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A review by binstonbirchill
The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 by Frank Dikotter
4.0
In The Tragedy of Liberation Frank Dikotter runs through the civil war, land reform, the Korean War and the Bamboo Curtain, thought control, Mao’s emulation of Stalin’s Soviet Union, the impact of Khrushchev’s Secret Speech, and once Mao saw the criticism that he invited the book ends with his purging of the “rightists.”
Throughout his general overview of these events Dikötter provides statistics as well as individual stories of hope (often brief) and despair (often final). The impact of Stalin’s Soviet Union cannot be underestimated. The conditions were different but the same roadmap was used, with predictable results.
“One of the first tasks of the work team was to divide the villagers into five classes, closely mirroring what had been done in the Soviet Union: ‘landlords', 'rich peasants', 'middle peasants', poor peasants and labour-ers. This took place in endless meetings in the evening, as the work teams pored over the life stories of each and every villager with information gathered from newly recruited activists. The challenge was that none of these artificial class distinctions actually corresponded to the social landscape of the village, where most farmers often lived in roughly similar conditions.”
There is a lot of information but a knowledge of the Soviet model will make this rather easy to digest. This is first of Dikötter’s trilogy chronologically but the second by publication date. I’m reading them chronologically with the hope that a more in depth look at Mao is included in the next (or first) book Mao’s Great Famine.
3.8 stars
Throughout his general overview of these events Dikötter provides statistics as well as individual stories of hope (often brief) and despair (often final). The impact of Stalin’s Soviet Union cannot be underestimated. The conditions were different but the same roadmap was used, with predictable results.
“One of the first tasks of the work team was to divide the villagers into five classes, closely mirroring what had been done in the Soviet Union: ‘landlords', 'rich peasants', 'middle peasants', poor peasants and labour-ers. This took place in endless meetings in the evening, as the work teams pored over the life stories of each and every villager with information gathered from newly recruited activists. The challenge was that none of these artificial class distinctions actually corresponded to the social landscape of the village, where most farmers often lived in roughly similar conditions.”
There is a lot of information but a knowledge of the Soviet model will make this rather easy to digest. This is first of Dikötter’s trilogy chronologically but the second by publication date. I’m reading them chronologically with the hope that a more in depth look at Mao is included in the next (or first) book Mao’s Great Famine.
3.8 stars