[–] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

Thanks for that.

Dongping Han certainly has a negative view of Deng Xiaoping. Certainly more negative than I do. However, regardless of his line on Deng, his book is well sourced and provides a ton of on-the-ground experiences that I think are worthwhile for anyone interested in China's revolution. Mobo Gao is also very anti-Deng, but most communists around here uphold his book for good reading on the cultural revolution, too. Michael Parenti has also called reform China revisionist, and I don't think that invalidates his work.

I recommend checking out the book yourself, but if you're really interested and you don't have the time, I can go through and pull out where he's sourcing his info and message them to you. I'm gonna check the info myself anyway because of the numbers you posted.

Just let me know.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    The lesson learnt there: you cannot better people's material conditions, and end poverty with ideological struggle, or isolationism.

    The cultural revolution lead to a drastic increase in material conditions to the vast majority of the Chinese population. This can be tracked from education to food availability.

    In fact, the rural collectives, working more autonomously than they do now, were able to build industry to a scale never seen before in China. The schools they built in rural areas, which previously went ignored by the party, raised literacy rates to near 90%. That's up from around 30% previously.

    The industrialization undertaken in these areas was SO successful that Deng's government privatized them and built upon them to "develop productive forces" that were already being developed at previously unseen speeds.

    I'm not saying that the reform era is revisionist or whatever. Clearly, the strategy has worked out incredibly in many ways (and failed in others), but the idea that the cultural revolution was some kind of economic disaster that stunted industrial production is false. It's a myth that's carted out as justification for the reforms (which, frankly, isn't needed because the arguments for reform can stand on their own merit).

    All of this and more can be found in Dongping Han's "The Unknown Cultural Revolution"

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  • [–] 18 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    The material basis is that the bourgeoisie benefits from enforcing strong borders. If there were no borders, then workers could move freely, and that would give them more power.

    Nobody really wants to shut down immigration entirely, but they want to maintain strict control of it in order to maintain discipline in the labor force.

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