Sunday, May 5, 2013

Mao and Stalin

What is your understanding of Mao's collectivization plan.  How does it compare to Stalin's plan in Russia?

11 comments:

  1. I thought the Communes article was very interesting. It showed how "collectivization" doesn't always have to be material goods like tools, food and livestock. It can also be the people themselves. It basically seemed like a bootcamp, everyone would wake up at the same time, work in specific groups doing specific things. Everything was organized to the extreme in order to create maximum productivity. The other article revealed how Mao, arguably more than Stalin, factored industry into his collectivization plans. His fascination with steel and his determination to outpace all other countries in this industry lead him to continue to take collectivization to the extreme.

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  2. My understanding of Mao's collectivization plan is that he was eager to industrialize and catch up with the Soviet Union. He did so by using small furnaces and farmers worked as "factory" workers in their own backyards. This is a little different than Stalin's plan. Mao seems more focused on producing more steel than Britain. However, some punishments were the same as Stalin's, such as taking away food. Stalin's plan was to take over farms and property. Mao's plan was to have farmers produce steel.

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  3. Mao's collectivization plan was extreme. first he made all the villagers move into these communes and then he made them all become "soldiers" of the farmland. this, i think, was a smart move because he put everyone on the same level and created a unified work force. By the reading, i cud tell that if you were not with the communists, you were the enemy and treated as such, an example would be the poverty of the "non-believers". This was similar to Stalin as he created the Steel dependent Russia. I think what stalin did helped give Mao a map on how to succeed and that was through the Steel production in china. As long as he ruled steel and agriculture he could, in time, supersede Russia in the world.

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  4. Mao's collectivization plan was rather different from Stalin's, this was probable a bit more of a successful way of making each person on the same level. The communes were a way for everyone to unite together sort of under one common goal whereas Stalin's plan just sort of took things away. LIke the others before me said, Mao and Stalin were focused on different areas of industry. for Mao it was steal, for Stalin it was farming.

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  5. I believe that these two policies were rather different in some areas. I took away from the articles that Mao was more inclined to include all areas of the economy into his plans. He was therefore able to control many more aspects of his country's being than Stalin was able to.
    Steel production was such a huge asset for Mao as it allowed him to build China from what was a very agricultural country. China remained very agricultural, but there was some serious industrialisation that went underway as a result of Mao's collectivisation. plan.

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  6. In the Communes article, it is apparent that Mao's collectivization plan was influenced by Zhang's approach in Xushui country; his model revolved around "disciplinisation", "combatisation", and "militarisation", and Mao himself reported that "the experience of Xushui should be widely promoted." Therefore, Mao ended up visiting and observting the area's collectivization farms before he implemented a system. Regarding the relationship to Stalin, Mao "poured scorn on [Stalin's] rigid system of material incentives", implying that the two plans were in fact very different. I found it very interesting that "martial terms were matched by military organisation"; "Everyone a soldier": these remarks were matched with the descriptions of the workers' day under Mao. The general gist of the second article illustrates Mao's development of industrialization into the village "in search of an alternative to the Soviet Model".

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  7. Mao's collectivization plan included extreme changes in the ways of industrial production. I found it fascinating how he archieved to include everyone in this huge commun, how he transformed the naion into a communist one. Of course, similar to stalin, the people didn't have much of a choice. Whoever wasn't for communism, was against it. Measures like killing people, taking away their homes and their goods were not an obstacle. But was was different with Mao, is that he wanted to bring the steel industry under communist control, while Stalin wanted to control agriculture.

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  8. Mao's radical collectives were more of a hindrance than a help. His insane need to catch up with first the Soviets, second the US, and finally Britain. The furnaces in every backyard didn't work very well as most of the iron they produced was slag or so brittle it was unusable. The militarization of the peasants was intriguing, it worked well in some places, but not others. His advisers going along with his plan and feeding into this delusion had a very detrimental effect on the commoners. Of course all of this lead into that huge famine that killed millions.

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  9. I think that Mao's collectivization plan was rather extreme. First he forced villagers into moving to these communes as well as force them into becoming the soldiers of the farm land. As mike said, this was a good idea because it put everyone on the same playing field and created a more unified work force. I think that this is similar to Stalin's plans in the way that this sort of showed a template for what was to come from mao. With Stalin's success in creating a Steel dependent Russia, Mao would use this as an example as how to succeed with some adjustments to the plan of course.

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  10. 'Even shit has to be collectivized'
    I think the quote concludes the status quo back then, livestocks were been slaughtered, even female dogs and ducks. The fascinating well carried out communism system applied in Xushui showed Mao those possibilities and ideas to make Communism just around the corner. Cooperate with the quote that"You should eat even 5 meals a day", reveals the extremeness of the unbalanced communism system.

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  11. Mao was very set on collectivizing as much as he could, so much so that people also fell into that category. He had soldiers move to the communities where they would be forced to work and farm so that more goods could be collectivized. Disregarding the fact that is horrible, this was very efficient and more goods were being collected and the government had a a lot more to disperse, which is a good thing if your a communist country. This is what Stalin failed to do. Stalin would put people in communities and torture them and make their lives hell. Mao did the same, but Mao forced them to make goods that could be collectivized.

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