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Chinese Revolution
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Discusses the Chinese Revolution primarily in terms of the actions and thoughts of Mao-Tse-Tung. Compares the ideas of Stuart R. Schram and Jerome Ch'en.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Discusses the Chinese Revolution primarily in terms of the actions and thoughts of Mao-Tse-Tung. Compares the ideas of Stuart R. Schram and Jerome Ch'en.
Paper Introduction:
The Chinese Revolution was a massive shift in social, political, cultural, and economic thinking and in the institutions of Chinese society. The Revolution was led by Mao Tse-Tung and his followers and took place in stages, putting certain Marxist and Leninist conceptions into practice in China and involving both a violent overthrow of the existing government and the long process of transforming Chinese society into a socialist enterprise. Different writers have examined these changes and the role of Mao in effecting them. Stuart Schram in Mao Tse-Tung (1966) examines the issue in terms of the man - his life, his education, his thinking, and how his view of the world was formed and would motivate his actions. Jerome Ch'n in Mao and the Chinese revolution (1965) also considers the Revolution in terms of Mao and the development of his thinking, but he gives much more
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The approach places considerable emphasis on the developmentof Mao's thought, and the section including Mao's poetry (translated byCh'n with Michael Bullock) demonstrates this by offering a direct sourcefor aspects of Mao's thinking and character. The portrait of Mao presented by the two writers is verysimilar. Schram is just as interested in the ideological structures on whichMao built his concepts as was Ch'n, however, and he shows how Mao developedthose ideas, modified them over time, and applied them in Chinese societyand government. Ch'n's bookwas given considerable critical attention and was well-received as thefirst truly scholarly book about Mao, while Schram's was seen as a morepopularly written work in spite of its own scholarly base. In writingthis book, he has tried not to write a "political" book, as he puts it,even though it must of necessity deal with politics and military affairsalong with other aspects of Mao's life. Hu in The Saturday Review saw the book as projecting thecharacter of Mao against the perspective of the historical forces at workduring Mao's era. (1966). The reviewer said the book should bewell-received by all who were interested in modern history. Schwartz's Chinese communism and the rise ofMao. Ch'nwrote when the best works had been written some years before, and there hadbeen many developments since these books first were published. Different writers have examined these changes and the role ofMao in effecting them. The reviewer finds that Ch'n himself had stated that his book wasno more than a stated proposition, a thesis that the author did not arguebut that instead used as a background for his chronology of events and hisdiscussion of Mao's life. Thereviewer was more interested in the translations of the poems and foundthem to be vigorous and forceful such as would be expected from apersonality such as Mao's. It is also a more comprehensive book in many respects,covering Mao's life in a more ambitious manner. Schram is as scholarly as Ch'n but not as familiar with the Chinesemind or the background of the period. Schram thus shows the way Mao puts his revolutionary ideas intopractice in governing the country and in changing society, which Ch'n doesnot address in more than a sketchy way because he is interested in therevolution that brought Mao to power and not in the revolution wrought byMao once in power. New York: Simon and Schuster. Fitzgerald in The Nation found the work to bethe best of the biographies of Mao that had appeared. Mao was guided by ideas of Western origin. He had earlier written severalarticles on aspects of Chinese history in scholarly journals. The book covers events from Mao'sbirth to his victory in 1949 and so does not follow through on the way Maoput his revolutionary ideas into practice in practical governance. He has since carriedout research at the Centre d'Étude des Relations Internationales of theFondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris. Ch'n also acknowledges certain debts to earlier biographicalmaterial. The thesis offered by Ch'n is a comparison orlinkage between Mao's form of revolution and peasant revolts in traditionalChina, but Ch'n is not very concerned with the details of the revolts intraditional China and instead focuses on the pattern shown by Mao increating the People's Republic of China. Schrambelieves that he has a different perspective than does Ch'n and that hisbook will offer a different, and he believes better, interpretation ofcertain events. He was fired bythe desire to make his country a leading one in the world, redress forcenturies during which it remained away from the rest of the world andignored as a quaint but unimportant force in world affairs. Both writers offer scholarly works with good documentation. Thus, both Ch'n and Schram are writing at a time when there are notmany biographies of Mao and when those that exist have limitations. (1965). The political underpinnings of Mao's thoughtderived from events that occurred in his childhood and youth, and Schramtraces these concepts and shows how the thinking of the man was formed.Mao is presented as a man dedicated to one driving ambition--to reform andtransform Chinese society as a way of liberating its citizens from the yokeof tradition. Ch'n also tries not to judgeMao, believing that it is too soon to make those sorts of judgments aboutthe leader. However, he is interested in thestory of Mao in a seemingly broader perspective, examining the life morethan patterns of revolution as Ch'n does. Both see Mao as a committed man