Another Shoutout to the CHP

Yet once again I find myself immensely enjoying Montgomery Laszlo’s China History Podcast.

He’s well over 100 episodes, but I must admit I hadn’t even heard of his show until around 6 months ago.  

Though most of us won’t admit it, or find no sense of shame in the matter, I never skip around.  Rather,  plodder that I am, I started from the beginning, and am now close to episode 90.  I’ve just finished the Cultural Revolution series.  It’s here I’ve had the epiphany that all those books I read when  younger, I perhaps…well, was too young! 

It’s a true pleasure listening to his podcasts, and here again, having thought I knew the principles behind the CR, was happily surprised at how ignorant I truly am as to the events that actually lead up to the CR. 

Thus the shoutout. 

A couple of takeaways from the CR that I was able to gleam from the recent PODCAST are:

                The peasantry really weren’t effected by the whole thing.  The CR was an incestuous conflict involving maybe 1% of the population.  It was infighting between elites.  That is, one elite wiping out the other, at the expense of progress, production, and national unity.   Sure, agricultural production took a hit, but how do you send a peasant “down to the countryside”?

                Well, if I had been raised in China, I would’ve been a Worker Hero, or a Hero of the Proletariat, or whatever they were called those days.  Neither one of my parents graduated from High School.  I would’ve fit right in!

                The Chinese came to the conclusion abt the time Nixon did, th at the US and China needed each other.  These conclusions were reached independently.  Alas, only one side took the initiative.  The Chinese were lucky we had Nixon at the time, as our leader.  Only he had the credentials to pull off a détente with Mao. 

                My continuing distaste for the lack of moral courage of the leadership, at the time.  No one stood up to the Chairman.  And so they all fell separately, one by one.

                Here I gained more insight into the seeds of the Sino-Russian conflict.  Mao hated Khruschev’s Anti Stalin speech, as it cut to close to comfort for Mao.  And Mao and Khrushchev just didn’t get along. 

As a Sino nut, this podcast does wonders for my soul when walking the parks of Shenzhen early in the morning before hitting the dusty factory districts of Shenzhen. 

Yet again, his link…..

http://chinahistorypodcast.com/