Notes and words for “The Culture of Chinese Communism and the Secret Sources of its Power” by Kerry Brown.

1. Words

	English	Russian
1	reappraisal	переоценка
2	stride	шаг, интервал
3	repudiated	отречься
4	heady	опьяняющий
5	a raft of	пачка чего-то
6	a prong	зубец
7	epitome	олицетворение
8	cachet	капсула
9	onus	бремя
10	cogency	неоспоримость
11	subliminal	подсознательный
12	flagrantly	ужасно, возмутительно
13	contestation	оспаривание
14	contention	раздор
15	afflict	причинять боль, проблемы
16	prelapsarian	до Падения Человека
17	harrowing	душераздирание (букв. боронование)
18	precarious	ненадёжный
19	squabble	перебранка
20	be riven	быть расщеплённым
21	propinquity	сродство
22	quell	подавлять
23	contention	раздор
24	eschew	избегать, сторониться
25	rashness	опрометчивость
26	assail	атаковать
27	evince	выявить наличие
28	posit	постулировать
29	verbal garb	словесное обрамление
30	relinquish	уступить
31	bide your time	выжидать
32	kilter	исправность
33	sniffily	(перен.) высокомерно
34	wherewithal	необходимые средства
35	fount	источник, ключ (водяной)
36	acme	кульминация
37	brunt	главный удар
38	inextricable	безвыходный от запутанности
39	tussle	схватка (также мед. схватки)
40	hurl	швырять
41	riven by	раздираемый
42	caesura	цезура
43	quandary	затруднительное положение
44	larceny	воровство
45	pilfering	мелкое воровство
46	tutelage	опекунство
47	to be felled	быть срубленным
48	malfeasance	злодеяние
49	awry	косо
50	toe the line	подчиняться требованиям
51	to curb	взнуздать (метаф.)
52	consternation	оцепенение от испуга
53	buck the trend	сломать тренд
54	afflict	подействовать негативно
55	nag away	ворчать
56	venally	имеющи склонность к мздоимству
57	mainstay	оплот
58	abnegation	отречение
59	vacillate	колебаться
60	impudence	наглость
61	bequeathed	завещать
62	dunce (hat)	“шляпа дурака”, наказание в английских школах
63	searing	жгучий
64	harrowing	боронование (мет. душераздирающе)
65	intricate	запутанный
66	scuttled	затопленный путём открытия люка (scuttle)
67	gnawing	грызущий
68	dishevelled	взъерошенный
69	emaciated	истощённый
70	scoffing	саркастический
71	incensed	восхваляемый (ему возжигают фимиам)
72	indictment	обвинительный акт
73	trenchant	язвительный
74	insolence	наглость
75	to vent	испускать
76	venality	продажность
77	prurient	похотливый
78	lurid	пылающий, сенсационный
79	fungibility	взаимозаменяемость
80	swirl	кружение
81	sheen	блеск
82	strenuously	напрягшись
83	consternation	испуг
84	coruscating	сверкающий
85	ferreting	охота с хорьком
86	benighted	застигнутый ночью
87	predicament	затруднительное положение
88	pitting	заставить соревноваться
89	volte-face	поворот кругом (фиг.)
90	felled	срубленный
91	languish	изнывать
92	hinterland	глубокий тыл
93	gnomic	гномический
94	vacillation	колебание (втч мнений)
95	stint	ограниченный набор (работы, финансирования)
96	complacent	самодовольный
97	variegated	разносторонний
98	snuff out	затушить
99	revile	поносить, ругать
100	falter	дрогнуть, запинаться
101	portends	предвещать
102	gleaned	подчёрпнутый
103	circumscribed	чётко ограниченный
104	tepid	тёпленький
105	precinct	округ, участок
106	ruminate	раздумывать
107	moribund	умирающий, заброшенный
108	curt	грубо краткий
109	purblind	недальновидный
110	ferret	разнюхивать
111	wryly	косо (о взгляде)
112	risible	смешливый

2. Remarks

2.1. No party occupies all the political spectrum, except the Communist Party of China

Is that true nowadays? What about Navalny’s?

