>Unsurprisingly, didn't work too well. I find I cannot pidginhole this statement in an easy anti-communism idiom. While it may be addressing the failures of co

>Unsurprisingly, didn't work too well. I find I cannot pidginhole this statement in an easy anti-communism idiom. While it may be addressing the failures of communism (read centralized planning), it actually holds rather well on a long view historical suggestion. Mao was talking about peasant-farmer communities, and ones of around three million people, with strategically divided borders, could easily continue their existence at a turn of the century (for North America) standard of living. Just saying, there's nothing structurally wrong with the idea.