Mao was not only a politician but an evil man. If politicians don't make good poets then that is even more true of evil men. In any case all politicians are more or less evil.
If Mao were an evil man, we would see evil in his poems. But we feel no evil there, we feel only hope for the future - as he wanted his comrades to feel, when his poem was read to them. 'Look - the galaxy today!' The world needs such optimists today.
Mao did not kill 'innocent' people, contrary to the lying propaganda of the 'cold-war' narrative. Mao fought against the genocide of the imperialist Japanese, and against the opium-runners under Chiang kai-shek and the British Empire.
The imperialists hate Mao for one reason - for all his scars and flaws, he still outsmarted them and won China's independence.
'Genocide' is a word that is bandied about these days so much that it has come to mean almost nothing except you don't like the other side. Such a stance is only too easy and is always simplistic.
Men of action never make good poets. And politics is almost the direct opposite of poetry. Since politics, even at its best, is concerned with power, whereas poetry is concerned with truth. The two do not mix easily together.
In any case Mao was a communist, and Marxism right from its beginning has been a farrago of evil nonsense. Dickens and Ruskin did far more for the working classes than Marx and Engels ever did; one married to an aristocrat, the other a factory owner. What did they know of the working classes? Their own economic interests obviously lay completely elsewhere.
And if they were so scientific then communism would have happened anyway. There was never any need for anybody to 'speed it up'. Least of all these power-hungry charlatans.
It seems that we must therefore say, that Mao was not a politician, but was a poet - who was steeped in traditional Chinese Confucian culture. And I completely agree with you about Marx, Engels and (especially) Ruskin - who were all used by the City of London's secret intelligence operations, to try to manipulate and distort the thinking of people.
Mao was not only a politician but an evil man. If politicians don't make good poets then that is even more true of evil men. In any case all politicians are more or less evil.
If Mao were an evil man, we would see evil in his poems. But we feel no evil there, we feel only hope for the future - as he wanted his comrades to feel, when his poem was read to them. 'Look - the galaxy today!' The world needs such optimists today.
Pah! Actions speak louder than words. How many millions of innocent people did he kill? That's his real poetic legacy.
We have poetasters in this country too.
Hitler painted 'beautiful' paintings.
Stalin wrote 'beautiful' speeches.
So it goes.
P.S. IMHO, I think that Hitler's paintings are kinda ugly. But I think that Ulysses Grant's paintings are beautiful.
Hence the inverted commas. Though in fact they were quite good, if a bit old-fashioned.
Mao did not kill 'innocent' people, contrary to the lying propaganda of the 'cold-war' narrative. Mao fought against the genocide of the imperialist Japanese, and against the opium-runners under Chiang kai-shek and the British Empire.
The imperialists hate Mao for one reason - for all his scars and flaws, he still outsmarted them and won China's independence.
'Genocide' is a word that is bandied about these days so much that it has come to mean almost nothing except you don't like the other side. Such a stance is only too easy and is always simplistic.
Men of action never make good poets. And politics is almost the direct opposite of poetry. Since politics, even at its best, is concerned with power, whereas poetry is concerned with truth. The two do not mix easily together.
In any case Mao was a communist, and Marxism right from its beginning has been a farrago of evil nonsense. Dickens and Ruskin did far more for the working classes than Marx and Engels ever did; one married to an aristocrat, the other a factory owner. What did they know of the working classes? Their own economic interests obviously lay completely elsewhere.
And if they were so scientific then communism would have happened anyway. There was never any need for anybody to 'speed it up'. Least of all these power-hungry charlatans.
It seems that we must therefore say, that Mao was not a politician, but was a poet - who was steeped in traditional Chinese Confucian culture. And I completely agree with you about Marx, Engels and (especially) Ruskin - who were all used by the City of London's secret intelligence operations, to try to manipulate and distort the thinking of people.
I opposed Ruskin to Marx and Engels. I thought I had made that clear.
Poets don't become world leaders. They don't need to. They achieve something far more important than that.
As I say, truth and power are opposed. Truth has an authority that mere power totally lacks.