Jump to content

Talk:Mao Zedong

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Majin Takeru (talk | contribs) at 04:06, 10 July 2012 (→Citation needed in Great Leap Forward Section - Note from Dr. Li Zhisui - Why?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Controversial (history) Template:Pbneutral

Changchun siege

In 1948, under direct orders from Mao, the People’s Liberation Army starved out the Kuomintang forces occupying the city of Changchun. At least 160,000 civilians are believed to have perished during the siege, which lasted from June until October. PLA lieutenant colonel Zhang Zhenglu, who documented the siege in his book White Snow, Red Blood, compared it to Hiroshima: “The casualties were about the same. Hiroshima took nine seconds; Changchun took five months.”

The above claim will be removed because of policies on NPOV, attribution, and reliable sources. The source for the above passage is New York Times, hardly qualified to investigate Chinese history.

Chinese Wiki summarizes the work of Chinese scholars on the topic:

" 共产党方面则认为，造成大量平民饿死是国军不肯放粮给城内市民所致。作为围城方，解放军不可能突破防线放粮给人民。而国军宁肯眼睁睁让大量饥民饿死也不肯交出城池。 "

--With Google translating the above that the Chinese Communist Party observers believe that the hard situation was caused by misguided Kuomintang strategy. If Chinese-speaking editors can help elaborate, it'd be great.

Contrary to claims cited in NY Times, Chinese sources show that rather than starving people, the Communists provided relief to the people, as this image shows

These Chinese sources elaborate on the liberation of Changchun: [1] [2] . Xylophage (talk) 10:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This must be a joke. The New York Times is not a reliable source for Chinese history and should be replaced by the NPOV statements of the Chinese Communist Party? Is this contributor the same one who was banned as a sockpuppet last week? Consider yourself user checked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgr09 (talk • contribs) 11:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
New York Times is not a reliable source of Chinese history. The Times primarily focuses on America and is a quality source for current events, but not Chinese history because there exist hundreds of sources about the Chinese Revolution by experts on the topic. The cited article refers to a controversial book from a discredited, disgraced military officer who has an agenda to push, stating his disputed allegations as the Truth. There are plenty of other sources, as shown above, showing how the KMT was largely to blame for the hard conditions of Changchun, none of which are considered in the article, which is contrary to NPOV rules. Either all sides about the Changchun battles should be mentioned in the article, or else the biased version of events that currently exists should be removed. My Chinese is not good, so I cannot improve that part by myself.Xylophage (talk) 20:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm skeptical, and will look into this in more depth when I have a moment. Chinese sources, written under the CCP, are notoriously unreliable on such things. Generally speaking, NYTimes is considered reliable, though if there is a demonstrable reason why it is not in this particular regard, we can take that into consideration. Would you care to explain why you stripped Dikötter out of the page[3]? His work on the GLP is the best source available. Before making such massive revisions, I would advise trying to establish consensus with other editors. Homunculus (duihua) 21:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dikotter's book is controversial and is given undue weight, with lengthy block quotations.
You state that pro-CCP accounts are "notoriously unreliable". Such stuff may or may not be wrong, but we're not here to decide that. Since there are different opinions about Changchun, they should all be summarized in the article for NPOV. For example, "Chinese dissident officer argues...But Chinese Communists and historians argue..."
Concerning the NY Times, all the article does is repeat the claims of a dissident Chinese career military man and states them as truth. There is no consideration given to other views of the Changchun battle. An editorial from the NY Times is not reliable for Chinese history, but is a good source for many other things.Xylophage (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mao DeDong

Maybe is more correct Mao DeDong than Mao Zedong. Or add also this spelling...
Especially in the North, where people now speak PaTonGua, the official language of govern.
Probably Zedong is more correct in the south, where people speak cantonese more...
Or was correct in the past, but PANTAREI, all always change. Especially China now.
But is always the CHAIRMAN for chinese people also today.
Recently in TianAnMan I have seen a lot of Ciu EnLai, vicepresident of Mao. 

DeDong why are two chinese characters, so is more evident than in simply Dedong...
for easier the correct speaking accent...

