To: Maurice Winn who wrote (46035 ) 2/12/2004 8:26:09 AM From: BubbaFred Read Replies (1) | Respond to <<whose lives have been squandered in struggling in poverty rather than creativity and progress>> by the western world particularly US that was still under the spell of McCarthy anti-communism that was devoid of understanding and differentiation between forms of governments and nationalism. Throw in the strong colonialism tendencies of the western world at that time. General Stillwell's call for support of the faction that fought Imperial Japan went unheeded. Looking back, it was as much the western world's (US in particular) creation as much as internal. Don't forget the embargo and isolation, etc. Don't forget the initial backbone of Mao's gang had American idealism in their script, infatuated with American revolution and their heroes consisting of Washington and Jefferson. Don't forget who had the upper hand at that time and chose to squeeze out "communism" above nationalism and instead preferred and imposed other types of much more corrupted and suppressive dictatorships (Marcos prime example). OK, so China ended up with their own Jiang Qing after a few failures of their 10-year plans. That was their achilles heel, but not Mao's intentions.
