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[Anklepants]

The Complete History of Communism - Part 4
History of Communism In China

China is the world’s third biggest country in size
but in people the absolute biggest, with over one fifth of earths population
For thousands of years emperors and dynasties ruled and china developed its own ways
and customs and relative isolation

The major belief system was Confucianism
which stressed morals but also allowed inequalities in society to be justified
Millions of Chinas people where starving
illiterate peasants with no land and no rights

By 1912 modern times had finally come
a revolution had finally replaced the last emperor, who was a child
with a president Sun Yat-sen
But in the north, warlords with their own armies controlled a lot of land
and power and most people were not helped much by the new government

So in May, 1919 many students rose up for reforms, including a former solider, former peasant and librarian, named Mao Zedong
Inspired by the recent Russian revolution, Mao and a few others went to the country side to help the peasants organize for a better life with communism

At first, Sun Yat-sen worked with the growing communist groups
to help defeat the warlords and build a new china together
But Chinas next president Chiang Kai-shek
was more right wing, and wanted to get rid of the warlords and the communists forever

So for most of the 1920's control of china was battled for by three groups:
the warlords, the communists, and Chiang's Kuomintang or KMT
By 1931 the communists and the warlords were loosing, but then Japan attacked china
and caused even more mess and catastrophe

But despite the Japanese encroachment,
by 1934 the Kuomintang had the last communist group surrounded
and almost completely erased them
But a hundred thousand communist escaped on foot
evading the Japanese and the warlords and the Kuomintang troops who chased them

This retreat became known as the long march
across a distance much bigger than America
only Mao and a few others were left by the march's end
But the whole way they treated peasants well
and gave them land so the word spread about how truly dedicated the communist army was to being the common peoples friend

With the support of the peasants, but without large forces, they couldn’t fight in a normal manner, they had to develop so called guerrilla tactics
still used by small forces to this day
When WWII broke out Japan battled china
Chiang forces suffered but Mao fought on in this new guerrilla way

In 1945 Japan completely surrender
faced with terrible atomic devastation
And after the pull out of the Japanese troops
China’s civil war soon resumed but now the Kuomintang was worn out
and the communists had more support from the population

So they were able to chase Chiangs forces south till he fled the mainland to Taiwan
and China’s 37 years of revolution and civil war where finally done
October, 1949 the People's Republic of China was declared
a communist country under the leadership of Mao Zedong

First they got rid of about a million landlords and gave everybody land
then they made China’s elite language simpler so that everybody could be educated
With help from the Soviet Union
China’s backwards industry and shattered economy began to improved at a tremendous rate

And Mao was now renowned as a leader and as a poet
he said he wanted to let a hundred flowers bloom
meaning more free thought and more free expression
But his was also so respected and feared that no body could tell him ‘No’
and he started having some weird bad ideas for the nation

In 1958 he watched the Great Leap Forward
a massive unrealistic attempt to make the new
communes and new industries modernize much faster
But with poor planning and poor weather
the economy crumbled and millions starved
it was a tremendous policy disaster

And after the failure of the Great Leap
china stopped getting help from the Soviet Union
Mao had more enemies and he was starting to be in a fix
His next big idea to renew Chinas enthusiasm was with the youth
and he started the cultural revolution in 1966

It was one of the strangest upheavals in political history
Imagine if an American president said
“Ok, young rappers, hippies, and punks: Obey me, rise up and take over”
Millions of young red guards armed with Mao’s red book attacked teachers
attacked historic sites and attacked government officials and then attacked each other

And to pause a moment, this was around the same time that The Beatles wrote that song 'Revolution':

You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We'd all love to see the plan
But if you talk about destruction
Well you know you can count me out

And then the other line

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

Now to go back to the song

So there was no university for about four years
China’s whole economy and culture were completely chaotic
Millions had worshiped Mao, but even this became a confused idea when
Mao had to call off the Cultural Revolution
and bring in the army to stop it

In 1976 Mao died and the control of china went between
different groups, including Mao’s wife’s group The Gang of Four
not to be confused with the British post-punk band
Today, China’s still trying to reconcile with the good aspects of communism
in a capitalist world with an uncertain future with this ancient giant powerful land
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[jack fe]

Wow! Good work, especially 3 and 4.
Well done man!!!
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[Dav]

Waow, that's a lot of work, thanks a bunch!
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[Will Oldham]

Thanks so much for these thats great!!
lots of hard work

(can I be anal and correct your spelling of chairman Mao Tse-Tung)
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[jack fe]

No you can't.
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[Anklepants]

Glad I could help out and that you all appreciated the efforts! Just typing it all up and researching the facts I learnt incredible amounts about communism. Very cool and interesting stuff - thanks Jeffrey!

[DrNick]

It all depends on how you transliterate it from the Chinese. I think Mao Tse-Tung used to be used, but now Zedong is favoured, in a similar way that Peking became Beijing (and Bombay is now Mumbai).
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