Lessons From Chairman Mao

There is something tragic in man’s nature that an ideology which has been the scourge of the 20^th century, inflicting misery and death upon hundreds of millions, still has so many adherents. China recently celebrated the 60^th anniversary of its Communist Party. Although communism’s horror show continues to enslave a large portion the world’s population, many in our county are still sympathetic to this cancer. Its track record bears repeating, particularly to students, whose naïveté and inexperience leave them susceptible to dangerous belief systems.

Also in need of a primer on communism’s track record are those in the United States Congress who continue to support and appease communist dictators and tyrants like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. For example, in April of 2009, key representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Castro. “It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Rush (D-Ill.). According to Representative Richardson (D-Long Beach), Castro knew her name and district. “He looked right into my eyes and he said, ‘How can we help? How can we help President Obama?'” On second thought, these minds have already been irreversibly poisoned. It’s better their constituents should hear the story of Communist China.

The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949 and the charismatic Mao Zedong, exposed to Marxism as a student at Peking University, was its leader. Mao’s cult of personality produced slavish devotion and enabled him to be seen as a visionary. Mao sought to fundamentally remake Chinese society. Dutiful to communist dogma, he needed someone to blame for society’s problems, and fomented class hatred. Mao insisted that the peasants were kept poor because landowners and small farmers had taken what was rightfully theirs. Mao demonized those farmers who held more land than he deemed acceptable. He confiscated the land and promised it to the peasants. Part of Mao’s plan for “land reform” was to select at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution. Political opponents were at first ridiculed, then simply eliminated. So far, Mao’s strategy was akin to his Soviet counterparts but Mao took it a step further. Not only did he confiscate the land; he actually made the people property of the state. Family life and traditions, personal property, privacy, personal initiative and individual freedom, were utterly destroyed for around one-seventh of mankind.

An obedient student of Marxism, Mao maintained that central planning would yield more ‘just’ results than the uncontrolled market activity of millions of farmers acting in their own self interest. Central planning didn’t work out so well, however. Absolute power always breeds extreme corruption and central planners are never as smart as they believe they are when it comes to understanding the unintended consequences of market interventions. Local bureaucrats took bribes to falsify production numbers, and farmers–fearful of severe retribution for low production–pumped up their official productivity numbers. This vicious cycle was repeated again and again, resulting in a famine that many believe to be the worst in human history. Between 1959 and 1963, 30 million people were slaughtered by the deluded ideology and arrogance of Mao and his army of loyal zombies.

Land reform was only one aspect of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward“. He nationalized industry after industry, slaughtering the capitalists whose wealth he plundered. As if the murder of 30 million and the complete suppression of opposition were not enough, Mao launched his Cultural Revolution in 1966. Believing that the “bourgeois” elements of society continued to threaten the socialist structure, groups of young people known as the Red Guards set up their own tribunals. Schools were closed and the intellectuals living in cities were ordered to the countryside to be “re-educated” by the peasants, where they performed hard manual labor. The Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of much of China’s cultural heritage.

Is Moa an isolated case? Not likely since the same story has been repeated in so many other communist states. Or can we say that the very nature of concentration of power in the State is evil? One fundamental and misguided belief that lies at the root of not only communism, but also its more acceptable cousins, socialism and progressivism, is that the state knows what is best for us. Hence President Obama’s ongoing narrative about what he can do to help us. Progressives, having learned that the private sector is the creator of wealth, do not want to eliminate it. Rather they just want to control it, and redistribute it.

Yet the very notion of redistribution of wealth–a common theme among many of the President’s Czars and other advisors–is a fallacy. When wealth is redistributed, it is largely destroyed. In fact, if we just transferred all the wealth from the private sector to the Government, the Government wouldn’t be “rich” for very long. The wealth would evaporate as it moved from the productive, innovative, and efficient private sector to the unproductive, stagnant, and wasteful public sector.

And what should we make of our United Stated Congress Representatives so enthralled with Castro and those in academia that still idolize Che Guevara? Or a White House where a senior staff members identifies Mao as one her favorite ‘philosophers?’

Communism has long had a following in the US. While Mao perpetrated his atrocities, many on the left cheered him, as they did Lenin and Stalin. During the ’60s and ’70s, campus radicals marched around waving Chairman Mao “Red Book” and chanting praises to him. Many of these radicals are now running our government. The Obama administration has been surprisingly bold in its laissez faire attitude toward communism, although that appears to be changing as Fox News and alternative media uncover details about the players. Van Jones, Obama’s Green Jobs Czar, who recently resigned, was a self avowed Marxist. FCC Diversity Czar, Mark Lloyd has cheered the way Hugo Chavez nationalized the media in Venezuela and criticized the US for standing up for property owners. Carol Browner, Obama’s powerful Energy and Climate Change Czar, was listed prominently as a member Socialist International, until the site was scrubbed of her on January 7^th 2009. And, of course, Director of Communications Anita Dunn.

Each generation is susceptible to the disease of the mind called communism and its various strains. We need to guard against it like we guard against each new strain of flu. Many young people are attracted to new incarnations of the false promise of utopia. Some see appeal in the calls for “social justice” or “environmental justice”. A rose by any other name is still a rose and, branding aside, the goals of state control and redistribution vary little from Mao’s.

Historically speaking, what is truly new and fresh and revolutionary is the notion of limited government–strong enough to defend against enemies, protect its citizens and administer justice, but largely on the side of people’s lives. It is still an experiment whose odds are greatly stacked against it. The economist, Milton Freidman said in the 1970s that collectivism and tyranny is the natural state of man and that the US in the nineteenth century represented a brief respite from this sorry state. We are now back on the path towards ever increasing government power.

On November 9^th is the 20^th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Don’t count on Big Media to devote too much attention to this important milestone, when half a continent began a collective burst towards freedom. It is an event we should draw inspiration and strength from. Hopefully it’s not too late.