[TMPikachu]

Stalin and Mao did not get along really, Stalin wanted the KMT to control China, as odd as that sounds.

Their relationship was also poor in the Korean war, where Stalin only sent supplies, not manpower to help, and after the war, handed his 'comrade' a bill for the goods.

Mao waited untill Stalin died to challenge the USSR though. In his '70/30' speech, I think he wasn't really praising Stalin, he just wanted to defy the Soviet Union's current leader.




as for their similiarities... I haven't thought of it before, could you give us some of your ideas of similiarities between the two?

[Grigori]

Mao and Stalin didn't get along personally. But they were very much alike ideologically, much more so than Mao and Lenin. In fact the Sino-Soviet Split happened largely because Kruschev denounced his old boss while Mao accused the Soviet Union of counter revolutionary revisionism. Mao allied himself with Stalinist purists like Hoxha of Albania and actively funded Stalinist groups in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to compete against what he considered corrupted Soviet Communism. After Stalin's death, Mao had nothing but praise for him.

Lenin also supported violent class struggle, but he was more moderate and international. Lenin actually wanted Trotsky as his successor and told people Stalin would make a bad leader because he was too harsh. Trotsky was highly critical of Stalinism. Lenin would surely identify Mao and Stalin as cut form the same cloth.

[Kenneth]

Well done Grigori, that summary is much more accurate.
I wouldnt say Mao or Stalin were simply heroes either. Stalin certainly was crafty so far as eliminating all opposition.... and potential opposition.... or anyone that might concievably have a connection to possible future opposition..........and of course plenty of plainly innocent people.
Mao during the cultural revolution used a similar techniques that required denouncing of 10% of the population as reactionary, and if you didnt know anyone (I mean, look around you know at your workmates or family) then you better just make somebody up as a counter revolutionary before you get denounced yourself.
By earlier encouraging constructive criticisms during the 100 flowers period and then crushing any independat thinkers Mao both showed his callousness, ruthlessness & shortsightedness in eliminating any voice of independant thought.
(who might have told him his economic policies would cause famine for example)
Intellectuals were rellocated to isolated work camps, and although Mao might not have reached the duration of the Stalinist terror which lasted almost 3 decades, he may well have recognised a bit of himself in Stalin.
TMPichachu would be wrong that Stalin simply wanted the KMT in power as it is a whole lot more complex, with the Soviets supporting the beginning of the KMT organisation, but this doesnt mean being against the CCP at all. Both Germany and the Soviet Union had their fingers in the Chinese pie so to speak, and the soviets may have hedged their bets but it is clear who they supported in Korea and at the end of the Chinese civil war (by arming the PLA with weapons from the surrendered Japanese).
Mao recognised Stalin as a another revolutionary, and a early member & succesor of Lenin (which Lenin didnt want!)...but Kruschev with he wouldnt take second place too as he was both a revisionist and not an original Bolshevik (those being snuffed out by Stalin in the 30's-40's).
Note also Lenin lived only untill 1924, and was sick for some time before his death from repeated strokes and an assasination attempt, so judging him is hard. He may have become some sort of monster too...but he was more intellectual and wordly than the paraniod bully that Stalin was
Both men (Stalin had Mao) had moments of greatness, maybe Mao even much more so as he was an architect of victory instead of just claiming to be like Stalin...but both bungled affairs in other ways and repressed & caused the deaths of millions of innocants through mismanagement and cruel policys.
Not my sort of hero.

[Manguo]

Grigori, on May 15 2005, 03:46 PM, said:

Mao and Stalin didn't get along personally. But they were very much alike ideologically, much more so than Mao and Lenin. In fact the Sino-Soviet Split happened largely because Kruschev denounced his old boss while Mao accused the Soviet Union of counter revolutionary revisionism. Mao allied himself with Stalinist purists like Hoxha of Albania and actively funded Stalinist groups in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to compete against what he considered corrupted Soviet Communism. After Stalin's death, Mao had nothing but praise for him.

Lenin also supported violent class struggle, but he was more moderate and international. Lenin actually wanted Trotsky as his successor and told people Stalin would make a bad leader because he was too harsh. Trotsky was highly critical of Stalinism. Lenin would surely identify Mao and Stalin as cut form the same cloth.

You make a good point about Lenin vs. Stalin in terms of internationalism. In spite of all his rhetoric, Mao definitely was more in favor of Stalin's "socialism in one country" than Lenin/Trotsky's focus on expanding the revolution across the globe.

[MattW]

In terms of ideological belief Mao has much more in common with Stalin than Lenin. Lenin believed in very conservative domestic policies, favouring safer and more stable economic and agricultural development over the Maoist idea of radical 'leaps' in policy, epitomised in his Great Leap Forward. Such a dangerous and risky policy would not have pleased Lenin, who would have disapproved of the experiemental economics in the GLF [e.g. utilising the peasantry for steel production] and the unrealistic growth targets that Mao aimed to achieve whatever the cost. The difference is further shown in the fact that the Thermidorean reaction from 1960 to 1965 which saw Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping take over the reigns of policy making from Mao. Liu and Deng believed much more in Leninist socialist polcies, and this period saw a return to an acceptance of 'petty capitalism' [mostly through more peasants having private plots of land- 12% of land was privately farmed], and a strengthening of the role of managers and hierarchies in industry and in urban workplaces, with an emphasis on profitability. Material targets were placed ahead of moral ones. These policies were closer to Leninism than Maoism, and Mao's concern over this new policy direction suggests that he would have found strict Leninism even harder to tolerate.