Essays on Great Leap Forward

Life sometimes resembles an infinite storm without any rainbow and sunshine in the end. Every new day it tests people’s will by various ordeals and trials. Ill luck, for example, can change the whole life upside down. All the challenges and struggles, however, fall to people’s lot for a reason. Only overcoming different hardships, it is possible to understand the true taste of life. In fact thanks to hard times, we become stronger and more confident personalities who are able to enjoy every moment of life to the full. Thus, people should learn to use various problems ...

Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine. By Jasper Becker. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1998. 416 pp.

Introduction: Hungry Ghosts is an intense book. Even though recent articles and books have disclosed that it was the Great Leap Forward that caused the famine that engulfed China, however, Jasper Becker clarifies the entire destruction of the time through his alluring interviews and graphic stories. Becker places the blame for the horrors directly and uncompromising on Mao Zedong’s shoulders. After all, these events took place during Mao’s watch. However, Becker does not stop there; he proceeds to argue that ...

Although 11 years of the Cultural Revolution is usually defined as a holistic period, it is better to view it as consisting of two parts. The movement began with a sudden and strong explosion of radicalism of the Red Guards, angry workers and ambitious petty officials. This massive mobilization of the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, successfully helped Mao to unseat his rivals. The second period of the Cultural Revolution lasted from 1968 to 1976 and established a new order through the negotiations and the use of force, as well as controlling the rebel groups. The revolution was followed by repression, ...

In the summer of 1949, the People's Liberation Army under the control of the Communist Party of China entered Beijing and took over power. Mao Zedong, the leader of the Communist Party declares the social revolution and the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. Maoism, a particular form of socialism that “mixes orthodox Stalinism with Populism” will provide inspiration in a whole generation of activists in the 1960s and 1970s. Almost ten years later, in 1957 Mao launched his “Great Leap Forward” a campaign that led to the most deadly famine in the history. The aim was to rapidly transform ...

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Essence of ‘To Live’ Historical accuracy and sensitivity is one of the most important aspects that weigh heavily on the film To Live (1994), which is directed by Zhang Yimou. From a viewer’s point of view, the film is an interesting event-raveling depiction of what occurred half a century or so ago in China. This put the sequence of events into an epoch when the country was under what can be said to be a transformation characterized by a series of both political and social changes. By then, China was run by the political regime headed by Mao Zedong and this ...

After reading Mao’s own words how ideally communistic were his political views? What role did Mao feel that the arts should play in Communistic China? Are his ideals still in effect in China at the dawn of the 21st Century?

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Lin Biao has described Mao Tse-Tung as the greatest Marxist of his era apart from having developed that political philosophy much further due to his innate ‘genius’. Although these words may sound slightly over the top today there is no denying the fact that Mao was really a person of considerable historical importance and a Communist of the old school. ...

Zhongguo, which is another name for China in Mandarin, means Middle Kingdom when translated to English. China is also called the Center of the Universe ("9a. the middle"). The Chou people of the Zhou Empire, who had occupied the North China Plain in 1000 B.C., were unaware of the Western civilizations, and believed that they were living at the center of the earth. Today, although “Middle Kingdom” is regarded as more of a retrospective and subjective term by the rest of the world, while the one quarter of the world's population in China still believe that they are at the ...

In 1 to 2 pages analyze how the country or individual followed Marx’s ideas or changed Marxism. You may highlight one or more major similarities or differences. The question to keep in mind is "Did the country or individual follow Marxism or did they change it"" If they changed it, how did they change it? Marxism remains one of the most potent ideologies for change in the social sphere as devised by the great Karl Marx in his seminal treatise Das Kapital. Although it has not really been understood properly by many, some leaders who have embraced ...