Word: mao
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...Mao was, by Lifton's account, a man confident of his cluded the warlords for ten years before...
LIFTON'S account of Mao's peculiar obsession and its role in explaining the cultural revolution is far more satisfying than his account of mass response to that obsession. This side of the collective-individual relationship is much easier to document and far better researched than the motivations of China's millions. The image of Mao which emerges has all the features of high tragedy. Mao will undoubtedly be recalled as one of the great political geniuses of all time. Over a span of thirty years he personally molded a classic revolution and within three years of his victory...
...Mao was, by Lifton's account, a man confident of his own abilities and of his immortality, a man who transcended life while still alive, not by mystic experiences, but by facing death and overcoming it. Lifton speaks of a characteristic quality of tone and content that, more than any other, shaped the psychic contours of the Cultural Revolution. I refer to the kind of existential absolute, an insistence upon all or none confrontation with death...
...facing death, Mao has evidently lost his contempt for it, and fears the collapse of his vision and the loss of his life's work. Mao's vision has turned on him, out of control. It has undermined the party, while failing to achieve its total reform of Chinese society. It has tried to remake human nature and failed. It may not destroy China or even Chinese Communism, but his radical effort has brought China...
Lifton's account of Mao would be far more powerful if it were not for the "psychological idiom" in which he couches it. Indeed throughout the book, one has an annoying sense that jargon is making the obvious complicated. This problem, of course, is endemic to the psychological approach to social science, and would not be too great a price to pay for a comprehensive account of the Cultural Revolution. If Lifton's is not comprehensive, it probably comes as close as any unitary scheme can. Until China opens up to the West, and maybe for a long time thereafter...