WI: Mao killed in 1954?

1954 seemed to be the watershed between Mao's most "achievements" and "wrongdoings'. The civil war was won and the "Imperialists" expelled from China, the Korean War a favorable draw, the land was distributed to the peasants, and there was a economic boom was happening in both public and private sectors.

On the other hand, most of his ruinous economic/political campaigns has not yet been carried out, and a death at this point of time would have made him a "flawless" hero in the eyes of many.

Let's assume the POD be that Gao Gang, a party official who was purged and took his own life in 1954, somehow decided to assassinate Mao in an desperate attempt to save his own life. The plot succeeded in killing the Chairman but resulted in an even greater purge against Gao's faction.

(The OTL 1954 event was controversial. Mao might have used Gao to attack Liu Shaoqi, or that the incident was directed against Gao himself for being closer to the soviets than the CCP leadership was.)

Let's say the NTL incident resulted in a purge in a number of CCP cadres "too close to Moscow", what will happen next?

How intense the struggles for the kingship might be?? Who would be the one in power ultimately? Liu Shaoqi for being the official heir? or Lin Biao for being cunning the OTL? or yet Deng Xiaoping who had both military and admin experiences? (Mao's son Anying was killed in Korea, and Zhou Enlai might be more of a diplomat and premier than a leader.)

And what kind of political, diplomatic and economic policies might be carried out? Would there still be a collectivization (most probably)? Would the Sino-Soviet Split still take place? If the split still did, what TYPE of split it might me? The best, of cuz, would be that both East and West wooing the Middle Kingdom, but how would that be achieved?

The economy would definitely be in a better shape than IOTL but would that eliminate the need for market reform? Or would the state-owned businesses try to learn the experiences from Taiwan and HK like IOTL GDR?

Talking about Taiwan. How would a Mao-less China affect inter-strait relationship and how would that shape both the PRC and ROC :)DPeople from Hainan Island may protest the use of "Mainland" for PRC since the are from PRC but not the Mainland:D)?

Finally, would the NTL PRC butterfly away the collapse of communism? Or would PRC also collapse due to a lack of market reform in an overtly successful planned economy.

Bonus for how culture of China might look like without so may purges and the Cultural Revolution.
 
If Mao was killed in 1954, Liu Shaoqi is the most likely person to succeed him as the official heir. He was discredited and ousted years later during the cultural revolution. Lin Biao too rose to prominence much later. If there was no Mao, the cultural revolution too wouldn't have taken place. No communist leader other than Mao would have dared to shake up the party or the establishment. Liu Shaoqi being a traditional communist would have maintained the Party and the system intact.
 
I always wondered if Mao was entirely sane at the time of the cultural revolution. I mean, what was he trying to accomplish, that made any sense? It sure didn't make China stronger.
 
I always wondered if Mao was entirely sane at the time of the cultural revolution. I mean, what was he trying to accomplish, that made any sense? It sure didn't make China stronger.

Yes, many Chinese also wondered that... Mao might have been "out of touch with the people", or "having a mental regression due to old age", or "being fooled by the gang of four/his wife"(Being the wife of a failed king would always make you a scapegoat in China)...

But if you link what happened to Revolutionary France, Paris Commune or Revolutionary Russia, you would find a string of radicalism which all showed up in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
 
True enough, but both the French and Russian revolutions were about overthrowing tyrants. Had the cultural revolution begun in 1949 or even in the early '50s it would have been one thing. But it didn't begin until 17 years after the reds took power. Why wait till then to suddenly go and throw a fit?
Yes, many Chinese also wondered that... Mao might have been "out of touch with the people", or "having a mental regression due to old age", or "being fooled by the gang of four/his wife"(Being the wife of a failed king would always make you a scapegoat in China)...

But if you link what happened to Revolutionary France, Paris Commune or Revolutionary Russia, you would find a string of radicalism which all showed up in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
 
Would Lin Biao come to power? That would mean no detente with the US.

I'm skeptical about that. Soldiers are more pragmatic than politicians. Lin Biao would never allow his country to face the Bear ALONE when Sino-Soviet Split inevitably (at least in my opinion) happened.

IOTL Lin's final days, he thought of deflecting to Taiwan other than the USSR. That may provide some clue about his real attitude about the Free World.
 
True enough, but both the French and Russian revolutions were about overthrowing tyrants. Had the cultural revolution begun in 1949 or even in the early '50s it would have been one thing. But it didn't begin until 17 years after the reds took power. Why wait till then to suddenly go and throw a fit?

1949 was not a revolution, it was a civil war. A civil war always produce a "practical and efficient" government, not a utopian one Mao envisioned.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I'm skeptical about that. Soldiers are more pragmatic than politicians. Lin Biao would never allow his country to face the Bear ALONE when Sino-Soviet Split inevitably (at least in my opinion) happened.
Lin Biao favored Sino-Soviet rapprochement and was ever more the neo-Stalinist than the Maoist.
 
I've always been fascinated by Lin Biao in charge. The man's leadership style was a cross between Adolf Hitler and Howard Hughes. He was a hypochondriac, sensitive to light, paranoid (not without reason in Maoist China), and lived in a dark room for much of the 1960s, putting his name to policies and speeches written by his subordinates.

By 1971 he was effectively a puppet of various competing figures in the CCP hierarchy.
 
I always wondered if Mao was entirely sane at the time of the cultural revolution. I mean, what was he trying to accomplish, that made any sense? It sure didn't make China stronger.
It was nothing more but a successful attempt to get his power back, China and millions of lives be damned. Mao didn't give a shit about such things.
 
I've always been fascinated by Lin Biao in charge. The man's leadership style was a cross between Adolf Hitler and Howard Hughes. He was a hypochondriac, sensitive to light, paranoid (not without reason in Maoist China), and lived in a dark room for much of the 1960s, putting his name to policies and speeches written by his subordinates.

By 1971 he was effectively a puppet of various competing figures in the CCP hierarchy.

He was not born with those problems. Those were due to his wound.

I was puzzled that, being inactive in the 1950s, how could Lin pop up in the 60s? He seemed to be always available wen Mao needed hm.
 
Mao Zedong's rule was, given his lifetime, bound to result in evil things because that's what his political position was based on. From the Yanan Rectification Movement to the Anti-Rightist Campaign to the Cultural Revolution and all the atrocities that happened in between were a result of him doing whatever he could to cow the Party and people into continuing to accept him as leader. That is why those crazy things happened; it's not like Mao suddenly became insane.

If he dies, things turn out far better for China. There is no anti-intellectual movement that poisoned Chinese academics, there is no Great Leap Forward that killed 40 million farmers, and there is no Cultural Revolution that destroyed most of China's culture and what recent progress it had been making. Given leaders who are more rational and pragmatic (in regards to the strength of the nation as a whole) than Mao like Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi, they will introduce economic reforms over time that due to various reasons are prone to do better than the Soviet ones. The "rise" of China will be more gradual and tempered. I'd say that by 2000 the CCP might not even keep a monopoly on power. But of course this assumes a best-case scenario. It is entirely possible for a stagnation to occur, or even for another Mao to take the reins if things get pear-shaped.
 
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