Lin Biao had based his personal political power upon manipulating Mao’s image.
This reminds me of how, in North Korea, Kim Jong-il basically did the same thing. He took his father's personality cult to new heights, and because of that, he was made the successor.
Mao Zedong thought” (Mao Zedong sixiang).” Awkward in Chinese as well as English, Mao Zedong Thought represented a kind of restraint, modestly resisting the assertion that Mao had established a new “ism” on a level with Marxism or Leninism.
I don't understand this; Mao was certainly never very modest.
their huge scale was intended to awe or intimidate.
This reminds me of the discussion of the Hitler salute in class.
Mao and the Cultural Revolution group were shocked and appropriately concerned that news of the incident would break the confidence of millions of Chinese in the
Revealing that Mao was not well loved by those that knew him best would have shattered the personality cult.
The Cultural Revolution’s politics were self-consciously theatrical.
This makes me think of the struggle sessions that would take place in front of thousands of spectators.
Third, the Party developed a system of labeling Chinese citizens according to their political status.
Something very similar is done in North Korea except in North Korea one's political caste is inherited.
as literacy for women
This reminds me of how much breath and ink are wasted going on about literacy rates in Castro's Cuba.
At first hesitant, many intellectuals eventually responded to the appeal to “Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom,” revealing greater bitterness than the Party had anticipated.
Why would there have been bitterness if the revolution were successful?
Revolutionary China’s first decade was broadly successful.
Well I mean, if you put aside the beginning of the biggest famine in human history...
peasant audiences viewing The White-Haired Girl wanted to kill the actor singing the role of the evil landlord.
I wonder how the Chinese Communists managed the tension, if there was any, between their intellectual roots, and their outreach to the peasants.
The Cultural Revolution was part of the global movement of radical youth in the 1960s and 1970s.
No, it wasn't. The Western radicals rebelled against the authority of the state. The Chinese radicals were put in the service of a state as repressive and a personality cult as omnipresent as anything this side of Kim il-Sung's Korea. This shows the ignorance of Western radicals more than anything else.
Like other twentieth-century Chinese leaders, Mao wanted a strong, modern China;
I don't think this supports the author's claim that pre and post Cultural Revolution China are not as different as we make them out to be. Both Hitler and Merkel wanted a strong and prosperous Germany, but the similarities end there.
Western media are tempted to sharpen the contrast between a good China (which fills our stores with products and carries our debt) and a bad China (which once marked the limit of Western power in the world).
I don't think that's true. I think we think of a "bad China," of the Mao era that was a totalitarian state and a "bad China," during the Deng era that "steals our jobs," and secretly calls the shots in Washington on account of its massive debt holdings.
A binderful of women, a slew of slit, a clot of clams, a transvaginal oftrim, a vulgarity of vaginae, a coven of cunts, a riot of pussy
Our civilization is dead.
feminists
Russian women have more abortions per capita than any other nation on Earth.
do display a lack of responsiveness to politicaladvocacy
Indeed, the inability to pay attention to Russia until Hillary loses an election is widespread. Mitt Romney was laughed at when he called Russia our chief enemy.
have spawned fierce reactions from Russians in general
"They will welcome us as liberators," they said.
As such, they focus on global popular culture and de-monstrate apop culture cosmopolitan self.
We can see this trend of caring more about celebrity than substance in now.There has been more reaction to a Saturday Night Live skit involving Rosie O'Donnell playing Sean Spicer than anything Sean Spicer has ever said.
for the 25th anniversary
It must have had a massive national impact for one little charity to have a book written about it after twenty-five years.
ndeavored to connect the musical experiences of pupils in every way possible with the racial background of the family
It seems to me on the face of it that connecting one's music to one's own race while trying to assimilate into a multicultural state are contradictory.
Addams and Smith had great motivations to be honest
The people who ran Chicago in those days as in these days were a corrupt bunch. Honesty would have certainly stood out and butressed Addams's and Smith's claims to be agents of change.
and in doing so, was politically compelling.
That learning the music of America was politically compelling should not be overlooked. Then as now Americans were clammoring ardently for the assimilation of immigrants. Assimilation then would enhance the immigrants' cause.