On October 10th 1947 Mao Zedong presented The
Manifesto of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as a means of analyzing the
political circumstances of the time. There had been a series of events leading
up to this manifesto beginning back in the 1920s. When Sun Yat-sen, the leader
of the Kuomingtang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, passed away Chiang
Kai-shek took his place. Unfortunately, unlike Sun, Chiang was unable or rather
unwilling to maintain good relations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Chiang desired to wipe out the CCP and so he began a civil
war, but this civil war was poorly timed. Not long after it began Japan invaded
China forcing the Nationalists and the Communists to form a truce. After the
Japanese surrendered the two parties refocused their anger on one another. For a
time Chiang received aid from the United States as the attempted to help
negotiate an alliance between the two parties. This upset the CCP even more.
Mao Zedong, the leader of the CCP had recently come across some
Marxist literature which inspired him to write the manifesto. The words he used
were powerful and the manifesto had a great effect on the people. It rallied
the people behind Mao and it ultimately led to Chiang’s evacuation to Taiwan.
Mao begins by sharing a narrative of the status of the war.
He reminds the people of the strength of his Red Army and their superiority
over Chiang’s army. “Wherever our troops go, the enemy flees pell-mell before
us…”
He continues on by bringing shame to Chiang Kai-shek’s name
by accusing him of being “…devoid of all gratitude… traitorous, dictatorial and
against the people.” This is a theme that we see repeated throughout the
manifesto.
Mao then quickly sets forth 8 policies that he plans to put
into effect. I believe this has an immense effect on the people. He is not only
saying Chiang is bad, I am good, follow me. He took the time to present his
plan to the people and he appeals to their desires and emotions by proving to
them that he supports them. He said, “We are the army of the Chinese people and
in all things we take the will of the Chinese people as our will.”
To end, Mao uses his powerful words once more to enthuse the
people and to invite them to join his great cause. He explains that they “are
shouldering the most important, the most glorious task in the history of
[their] country’s revolution.”
Great post, I like how you used a lot of examples from the text to back different rhetorical terms. The context was very clear as well!
ReplyDeleteSo he addresses the issue and places blame, then provides the solution in order to fulfill the logical aspect of his appeal and then reinforces it by instilling pride into the people that already agree logically with the message. He reinforces the ethos with logos and the logos with pathos and round and round. Seems like a good structure to me. Actually, it sounds alot like a general conference talk.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading the document I noted that he mentioned and directed his attack completely against Chaing Kai-Shek. It seemed like hatred towards that man and his regime was a larger uniting factor for the Chinese communist party at this time than the ideals of communism itself.
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