China Historiography Flashcards
Lowell Dittmer view on Liu Shaoqi (2p)
- “Liu’s life may be viewed as an attempt to combine order with revolution, and equality with economic efficiency”
- “Over a period of more than a quarter-century, he served as a constructive and stabilising force within the party and the regime”
C. P. Fitzgerald on instability’s effect on Chi Rev
“The Chinese Revolution was made possible by the long growth of elements of instability in Chinese society.”
C. P. Fitzgerald on KMT unpopularity
“If the Communists by their violence alienated the scholars, the [Kuomintang] by its blind selfish indifference lost the peasants.”
C. P. Fitzgerald on lack of KMT ideology
“But there was something else which ate the heart of the Nationalist movement: the lack of any real satisfying and inspiring ideology.”
C. P. Fitzgerald on KMT military, economic and political situations
“If the military situation of Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime was bad the economic situation was far worse and the political prospect catastrophic. Inflation, uncontrolled, fantastic and calamitous had destroyed the value of the national currency.”
C. P. Fitzgerald on how peasants and scholars (=they) were lost by KMT and won over by Communists
“They were won by the Communists, who in a long period of exile and hardship had learned to practice moderation, to govern honestly, and to build a disciplined army.”
C. P. Fitzgerald on the motive of Long March
“It is the apparent that the real reason for the Long March, apart from the pressure of blockade, was to establish the Communist base in a position where it could participate in resistance to, and profit form, the impending Japanese invasion.”
C. P. Fitzgerald on CCP development
“The Communist movement had thus, in the ten years between 1927 and 1937 developed from a workers’ party of theoretical Marxists, into an agrarian party of rural revolution – heretical Marxism in fact, if not in name – and now appeared as the party of national resistance and reconciliation.”
C. P. Fitzgerald controversial view on famine in 59-61
“Even during the three exceptionally bad years 1959-1961 – when widespread crop failures, mainly due to natural calamities, occurred and although severe rationing had to be introduced – famine, in the sense of mass starvation, was averted. There is no evidence that such deaths occurred. The Communists have shown great skill, common sense, and organising ability in handling the distribution of the rice and grain crops.”
C. P. Fitzgerald on importance of peasants and scholars
“The coalition of peasant and scholar has been the key to the triumph of Chinese Communism.”
Michael Lynch
inflation; prices
“in 1940, 100 yuan bought a pig, in 1943 a chicken, in 1945 a fish, in 1946 an egg, and in 1947 one third of a box of matches”
