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1 vote
2 answers
671 views

Why did China and some other communist countries boycot the 1980 Summer Olympics?

The 1980 Summer Olympics was held in Moscow, Soviet Union. Many countries boycotted the games initiated by the United States for Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. But there were some communist ...
2 votes
0 answers
267 views

How did Mao regain and consolidate power after the Great Famine?

Mao Zedong's position had weakened after the Great Famine, and in the period during and leading up to the Cultural Revolution, he regained and consolidated his power. I am interested in getting a ...
8 votes
4 answers
6k views

How did the Chinese Self-Criticism work in practice?

During the Maoist era often "enemies" were put through "self-criticisms" where they needed to note where they were in error and how they strayed from the party. I've seen multiple records of this in ...
0 votes
2 answers
19k views

What does Deng Xiaoping mean by "Hide your capacities, bide your time '?

I came across this interesting quote by Deng Xiaoping: Hide your capacities and bide your time however I didn't find much about this quote on the Internet explaining the exact context and meaning ...
1 vote
0 answers
145 views

Why were Chinese and Soviet five year plans shorter than five years? [closed]

In the Chinese and Soviet systems of economic planning, they famously used "five year plans". However, most if not all of these plans apparently lasted shorter than five years. For example, ...
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why wasn't Mao purged after the failure of the Great Leap Forward?

In 1958, Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to forcibly collectivise Chinese agriculture and industrialise the country within just a few years. This involved the use of ...
8 votes
2 answers
572 views

What unique personal experiences contributed to the formation of Mao's brand of Communism?

Political scientists cite his personal attributes and exposure to the proletariat as synergistic in the formation of his doctrine. What particular experiences in Mao Zedong's formative years ...
3 votes
3 answers
3k views

Did China's life expectancy at birth rise 30.5 years from 1960 to 1980? If so, what were the particular changes made to their society's structure?

I have been reading The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy by Minqi Li. The author reads like a fan of Mao and is succeeding in convincing me I need to dig deeper in to the ...
5 votes
1 answer
2k views

What good came from the Great Leap Forward?

I'm currently reading the book "Mao's Great Famine" by Frank Dikötter. It's a very harrowing book covering the unimaginable waste and destruction of resources, environment and life that occurred ...
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Did Mao Zedong and Chinese communists collude with the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese War?

Whilst answering another question on in which the CCP was militarily involved in the Sino-Japanese War, To what extent did the CPC avoid fighting with the Japanese? I came across groundbreaking and ...
1 vote
1 answer
307 views

Is there a biography of Pavel Mif?

Pavel Mif by all Chinese accounts was a ruthless scheming Napoleon (the one in animal farm). Fortunate to the Chinese, Mif was later purged by Stalin. I wonder what sort of family he was from; where ...
2 votes
0 answers
132 views

What was the Chinese Communist Party's organizational hierarchy in the two weeks between 15JUL1927 and 01Aug1927?

According to Zhang Guotao, Nanchang Upgrising (01Aug1927) was Li Lisan's initiative inaugurated and proposed by Zhou Enlai to Zhang GuoTao. The decision to go ahead was made between Zhou Enlai and ...
4 votes
1 answer
217 views

How many languages did Zhang Shenfu speak?

Zhang Shenfu (Chinese: 张申府; 1893–1986) was a founder and quitter of the Chinese Communist Party, a philosopher, and a political activist.
3 votes
2 answers
197 views

What was the Jiangxi Soviet's language of operation between 1931 and 1934?

Gong Chu (龔楚) in his Memoir mentioned that the Chinese Communists in Jinggangshan soviet district between 1931 and 1934 had a shortage of representatives in a Cantonese unit of the red army because ...
2 votes
1 answer
251 views

Why was the US table tennis team sent to communist China even after a difference in ideology? [closed]

The USA had an embargo in place with China, due to having fought the Chinese in Korea during the Korean war. For 20 years no American set foot in PRC territory. At last though, the American table ...
3 votes
1 answer
283 views

Who made those 1:50,000 maps in 1930's China

Gong Chu in his Memoir mentioned several times Red Army officers poring over 1:50,000 maps of the most backward areas of China in early 1930s. I wonder who could possibly make those maps.
10 votes
1 answer
2k views

Lenin Jacket Picture: What's the story?

What is the story behind this photo? When was this photo taken? Who are the models? This photo, in many places on the internet, even in this article on "Chinese wikipedia", is shown as an example of ...
2 votes
2 answers
684 views

How was Chinese Communism connected to the New Culture Movement?

Looking for ways that the New Culture Movement was associated with Chinese Communism or the Chinese Communist Party.
2 votes
0 answers
540 views

Credibility of "Mao: The Unknown Story" [closed]

I was reading a controversial book, Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, and found it quite biased. However, they cite a variety of sources to back up their information. Therefore, I ...
7 votes
2 answers
542 views

How would one have gone about setting up a business during Communist Revolutionary China?

In 1966, Mao Zedong launched a movement towards Socialism, to, solidify his power after a disastrous Great Leap Forward, called the Cultural Revolution. Though the movement moved towards a total ...