Dwarkesh Patel: evaluation

Transcript context

…Which is why, by the way, Mr. Xi's argument, because he was against Gorbachev, against perestroika and glasnost. And exactly that, the communist regime would—know. In today's terms, that is the wealth, the money that is associated with power. In the book, you point out that Mao is acting in his self-interest and selfishly doing all these things. But it seems to me that a strong, if not motivation, at least enabling factor and organizing factor is definitely provided by the ideologies of communism and socialism, which sort of organizes society. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to collectivize farms and to close down shops. And it also necessitates the purges. Because communism is a science, it has to work. And if it doesn't work, there must be internal capitalist saboteurs who must be condemned, brought out and killed. Isn't it the communism and socialism at the heart of the issue here? I think some people would undoubtedly think that way. But having researched Mao for twelve years, my conclusion about him was he was highly pragmatic, and the communist ideology suited him. He joined the Communist Party not because he was a passionate believer, but because it gave him a livelihood. I mean, he was asked to open a left-wing bookshop selling Communist and left-wing literature, and that started his life. But the few things about the ideology that you just mentioned - for example, the collectivization, it's highly conducive to what Mao wanted, which was food. If they had been private farmers, they would've farmed their food first and paid taxes, so to speak. But it's far more difficult to control hundreds of millions of peasants than to organize them into units, into communes. Mao said that the great advantage of collectivization was easier control. This was not just ideology, but reality for what he wanted to get.…

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