Mubei, or Tombstone

[fleetmouse]

Mubei, or Tombstone, by Yang Jisheng, was published in 2008 and is considered to be the definitive account of the Chinese Great Famine. The book is banned in China, but has been available in Hong Kong. Counterfeit and electronic copies have allowed many Chinese to access the book. Before this November, Tombstone was available only in Chinese; however, the English translation has now been released.

http://www.metafilter.com/121757/Our-hi ... fabricated

Hoping for some comments from Miles, our resident China scholar, on this...

[mdsimpson92]

Mubei, or Tombstone, by Yang Jisheng, was published in 2008 and is considered to be the definitive account of the Chinese Great Famine. The book is banned in China, but has been available in Hong Kong. Counterfeit and electronic copies have allowed many Chinese to access the book. Before this November, Tombstone was available only in Chinese; however, the English translation has now been released.

http://www.metafilter.com/121757/Our-hi ... fabricated

Hoping for some comments from Miles, our resident China scholar, on this...

This is not that suprising. There are three major incidents you cannot talk about in China, the "Great Leap Foward", the "Cultural Revolution", and the Tiananmen Square Incident. Fleet you actually brought this up at a wierd time, the Party Congress is having their 18th meeting right now and have cut off sections of google (and steps up monitoring) as long as the meeting is going.

Dealing with the great leap forward. . . . well, it was pretty much Mao's fault along with members of the local cadres. While the natural disasters didn't help, the main issue came from the fact that members in the local cadres inflated their food production numbers in order to gain promotions, so the party would then take more grain than the local areas could actually afford to give. In addition their was also a set goal to surpass Britain in terms of steel production in five years. That way you had people working on these little ovens instead of working on the farms, producing steel quality of no actual value and decreasing overall production of food. This along with the lack of oversight and false information sent to the central government set up the massive disaster.

The funny thing is that Mao did this AGAINST orthodox Marxist doctrine. This was supposed to be his way of skipping the Capitalist stage and getting into the socialist stage with communized farmland and modernized industry. Hence the term "Great Leap." That is why it isn't considered overly ironic that China is so state capitalist, they believe that they must first go through the capitalist stage of development first before moving on to socialism.

does that mean they have to have another revolution that's coming? What stage is the USSR in? It's gone on to the workers paradise in the sky?

hey did you know Obama won?

[fleetmouse]

Yeah I heard! I think that's the death knell for the southern strategy.

Really interesting context you give here... my knowledge of Chinese history is sketchy but you've filled in another chunk.

[mdsimpson92]

does that mean they have to have another revolution that's coming? What stage is the USSR in? It's gone on to the workers paradise in the sky?

hey did you know Obama won?

Weird, I didn't write this.


According to the Party propaganda, the USSR was not truly socialist but rather state capitalist or something, but at that time it was just a derogatory term because both sides were enemies. I don't know what the current assessment was. From what I can tell, even Mao's state has been called state-capitalist which I think is ridiculous. So among Marxists i guess its just a derogatory word they throw at each other in order to say other communists "aren't true communists."

As far as the revolution. Their claim is that the Party is meant to guide the country through those stages peacefully. It is meant to be a societal revolution.

[fleetmouse]

lol, meta hit edit instead of reply again.

[Metacrock]

does that mean they have to have another revolution that's coming? What stage is the USSR in? It's gone on to the workers paradise in the sky?

hey did you know Obama won?

Weird, I didn't write this.

yes somehow those text boxes jump the track sort of. I wrote it. I don't know how your name got on it.

[mdsimpson92]

I hope I was able to answer your questions adequately.

[Metacrock]

I hope I was able to answer your questions adequately.

I guess. Sorry but I really don't expect them to be consistent or compassionate.

[mdsimpson92]

I hope I was able to answer your questions adequately.

I guess. Sorry but I really don't expect them to be consistent or compassionate.

Nope. By the way the 18th party congress announced the new leadership. All hail Comrade Xi JinPing, the new Paramount Leader! He seems decent enough.