34. Communist Propaganda Sets the Stage for a Tragic Letdown
By the 1970s, Mao’s strain of communism had dealt China setback after setback. Mao believed that revolutionary zeal could substitute for proper planning, and even rational thinking. The result was a series of debacles such as the poorly named Great Leap Forward, which actually ended up setting China back. As many as 50 million Chinese ended up starving to death. Then came Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which again assumed that revolutionary zeal and people power – in this case, the power of young fanatical people – could propel China into modernity and prosperity. The result was even more chaos and suffering.
By 1976, Mao, accurately reflecting his regime and brand of communism, was a debilitated and dying old man. However, he and his hardcore followers still believed that Maoist revolutionary zeal – Mao Zedong Thought – could work miracles. Maoist revolutionary zeal extended to a Chinese system of earthquake prediction that was touted as infallible. As seen below, it was not.
