Without a doubt, one of the most pivotal documents of modern Chinese history... Written half a month before the 8th Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party that was held at Lu Mountain in Jiangxi, this attempt by Marshall Peng to turn policy around and save some of the 50-100 million citizens of China who were then about to starve to death. Peng was purged. Later, in the Cultural Revolution, with Mao’s active blessing, the Red Guards were to torture him, and denounce him as a “capitalist great warlord": “we have to struggle against him until he falls, until he breaks down, until he stinks.” His health broken—serious blood clots—and with Mao ruling that his conditions should not be treated, he went into a decline, dying in 1974. The story is that his last request was to be allowed to see the sun and the trees through the window, but it was declined.
It was clear that China changed gears around 1960. Before then it was empty slogans and disasters. Mao wanted to build a nation, but while he understood the politics, he did not understand the necessary mechanics of development. The 1960s, for all the revolutionary fervor, the purges and internal challenges, saw the systematic introduction of modern technology. When I read Smil's account of China bringing in a Dutch firm to build a Haber process plant for nitrogen fixation, I was surprised, but this was probably just one piece of the modernization process.
I know Qian Xuesen returned to China in 1955 to work on China's nuclear program. He's still a revered figure since his systems approach, measuring inputs and outputs, is still a driving force in China today. He had been a student of von Karman's at Caltech, worked at the Manhattan Project, and was at JPL when the Americans sidelined, arrested and later deported him. It appears that things were changing even before the 1958 conference. Now I'm wondering who sponsored his return.
It was clear that China changed gears around 1960. Before then it was empty slogans and disasters. Mao wanted to build a nation, but while he understood the politics, he did not understand the necessary mechanics of development. The 1960s, for all the revolutionary fervor, the purges and internal challenges, saw the systematic introduction of modern technology. When I read Smil's account of China bringing in a Dutch firm to build a Haber process plant for nitrogen fixation, I was surprised, but this was probably just one piece of the modernization process.
I know Qian Xuesen returned to China in 1955 to work on China's nuclear program. He's still a revered figure since his systems approach, measuring inputs and outputs, is still a driving force in China today. He had been a student of von Karman's at Caltech, worked at the Manhattan Project, and was at JPL when the Americans sidelined, arrested and later deported him. It appears that things were changing even before the 1958 conference. Now I'm wondering who sponsored his return.