An interesting bit of raw Chinese history....

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A bit of raw Chinese History without the sanitized rewrite

In preparation for China we both read "Mao - The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and her husband which took 10 years of in depth research. This is a fascinating read and shows how Chinese history has been rewritten to glamourise the whole Mao era till this day. I just tried following the above link here in China and it is blocked. But there are some sites reviewing the book that are still accessible e.g. Mao
His bust still adorns most of the notes here in China. Below is a brief and perhaps a bit emotional summary, in a similar vein as the book itself which unfortunately undermines its credibility somewhat by extrapolation in parts. Someone of this ilk does not deserve to be revered and idolised by millions till this day through false representation.

The book is a fascinating blow-by-blow account of how Mao built his power base and was propped up for so long by Stalin and the Russians despite mistake after mistake. The staggering fact is that Mao was directly responsible for over 70 million Chinese civilian deaths during peace time in the 60's and 70's and probably the same amount again of the Red Army whom he sent into battles that he knew they would get slaughtered only to grow his own power base through eliminating potential rivals. He pushed the production of agriculture to untold limits and with the proceeds, paid to further his obsessive aim of achieving world domination through the Atomic Bomb. In the process he starved and murdered his fellow countrymen and women and subjected the whole of China to despicable levels of depravity.

In character he was a self centered, pitiless hedonist who took tremendous pleasure in seeing others suffer and often would sit in on torture sessions during many of his bloody purges designed to systematically terrorise the whole of China's population over and over again. Through these waves of ever more disgusting purges he slowly succeeded in the deletion of individuality of thought. He set quotas for those to be tortured and killed, through orders cloaked in counter-revolutionary rhetoric.

He lived a bizarrely decadent, paranoid lifestyle surrounded by a huge multi-layered security set-up. Each villa he had built (several hundred throughout China) was functional to allow quick escape from any potential enemy within. He never left China during his whole life and rarely appeared in public. He was adverse to physical hardship and despite the official history depicting him as a rugged, super human long marcher he and his extensive book collection and personal effects were carried the whole way on a sedan chair by weary troops - many of who died in the process from exhaustion. He did not know the meaning of love other than himself and discarded wives and offspring as easily as others. Perhaps his biggest ally throughout his domination was Chou En Lai whom he consistently persecuted. Chou was the stately external face to Mao's 'terror-ocacy'. Despite this unwavering allegiance Mao constantly withheld cancer treatment from Chou in order that he die before Mao.

Amazingly he was directly involved in the vast majority of conflicts to grip the world since before WWII through which millions more suffered - Conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Burma, Indian border issues, the Taiwan predicament (Shang Kei Sheik's his main rivals final refuge), Cambodia and Polpots killing fields, sponsored the Corcussus and Romania's Chauchescu.... the list is endless.

The final irony is that he never believed or even comprehended the Communist ideal and rarely displayed any acknowledgment of it.

Have a read....... its fascinating. Let's only hope that one day it will be free to be read here in China too.

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Photos

Mao Tse Tung
The very un-communist founder of communist China...

Comments

[Jules]

Plagiarism
San, you didn't take the excerpt from the back page of the book did you? ;-)