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Red or Expert?

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The Spirit of Selflessness in Maoist China: Socialist Medicine and the New Man

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Abstract

Confounding technocrat aspirations by the mid 19505, the Great Leap Forward was accompanied by a series of ‘mass line’ policies in the realm of public health that undermined specialist authority and promoted mass mobilisation. This radical re-appraisal of individual skill was in turn undermined by the collapse of the collectivisation scheme and the dawn of an era of economic rationalisation in the early 19605. The resurgence of Liu Shaoqi’s self-cultivation model was followed by a bitter theoretical battle on Marxist dialectics, which reflected itself on the crucial practical question of the proper balance between professional skill and political commitment, or expertise and redness. As Mao responded to the unfolding ‘red and expert’ debate in the field of medicine by attacking the Ministry of Health as a ‘Ministry of Gentlemen’s Health’, the medical establishment attempted to assimilate Mao’s offensive by taking recourse to a reconciliatory exegesis of Bethune’s ‘spirit of selflessness’ as a balanced model for ethical and political action.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cambridge, UK

    Christos Lynteris

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  1. Christos Lynteris
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© 2013 Christos Lynteris

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Lynteris, C. (2013). Red or Expert?. In: The Spirit of Selflessness in Maoist China: Socialist Medicine and the New Man. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293831_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293831_4

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45135-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-29383-1

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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