WARNING: The following video is about a guy who lived in the 20th century. It features
ideas and issues that are largely still relevant today. If politics make you uncomfortable,
you are prone to starting flame wars in the comments, or you are a resident of the PRC
-- oh, that’s right, China doesn’t have YouTube, I can talk all the trash I want!
[INTRO]
Welcome to the Eastern hemisphere
Wait, Paris, Denmark, what are you doing here? Welcome
to the Far East! Ahh, feels good to step out of Europe. Once again I get to put my education
to good use - I knew there was a reason I took that class.
Right then! I’m slightly congested and this is Mao Zedong. He’s known for a couple of
things -- on the one hand, he was kind of the only person to succeed in strengthening
China so it could compete with other global powers. Lots of other people had tried, and
while you could argue that whole century of failed attempts made it easier for him, he
had to fight against a lot of that history in order to get China to do what he wanted.
On the other hand, he was responsible for the deaths of millions and millions and millions
and millions *breath* and millions of people.
Mao’s story begins, as far as I’m concerned, in the not-so-roaring 20’s with the founding
of China’s Communist party. Mao wasn’t the one who started this party, and wasn’t
yet the chairperson, he was just along for the ride, so we’re gonna get through this
as quick as we can. The Chinese Commies figured they’d do things the Russian, Marxist way:
get the workers to rebel in the cities, and maybe break a few eggs along the way. Then
Lenin pointed out that China was a one party system that they could all just infiltrate,
so they did things peacefully for a while, then the Nationalists (aka Guomindang yes
I’m pronouncing it with a g) decided that the Communists were a bigger threat than Japan,
which, well, I guess they were the ones who ended up taking over China, and the civil
war was in full force!
Mao really gets rolling after the Long March, a communist exodus from Jiangxi to Shaanxi,
through marshes, mountains, and rivers, which Mao did not part even though he’d probably
tell you he did. It took over a year, from October ‘34 to October ‘35, so really
it should’ve been called the long October. 90% of those who started either died or defected,
but those who made it were fiercely loyal, and formed the base of the Mao Zedong fan
club.
At this point Mao was out in the countryside where there are very few factory workers to
revolt with, so he had to get creative and use peasants as the source of his power. Not
exactly Marx’s idea of a proletariat, but it would do.
*knock knock* What’s that? Japan’s invading! Better go defend - “No, go deal with the
communists” said Chiang Kai-Shek, “No” said Zhang Xueliang, so he kidnapped him and
made the Nationalists and the Communists play nice. Turns out Mao was really good at making
people like him. He’d already been using land reform - some peaceful, some not so peaceful
- to win the favor of the local peasants, and now that the Communist party was technically
allies with the official government and fighting against the Japanese, who had been doing some
not-so-nice things in Nanking, his popularity skyrocketed ten-fold!
But before the war with Japan was over, the second united front fizzled away and once
again, [Revolution]! The U.S. sent some boys over to make the Guomindang and People’s
Liberation Front play nice again in what’s commonly referred to as the Dixie mission,
but they would have Nunavut. Trouble was, the Communists had better organization, more
spirit, and less corruption than the Guomindang, and by the 50’s were able to drive them
to Taiwan where they remain to this day, and strap a yoke onto Tibet and Xinjiang, who
had been de facto independent since, like, the Qing collapsed.
And thus China became enveloped by the Commies. This is the point in the video where we say
goodbye to free-spirited get-stuff-done break-a-few-eggs Mao, and say hello to smash-the-henhouse Mao.
To establish his classless society, he labeled everyone according to their social class and
if you were a landlord or a rich peasant, boy had the tables turned on you. It became
custom for every village to pick a landlord or three and publicly execute them, then pick
a handful more and send them to re-education labor camps known as Laogai, which is where
we get the name for THAT Laogai! He also initiated the “Hundred Flowers Campaign” where,
like blooming flowers, people from across the country could open up and share their
opinions on the government. And so a few people came out with criticism, and then a lot of
people came out with criticism, and then Mao killed them all.
But all this is tuppence compared to the Great Leap Forward. A few years after the PRC was
born, the government launched its first 5-year plan. The goal was to further socialize the
country and increase production, and China ended up producing more of pretty much everything
than expected. Things were kind of looking up for China, I mean after getting kicked
around by Japan only a few years earlier, it was able to drive the U.S. to a standstill
in Korea, after MacArthur said “What’s that, stop at the narrow neck? Sorry, uh,
can’t hear you, this side of the Yalu is really noisy”
But then Great Chairman Mao, in his infinite wisdom, came up with an idea to make China
even more productive and improve every area of the economy at once. “What if everyone
worked really really hard.” Peng Dehuai, an important dude in the capital P Party,
reminded Mao that the previous five-year plan had used conservative estimates and people
were already enthusiastically over-reporting how much they really made, and then he got
fired. Turns out, asking people to just work harder and turn all their cooking utensils
into worthless scrap iron in their backyards isn’t the best way to run a country. People
continued to say “Oh yes, Chairman Mao, we’re making so much food!” when they
actually weren’t and like 30-some million people died of starvation, honestly it’s
just hard to keep track at that point.
After that little mishap, the rest of the Communist party tried to put Mao in the backseat.
Yeah, he was not happy with this. He took advantage of some angry students in Beijing,
got the whole country in a stir about rightists and revisionists, and told the Chinese people
to bombard the headquarters. Even though he was the government, he still found a way to
revolt! The following is a brief summation of the Cultural Revolution [Riot!!].
Let’s see… what did I miss. Well China and the USSR didn’t get along well, Mao
wasn’t too worried about conflict with a nuclear power though because he believed in
the power of the zerg rush, there was his right-hand man who he killed, his right hand
man who he probably killed, and his right-hand man who died of natural causes so he killed
everyone who mourned him. Finally, on his deathbed, Mao said “Don’t give the country
to Deng Xiaoping, he’s going to make it capitalist-y-er” and then the country was
given to Deng Xiaoping, who made the country capitalistier.
Yes, the attentive viewer will know I lied about the Clinton joke from last time, it
just didn’t fit in my narrative, so here goes: Who did cats vote for in November? Hillary
KITTEN! Ha-ha-haaaaI should stop making promises.