Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao

by Benjamin I. Schwartz

Blends history, political science, meteorology, and climatology to examine the interaction of climatic variation, food production, and population growth and the way they will influence the nature and quality of human life in the future

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Asia

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1951

Reviews

[Nasrikhné AK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book looking at Chinese Communism, including the revisionism of Mao. Although obviously very old, it's an oldie but goodie, in a similar vein to Edward Hallett Carr's History of Soviet Russia. The author uses Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and English sources available to him at the time (1951) to illustrate the history of the aforesaid movement. The author doesn't try to misrepresent anyone's viewpoint, further adding to this book's credibility.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unbelievably awful, almost comedically so. Even for his Cold War era, Schwartz's harsh appraisal of Maoist ideology is unique even among bourgeois historians. He has a poor understanding of Trotsky's attitudes towards the peasantry, and consistently attributes every error made by the CCP pre-Mao to Comintern meddling (a topic worthy of investigation, but hardly as crucial as he wants it to be). The book is good for nothing more than the backgrounds of both Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao as well as the various leadership changes and factional struggles (of which Schwartz does not understand the ideological bases of) of the pre-1933 CCP. Additionally, Schwarz is obsessed with proving that Marxism-Leninism was a "decomposition" of Marxism, and that Maoism was a further "decomposition" of Marxism-Leninism to the point that he comes across as a raving anti-communist interested more in ideological purity (as a non-Marxist!) than adapting Marxism to the various changes in material conditions that have occurred and continue to occur throughout the course of history.