Word: cantons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Vogel's story of Canton rattles along like a rollercoaster ride, with some dizzying ups and downs. The Cantonese greeted the liberation in 1949 with hope and enthusiasm, then struggled up through years of land reform and collectivization in the early 1950's. After the Great Leap Forward in the late fifties forced a heartbreaking drop in production and morale, the Cantonese began a slower, more cynical climb toward economic and political security that came to a halt again during the wild street fighting of the Cultural Revolution...
...accident that this one city's story parallels the story for all China since 1949. Above all else the Communists brought a unified, nation-wide program to the once broken up Middle Kingdom. Canton Under Communism in this way becomes one of the clearest, best written histories of Communist China to date. Unhappily for all but the most bleary-eyed Sinophiles, Vogel some-times buries the story in detail-the footnotes run for almost 40 pages in the back of the book. But blessed with a sociologist's concern for human suffering, he throws out lucid summaries along...
...details do help capture the ironic twists of Canton's fight against waves of outside agitators sent from, the north by Peking to enforce, national policies. This makes enlightening reading for Americans, who have often misunderstood the on-again, off-again struggle between local and central power in China. American General Joseph Stillwell, for instance, was furious when Chiang Kai-shek ignored his advice to reorganize the Chinese Army in 1942. "With the U. S. on his side and backing him," Stillwell wrote in his diary, "the stupid little ass fails to grasp the big opportunity of his life...
...simply slapping the Cantonese in line with his impressive credentials. Rising to speak during one of his first appearances in the city, T'ao modestly confessed he had just arrived and had little experience in Cantonese affairs. But, he said, seizing on his own introduction, experience wouldn't solve Canton's problems. It was class standpoint that had to be improved. He urged-here was the clincher-that all the lower level cadres criticize those superiors who had protected landlords...
...proceeded to slice away the local leaders' power bases. He leveled one charge after another at the assistants and proteges of top Cantoneses leaders, then gently coaxed their bosses to publish self-criticism and accept higher party posts outside the Canton area. Though T'ao waited months after taking command before promoting himself to the area's top party position, he soon had trusted deputies in all the sensitive local posts and governed Canton unchallenged...