As per title, my book club has been reading a bunch of theory(which we love!) but have been wanting to learn more about nuts and bolts of revolution. Moving from theoretical lens of communist revolution into how things have looked on the ground, if that makes sense.
We we split about if we ought to start more about the history of the Chinese revolution or start with reading Mao(which is also tough, that mf really wrote a lot!) Any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations, any and all of it, would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks comrades!!
Edit: Thanks so much to everyone for contributing!! There are so many amazing resources in here and I can't begin to thank you all enough for sharing you knowledge and interests!! Just the bell of the small commie book club ball right now, with all these resources!
Not exclusively the revolution, but I've heard Ten Crises by Wen Tiejun is a good history of the PRC
yeah the book is pretty good, he made a serie of lectures in English that summarize the book
In terms of popular writing for a Western audience, 'Fanshen' is a great portrait of the revolution through the experience of a single rural village. However it is quite long (but gripping!). This is the best glimpse into 'how things looked on the ground'! 'Red Star Over China' reads like an adventure novel, and recounts one journalist's travel into Red territory and his interview with Mao.
From Victory to Defeat by Pao-Yu Ching is a good critical perspective on the gains of the revolution and the capitalist reforms of Deng.
In terms of reading Mao, 'Oppose Book Worship' and 'On Practice' are the guide to practice for people looking to go from book club (nothing wrong with being here!) to organizing. 'Combat Liberalism' is a good reflective tool once you are used to collective life and organizing. I tried reading it while I was still basically a liberal and got very little from it.
Our club covers The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/isaacs/1938/tcr/index.htm
Discord invite if anyone is looking for a good theory group https://discord.gg/4hTAzFft
Memoirs by Chinese people of the Maoist years: -The Crippled Tree, by Han Suyin -A Mortal Flower, by Han Suyin -Birdless Summer, by Han Suyin -My House Has Two Doors, by Han Suyin -The Dragon's Village, by Chen Yuan-tsung
First-hand accounts of Westerners who visited China during the Maoist years: -Red Star Over China, by Edgar Snow -Red China Today, by Edgar Snow -The Long Revolution, by Edgar Snow -Fanshen, by William Hinton -Iron Oxen, by William Hinton -Shenfan, by William Hinton -Turning Point in China, by William Hinton -China! Inside the People's Republic, by the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars -The Great Reversal, by William Hinton
Narrative histories of the PRC that are at least nominally socialist or Mao-sympathetic or at least try to be fair: -Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History, by Rebecca E. Karl -Mao's China: A History of the People's Republic, by Maurice Meisner -Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic, by Maurice Meisner -Morning Deluge, by Han Suyin -Wind in the Tower, by Han Suyin
Biographies of Mao and other famous party members of the time (Some of these are pretty liberal but they do tend to be more fair than others): -Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China, by Han Suyin -Mao Tsetung's Immortal Contributions, by Bob Avakian -Mao Zedong: Man, Not God, by Quan Yanchi -Mao Zedong: Biography, Assessment, Reminiscences, by Zhong Wenxian -Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait, by Maurice Meisner -Mao Zedong: A Life, by Jonathan D. Spence -Was Mao Really a Monster?, by Gregor Benton and Lin Chun -Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary, by Gao Wenqian -Mao Zedong and China's Revolutions: A Brief History with Documents, by Timothy Cheek
Books about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: -Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge, by Melissa Schrift -The Battle for China's Past: Mao & the Cultural Revolution, by Mobo Gao -The Unknown Cultural Revolution, by Han Dongping -And Mao Makes 5, by Raymond Lotta -Maoist Economics and the Revolutionary Road to Communism, by Raymond Lotta
Mostly commenting to save this post for my own reference.
But, while it's not quite what you're looking for, I've found that The Unknown Cultural Revolution by Dongping Han to be incredibly good. It gives a very on-the-ground look at the cultural revolution while contextualizing it in changes happening in china at the time
