this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Chinese socialist revolution before Mao's leadership is pretty legit. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, are all real socialists, they truely cares about the worker and envisions a better future for China.
If anything, many Chinese intellectuals in the republic era really cares about the little man, like Lu Xun, Lao She, etc.
I don't think I've seen this position before and it sounds pretty wild ngl. Let me just lay out my understanding.
Mao disagreed with the party on the basis that he felt the peasants had more revolutionary potential than the small, new proletariat working in what few factories existed in China. Mao's arguments were rejected, and the party's commitment to rigid ideology over analysis of the specific material conditions of China led to them being crushed by the Nationalists and massacred. It's the whole reason that the Long March happened.
The few surviving members of the party regrouped, though they were hunted to the ends of the earth and had extremely little manpower or resources. Despite this, because they used Mao's approach of appealing to the peasants, who reflected the majority of the working poor, the communist revolution spread like wildfire, gaining more and more supporters everywhere it went.
Once the communists gained power under Mao's leadership, this happened.
I don't deny that the party before Mao had good intentions, but it seems to me that history has proven their approach wrong in an incredibly decisive way. They tried their approach when the party was in a better position and failed miserably, they tried Mao's approach after that miserable failure and it succeeded on an enormous scale. I'm pretty curious to know where you disagree with that.
Mao's approach led to the largest Proletarian Revolution in history that resulted in almost equal redistribution of land among the peasantry.
So no revolution at all? 95% of the critical mass and anything that can be called a large scale revolution (with organizational successes of the masses) happened in China in the 30s and had little to do with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao previous work ,no matter how admirable. The CPC almost died and was built back up multiple times by the time Mao succeeded and Mao was vital in that. You cant get more legit than revolution under Mao. Under probably the worst odds and situation any communist party and revolution had to face they endured, made correct and miraculous choices and political and military manuvers at every turn and won, uplifting and liberating hundreds of millions of peasants and women. No Mao, no successfull revolution in China and no emancipation of the masses. Good luck doing the long march and outmanuvering the KMT from the countryside by amassing immense support with Chen Duxiu's ideas about the peasantry.
Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao may have envisioned a better socialist future for China but they were and would have been unable to make it happen. They lacked both the military genius, the correct analysis on the peasantry or the rhetoric and vision of mass politics that Mao had that allowed the CPC to pull through against all odds and win
OK that's a lot to look up, thanks for the recommendation.