nah never had a class by him i actually just tried to enroll for one of his classes but the classes arent available for some reason just gonna find out his when he’s available for free time and ask him about the book

Krishna bait post

I'm trynna read more about China do you have any other recs?

Yes, and you should listen to them

Why dont u listen some b****es

yeah this book completely misrepresents the shanghai situation though i still like it so far for more of the historical aspects of it

b****es are too authoritative

Any topic in particular you’re interested in? I got lots

Dont really have a big library on china, ive only read Mao's China and After by Maurice Meisner before this

Wdym

leaves out crucial details like the Ainting incident where the General Worker Headquarter where lied to by the SPMC with em making up a statement that they said it was by Zhou Enlai to meet them in Bejing and then sent em on various trains to 5 different locations and this incident is what led to Zhang Chunqiao to Shanghai where he pledged to help out those workers. The book paints it as Zhang came in to usurp and take glory of the Shanghai Commune, rather that Zhang was working alongside them from the start.

Leaves out that Geng and his second corp got so big due to them accepting former scarlet red guards and conservative workers after they were defeated where as other mass organizations would deny them entrance due to the Scarlet redguard siding with the SPMC.

Also paints the economism issue as the SPMC trying to help them out and the rebels ignoring them (Zhang did self crit on this part that they should have listened to the economism issue a bit more) rather than the SPMC trying to shut Shanghai down to the ground after the power usurpation by bankrupting the city through giving out money, and forcing the party to step in and give them back power due to production completely being stalled down and trying to cause division in the various rebel factions.

Also on the Paris Commune part, the bringing back of Paris Commune was to represent the spirit of creating a new superstructure not to copy it one to one like he talks about in abandoning the general elections ( the paris commune didn’t have general elections either, women and the bourgeoisie for example weren’t allowed to partake in them).

Also on the PLA he would argue that the PLA would completely dominate once brought in but in the revolutionary committee, often would be made up of 50% of workers from mass organizations and the rest split between the PLA and veteran cadres.

Also he cites that the PLA was brought into to support the left line which is true but in many cases they often ended up backing the conservatives due to the high command of the PLA being against the cultural revolution

The book also leaves out in Shanghai how the workers fought against economism issue and how production started rising and how workers had more representation in the government through their mass organizations in the RC. The book also seems like the cultural revolution goal was trying to get rid of the party which was absolutely not true no one was calling for the end of the party other than a very few red guard factions

Not authoritative enough

I think you might be rushing through the book because a lot of these sound like misunderstandings. Like about the Paris commune, he doesnt claim they wanted to copy it 1 to 1 hes highlighting how influential it was for the movement, the guy he cites (advocating for "general elections of the Paris commune type") obviously isn't calling for a identical recreation of the Paris Commune's electoral system. Or about the PLA, he never claims they supported the left, throughout the book he shows how hostile the PLA was to the Cultural Revolution and describes how Mao often clashed with it. His point is Mao ended up clashing with the elements of the Cultural Revolution itself, labeled them reactionaries and use the PLA to demobilize them in the name of "supporting the left." Also half the book is about how the Cultural Revolution didn't aim to overthrow the party/state, why they didn't, how that impacted its outcome, etc.

as opposed to mao?

my paris commune disagreement came from this passage

In early 1967, militant Paris Commune rhetoric continued to be promi- nently espoused, as it had been since the beginning of the Cultural Revolu- tion.128 The new revolutionary committees, however, were hardly the “per- manent mass organizations” instituted by “a system of general elections” originally promised in the Sixteen Points.

A general election system was established in the mass organization for them to pick their representative in the RC and they were be able to be recalled. The RC were also supposed to be transitionary so i don’t understand the critique of them being not permanent since that was never the goal of them.

Also i don’t understand leaving out the Ainting incident since that what’s being Zhang Chunqiao into the fold who is an immensely important player in the Shanghai and basically the beginning of the power seizure in Shanghai.

On the PLA part i guess i misunderstood him though i would like if he explained why the PLA ended up supporting the conservatives other than vagueness of who’s left ( which no doubt played a part) by showcasing how the PLA marshals were mostly against the cultural revolution like the meeting between Chen Boada and the marshals where they all just s*** on him and the CR.

Though i’m not too harsh on the book i understand writing on the CR is hard as f*** do to how suppressed the history is in China about it and did enjoy the first chapter about the bloodline theory due to the previous piece i read on the CR it was a passing point due to it mainly focusing on Shanghai though very in depth.

Did you read that Paris Commune in Shanghai dissertation? I still gotta read the whole thing

yeah it was an amazing read he even talks about Baidou and Zizek interpretations on the Shanghai Commune and why he thinks they’re incorrect and goes in depth about the history of the Paris Commune and how important it was to the Chinese communist since the start, like how they celebrated the 50th anniversary and there were early attempts by the Chinese on replicating the commune.

Damn I gotta study that asap

yeah i definitely recommend it, it’s crazy how the Paris commune was reflected in Shanghai, he talks about how after the Paris Commune was crushed it was turned into the Paris for the bourgeoisie, and towards the end he talks about how after Shanghai was put down after it retained all its surplus and turned into a international trade hub rather than having like 40% of its surplus during the CR be redistributed to poorer areas of China to help them develop, i saw a reflection on what happened to Paris after it got crushed.

Also it’s just interesting seeing the connection between Paris and Shanghai, the Paris Commune which would influence the people of Shanghai on the other side of the world would go back and influence people in Paris with May 68’

Semi related but Im going to Europe for the first time in a couple weeks and gonna visit the Communards Wall in Paris. Gonna be emotional as hell