How have they maintained their ideological purity so well, even after reform and opening up? How come the CPSU let figures like Khruschev slip in through the cracks?
I think the Chinese were just more vigilant and were able to reform, err, “reformist” elements vis a vis stuff like the CultRev.
There was always that atmosphere of being a true Marxist-Leninist and not letting anyone down, as harsh as that may sound.
In the end, while I think the CultRev was largely useless… in may have worked in that sense.
IMHO.
What you’re saying is contradictory. On the one hand you allege that the Cultural Revolution was “largely useless”. On the other hand you admit that the CPC managed to avoid the fate of the CPSU by enforcing the Marxist-Leninist line and cleaning up opportunist and right-deviationist elements in the course of the Cultural Revolution.
It seems to me that the only possible conclusion is that the Cultural Revolution was very much not useless, and was arguably one of the most important political initiatives that China ever undertook, since if the CPC had degenerated like the CPSU then the entire system would have fallen and China would have disintegrated like the USSR, undoing everything that had been achieved.
Obviously there were many more factors that played a role than just the Cultural Revolution, it would be naive to reduce history down to a mono-causal explanation, and whole books have and will continue to be written on why China succeeded where the USSR didn’t, but given how things turned out i don’t think that we can simply discount the CR’s role in China’s success.
The CPC largely believes it could’ve been handled better and disavows it.
I think more research, however, needs to be done on why China and not, say, the Soviet Union.
Why did China survive? Why didn’t the Soviet Union?
I feel we don’t truly know, but I think the CultRev may have had something to do with it, but I’m leery about seeing it as a factor, due to my Chinese friends largely seeing it in a negative and useless light. I don’t want to talk over or disregard the experience of many Chinese people during that era or the CPC itself.
Hence, this is just speculation on my part.
I don’t agree with the CPC on everything and this may be one of those disagreements (as always with the caveat that i don’t pretend to know better than the CPC, i’m just an outside observer and this is my opinion based on my current level of knowledge).
Could it have been handled better? Of course. Mistakes are unavoidable. Was it nevertheless a beneficial initiative? Also imo yes. I view it the same as i view Reform and Opening Up, both had drawbacks and significant downsides, as well as ugly excesses. But both ultimately served an important role for China’s development, in the one case politically and in the other economically.
I agree with the sentiment of not wanting to disregard the experiences of those who lived through it, but i don’t think that negative individual experiences necessarily imply that the whole thing did not achieve a net positive for the country. Sometimes a thing that is good for you in the long run is not pleasant while you’re going through it, and you realize only later that it was for the best. And sometimes some people don’t realize it at all.
Ultimately it’s hard to know for sure because we can’t go back in time to take a different path, one without a Cultural Revolution, and see where that would lead and how history would diverge 20, 40, 60 years down the line. It may have turned out better or it may have turned out much worse.
I agree with much of what you said here.
That said, honestly, I don’t know what to believe in this case.
I think, if anyone has pointers on what to read here, that would be much appreciated. I’ve read some books from the “CultRev point-of-view” (that is, books that defend the CultRev in China) but the problem is that I’ve never quite read why the CultRev was wrong and that makes me a bit unsure of how to approach this topic: I don’t know the other side of the story and, therefore, I don’t know if the CultRev proponents’ arguments are deficient or not and how they compare to the critics of it.
That being said, I do have some idea of how Chinese people may view the CultRev and that is that it was “useless” and caused “needless chaos.”
I think I’m going to lean toward that CultRev being necessary for “Reform and Opening Up,” as is sometimes the interpretation; without that commitment to communism, Reform and Opening Up could’ve gone awry…
I have nothing to add. I think we’re pretty much on the same level here. I also have a lot to learn still.
I’ve only been an ML for… maybe 5 years? 6? 7? And honestly, some communists I know have been that for 50 or 60.
And I realized that there is a lot I don’t know beyond the “classics” and some of my special interests in ML.
I mean, there’s what’s on paper and then there’s what is yet to be discovered or ascertained.
Honestly, like I said, I do… think that the CultRev was probably necessary. In fact, I think it was, issues with it aside. Could you imagine if China was not socialist nowadays? All the other AES nations would fold, tbh…
