S8 Ep276: PREVIEW FOR LATER TONIGHT MAO'S SINICIZATION OF MARXISM AND THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD Colleague Joseph Torigian. Torigian discusses how Mao "sinicized" Marxism, rejecting Soviet dogmatism to interpret ideology flexibly. While Xi Zhongxun respected Mao's prac

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Arts, Books, News, Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

PREVIEW FOR LATER TONIGHT MAO'S SINICIZATION OF MARXISM AND THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD Colleague Joseph Torigian. Torigian discusses how Mao "sinicized" Marxism, rejecting Sovietdogmatism to interpret ideology flexibly. While Xi Zhongxun respected Mao's practical application of Leninism to China, Torigian notes that abandoning the Soviet model—viewed as "revisionist"—ultimately resulted in the Great Leap Forward, causing the deaths of approximately 30 million people.
1910 QING DYNASTY

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0:27.3	Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:34.7	This is John Batchel, conversation with the author Joseph Tarigian of Stanford University.
0:39.1	His new book, The Party's Interest Come First, is the biography of Xi Jinping's father, Xi Zhongshun, a revolutionary joining the party in 26 and weathering the
0:47.7	years of decades of deprivation and violence, leading to Mao's-led revolution in 47, 48, and 49.
0:58.0	And then the bad patch from 56, 57 on. This particular remark is Joseph describing how it is that Mao twisted and reorganized Leninist-Marxist thought
1:15.2	to suit himself in China at the same time. She admired this, but great leap forward. Here
1:24.5	Joseph explains. So, Mao's Deng's story that he told about why he deserved to be the leader of the Chinese
1:33.1	Communist Party is that he cynicized Marxism. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means that in his
1:39.7	view, you had these people who were trained in Moscow or were obeying orders from the Soviet Union
1:45.9	who simply didn't understand what was going on in China.
1:49.4	But that Mao, his contribution, was to take the ideas of Marx and Lenin and apply them to China.
1:58.2	And so that means a lot of flexibility because when you get to change things
2:03.5	to fit your own situation, then you get to say essentially that it means whatever you want
2:10.9	it to mean. So the ideology was important, right? Because you needed to tell people what they
2:17.1	believed in and you needed to
2:18.6	legitimate this violence and this in this revolution. But for Mao and one of the reasons that
2:25.3	she respected Mao so much, you really also needed to have this practical side. But then, as you said,
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