Wednesday, April 11, 2012

What happened to all the Maoists in academia?

I wonder what happened to all those academics praising Mao Zedong in the late 1960s and early 1970s? I was just reading an essay by from that era  last night by a Jack Gray who was praising Mao's agricultural policies during the Cultural Revolution. Did all these people just kind of quietly pretend that nothing happened after the Chinese government itself tried the Gang of Four and introduced a long term program of capitalist reforms? Or did they still insist that Mao was right and all the problems were due to revisionists and counterrevolutionaries? Or did they change their tune and take a more critical line once the horrors of Maoism became apparent? Does anybody have any answers?
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1 comment:

  1. The Ancient9:25 PM

    I don't remember there being very many Maoists in academia -- a few unrepentant Stalinists, certainly, as well as avocational anarchists and the usual New Left types. But Maoists? In the US? Not so much.

    In France, however, things were quite different:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704220704575367160189849970.html

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/13/wind-from-the-east-review

    http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=412984

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