Microblog Memes

The actual material conditions that underpinned the revolutions in China, Russia, and other socialist experiments couldn't be more different than our situation. China was a country that had a brutally and bloodily repressed peasant revolution before Mao rose to power and, in many ways, allowed that peasant revolution in China. Though I'm not an expert in Chinese history, def have some books here I gotta crack open.

Eh, it's a bit more complicated than that. Really the material conditions in China were a result of the dissolution of the Qing dynasty under the control of the Manchu people. You can really trace it's origins back from the Taiping Rebellion, the subsequent Boxer rebellion, the occupation of the western powers, and finally the invasion and occupation of the Japanese. Its material reality was more a result of ethnic conflict between the generally perceived as outsider Manchu, and the repressed Han, who saw themselves as the historic rulers of China. Coupled with the perception by the Han that the Manchu were collaborating with occupying forces.

Mao and the initial leadership of the revolution weren't exactly what you would think of as peasants, rather they were born to the peasant class. He was actually the son of one of the wealthiest farming families in his region, he was just Han in a time where really only Manchu were elevated into the ruling class.