May 6 2015
Mao at his death left China backward but, ironically, ready for reform, Stanford scholar says.
Stanford sociology Professor Andrew Walder found that, unwittingly, Mao Zedong's long campaign against "capitalist tendencies" in the Chinese Communist Party laid the groundwork for a transition to a market economy.
The damage that Mao Zedong wrought in China made it much easier for that country to move away from a Soviet-style economic model and toward a new market-oriented one, a Stanford scholar says.
In fact, China has been in full retreat for four decades from Mao's disastrous rule, according to a new book by Stanford sociology Professor Andrew Walder. "Mao ruined much of what he had built and created no viable alternative," he wrote. "At the time of his death, he left China backward and deeply divided."
