DBWI: Mao Hadn't Drowned in the Yangtze?

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It was strange that Mao, age 73 at the time, decided to swim the Yangtze in the summer of 1966.

Though his sudden death broke the heart of the nation at the time, the unceremonious and somewhat comical demise of the defied father of the Chinese Communist Party must of certainly played a part in prompting the anti-CCP political uphevals that took place immediately after, right?
 
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I would imagine so. It also probably tipped the 1968 election; after the '67 Uprisings, after all, Johnson was inserting that "I beat the Red Chinese" rhetoric into every speech.

Personally, I'm curious as to how President Chao will be commemorating the 50th anniversary this year. Everyone to the left of James Soong hates her, of course, but maybe she'll throw the DPPC a bone by acknowledging it.
 
It was strange that Mao, age 73 at the time, decided to swim the Yangtze in the summer of 1966.

Well, he was a pretty good swimmer anyway, so I guess he felt pretty confident and decided it would look good on state propaganda. Remember the swimming pool meeting with Khrushchev?

If he hadn't drowned this would definitely shore up his image in favour of him after the general economic fuckup known as the "Great Leap Forward". From what I read of him, he was just getting ready to launch a really radical Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution with other figures like Marshal Lin Biao, which seemed to be a reason why the moderate Party leaders like Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De were starting to be criticised by state propaganda. Mao's death at that particular time probably ended up preventing them from falling from power - if he hadn't died, his revolutionary agenda would probably have been carried through, and what then? All I know is China wouldn't be the modern, fairly democratic if still somewhat authoritarian state we know today that stemmed from the ideals of Dengist Democratic Dictatorship and Revisited Chinese Socialism. Instead we'd probably end up with a really insular state like Zhirinovsky's Soviet Union, except one that shuns the outside world and actively oppresses its people and destroyed its own history and heritage, like Mao's plans suggested, and that's at best. At worst the country could be destroyed by a nuclear war with the Soviets if the Sino-Soviet Split widened even further, which would also be frighteningly likely given the Maoists' Russophobia, and who knows what sort of crisis that would leave behind.
 
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I would imagine so. It also probably tipped the 1968 election; after the '67 Uprisings, after all, Johnson was inserting that "I beat the Red Chinese" rhetoric into every speech.

Good point.
It definitely was a helpful electoral distraction for him, coupled with the draw down in support the less ideological, Mao-less CCP gave to the North Vietnamese after '66.

Though I wonder if Johnson's '69 US invasion of North Vietnam would've happened with Mao still alive and kicking.
 
50th Anniversary

And, I expect the conspiracy theories to fly again.

(Sigh)

Seriously, does anyone think that LBJ bribed The Gang of Four who took over after Mao's death (Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De) to have a scuba diver grab Mao's legs and hold him under water? They had enough trouble in the Upheaval without having instigated it. And that Deng was the only one of the Four to have survived is telling.

Place this one with the other nutty notions like "Oswald was working for LBJ", or "LBJ suckered Uncle Ho at the Battle of Tonkin".

But, agreed, China's unification (with the Taiwanese) wouldn't have happened if Mao had survived more years.
 
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