The Chat Thread (Read OP)

[Aexodus]

The great leap backward sure showed those filthy bourgeoise tho

[Akar]

I want everyone here who's talking about my boy Mao to meet me in Tienanmen square at high noon and we can settle this like men (or birds, Diamat.)

[AqD]

All of us at once?

[Akar]

The more the merrier, comrade.

[Aexodus]

Name the date and I’m there pinko

[Akar]

Diamat (May his feathers fall off) has chosen the 25th of June at high noon in Tienanmen square. Please line up in a neat line when you arrive thank you.

[Commissar Caligula_]

I'm with Akar on this. Chairman Mao is #1 except for Kim Jong-il

[AqD]

We should have a poll.

[Akar]

A poll has been created, gentlemen.

[Diamat]

Diamat (May his feathers fall off) has chosen the 25th of June at high noon in Tienanmen square. Please line up in a neat line when you arrive thank you.

The coordinates I gave you are in Antarctica.

[Akar]

I know that and I intentionally disregarded it because it didn't fit with my messaging. Diamat.

[Bo1Bo1Sha3]

Akar, I am smarter than you! You are creative with words, but can you quote Mao's little red book ? I can do that, and not come up with any of my own ideas like any good mainlander should!

[Akar]

I could, but revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

Eat the rich.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Mao wasn't really a politician, imo. He was China's greatest apparatchik.

Maybe I don't know enough about Mao but he doesn't seem like the middle management type. Wasn't Mao pretty much only an ideologue and the sort of "big thinker" in terms of national policy? I can't think of anything that Mao did directly, except maybe carrying out his part of the Long March. But I suppose it depends on what you mean by apparatchik.

I have to agree with Diamat. Mao was the king of tukhta, the master of nomenclature but he was no politician. He is the guy foco was based on, aside for Che. An apparatchik through and through.

Mao was very successful at "Party Politics", the Great Leap Forward should have destroyed him completely. The Party would have shot anyone else and yet Mao was able to go into "retirement" and then come back and carry out the Cultural Revolution, which also should have got him shot.
No one has ever recovered from a precarious situation like that which Mao found himself in 1962. In the first place, he was able to take over the Communists and unify the various branches in the 1930's. Then defeat Chiang Kai-shek militarily after 1947 and take control of China. As well as the Sino-Soviet business and the Korean War. Mao stands out because he is like Lenin and Stalin in one.

The great leap backward sure showed those filthy bourgeoise tho

Ironically it did. The death toll was secondary and didn't have a huge effect on China. The unintended benefit for Mao is that it killed tonnes of potential dissidents. While the goal was really to institute self sufficiency, modernize China's economy and industry and part of the Socialist end goal... he also wanted to completely break Capitalism which he did accomplish. The policies instituted by Zhou Enlai afterwards were socialist and state capitalism but the actual Capitalist structure was completely destroyed. What little State Capitalism Zhou Enlai allowed to exist for pragmatic reasons, was not a threat to Mao's system.

All of us at once?

OOOOOHHHH MYYYYYYY

[Akar]

Mao says that the only thing better than to be left with half of your population from war or famine is to be left with one third of it.

[Diamat]

Maybe I don't know enough about Mao but he doesn't seem like the middle management type. Wasn't Mao pretty much only an ideologue and the sort of "big thinker" in terms of national policy? I can't think of anything that Mao did directly, except maybe carrying out his part of the Long March. But I suppose it depends on what you mean by apparatchik.


Mao was very successful at "Party Politics", the Great Leap Forward should have destroyed him completely. The Party would have shot anyone else and yet Mao was able to go into "retirement" and then come back and carry out the Cultural Revolution, which also should have got him shot.
No one has ever recovered from a precarious situation like that which Mao found himself in 1962. In the first place, he was able to take over the Communists and unify the various branches in the 1930's. Then defeat Chiang Kai-shek militarily after 1947 and take control of China. As well as the Sino-Soviet business and the Korean War. Mao stands out because he is like Lenin and Stalin in one.

Apparatchik is a fitting term, because he was quite adept at party politics, party purges, and killing enemies.

Mao's recovery was not that unique. This can be found in other socialist countries as well. Just look at Kim Il Sung. He completely screwed up the Korean War, was almost ousted by the Chinese and Soviets in 1956, and he withstood factional struggles during de-Stalinization. Just like Mao, he was a cut-throat apparatchik.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Apparatchik is a fitting term, because he was quite adept at party politics, party purges, and killing enemies.

Mao's recovery was not that unique. This can be found in other socialist countries as well. Just look at Kim Il Sung. He completely screwed up the Korean War, was almost ousted by the Chinese and Soviets in 1956, and he withstood factional struggles during de-Stalinization. Just like Mao, he was a cut-throat apparatchik.

I see now. Thought you meant that Mao was some kind of low ranking commissar.
Although Mao and Kim Il Sung really seem like the exceptions to the amazing rebounds.
For instance Ho Chi Minh, as disastrous as the Vietnam War started out, was never put into a completely precarious situation. America never tried to overthrow him and the top brass of the Vietnamese army didn't consider unseating him.

Lenin and Stalin were never put in that exact situation either. Stalin was never threatened or forced to resign after he implemented the Five Year Plan and even in 1941 he was not threatened by an imminent coup or asked to give up his position. The most precarious scenario that Stalin found himself in was probably during the Battles of Kiev and Smolensk in 1941, maybe the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. But any doubts of his leadership or that the Soviets would outright lose the war were gone by the time of the Battle of Moscow in 1941 or after the crushing victory in Operation Saturn at the end of 1942.

Maybe the only other person to make an absurd comeback, like Mao did, was Mussolini... Except without any of the glory. More so because no one expected it, should not have been possible in the first place and just how quickly he was put back into power. That and how viciously he started lashing out. It wasn't so much a state purge as it was just a series of rapid mass executions.

[Diamat]

Factional struggles and purges are endemic to Marxist-Leninist parties. Mao and Kim are unique in the sense that they survived serious threats to their rule, using these threats to (ironically) strengthen their rule. In East Germany, Ulbricht faced similar threats during de-Stalinization, but he managed to purge his enemies, only to be himself ousted years later by Honecker (Ulbricht's protege). Then once again, in typical Communist irony, Honecker was toppled by his protege, Egon Krenz.

[Sir Adrian]

Mao was very successful at "Party Politics", the Great Leap Forward should have destroyed him completely. The Party would have shot anyone else and yet Mao was able to go into "retirement" and then come back and carry out the Cultural Revolution, which also should have got him shot.
No one has ever recovered from a precarious situation like that which Mao found himself in 1962. In the first place, he was able to take over the Communists and unify the various branches in the 1930's. Then defeat Chiang Kai-shek militarily after 1947 and take control of China. As well as the Sino-Soviet business and the Korean War. Mao stands out because he is like Lenin and Stalin in one.

I disagree. That's because Mao was the figurehead and leader of the revolution. In communist countries the fathers of the revolution were seen as untouchable demi-gods that could no wrong, the doctrine was simply designed that way. Having him shot would have been like shooting Marx or Lenin or the Americans shooting one of the Founding Fathers. It just wasn't done. No general secretary of the communist party of any country has ever been shot by his own party. Even Trotsky's assassination caused extreme discontent and eventually led to all involved being butchered after Stalin's death.

Mao survived his blunders because of his position not because of his skill. Had he taken any other role during the revolution he would have been killed for wrecking.

[Akar]

This thread got purged harder than the communist party when it's leader dies