We call him “the new Mao” or even “Mao version 2.0”. With his authoritarianism and his purges within the Party, Xi Jinping, the Chinese president and general secretary of the Communist Party, followed in the footsteps of the founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong, whose 130th anniversary is being celebrated. this December 26. However, ten years ago, on the occasion of the 120th anniversary, Xi Jinping criticized him again.
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“ Revolutionary leaders are not gods » and can “ make mistakes », recalls Xi, the new Chinese number one in 2013, while nostalgic people and admirers celebrate the 120th anniversary of the Great Helmsman with a bowl of noodles. So is the end of the glorification of Mao, whose policy of the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” cost the lives of tens of millions of Chinese? Not quite, believes researcher Emmanuel Véron.
“ It was more a way for Xi Jinping to leave his mark on power than to want to fundamentally break with what is the historical trace of the Chinese Communist Party, that is to say the history of Mao and the Party. »
Xi Jinping already more powerful than Mao Zedong
Cautious criticism but always admiration. “ The government, the army, society and schools, the North, the South, the East and the West : the party rules them all. » Xi has made this Maoist formula his own.
“ It’s the obsession with control. The purges within the regime, within the armies and then the terror within civil society. It is a system that is returning to totalitarianism. »
After removing all his rivals, Xi Jinping today has more power than Mao. The Constitution gives him the right to reign over his empire for life.
Read alsoThe Mao Zedong Saga, “the Long March” (1/3)