Word: mao
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...Since Mao's death, the American press has limited its discussion of Chinese politics to a couple of contending factions, dubbed "radicals" and "moderates." The radicals are said to be largely the ideological followers and offspring of Mao, including his widow, Chiang Ching, who is usually described as an uppity and outspoken woman, while the less inscrutable moderates are made out to be relatively uninterested in ideological purity when economic efficiency is at stake; one moderate name that seems bandied about is Chen Hsi-lin, commander of the Peking military region. Hua Kuo-feng has managed to elude being tied...
...action, and you cannot understand what they're doing there in our terms. What we mean by pragmatic and what they mean are two different things." Such simple labels promote misunderstanding of the country's social and economic goals, he adds. "There is no question Mao's line wants economic development," Gold says. But this growth should not be forced "by relying on machines alone." Instead it should be accomodated to the people through "'walking on two legs,' relying on modern and indigenous methods...
...conflict over the issues Hofheinz focuses on--guns versus rice, central versus local control, equality of education versus political control over it--grew most extreme during the Great Leap Forward of 1958-59 and the Cultural Revolution of the '60s. These startlingly unstable campaigns delineate a unique element in Mao's leadership. Convinced that China would progress only if the principles of revolution remained vital, he encouraged the Chinese people's awareness of the perpetual struggle between two poles--the revolutionary line and the "capitalist road" or "revisionism." Mao's teachings acted as a fulcrum on which these lines would...
Indeed, Schwartz and Terrill agree that Mao carefully managed the "uninterrupted" revolution after the Cultural Revolution produced a second serious threat to his position. This suggests a principal question left in the wake of Mao's death: If, as Schwartz says, the revolution can be turned off by Mao, its creator, then what will happen to the revolution...
Terrill, for one, sees a growth of public opinion in China that may not be amenable to Mao's legacy. "Among a majority there's a great deal of consumerism. Among a minority there's idealism and an attempt to renew Chinese socialism. Consumeristic instincts go against the efforts of the radicals to whip up revolution." While he grants that the Chinese leadership could take either direction in the long run, like other Harvard China-watchers, he insists it would be useless to try to gauge policy shifts so early...