Strong in China. A long history of lies.
ridenrain @ Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:04 pm
Since reading Becker’s “Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine: The First Full Account of the Tragedy That Claimed Over 30 Million Victims” (Free Press, 1996), I’ve always been disgusted at the apologists who blessed this man made famine. Looking a little deeper, I happen to see that Maurice Strong’s mom was one of those people. Why am I not shocked.
$1:
Strong Class Background
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 by admin
One reason disgraced U.N. bureaucrat Maurice Strong gets a warm welcome in Beijing could be his proletarian 出身, or family background. Mr. Strong is reportedly a distant cousin of Anna Louise Strong, one of the oldest “friends of China.” Early on Ms. Strong combined journalism with work for the Comintern, but by 1958 was a wholly owned mouthpiece of Mao Zedong. Jasper Becker’s “Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine: The First Full Account of the Tragedy That Claimed Over 30 Million Victims” (Free Press, 1996) details her shameful role in covering up the failure of his policies:
“In 1962 Strong was in Beijing writing propaganda booklets for the Chinese that eulogized the communes. In ‘China’s Fight for Grain,’ published in 1963, she repeated Mao’s line that China was suffering from the worst natural disasters in a century. The drought was apparently so serious that in 1960 a child could wade across the Yellow River. In this crisis, she claimed, the communes actually saved China from famine….”
However, from Ms. Strong’s diary at the time it is clear that she knew this was not the truth: “I am not allowed to admit that anyone in these three years ever starved to death.”
It was at Ms. Strong’s 80th birthday party in 1965, a few days after the famous critique of the play “Hai Rui Dismissed From Office” was published, that Mao announced in veiled terms the start of the Cultural Revolution. The following year she and Sidney Rittenberg were named honorary Red Guards, and even though by 1968 she was privately bewildered by the wild fluctuations in the Party line, she continued to praise the movement. That kind of blind loyalty is evidently fondly remembered in Beijing.
(For more on Ms. Strong, read the REVIEW’s April 7, 1968 article on her and her comrades, “The Three Hundred Percenters“)
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 by admin
One reason disgraced U.N. bureaucrat Maurice Strong gets a warm welcome in Beijing could be his proletarian 出身, or family background. Mr. Strong is reportedly a distant cousin of Anna Louise Strong, one of the oldest “friends of China.” Early on Ms. Strong combined journalism with work for the Comintern, but by 1958 was a wholly owned mouthpiece of Mao Zedong. Jasper Becker’s “Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine: The First Full Account of the Tragedy That Claimed Over 30 Million Victims” (Free Press, 1996) details her shameful role in covering up the failure of his policies:
“In 1962 Strong was in Beijing writing propaganda booklets for the Chinese that eulogized the communes. In ‘China’s Fight for Grain,’ published in 1963, she repeated Mao’s line that China was suffering from the worst natural disasters in a century. The drought was apparently so serious that in 1960 a child could wade across the Yellow River. In this crisis, she claimed, the communes actually saved China from famine….”
However, from Ms. Strong’s diary at the time it is clear that she knew this was not the truth: “I am not allowed to admit that anyone in these three years ever starved to death.”
It was at Ms. Strong’s 80th birthday party in 1965, a few days after the famous critique of the play “Hai Rui Dismissed From Office” was published, that Mao announced in veiled terms the start of the Cultural Revolution. The following year she and Sidney Rittenberg were named honorary Red Guards, and even though by 1968 she was privately bewildered by the wild fluctuations in the Party line, she continued to praise the movement. That kind of blind loyalty is evidently fondly remembered in Beijing.
(For more on Ms. Strong, read the REVIEW’s April 7, 1968 article on her and her comrades, “The Three Hundred Percenters“)
http://www.feer.com/tales/?cat=17
ShepherdsDog @ Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:06 pm
as Elwood Blues put it, 'They weren't lies, it was just..... bullshit..'
Freakinoldguy @ Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:36 pm
Hey Rider, if you want another good read about China, Mao and the damage he caused in order to keep his cult of personality try "The Private Life Of Chairman Mao", by a gent named Zhisui Li, who was Mao's personal physician from the early fifties till his death.
It goes into the intrique of the ruling communist party (just another Chinese Dynasty)and how Mao, despite stepping down remained in charge of such luminary and visionary calamaties, like the great leap forward and the cultural revolution.
Definately worth the read. 