Soviet Union

The Cultural Revolution

A People's History, 1962–1976

by Frank Dikotter

Hardcover, 396 pages purchase

"DAVIES: Now in 1956, there are tremors from the Soviet Union, the other great Communist power of the day. Nikita Khrushchev has come to power, and he denounces Joseph Stalin, you know, the leader who had ruled the Soviet Union from the 1930s and through World War II. What effect did the denunciation of Stalin have on Mao - Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader?

DIKOTTER: It had a huge effect. On the one hand, Mao very much viewed himself as the Joseph Stalin of China, so he perceived it as a personal attack on himself. But of course, he must also have wondered who in China might denounce him. If Khrushchev denounced Stalin, would there be somebody in China denouncing Mao, in particular for the cult of personality? And then, something much broader happened. Mao must've wondered how one man, Nikita Khrushchev, could single-handedly turn against his erstwhile master and engineer a complete reversal of policy as Khrushchev opens up the Soviet Union and becomes somebody who is in favor of so-called peaceful co-existence with the West, which is viewed as a betrayal of revolutionary principles by committed Communists around the world.

DAVIES: Now Mao Zedong, in the late 1950s, took the country into a campaign of modernization called the Great Leap Forward. What was the idea here?

DIKOTTER: The idea is very much linked to de-Stalinization in 1956. As Khrushchev denounces Stalin, Mao thinks that he somehow is an even greater leader than Stalin himself. And he wishes to steal the thunder from the Soviet Union so that people understand that he is the one leading the Communist world - half of planet Earth at the time - into an era of plenty for all. In other words, he wishes to steal Khrushchev's thunder.

The Great Leap Forward is an effort to harness the vast potential of the hundreds of millions of people living in the countryside. Mao thinks that if he can turn those villagers into foot soldiers in a giant army deployed in a continuous revolution, working day and night, then he can transform the economy of China, catapult his country past the Soviet Union and lead mankind into a world for plenty for all. Of course, it backfires very badly. The Great Leap Forward turns into a catastrophe that claims the lives of tens of millions of people.

DAVIES: Yeah, when you say he's going to turn the hundreds of millions into a vast army, we're not talking about a military force. The idea was to transform the economy and surpass, you know, the capitalist countries. What specifically did he have people doing in their villages and cities?

DIKOTTER: Well, he doesn't turn them into foot soldiers literally, but he does herd them into giant collectives referred to as people's communes. And in these people's communes, pretty much any and every type of private property is abolished in favor of radical collectivization. In other words, the land belongs to the state.

Tools, pots, utensils become collective property. Even the very schedule that farmers follow is now determined by a local carter on the ground. And this is one of the reasons why this backfired so badly. Once you strip farmers of any incentive to work, including any sense of private property, of course it becomes very difficult to have them work, and violence replaces incentives."