Revolution is one of the ten words from the Yu Hua book China in Ten Words, and the author argues that revolutionary passion is one of the main reasons for current Chinese economic miracles. He sees a danger in such a tendency, as they resemble events such as The Great Leap Forward, conducted under Mao Zedong’s rule. Those were aimed to increase industrial productivity and mobilize the population to participate in it. The mobilization was aggressive: the government used force and oppression for such a mobilization. While modern China is much more liberal, it still uses similar models for development.
In the chapter dedicated to the word Revolution, the author reminds the two tragic events from Chinese history. Those are The Great Leap Forward of 1958–1961 and The Cultural Revolution 1966–1976, and they are tragic because their results were poverty and mass famine, especially for The Great Leap Forward (Hua, 2011). Their revolutionism was not in the drastic political changes but the energy and passion forced by the government’s power. It used very active propaganda and repressions against those who were unsatisfied by those events. People were forced to smelt the metal instead of growing crops, under slogans of reaching the level of the U.K. and U.S. It resulted in increased industrial production, but a lack of food production led to famine (Hua, 2011). In modern days, a similar approach is used: while there is no active oppression, all decisions are made very quickly, and one administrative order is enough for drastic changes, such as the building of airports. It leads to a quick country’s development, but it is disharmonious and is connected with various dangerous issues, such as social tensions, human rights violations, and industrial pollution.
In that way, modern China still resembles such a revolutionary economic development model while being much more liberal. There is no such oppression as in the times of Mao Zedong, and the result of such a revolution is actual economic development instead of hunger and poverty. However, this development is forced heavily by authoritative local and central governments instead of being gradual and sustainable, which creates tensions and can be dangerous in the future.
Reference
Hua, Y. (2011). China in ten words. Pantheon Books.