"The Brilliance of Communism" – Sarah Paine

Evaluations of Communist Regimes

• Described as highly effective at seizing power during warfare and maintaining it thereafter through commissar and party systems.
• Characterized as failing to deliver prosperity, resulting instead in "compounding poverty."
• North Vietnam is cited as a specific example where immediate post-victory famine occurred despite favorable agricultural potential.
• North Korea is noted as a state of general disorder where the leader remains in power despite severe systemic issues.

Mao Zedong's Consolidation of Power

• No major insurgency or successful coup occurred after Mao took power, unlike other historical transitions.
• In 1959–1960, officials Liu Shaoqi and Peng Dehuai intervened to halt the Great Leap Forward; Peng was demoted from his positions.
• The Cultural Revolution was launched as a direct counter-measure by Mao to purge the officials who attempted to limit his authority.
• Mao utilized the Red Guards (youth educated in communist ideology) to bypass traditional hierarchies, resulting in the targeting and killing of teachers and educational leaders.
• Military leader Lin Biao was subsequently brought in to restore order after Mao had used him to eliminate political rivals.

Motivations for the Cultural Revolution

• Mao's primary motivation was preventing posthumous denunciation of his legacy, inspired by Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 speech criticizing Joseph Stalin.
• The campaign was ruinous to industrial production and caused the degradation of the educational system.
• Despite causing tens of millions of deaths and famine, Mao remained revered in China, a status the speaker compares to the lack of reverence for Hitler or Stalin in their respective countries (noting a potential resurgence of Stalin's image under Vladimir Putin).

Xi Jinping's Background and Ideology

• Xi Jinping is described as revering Mao and overseeing a re-centralization of the Chinese economy away from Deng Xiaoping's reforms.
• Xi's father was a high-ranking CCP leader who was purged and sent to the interior; Xi was subsequently sent to the countryside during the Down to the Countryside Movement.
• Xi's formal education was disrupted by the Cultural Revolution, though the speaker notes he may have received degrees later.
• An anecdote suggests Xi personally suffered during the Cultural Revolution when his mother turned him away while he attempted to return home for food.
• The speaker attributes Xi's pro-Mao stance to a potential "sociopathic" or "psychopathic" tendency to abuse power, drawing parallels to the abusive childhoods of Stalin and Hitler.

Family Tragedies of Totalitarian Leaders

• Mao is accused of abandoning children who starved to death and sending one son to the Korean War where he was killed.
• Stalin is cited for refusing a prisoner trade offered by the Nazis for his own son, resulting in the son's death.

Public Perception in China

• Many Chinese citizens maintain pride in Chinese civilization's historical achievements in science, philosophy, and arts.
• A segment of the population desires pride in current and historical leaders, making it difficult to critically examine the "dark side" of the nation.
• The speaker draws an analogy to the United States' inability to fully confront the legacy of slavery, suggesting a global pattern of avoiding national original sins.