Catastrophe and Contention in Rural China: Mao's Great Leap Forward Famine and the Origins of Righteous Resistance in Da Fo Village [Hardcover]

Thaxton argues that the memory of the great famine under Mao shaped villagers' resistance to the socialist state.Thaxton analyzes how the local Communist Party agents of the Mao-led central government imposed the famine of the Great Leap Forward on one rural village, how villagers remember this traumatic experience, and how they engaged in resistance to both survive and escape the famine and the predatory rule it reflected.Thaxton analyzes how the local Communist Party agents of the Mao-led central government imposed the famine of the Great Leap Forward on one rural village, how villagers remember this traumatic experience, and how they engaged in resistance to both survive and escape the famine and the predatory rule it reflected.This book documents how Chinas rural people remember the great famine of Maoist rule, which proved to be the worst famine in modern world history. Ralph A. Thaxton, Jr., sheds new light on how Chinas socialist rulers drove rural dwellers to hunger and starvation, on how powerless villagers formed resistance to the corruption and coercion of collectivization, and on how their hidden and contentious acts, both individual and concerted, allowed them to survive and escape the predatory grip of leaders and networks in the thrall of Maos authoritarian plan for a full-throttle realization of communism  a plan that engendered an unprecedented disaster for rural families. Based on his study of a rural villages memories of the famine, Thaxton argues that these memories persisted long after the events of the famine and shaped rural resistance to the socialist state, both before and after the post-Mao era of reform.Introduction; 1. The Republican era and the emergence of Communist leadership during the anti-Japanese war of resistance; 2. The ascent of the vigilante militia: the violent antecedents of Mao's war; 3. The onset of collectivization and popular dissatisfaction with Mao's 'yellow bomb' road; 4. The mandate abandoned: the disaster of thelƒ˜