Mass movements and a collectivized economy conferred some legitimacy on
the communist regime.
- Class struggle and continuous revolution From Mao’s perspective, class
struggle and class conflict would continue for a long period after the
establishment of the People’s Republic. Communist leadership needed to pay
attention to the transformation from ‘contradictions within the people’ to
‘contradiction with the enemies’. Party leadership was responsible for identi-
fying objects of struggle and launching investigation and struggle campaigns.
Continuous class struggle was perceived to be the best way to maintain
dynamism within the communist party and among the masses. - Superiority of ‘red’ (ideologically correct) over ‘expert’ Politics com-
manded all economic decision-making processes during the Maoist period.
Ideology set the directions and the methods for policy implementation. The
centralized socialist command economy neglected local differences and
reduced economic incentives, resulting in declining productivity. Those who
deviated from the party line, such as intellectuals, were subject to thought
reform and imprisonment. - The cult of personality The first two and a half decades of the communist
regime also can be described as a period when Mao’s personality – his values,
hopes, wants, and fears – dominated decision making. Mao’s ideas such as
egalitarianism, self-reliance, and anti-professionalism were all reflected in the
policy-making process and policy outcomes. The zenith of radicalization was
the Cultural Revolution from 1966–76, which took China to the edge of
political, social, and economic collapse by the late 1970s.^27
Some scholars suggest that the primary cause of China’s environmental
problems is economic reforms and industrial growth beginning in 1978,
2 years after Mao’s death. Most, however, believe that the Maoist era acceler-
ated environmental degradation, yet followed tendencies of Confucianism
evident in imperial China. The most incisive study of this era is Judith
Shapiro’s Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in
Revolutionary China. She argues that the abuse of people in Maoist China was
linked to abuse of nature: ‘The environmental dynamics of the period suggest
a congruence between violence among human beings and violence by humans
toward the nonhuman world’.^28
Shapiro uses four themes to focus her argument: (1) political repres-
sion; (2) utopian urgency; (3) dogmatic uniformity; and (4) state-ordered
relocations. Discussing political repression, she tells of two scientists who
attempted to avert crises but were suppressed by the Maoist regime. In 1957,
demographer and Beijing University president Ma Yinchu warned, based on
26 Governance of biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan