Mao Zedong

2008-05-14T01:15:51Z

NObama:

[[Image:Ncvjgfu.jpg|right|thumb|Mao Zedong]]
'''Mao Zedong''' (an alternative transliteration (using the [[Wade-Giles]] system is "Mao Tse-tung", although most Sinologists use the pinyin transliteration system, giving: "Mao Zedong") lived from December 26, 1893, to September 9, 1976. He was a [[Communism|Communist]] [[Atheism|atheist]] and an early member of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] in 1921. In 1935, Mao was elected to the Executive Committee of the [[Comintern]] in Moscow and remained on this committee until it was publicly disbanded in 1943.<ref>''While You Slept : Our Tragedy in Asia and Who Made It'', John T. Flynn, New York : The Devin - Adair Company, 1951, [http://www.mises.org/books/whileyouslept.pdf pgs. 21 - 22] pdf.</ref>

Mao was the author of ''[[Quotations from Chairman Mao]],'' published in 1966, informally known as "the little red book." During his lifetime, almost everyone in the [[People's Republic of China]] was expected to have a copy. One of his most well known statements was that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun".

[[Image:Little red book.jpg|left|200px|thumb|During the [[Cultural Revolution]], it was required for every Chinese citizen to own, read, and carry at all times ''Quotations from Chairman Mao'', popularly known as "the little red book".]]

[[Edgar Snow]] introduced Mao and [[Zhou Enlai]] to American readers in 1937 in his book, ''Red Star Over China'', shortly after the [[Chinese Red Army]]’s rout by [[Chiang Kai-shek]] in 1934 and their year long retreat to [[Yenan]] known as the [[Long March]]. Snow wrote, "The political ideology, tactical line and theoretical leadership of the Chinese Communists have been under the close guidance, if not positive detailed direction, of the Communist International, which during the last decade has become virtually a bureau of the Russian Communist Party." And he further declared that the CCP had to subordinate itself to the "strategic requirements of [[Soviet Russia]], under the leadership of [[Stalin]]."<ref>Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow, New York, 1937.</ref>

Mao defeated [[Chiang Kai-shek]]'s Nationalists, taking control of the Chinese mainland and establishing the People's Republic of China. As the leader of China, Mao initiated the [[Great Leap Forward]], an economic plan intended{{fact}} to rapidly industrialize China's then largely rural economy. In the end it proved a ruinous failure, preventing the peasants from producing needed food and causing massive famines; up to 38 million starved to death or were killed for opposing against the economic plan. In 1966, Mao instigated the [[Cultural Revolution]], in which those disloyal to the Chairman were killed or humiliated in order to solidify Mao's control. [[Richard Nixon]] was the first United States president to meet with Mao, and thus the first to acknowledge the existence of the People's Republic of China, as opposed to [[Taiwan]]'s Republic of China.

Overall, historians believe that around 43 million people died under Mao's rule, due mostly to starvation from disastrous socialist economic policies such as the [[Great Leap Forward]]. This is 7 times the common figure given for the Holocaust but it is much less known.

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mao Zedong}}
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:Heads of State]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Communists]]
[[Category:Mass Murderers]]

Social Democracy

2008-05-12T23:10:05Z

NObama:

'''Social democracy''' is an ideology of the political Left that emerged from [[socialism]] in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Unlike its cousin [[Communism]], which seeks to destroy [[capitalism]] by (violent) revolution and replace it with a different social and economic system, social democracy seeks to regulate capitalism and gives the government a role intervening in order to remedy its alleged deficiencies.

It is generally considered that the international Left split into two distinct camps after the [[Russian Revolution]] of 1917. Members of the more extreme factions around the world, which sought to achieve radical societal change through revolution, became known as ''[[communists]]'', while members of the less extreme factions, which sought to pursue gradual change through the democratic system, became known as ''social democrats''. The roots of these divisions, in fact, long preceded 1917: [[Marxist]]s, for example, had called for violent revolution in the nineteenth century, while more moderate parties such as the [[British]] [[Labour Party]] had never espoused such ideas. Austrian economist [[Friedrich Hayek]] writing in 1945 observed, "To many who have watched the transition from socialism to [[fascism]] at close quarters the connection between the two systems has become increasingly obvious, but in the democracies the majority of people still believe that socialism and [[freedom]] can be combined. They do not realize that democratic socialism, the great [[utopia]] of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something utterly different – the very destruction of freedom itself. <ref>[http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication43pdf?.pdf ''Road to Serfdom'',] Friedrich A. Hayek, Reader's Digest Condensed Version, April 1945, pg. 36.</ref>

On one definition, social democrats continue to have the ultimate objective of achieving full socialism, albeit by peaceful means. Others prefer to call such people "democratic socialists" (though ''non''-democratic, violent socialism continues to exist in various parts of the world), and reserve the term "social democrats" for those who would be content with a society comprising a mixture of capitalist and socialist elements (for example, an economy in which a market operates, but with sizeable governmental intervention, and in which enterprise is possible, but business is subjected to high taxes).

Many parties in economically developed nations have espoused social democratic beliefs, including the [[Labour Party]] in the [[United Kingdom]], the [[SPD]] in [[Germany]] (Germany's only party to vote against Hitler's seizure of power), the Social Democratic Parties in [[Norway]], [[Sweden]] and [[Finland]], the [[New Democratic Party]] in Canada, and the [[Australian Labor Party]]. Social democratic beliefs are also found in parts of the American [[Democratic Party]], and some European and South American [[Christian democracy|Christian Democratic]] parties have resemblences to social democratic parties.

Since the 1980s, a number of social democratic parties have moved away from the territory of the traditional Left and have accepted greater elements of free-market, capitalistic thought. The principal example of this phenomenon is the British Labour Party under [[Tony Blair]], while other examples include the [[Australian]] Labor Party under [[Bob Hawke]] and [[Paul Keating]], and the German SPD under [[Gerhard Schroeder]]. Also more right-wing countries have moved to the left. For example [[Canada]] introduced [[Universal Health Care]].

==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Politics]]

Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Mao Zedong

Social Democracy