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ABOUT RAYMOND LOTTA | RESOURCES | POINT/COUNTERPOINT | SOCIALIST EXPERIENCE | COMMUNISM'S FUTURE RESOURCES RECOMMENDED RECENT BOOKS These books are recommended by Set the Record Straight; they are relatively recent and available at your local bookstore or Amazon. We welcome suggestions for this list; please include the complete citation and if possible, send us a short review of why you think the book should be included. We will add brief reader reviews to this page as we receive them. Cushing, Lincoln and Tompkins, Ann. Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007. (blurb) Feigon, Lee. Mao: A Reinterpretation. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002. Gao, Mobo C.F. The Battle for China's Past: Mao & The Cultural Revolution. London: Pluto Press, 2008. Gao, Mobo C.F. Gao Village: Rural Life in Modern China. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. Hinton, William. Through a Glass Darkly: American Views of the Chinese Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006. _____ Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Lotta, Raymond. Maoist Economics & the Revolutionary Road to Communism: The Shanghai Textbook. Chicago: Banner Press, 1994. Meisner, Maurice. Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic. 3rd ed. New York: Free Press, 1999. Xueping, Zhong, Zheng, Wang, and Bai, Di, eds. Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up in the Mao Era. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001. RECOMMENDED OLDER BOOKS These books were written during or shortly after the Mao years in China. They are harder to obtain although often available at the library or used book sellers. They are highly recommended by Set the Record Straight. Avakian, Bob. The Loss in China and the Revolutionary Legacy of Mao Tsetung. [speech] available from RCP Publications, Chicago, 1978. Chen, Jack. A Year in Upper Felicity: Life in a Chinese Village During the Cultural Revolution New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1973. _____ Inside the Cultural Revolution London: Sheldon Press, 1976. Daubier, Jean. A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. New York: Random House, 1974. Hinton, William. Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua University. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972. Horn, Joshua S. Away with All Pests: An English Surgeon in People's China, 1954-1969. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. Macciocchi, Maria Antonietta. Daily Life in Revolutionary China. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972. Myrdal, Jan. Report from a Chinese Village. New York: Signet, 1966. Snow, Edgar. Red Star over China. New York: Grove Press, 1961. _____ The Long Revolution. New York: Random House, 1972. Suyin, Han. Wind in the Tower: Mao Tsetung and the Chinese Rebolution 1949-1975. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976. Witke, Roxanne. Comrade Chiang Ching. Boston: Little Brown, 1977. Zedung, Mao. A Critique of Soviet Economics. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977 SOCIALISM AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOCIALISM Marx, Karl, Critique of the Gotha Programme. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972. Marx did not set down a systematic account of how a socialist economy would function. But in this brief work, written towards the end of his life, he does offer more extensive comments on the conditions of emergence and the economic and social organization of socialist and communist society. Lenin, V.I., The State and Revolution, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1973. Taking Marx's ideas further, and defending them against revisionist assault, Lenin discusses the nature of the proletarian state and the economic and political factors involved in the transition from socialism to communism. Stalin, Joseph, Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972. In this essay, written in 1952, Stalin attempts to identify and address key problems arising from the remnants of capitalism still surviving under socialism. The discussion ranges over such issues as the law of value, commodity production, and their effects on the regulation of socialist production, and the continuing contradiction between the forces and relations of production. A serious work of socialist political economy, although also seriously flawed. See next reference. Mao, Tsetung, A Critique of Soviet Economics, New York: Montly Review Press, 1977. Pathbreaking writings dating from the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mao critically examines the Soviet model of socialist construction and its associated principles of socialist political economy. Set against the canvas of the Great Leap Forward, Mao probes the process of continuing revolution and the nature of the transition from socialism to communism--and in so doing stakes out new conceptual territory for Marxism. Chun-chiao, Chang, "On Exercising All-Round Dictatorship Over the Bourgeoisie," in Lotta, Raymond, ed., And Mao Makes Five, Chicago: Banner Press, 1978; also in Peking Review (14), 4 April 1975. Chang was a key leader of the Cultural Revolution and part of the radical leadership core on whom Mao relied during his last great battle. This essay was written in 1975, as the struggle within the Chinese Communist Party over whether China would remain on the socialist road was coming to a fateful head. It is a highly important analysis of the relations of production under socialism, the contradictions within its ownership system, and the material and ideological conditions giving rise to new privileged and exploiting forces. Avakian, Bob, Mao Tsetung's Immortal Contributions, Chicago: RCP Publications, 1979. A lucid synthesis of Mao's contributions to various fields of Marxism, including the political economy of socialism, that is also a stimulating survey of the development of Marxist theory. The work provides ground as well for understanding key historical and developmental issues of the Chinese revolution. RECOMMENDED AUDIO FILES These audio files can be downloaded from their source. Slate, Michael, Beneath the Surface. Interview on KPFK, San Francisco: "Bob Avakian on China, Art (3/29/05)." Michael Slate interviews Bob Avakian on China, the Cultural Revolution, Art, and Dissent. Slate, Michael, Beneath the Surface. Interview on KPFK, San Francisco: "On Leadership." Bob Avakian responds to the following questions: 1) Isn’t it dangerous to invest so much into an individual leader? 2) The question of Stalin. Set the Record Straight is a program of the International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code. |
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