Han's work is an academic, technocratic, specialized study of the CR, but it is also investigative, long-form journalism: Thanks to his background, open mind and obviously sincere aims, Han was able to interview more than 200 farmers, CR rebel leaders, students, parents and local leaders in Jimo County. He ate, worked, and even slept in the homes of those he interviewed pretty in-depth stuff, and so in-depth that he can't fudge the data to fit his preconceived notions. For quantitative research he pored over decades of local records, which became available shortly after the year 2000 in China.
Han's book gives us a comprehensive view of Jimo County before, during and after the CR both anecdotal and statistical and one which we should not expect any journalist to better anytime soon. Also, as Han notes, there is no reason we cannot extrapolate Jimo's experience to the rest of rural China Jimo County was not atypical. Han has given us the West a foundational text for modern understanding of the CR.
Han was objective like a journalist as well, because he did not go into his CR analysis with a bias, unlike mainstream journalists and Western academics. His starting point was: What was the effect and view of the CR from the rural perspective?
I can't read Chinese, but I can say this regarding English language CR studies: That is a revolutionary perspective. Normally we only have the urban perspective, the perspective of college professors, the perspective of those judged guilty by the CR we never, ever hear the perspective of anyone who might have possibly benefitted from the CR.
I encourage readers to not just read this series which condenses Han's book, discusses the key points and occasionally offers a different perspective on his data and global socialism trends and history but to buy and read Han's book. It is not long, it is not written in boring academic-ese, and has many interesting anecdotes which only a Chinese farmer living during the CR could relate. Truly: Where else can you read in English what a Chinese farmer honestly has to say about the CR?!
The reality is that because of China's success since the Great Recession in contrast with the West's economic failure everybody is starting to realize that our perceptions of China's society, government and economy are misguided, because the West is failing as China is thriving. They must be doing something (many things) right, no? The idea that China's success is due to being a "Western sweatshop" is no longer tenable and was always a way for the capitalist-imperialist West to try and co-opt credit for Chinese success.
The only way to right our misguided perceptions of China in 2019 is to listen to Chinese people themselves. That is what Han did, and that is what this series does. I hope it will prove useful to you.
Dazzling & quick data which will blow the minds of those in Developing Countries and rewrite the Cultural Revolution
The thesis of Han's book is far more interesting than, "The CR was really not so bad"." This is his thesis:
The CR's educational reform, which became approved following changes to political culture, produced an explosion in rural economic development and rural human capital, and thus China's economic boom actually came before Deng's reforms in 1978.
This contradicts the narrative that it was only after the introduction of (drastically regulated, and still-socialist) market-based reforms that China's economy began to produce major wealth. Han's book directly challenges what you always hear by pushing the start of China's economic explosion back a decade earlier, i.e. with the very start of the CR.
I'm going to give you my opinion after reading Han's academic & investigative evidence: He is 100% correct, and it is totally undeniable.
You can argue all you want about the CR's effect on intellectuals, disgraced party cadres, urban residents, pro-capitalist artists, witch doctors, Buddhist monks, etc., but the hard data of the CR's success for the majority of Chinaas revealed by Han's work is stunningly, stunningly convincing.
There is only one perception shift which is required to allow one to accept this obvious conclusion prioritize the rural perspective ahead of these urban, elite, minority perspectives.
That's never done in the West, despite the fact that it is the only truly democratic viewpoint to have when discussing China: after all, China's rural population was 82% of the overall population in 1964. Therefore, if the CR targeted and benefitted rural areas which it undoubtedly did then there is no doubt that the CR was a fundamentally democratic sociopolitical event.
I'd like to immediately give just a few of Han's data-based examples, because they are so overwhelming that I think anyone who reads them will sit up with interest:
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