whonever lost sight of the goal that fired his imagination and directed hisevery step. In taking thisview, though, Mao was to a degree showing the traditional value the Chinesehad always placed on their culture, though he had a different view of thismatter and saw a need to transform that society to give China her rightfulplace in the world. Stuart Schram in Mao Tse-Tung (1966) examines theissue in terms of the man - his life, his education, his thinking, and howhis view of the world was formed and would motivate his actions. Schram's book thus covers more ground and has value inthat it carries the story of Mao past the early years and into the lateryears of governing China. Muchof the book is taken up with examining just this issue and with how Maochanged his views and his approach without ever losing sight of hisparticular goal. At the same time, he also acknowledges the debt he owes byhaving been able to compare his own version of events with Ch'n's andhaving been able to benefit from Ch'n's extensive knowledge of certainaspects of the Chinese background of Mao's life. C.T. The reviewersfound that Ch'n's book was directed specifically toward the Maoist patternof revolution, how it developed, and how it was applied by the man inpractical situations. JeromeCh'n in Mao and the Chinese revolution (1965) also considers the Revolutionin terms of Mao and the development of his thinking, but he gives much moreemphasis to the intellectual life of Mao, including presenting selectionsof Mao's poetry. Several reviewers point out that Ch'n's book is the first scholarlywork on Mao and that it serves a special purpose by going farther than theprevious impressionistic and journalistic works published on the samesubject. In the main, though, they agree on the ideology of the man and onthe role ideology has played in his thinking and his actions. Schram places less emphasis on the idea of the peasant revolt inChinese history, but he and Ch'n alike discuss the way Mao developed hisown revolutionary theory based on certain Chinese ideas and westernconceptions. Schram was born in Minnesota in 1924 and attended theUniversity of Minnesota as an undergraduate before receiving his Ph.D. The Chinese Revolution was a massive shift in social, political,cultural, and economic thinking and in the institutions of Chinese society. The Schram book covers the same basic territory and tries to beinclusive by covering Mao from childhood through the formation of thePeople's Republic of China. The Times of London described the book as a pioneering work withgreat merit for that reason alone. Schram acknowledges a debt to Ch'n's book and particularly to theinclusion in that work of thirty-seven of Mao's poems. New York: Oxford University Press.Schram, S. Stuart R. On the other hand, C.P. As noted, Schram shows a particular desire to understandthe way Mao set about trying to transform traditional Chinese society intoa modern social order that could be a major power in world affairs. Schram also carries the story ofMao beyond the successful revolution that brought him to power in China,for he examines as well the policies undertaken by Mao as leader of thecountry. BibliographyCh'n, J. The Economist of London felt that Ch'n's book had not achieved itspurpose. Hu says Ch'n is impressed by Mao and his role in therevolution and that this comes through in the way Ch'n writes about thesubject. These two books complement one another, the first covering Mao's lifeup to the formation of the People's Republic of China and the othercovering that same period and continuing through the early years of theRepublic. Mao Tse-Tung. He sees Ch'n ashaving placed Mao at the end of a long line of Chinese revolutionaries,thus linking Mao with a tradition rather than showing him to be anaberration or somehow so different as to be alien to traditional China.Ch'n has described Mao as "sensitive," and the reviewer believes that Ch'nhas managed to support this view with the poetry presented in the secondhalf of the book. Jerome Ch'n at the time of his writing of this book was a lecturer inAsian history at the University of Leeds. However, the reviewer says that there are certainweaknesses apparent in the Soviet side of the story and some disappointinggaps in the Chinese documentation. The Revolution was led by Mao Tse-Tung and his followers and took place instages, putting certain Marxist and Leninist conceptions into practice inChina and involving both a violent overthrow of the existing government andthe long process of transforming Chinese society into a socialistenterprise. He states that this is also not astraightforward biography, since it is impossible to separate Mao from theintricacies of Chinese politics and warfare. Schram says thatCh'n's book was the first serious and properly documented biography of Mao,though he disagrees with Ch'n on a number of points of fact andinterpretation. Mao and the Chinese revolution. The revieweralso says that Ch'n shows a great familiarity with modern Chinese history.the reviewer also finds that Ch'n has an advantage in that he has aninstinctive understanding of the mental world of a Chinese struggling tomodernize his country along western lines while still maintaining contactwith his own past. He states that he has relied heavily on Edgar Snow's Red starOver China and Professor B. Theworks differ on certain facts and on the way the authors interpret thosefacts. Aless vital book cited by Ch'n is Robert Payne's Mao Tse-Tung, Ruler of RedChina. inpolitical science from Columbia University in 1954. The first of these was written when the world was only beginning totake notice of Mao in the mid-193 s and was a report by an able journalist,while the second was the result of a scholarly quest for information. In spite of what Schram says about having a differentinterpretation of some events than does Ch'n, the analyses offered by thetwo authors are not that different.
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