2.2. Its world-view had been proved by history to be right in the act of granting it power.

The Divine Right of Kings?

2.3. Are there other parties like this one?

Vietnamese? What about Korea, Japan? Triads? Yakuza?

2.5. how the CPC has become parasitical on nationalist messages and missions that make it clear its justification is in delivering these rather than Marxist objectives

Shall the party be obliged to deliver it’s initially declared objectives?

2.6. early leaders knew what they didn’t want, and what they disliked about the China they were living in and experiencing in their day-to-day lives. But there was widespread disagreement about what they were actually aiming for

What about all of us? Don’t we all feel way more confident about things we do not want?

2.7. The state constitution, agreed at the National People’s Congress in 1982, and subsequently (but not comprehensively) revised several times since

What about the old constitution of ~1950?

2.8. The language in which the book is written is peculiar.

Is it “Chinese-ish” English?

2.9. The USSR did not, for instance, have a vast dynastic past to look back on.

Wat?

2.10. Agrarian revolution.

China has a very fertile land. People seem to be growing stuff everywhere easily. Is this a fundamental difference?

2.11. On the contrary, it embraces what was once sniffily called feudal China, and at times also seeks to exploit it.

What about everyone else? Aren’t we all getting into the era of imitated nations? Just because everyone is ready to pay for what they “want to see”?

2.12. This permits the use of an example from theology to illustrate quite how the politics, administration, and country fit together.

Isn’t this exactly how things worked in the USSR? Many people admit that the CPSU effectively worked as a religious organisation, when the Marxist dogmas happened to under-perform.

Furthermore, doesn’t any totalitarian entity work like this? The Annenerbe, the FaLunGong, etc…?

2.13. Liu Shaoqi How to be a Good Communist.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1939/how-to-be/index.htm

2.15. it seemed of all the networks that proved hard to control and most irresistible that based on blood relations was the strongest and most prominent

2.16. Deep China.

Didn’t the “Deep America” elect Trump after all? Doesn’t every country have a “Deep Country”? Is there a “Deep Russia”?

2.17. Its sustainability in power demands allegiance from their whole selves, not just their material bodies, because reliance on the latter will always run the high risk that the CPC will go the same direction as the USSR, and be expendable.

People in the USSR also didn’t believe in anything they were speaking of. And were equally content.

2.18. Communist ideology at this time was ‘an effective instrument of training’, an ‘educational process which elevates the system of training above simple discipline’. ‘For training the cadre and party member, Chinese Communist theory … provides a comprehensive theory or learning to ensure the thorough remoulding of each individual’

What about Hofstede and cultural codes?

2.19. Mao the man made many mistakes. But Mao Zedong Thought remains valid and true. This strange bifurcation between a person of flesh and blood and his or her abstract intellectual contribution solved a major problem.

This has been used in the USA in the form of Confederate Generals’ statues. Why don’t “we” as Russians or whoever, reuse this general mantra? A person has agency only as long as he is alive. Afterwards it is natural and perfectly morally acceptable to scavenge all the possible legacy he has left as legacy of the nation.

2.20. Leaders across the country were judged on their ability to ‘preserve stability’, with an extensive apparatus of state security which started to cost more than national defence.

So the “extensive apparatus” became more expensive in China too!

2.21. Democracy Wall movement over 1978 to 1980.

2.22. The simple fact is that, as of 2018, no Communist one-party system had proved sustainable.

What about Vietnam?

2.23. Lockywolf: this text has to a noticeable extent, demystified the Cultural Revolution in my thoughts. More than the October Revolution.

2.24. They are not just epic aesthetic statements but also ideological ones, designed to create a specific emotional response, of awe, pride, a sense of being part of the great national drama that is unfolding as one walks around these stage sets.

Soviet Union had those too.

2.25. As a political force seeking support in the countryside, somehow a bridge needed to be made to this vast community who had only folk art to reach them.

3. After-discussion summary.

We discussed the book at the book club with Frank Tsai, and the discussion was not productive really. The people kept referring to some old things in the Chinese history, that I feel are not relevant to the daily life.