Current reading 
I’ll dip in and out of this as it’s hard work
Maoism is a mix of “party building discipline, anti-colonial rebellion and ‘continuous revolution’, grafted on to the secular religion of Marxism”
Hopefully obvious why this is topical reading material
Hopefully obvious why this is topical reading material
China’s foreign policy “argues its status as victim, not activist or aggressor...”
Book argues basically that “domino theory” re China was correct
Mao “celebrated the violence (supporters of) his tyranny exercised... almost ecstatically”
“Social relations transformed (through) ‘speak bitterness’ meetings, with people denouncing the old ways, speaking of the ways in which they’re oppressed “
Ai Wei Wei’s father making a cameo in a show trial
“The classic ingredients of a Stanlist witch hunt” .... or as I call it, The Discourse
Maoists called brainwashing “thought reform” lol
Maoism as “continuous revolution...the need for ceaseless violent shake ups”
Journalist Edgar Snow, in his internationally bestselling book Red Star over China which introduced Mao to the world, portrayed Maoism as being about “human rights... justice, freedom, equality and human dignity”
Journalists propagandising Maoism and living a life of indulgent, bohemian luxury
Fears of brainwashing in the returning American Korean War POWs who seem to have been treated abominably by their own govt. They all should just have relaxed by playing a game of solitaire
“More than a hundred people have been successfully brainwashed- Canadian style”
day of the rake when
day of the rake when
North Korea financed its nuclear programme by building social realist monuments in Africa
“They had no idea how to handle the struggle sessions... the psychological pressure was worse than prison or torture”
Please read this.
“Re-education was foundational in the cultural revolution... articulating grievances against oppressors through consciousness raising... criticism/ self-criticism, interrogations, the rewriting of autobiographies and confessions”
“Re-education was foundational in the cultural revolution... articulating grievances against oppressors through consciousness raising... criticism/ self-criticism, interrogations, the rewriting of autobiographies and confessions”
The story of a black American POW of the Korean War who chose to stay in China (ignore the modern framing)
This meeting between Mao and Krushchev has a very weird sexual undertone. Can you guys just bang already
“British Maoist Elise Fairfax-Cholmeley” lol they really are an eternal type aren’t they
Maoists... “creating new human beings with new creativity, new thoughts, new feelings”
The entitled, ostentatious violence feels very familiar from our current scene- Maoists “swaggering about (flower) begins his ear and sword in his belt, throwing snakes into crowds and starting fights” (this is Indonesia)
NYT somewhat problematically revelling in Indonesian bloodshed. You’d get cancelled for that these days. Lives at risk, disavow etc
China spent around 7% of its budget in foreign aid in 1971
China in Africa. “Chinese teams do not hesitate to perform the humblest of tasks alongside (Africans).” Wonder if they’d say that now, it’s all so tiresome and so on