So for all names of town, most are two characters.
For example BeiJing (North Capital) or NanJing (South Capital).
This arrive until VietNam or HaNoi, that in the past was part of South Ming empire until
about 1650.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.207.50.162 (talk) 01:11, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The doubling of population mentioned in same sentence as death toll in lede

It reads: "While China's population almost doubled during the period of Mao's leadership[7] (from around 550 to over 900 million),[3][5] his rule from 1949 to 1976 is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people." I'm not sure who inserted this, but that the doubling of the population under his leadership is being mentioned in *the very same sentence* as the death toll, and right before it, is *obviously* an attempt by someone to minimize the latter, and as such violates NPOV. I'm not asking that the data be removed, but moved to the preceeding paragraph discussing the "positive changes" that Mao brought to China, and not in the paragraph discussing the more controversial aspects of Mao's reign, with all the death and suffering caused by many of his policies. Doing this would better conform to NPOV and not read as apologia for these massive human losses. Therefore I'm reverting back to my previous edits.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 11:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A bigger issue is that the whole introduction presents Maozedung in a somewhat positive manner by mentioning some of the good things he did for China. The introduction to the Adolf Hitler article says only bad things about him and none of the good things like labor reforms and such that he introduced in the early 30s. Adolf Hitler is listed as a Good Article but Maozedung isn't. So, the good things about mao should be deleted from the itroduction to this article to make it consistent with the Adolf Hitler artcle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.110.8 (talk) 21:26, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IP 184, setting aside the quasi-Reductio ad Hitlerum and Godwin's Law confirmation, please read WP:OTHERCRAP to see why Adolf Hitler's article has no relevance to this one.  Redthoreau -- (talk) 12:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Adolf Hitler's article is relevant to Mao Zedung in that both were genocidal 20-th century heads of state. I used Hitle merely because it is a well known example/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.110.8 (talk) 19:05, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Original research tag

I put an OR tag on the unreferenced paragraph in the Legacy section that begins "The accusation that Mao deliberately exposed...". Much of the editorial analysis in the paragraph is plausible, but it appears to be just that - editorial analysis. As such it requires references to reliable sources that have made the same arguments. In addition to references, the first sentence really needs and attribution - who said the claims are implausible?--Wikimedes (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph has been removed by another editor diff.--Wikimedes (talk) 07:49, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of Mao

I made a very reasonable change but it was rolled back. As currently drafted, the article suggests that only non-resident Chinese and "activists"/"dissidents" have a problem with Mao. That is simply wrong. Mao has his critics inside of China, and it's wrong to label them all as dissidents or activists, because they're largely an ostracised group in China who are routinely accused of being in the pockets of foreign powers. It's much better to leave it ambiguous. Otherwise someone would need specific citations to show that activists and dissidents are the only people in China who criticise him. There are Chinese activists/dissidents who don't like Mao, but there are other Chinese people too.

I also think it's highly POV to describe Taiwan as "anti-Communist". It may have been under the KMT's martial rule, but today the country is not pathologically opposed to Communism. "Democratic" is a far better descriptor. However, I don't see the relevance of referring to Taiwan here, unless someone has a specific citation that can handily refer to sentiment of Mao there.

Rather than roll my changes back again, can people please discuss it or try to improve my changes. I have made other changes to the section John Smith's (talk) 11:27, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JohnSMith. But given that the Communist Party has an official policy that Mao was "70% right and 30% wrong", any mainlander who publicly admits to greater disapproval of Mao is by definition, a "dissident" and may suffer consequences. I think the text will be superior if it states this in one or other form. I think our text needs to make it plain that on the mainland people are restricted in terms of voicing disapproval of Mao, and of course, are subject to information controls that attempt to steward them towards respect for Mao. Observoz (talk) 23:18, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Maoist communism

I would like to nominate a section in the "Legacy" part that specifies the large variety of communist groups opposed to Maoism. This includes Trotskyists, anarchist-communists, most orthodox Marxists, and many other revolutionary socialists.

More crucial distinction needs to be made between Karl Marx's anti-statist description of socialism as "workers' democracy", contrasted with Mao's authoritarian nationalistic state which was neither democracy nor run by workers.

Motorizer (talk) 06:10, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed in Great Leap Forward Section - Note from Dr. Li Zhisui - Why?

This text, in the GLF section:

"The extent of Mao's knowledge of the severity of the situation has been disputed. According to some, most notably Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao was not aware that the situation amounted to more than a slight shortage of food and general supplies until late 1959.[citation needed]"

A Citation Needed note was added - I myself among other additions and edits of this article over the years, inputted this some years ago. This is a sourced directly from Dr. Li Zhisui's book, "The Private Life of Chairman Mao". That book is the source, and it was noted when this was originally added. This "citation needed" tag should be removed. Majin Takeru (talk) 04:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Mao_Zedong&oldid=501506072"