Who was the man named Deng Xiaoping, standing at a mere 4 feet 11 inches, gifted bridge player, spittoon spitting, chain smoking, visionary who disliked idol chit chat and was a get right to the point leader. Deng Xiansheng was born August 22, 1904 to a well-to-do landowner and one of six siblings. He was an incredibly intelligent man even though he went to college for only one year. Deng joined the Communist Party while in High School where he adopted the last name of Xiaoping meaning “Little Peace”. In 1920 at the age of 16, Deng left China for France where he won a work-study scholarship in Paris. Upon leaving China, Deng proudly remembers his father telling him of his hopes for his son, “learn knowledge and truth from the West in
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In 1958-61, Mao came up with the great idea for “Grassroots socialism” in order to accelerate Mao’s plans for turning China into a modern industrialized state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution). This plan was to establish small communities in rural areas where farmers became steel makers and stopped farming. This was a huge failure as most farmers were uneducated and the steel they produced was useless. Well, as you may have guessed, if you are producing steel, who is producing food! Over 45 million people starved to death during this time. Mao and Deng had a falling out over the Great Leap Forward and Deng refused to carry out many of Mao’s ridiculous agricultural reforms, a move that saved thousands of lives but embarrassed Mao (http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/sub7/item81.html). However, it is well documented in the book “Mao’s Great Famine” (Dikotter’s, Frank) that shows Deng ordered the extraction of grain from starving peasants for the larger cities and for export abroad (www.NYtimes.com/2011/10/23/books/review/deng-xiaoping-and-the-transformation-of-china-by-ezre-f-vogel-book-review.html). In 1959, Mao took a lot of heat from the party and resigned as President of the Peoples Republic of China but remained as Chairman. A small group of people that included Deng took control of the economy to try and fix Mao’s mess. Mao stopped being involved with the countries economic affairs and focused on getting back into the good graces of the Party but was not happy with
In 1958-61, Mao came up with the great idea for “Grassroots socialism” in order to accelerate Mao’s plans for turning China into a modern industrialized state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution). This plan was to establish small communities in rural areas where farmers became steel makers and stopped farming. This was a huge failure as most farmers were uneducated and the steel they produced was useless. Well, as you may have guessed, if you are producing steel, who is producing food! Over 45 million people starved to death during this time. Mao and Deng had a falling out over the Great Leap Forward and Deng refused to carry out many of Mao’s ridiculous agricultural reforms, a move that saved thousands of lives but embarrassed Mao (http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/sub7/item81.html). However, it is well documented in the book “Mao’s Great Famine” (Dikotter’s, Frank) that shows Deng ordered the extraction of grain from starving peasants for the larger cities and for export abroad (www.NYtimes.com/2011/10/23/books/review/deng-xiaoping-and-the-transformation-of-china-by-ezre-f-vogel-book-review.html). In 1959, Mao took a lot of heat from the party and resigned as President of the Peoples Republic of China but remained as Chairman. A small group of people that included Deng took control of the economy to try and fix Mao’s mess. Mao stopped being involved with the countries economic affairs and focused on getting back into the good graces of the Party but was not happy with