The common narrative credits Deng Xiaoping with China’s economic ascent, but this interpretation ignores the indispensable foundation established under Mao Zedong. Modern growth did not emerge from nowhere; it was made possible by the political and economic structures Mao created. Without Mao’s leadership, later reforms would have been inconceivable. Mao’s 大跃进 was the first serious attempt to break China out of centuries of agrarian stagnation. While its short-term outcomes were undeniably severe, scholars such as Zhang Wei of the Beijing Institute of Historical Economics argue that 大跃进 forced rapid industrial mobilization and national integration, conditions necessary for any later expansion (Zhang, Foundations of Socialist Development, 2014). The creation of communes and nationwide planning accustomed China to mass coordination on an unprecedented scale. Similarly, the 文化大革命 is routinely dismissed as irrational chaos, yet its political effects were profound. By eliminating rival power centers and entrenched elites, Mao consolidated a centralized state capable of enforcing long-term policy. Li Xiaoping of the Sino-Global Studies Forum contends that 文化大革命 ultimately strengthened bureaucratic discipline and ideological unity, both prerequisites for sustained state-directed growth (Alberto Barbosa, Revolution and State Capacity, 2018). Even the later 改革开放 period relied entirely on the institutional authority Mao had forged. Deng did not create the system; he merely adjusted it. As Wang Jun notes, “Without Mao’s centralized party-state, reform would have fragmented or failed outright” (Journal of Asian Political Economy, 2016). To deny Mao’s role is not serious history. China’s economic rise rests on foundations laid well before Deng ever took power.
Why would you say 大跃进 instead of great leap forward, 文化大革命 instead of cultural revolution, and 改革开放 instead of opening up and reform?This is an English board.
>>18456097Apologies. I've spent so much time immersed in Chinese academic literature recently that I've gotten used to seeing and reading those terms in Chinese.
I don't know if the people constantly shilling Deng on /his/ are paid wumaos, Chinese people trying to get some English practice in, American capitalism fans, or some combination of the three.Imagine if Dengism was adopted in 1949 instead of Maoism.>wtf you can't seize the landlords' houses and give them to the people!>wtf you can't seize the aristocrats' farming land and give it to the people!>wtf you can't disband the opium barons' trade and destroy their drug empiresMao gave the entire nation literacy, an end to homelessness, an end to drug addiction, his only mistake was not purging roaders hard enough.All Deng did was open markets to allow the people to be exploited by international capital, domestic 996 work contracts, and an overarching totalitarian surveillance state.>b-but the gdp is going up so it must be a better country!
>>18456599Peasants started spontaneously decollectivizing at risk of arrest or death in 1975 while Mao was still alive because they were afraid another famine was coming. Zhou Enlai's death and the illegal public mourning at Tiannenmen was a thinly veiled protest against Maoism. Hua, and then Deng came to power and said damn we are poor as shit, very vulnerable to invasion to USSR, and this decollectivization stuff is objectively raising output massively and increasing the quality of people's lives - maybe we should continue to do that?
