Thread 17938563

Is there any other period of history than the Maoist period, where pretty much all Western histiography and narrative on it is so laughably fucking wrong on pretty much every concievable level to the point the standard Western narrative (Big tyrant dictator bad man totalitarian state!) is literally the exact fucking opposite of what happened?
The fact that Western books on the topic, don't even correctly identify who was behind the Great Leap Forward (Liu Shaoqi) instead pinning the entire thing on Mao, and actually presenting Liu and Deng as critics (which they admittedly were as ass covering exercise after it was revealed what a clusterfuck it turned into) is fucking wild.
It is just insane to me the entire Western view on the Maoist period completely ignores the reality of the situation, that it was a largely decentralised period of extreme local democracy and freedoms that resulted in vicious mob mentality and ingroup fighting and that Mao himself basically was fighting heavily against any form of centralised control.
I can not think of any other period of history that is so routinely misread by Westerners, even Western academics seemingly struggle with even the concepts of the era, failing to see past "Communist = totalitarian centralized state" worldview and the reality is that Maoist China was basically borderline anarchist, and run largely by massive swaths of grassroots local politics with only vague guidences from the central party.

>>17938563 (OP)
>YELLOW PERIL

>>17938563 (OP)
>It is just insane to me the entire Western view on the Maoist period completely ignores the reality of the situation, that it was a largely decentralised period of extreme local democracy and freedoms that resulted in vicious mob mentality and ingroup fighting and that Mao himself basically was fighting heavily against any form of centralised control.
First of all, my only knowledge of that period in China comes from a book I’m reading, a biography of Xi’s father. What you’re saying isn’t true: the party was decentralized during the war, but then Mao imposed an ideology about what the party should be and a clear order from the top down: you did what the core of the party wanted, period. In fact, it’s mentioned that he feared that other local leaders with great popularity and experience in their provinces would accumulate too much power, so he ordered them to move to Beijing to give them central positions, obviously to keep them under control (for example, Xi’s father or Gao Gang).

There was no local democracy; every decision had to be supervised and approved by the Party center. Factionalism was severely persecuted; anyone who prioritized their region and interests was branded an enemy of the Party. No one dared to contradict Mao—that is not a form of democracy—and Mao broke Party rules by silencing internal debate from the outset through fear.

>>17939361
This is completely wrong.
Think about it, how is Revolutionary China, a country that barely even had any serious communication networks or control, outside of the core east coast of the country, engaging in strict centralised planning? It wasn't. The party gave vague guidences, which were then interpreted at the local level, there were also mass democracy at the time, village democratic systems on everyone turning up and meeting and voting on the path forward, exists to this very day.
The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution fell apart entirely due to the grass roots. Mao himself was extremely against any form of central control, you can see that in his letters, but also the hundred flowers, and cultural revolution itself.
It was only after the cultural revolution descended into mass mob violence and basically the country being coup'ed by delinquent teenagers, did Mao allow a centralized authority restore control.