Blog 6

The amazing country we live in is a result of one man’s blood, sweat, and tears. Comrades, despite the fact he is no longer with us, we must keep in mind the revolutionary experiences he has benevolently gifted us through his reforms. We cannot let work accomplished in the past decades since the great victory of the Chinese Communist Party over the corrupt nationalists go to waste just because we no longer have our guiding light. 

The last act taken while Chairman Mao was alive was the Cultural Revolution. Two of the goals were to close the gap between the countryside and educate the new generation about the revolution and indate them with revolutionary experiences. Both of these were a great success, as expected of plans made by Chairman Mao. May he rest in peace. 

The next generation, despite not living through Yenan formed the Red Guard and enacted Mao’s vision, rooting out the capitalist pigs from the party. This made it easy for Chairman Mao to dispatch them to the countryside in order to learn from the peasants why Chairman Mao fought so hard. The educated youth had to suffer ostracism from the local peasants, hunger, and revolutionary living conditions that were a far cry from the stable conditions found in the cities they came from. All this was to forge their fighting spirit the only way Chairman Mao knew how. 

All of this was made possible by the peasant families who took in these young intellectuals for revolutionary training. As you all know, taking on another mouth is no small feat for a household, but as we are all filled with revolutionary spirit, the Peasants found a way. At times, this caused conflicts stemming from the mistrust between the revolutionary peasants and the intellectual students stemming from mistrust due to the Young intellectuals being branded as the children of banished cadre members or being the reason extra food went missing; however, it is just a byproduct of the situation we are facing as a nation. 

However, despite the education of the new generation, the gap between cities and the countryside did not shrink. The countryside has seen massive changes under the leadership of Chairman Mao, but the countryside also had the most to grow when compared to the cities. Cities had preexisting facilities, health care, and businesses that were folded well into new party policies. The countryside went through many plans, such as land reform all the way to the Great Leap Forward. The countryside was also hit with many natural disasters all while doing its best to support the needs of those in the cities. That being said, Chairman Mao introduced Barfoot doctors as a way to supplement the countryside’s lack of health care so peasants could get much-needed medical attention, as well as forged new instructors to create the necessary farming implements for peasants to use on a larger scale. Maos for planning has helped the quality of life in the countryside skyrocket and boosted the morale of the people but has not gotten rid of the gap between the standard of living in the cities and the standard of living in the countryside. However, I am sure that there is a plan in the works to address that issue more thoroughly.