The reality is that Chinese peasants in 1965 were leap years ahead of Westerners, from a mental-political perspective that's what 16 years of socialism will do for somebody:
"To many Western scholars, Mao's Cultural Revolution-era messages were extremely ambiguous. Andrew Walder, for instance, has written: 'It takes an extraordinary amount of energy and imagination to figure out precisely what Mao really meant by such ideas as 'the restoration of capitalism' or 'newly arisen bourgeoisie .' However, to Chinese people, even to the illiterate villagers, these terms were not so hard to grasp. Due to China's leap ahead in political modernity, and some subsequent obstacles, capitalism's restoration meant incomplete land reform for farmers, and the new bourgeoisie were the Party leaders who acted very much like the old landlords."
Such sentences from Walder-types are constant when reading Anglophones discuss socialism: they adore to subtly but clearly express their belief that at its base socialism is just a childish fantasy, without any grounding in logic or reality.
These cynical notions take one very far in the West. Walder won a Guggenheim fellowship and taught at Harvard and Stanford despite being far stupider than the average Chinese peasant (by his own admission). It's incredible that someone who cannot understand those two simple terms would rise so far in the realm of political science academia; it is not surprising that such a person would produce obviously anti-China and anti-socialist works such as China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed. Han's work explains why the CR was in fact a re-railing of socialist revolution"but I do not think he will get a Guggenheim Fellowship for his efforts, sadly.
The reality is that until we learn to prioritize local/native studies and views we will always have great difficulty in understanding foreign cultures. Yet when it comes to socialist-inspired countries native voices are totally excluded in the allegedly-free press/free thought-loving West.
"Today farmers still say that, 'Chairman Mao said what ordinary villagers wanted to say (shuo chu liao nongmin de xinli hua ).'"
For those many Westerners who envision Mao burning in Hell, I think he's pretty happy where he is because that is an extremely meritorious legacy for any politician being a conduit for the ordinary People.
Conversely, ex-French President Francois Hollande was recently asked if what the French say about current President Emmanuel Macron is true: that he is the "president of the rich". Hollande, who was bitterly derided by the decidedly not witty Nicolas Sarkozy as "Mr. Little Jokes", responded: "No, he's not. He's the president of the super-rich." (Where was this great analysis when you were charge, Francois?)
De Gaulle could never say what ordinary villagers wanted to say"unless they were French villagers his political ideology was based on petty, blinkered French nationalism; he could never have united scores of European ethnicities, whereas Mao did (and still does) unite 56 officially-recognised ethnicities.
Macron is capitalist, De Gaulle was imperialist both should not write even very little books, and of any color.
The Little Red Book remains a source of amusement in the West, but it's not as if they understand it. And it's not as if ever-surging, ever-united China needs Western acceptance in 2019.
Han has helped prove that the legacy of the Little Red Book will be that it enabled a new worship and devotion to the tenets of socialism (with Chinese characteristics) Mao was merely the conduit of thoughts much larger than his person.
It is unfortunate that the West continues to build and worship their ignorant cult of anti-Mao, rather than understanding how the Little Red Book increased democracy and empowerment.
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This is the 4th article in an 8-part series which examines Dongping Han's book The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village in order to drastically redefine a decade which has proven to be not just the basis of China's current success, but also a beacon of hope for developing countries worldwide. Here is the list of articles slated to be published, and I hope you will find them useful in your leftist struggle!
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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