily readable and covers its extensive material well. The overall impression is factual and objective, the author's attitude to the man Mao restrained.
Overall this is a good introduction to the man and the period, suitable for GCSE students, first year undergraduates, or the interested layman. It is light on the economics of the man and the time, but the author does not pretend to cover this. There is no mention of Hong Kong anywhere, which is odd, but the omission of comment on the atheistic persecution of the millions of Chinese Christians is not forgiveable by any measure. (`Basic Economics' by Thomas Sowell has several good comments on China and is an education in itself.) It was Mao's successor Deng Xioaping who said with regard to the change in economic policy to capitalism, `Let some of the people get rich first' (ie, let those who know how, make the wealth - everyone benefits in the process - there is no trickle down). It should be borne in mind that the reports of Chinese atrocities apparently get worse than stated in this book as the 21st century progresses, but this is simply due to the fact that the full truth always takes time to get its boots on. I have read estimates in 2007 of up to 100 million Chinese lives lost under Mao. China in 2008 is still communist politically, but economically they have been in the capitalist way since the unlamented Mao died in 1976. And I am still amazed by the number of people who do not know this. And I am so shocked at the lack of a properly righteous lambasting of the communist-socialist madness that the last century has seen that I may be driven to write it myself one day. Perhaps all the historians are just waiting for Cuba and North Korea to go down the tubes too, like a phalanx of fastidious fuss-pots. Or perhaps they are mostly secret socialist sympathisers: how well I remember the acidic Marxist history teacher I dropped history to get away from in school.
Although the books in this series can seem expensive on a cost per page basis, it is the quality that counts, and as a fast overview they represent good value. This book on Mao makes an interesting companion to another in the series: `Stalin' by Harold Shukman. The USSR had a very complex and tense relationship with China, whom they regarded as both lesser partners and as a territory across the border to be predated upon.
CONTENTS
Chronology (birth of Mao 1893, to death 1976)
Map of China, rather poor
Introduction (thumbnail sketch of his career, focused on his political and family life)
1. Childhood and formative years
1893- : born a peasant in Hunan Province; opposed evils of arranged marriage for women; read Marx's `Communist Manifesto'
2. Labour organiser and Party worker
Mao leads strikes in Jiangxi mines and railway; Soviet advisors guide Guomindang party; Mao leads troops to town of Ruijin, central China
3. The Jiangxi Soviet Republic and The Long March
Red Army increased to 65,000; 100,000 people set out on the Long March, about 10,000 survive; Mao's troops in northern Shaanxi October 1936
4. The North-West
Mao ceases direct military life and reads, writes, and lectures; in 1936 Edgar Snow writes hagiographical biography of Mao, `Red Star over China' - Soviet influence still entirely obvious; Zhou Enlai brokers solution to internal Chinese feuding and Japanese invasion problem in 1937; Mao increases communist efficiency, by 1945 communist-controlled area 100 million people, up from 25 million 1942; Mao elected chairman of Politburo; in 1949 Mao declares birth of new People's Republic of China, Soviet dominance wanes
5. The Communist Party takes power
Mao's essay `On the People's Democratic Dictatorship', 1949 reveals by title confusion to come; China enters Korean war 1950, pays $10 billion for Soviet weapons, one million Chinese casualties; State robs peasants of half of China's farmland between 1950-53, between one and two million landlords executed for being difficult about it, by 1955 food shortages result; by 1956 industry and trade controlled by the State, better progress than with agriculture; intellectuals and artists persecuted, policy reversed in 1956 with the slogan `let a hundred flowers bloom', about half a million intellectuals condemned as `rightists' in 1957; rapid industrialization of the `Great Leap Forward' begins 1958
Photographs
Includes Mao lying in State with disfavoured `Gang of Four' airbrushed out, normal practice of communist states world over
6. The Great Leap Forward and its aftermath
Mao obtains Soviet help to make atomic bomb 1957; Great Leap Forward policy a disaster, massive famines by 1959, 20-30 million peasants starve to death; open split with Soviets 1960; Deng Xioaping restructures farms and famines cease; Mao enjoys swimming in his heated swimming pools, one per residence
7. The Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution causes party divisions, Mao uses young people and troops to bolster his position, civil war in Wuhan and elsewhere 1967, party in disarray
8. Old age and death
Hua Guofeng made premier by Mao mid-1976; death of Mao September 1976
9. Mao's legacies
Deng Xioaping made premier November 1978, by the time of his death in 1997 China transformed by getting rid of socialist economics, but politically remains officially communist, so, they have some way to go...
Notes (chapter references to more academic works and sources)
Bibliography (main general sources, some by insiders, eg Jing Fu Zi, Li Rui, and Siao-yu)
Index
So: people aren't equal, you can't make them equal, and it's wrong to try.
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