Jeffrey Wasserstrom: belief

Transcript context

…He’s the head of the nationalists? He’s the head of the nationalists. And he has some very different … He’s a kind of culturally more conservative figure. But what’s important in part about this is there are some members of the Chinese Communist Party who accept the basic ideas of Marxism, of revolution comes from the cities. But Mao has this idea that actually he loves this idea of peasant rebellions in China’s past is driving history forward. And he starts writing about how, well, maybe in China’s case actually the peasantry farmers can be a radical force. And so, The Communist Party’s on the run. It’s being pushed around, but the nationalists are trying to exterminate them. But eventually, and the nationalists and the Communists ally again after Japan invades China in the 1930s. They formed what’s called The Second United Front. But during this period, Mao is emerging as taking leadership in the Chinese Communist Party and his idea of a different kind of vision of communist revolution that has the revolutionary vanguard somehow being the peasantry. After World War II, after the two parties have brokered a truce and sort of worked together against Japan, there’s a civil war between the nationalists and the communists. And against all odds, the Communist party wins. The Communist Party gets support from the Soviet Union. The Nationalists get support from the United States, even though neither of them are quite doing things the way that their backer would like them to. But there also is a way in which, and this is something I think the Communist Party leaders remember, there’s a feeling that the Nationalist Party doesn’t really believe its own rhetoric. That, in fact, all it cares about is having power, and that it’s internally corrupt. Chiang Kai-shek himself isn’t viewed as sort of personally corrupt, but family members, and there’s an idea that there’s just a small band of people that are benefiting. And there’s a kind of disgust with the Nationalists. The Nationalists end up in retreat in Taiwan. That’s why Taiwan then becomes the Republic of China. ust a small band of people that are benefiting. And there’s a kind of disgust with the Nationalists. The Nationalists end up in retreat in Taiwan. That’s why Taiwan then becomes the Republic of China. There’s an uprising there that Chiang Kai-shek’s people, the Nationalists, repress. And there starts being from the late-nineteen forties on this long period of martial law on Taiwan. And there becomes then this period where the mainland’s under the control of a Leninist party, believes in one party rule, and believes that it was a very bad in Chinese history when China was unable to stand up to imperialists. Taiwan’s controlled by a Leninist party that believes in one-party rule, limits on participation, believes that it was a bad time when China was being bullied by imperialists. What distinguishes, Chiang Kai-shek has a personality cult, Mao has a personality cult. They have a lot in common, but one clear thing that makes them different is Chiang Kai-shek says that what’s wrong with the Communist Party is they’ve abandoned Chinese traditional values of Confucianism. And Mao says that on the nationalists, what’s really bad is they are still wedded to these traditional Chinese values of Confucianism. So cycling back to where we began with Mao and Xi, you could actually say Xi Jinping in some ways is living out the dream that Chiang Kai-shek had of one- party rule and also kind of celebrating Confucianism.…

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