David Rockefeller’s praise for Mao’s China despite the mass killings
This famous article is a significant window into how Wall Street globalist elites view communism:
From a China Traveler
By David Rockefeller | The New York Times | August 10, 1973
. . . Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose.
General economic and social progress is no less impressive. . . .
Rapid strides are being made in agriculture, reforestation, industry and education . . .
The enormous social advances of China have benefited greatly from the singleness of ideology and purpose. . . .
Considering the problems to be overcome, economic growth in China over the last 25 years has been quite remarkable, with an annual average rise in gross national product of 4 to 5 per cent. . . .
The social experiment in China under. Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history. . . .
Mao died in 1976, three years after Rockefeller’s article. See:
Mao Zedong
Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong
President Ford’s statement on Mao’s death:
9/9/76 – Remarks on the Death of Chairman Mao Tse Tung
Even though Buckley, who was involved in the CIA, was part of a controlled right-left dialectic in my view, he made some valid points in the following criticism of Rockefeller’s 1973 article:
ALAS, MAO LIVES
By William F. Buckley Jr. | June 1, 1989
Buckley documents some of the absurd praise for Mao from Western sources:
. . . Another witness said (we are talking about the late 1950s, during the disaster of the Great Leap Forward) that China had become “almost as painstakingly careful about human lives as New Zealand” — human casualties at that point from Mao’s Thought Reform period (1951) followed by his Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom period (1956) were estimated by some as high as 15 million people executed, though the figure goes down as low as 1 million to 3 million. David Rockefeller (yes, our David Rockefeller) praised “the sense of national harmony” and argued that Mao’s revolution had succeeded “not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose.” And so on, ad, literally, nauseam. . . . The greatest hell on earth he visited on his country — the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 — combined adulation for Mao and vilification of his (fancied) enemies. . . .
NY Times Deletes Tweet Calling Mao Zedong ‘One of History’s Great Revolutionary Figures’
J. Clara Chan | September 9, 2019
. . . He was responsible for ushering in the Cultural Revolution, a sweeping movement that led to the mass killings of millions of people and the torture and persecution of millions more. . . .
Chronology of Mass Killings during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) (original link: https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/chronology-mass-killings-during-chinese-cultural-revolution-1966-1976)
Yongyi Song | 25 August, 2011
The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a historical tragedy launched by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It claimed the lives of several million people and inflicted cruel and inhuman treatments on hundreds of million people. However, 40 years after it ended, the total number of victims of the Cultural Revolution and especially the death toll of mass killings still remain a mystery both in China and overseas. . . .
1976 New York Times obituary:
MAO TSE‐TUNG: FATHER OF CHINESE REVOLUTION
New York Times | September 10, 1976
This article is also full of praise for Mao.
HONG KONG, Sept. 9—Mao Tse‐tung, who began as an obscure peasant, died one of history’s great revolutionary figures. . . .
They refer to Mao’s “invitation last winter to Mr. Nixon to revisit Peking.”