Sun Yat-sen and Political Democracy

The fact that China was overwhelmed by Maoism had little to do with the vigor or coherence of its revolutionary Marxism. Massive disorder, hyperinflation, institutional failings, civil strife, foreign invasion, and the displacement of vast populations bred the desperation and the search for stability and security that opened the passage to Mao Zedong and his followers. Whatever Mao’s ideas, they were not even clear to Western sinologists, many of whom dismissed the notion that Mao might be anything other than an agrarian reformer—or had any intention of imposing his own variant of Stalinism on the Chinese people. Certainly there were few who believed he would attempt “proletarian dictatorship” in so backward an environment as mainland China.