Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping - Updated Edition

Less than twenty years after Mao Zedong's death, Maoism has been all but abandoned in China. The late Chairman's austere, egalitarian ethos has been thoroughly revised and revamped to suite the purposes of a new breed of marketized Marxists. In this book relating these changes, the author provides a comprehensive guide to the intricate theatre of post-Mao Chinese politics. He tells the intriguing story of an escalating inter-generational clash of ideas and values between the aging, orthodox socialist revolutionaries of the Maoist era and their younger, more pragmatic followers. Over the long run, aided by actuarial laws, the young reformers prevailed, and Maoism was laid to rest. The reform process was far from smooth or steady, however; on at least one occasion the process was halted amid a deadly hail of machine gun-fire. Penetrating the dense fog of interpersonal and intergenerational rivalry and intrigue in Beijing, Baum analyzes the anatomy of the reformers' ultimate victory, reconstructing the major twists and turns of the reform process, with its periodic, alternating phases of liberal relaxation and conservative retrenchment. Tracing these fluctuations directly to China's "paramount leader," Deng Xiaoping, Baum observes that Deng personally embodied both tendencies. Paradoxically, Deng was at once the chief architect of China's market reforms and the master planner of the brutal Tiananmen massacre. In analyzing Deng's ambivalence, the book shows how he shaped the fierce infighting among China's contending political factions and how this gave the reform process its familiar start-and-stop pattern.

About the Author :
Richard Baum is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written widely on contemporary Chinese political affairs.

Review :
"Baum demonstrates with this book his command of the Chinese political scene in a critical year of transition for China.... Brilliantly researched and full of interpretative and nuanced insights into the leadership struggle, Burying Mao brings China into sharp focus."---Patrick Tyler, The New York Times "This is the right way to look at Chinese politics, in which power and personalities are much more important than ideology, which is regularly twisted to fit current needs.... Baum excellently pinpoints how factions, the bane of Chinese politics, align and realign." "In this highly readable book, Baum provides a fascinating and extremely detailed account of how Deng Xiaoping came to power, how he reversed Mao's policies and launched China on the path of economic reform, how he handled the complex interaction between the top leaders of the Party, and how he deftly preserved supreme power in his own hands. . . . [Readers] will find much in the book that will help them comprehend developments in contemporary China." "What the book brings out is how dangerous was the territory through which Deng and his men had to pass. It was not a simple matter of assuming power and issuing decrees. . . . Deng emerges from this study less as an emperor than as a consummate politician. . . . Burying Mao is a first-class work, coolly judged and clearly written, drawing on a mass of carefully sifted material." "Baum demonstrates that Deng Xiaoping is the ultimate Machiavellian leader. . . . the quality of his analysis is first-rate. . . . This should give the reader insight into China as a future world power." "It is the most comprehensive guide to hand, and is more persuasive for coming in the winter of Dengism." ". . . [a] thorough, balanced and interesting work."---Ian Buruma, Sunday Telegraph "Written by one of the best commentators in the United States on Chinese politics, this is . . . [an] extremely thorough, yet accessible account of Chinese politics from 1976 until 1993. . . . Anybody interested in Chinese politics will benefit from reading it, and it will be used widely for courses on Chinese politics in the era of reform."