毛澤東時代的真實社會：共產黨如何改變中國階級與人民面貌？

New Approaches to Asian History

by Felix Wemheuer, 文浩, 項佳谷 (Translator)

1949年毛澤東領導的中國共產黨建立了新中國，他們夢想著要實現共產主義社會的願景。直到1976年為止，中國看似達成了許多成就：發展工業、鋪設鐵路推廣教育、提高衛生、保障婦女權利，並讓美國為首的西方國家承認中華人民共和國；可是也引發了大饑荒和文化大革命這樣的人間悲劇，為那一代中國人劃下了無法撫平的苦難。我們該如何理解這充滿矛盾的中國社會？

文浩教授認為要回答這個問題，必須從上層的中共官方政策，以及下層的民間社會實態著手，剖析共產黨全面改造社會的同時，農民、工人、地方幹部、知識分子、少數民族、舊社會精英等人群，他們所面對的挑戰，而這也永遠改變了中國社會的樣貌。即便時至今日，中國歷經資本主義轉向、成為世界頂尖強權，但毛澤東時代的幽魂卻從未散去……

Genres: China, History

464 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2019

About the author

Felix Wemheuer is Chair Professor of Modern China Studies at the University of Cologne.

Reviews

[Leo46 · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Social history” Is basically wemheuer’s excuse of not fully understanding the politics, economics, and theory that ties into this history. There are so many contradictions made within his claims for the obvious purposes of anti-communist propaganda and attempts to give himself authority by citing Chinese titles that were done shittily with pinyin without tonal accents or Chinese characters themselves (which he uses performatively at the beginning of each chapter along with the glossary). There are so many claims, facts, and numbers he never cites, too. His definitions of trade unionism and economism are laughably bad and he seems to put everything in quotes that he doesn’t understand including “class struggle,” “counterrevolutionary,” “rightist,” “ultra-leftist,” and more as if they were arbitrary labels to be wielded by the party to purge whoever they wanted. At least it gave a generally quick easy overview and some interesting graphs and statistics.

[Rebecca Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really helped me understand why the Chinese Communist Party did what they did in the 1940s-70s, what they were trying to achieve, and where they were successful and where they weren't.


The author describes the socialist goals and intentions of the CCP as they evolved over time. He evaluates the CCP against their own goals rather than arrogantly passing judgment based on Western values. He comes to the conclusion that things like the Great Leap Forward were failures -- and this is much more believable because he uses the CCP's own socialist goals rather than imposing Western values.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detaillierter Überblick über die Fort- und Rückschritte von verschiedenen sozialen Gruppen in China unter 毛泽东 (Mao Zedong). Ohne Verherrlichung; ohne Anti-Mao-Furor, sondern ausgewogene wissenschaftliche Darstellung.

[Jotunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

+ This book discusses existing academic materials before stating the author's own opinion, which is of great value for a newbie unfamiliar with Maoist China.

+ The content about sexuality and ethnicity in Maoist China is enlightening.

- Some periods in Maoist China are discussed very briefly. For example, the author doesn't bring anything new about the Cultural Revolution.