Russian people urged to increase cigarette and alcohol consumption

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

Russians urged to smoke, drink more
(AFP) – 19 hours ago

MOSCOW — Smoke and drink more, Russia's finance minister Alexei Kudrin urged citizens on Wednesday, explaining that higher consumption would help lift tax revenues for spending on social services.

"If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more to help solve social problems such as boosting demographics, developing other social services and upholding birth rates," Kudrin said, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

"People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state," he said, offering unconventional advice as the Russian government announced plans to raise excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes.

Alcohol and cigarette consumption are already extremely high in Russia, where 65 percent of men smoke and the average Russian consumes 18 litres of alcoholic beverages per year, mainly vodka, according to official statistics.

Russian duties on cigarettes are among the lowest in Europe, with most brands priced at around 40 rubles (one euro, 1.30 dollars) per pack and unfiltered cigarettes selling for much less.

The finance ministry in June announced plans to more than double excise duty on cigarettes over the next three years from 250 roubles per 1,000 filtered cigarettes to 590 roubles in 2013.

The move is likely to be unpopular in the nicotine-addicted nation where a cigarette shortage in the late 1980s and early 1990s incited protests and led then-president Mikhail Gorbachev to appeal for emergency outside shipments.

The state recently imposed a new minimum legal price for vodka, implemented a zero tolerance ban on drink-driving and banned night-time sales of alcohol to curb abuse blamed for the deaths of thousands of Russians every year.

Alcohol abuse kills around 500,000 Russians annually and greatly impacts male life expectancy, which is lower than in such developing countries as Bangladesh and Honduras, according to official figures.

[http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jGzvnPQDSDAZ-_szkxN65OwffAKA]

[mykittyhasaboner]

Wow.

[Kayser_Soso]

"....aaaaaand THAT'S why you're goin' to the GULag!!!"

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

Weird.

[Delenda Carthago]

Russians are crazy licks...

[robbo203]

Russians urged to smoke, drink more
(AFP) – 19 hours ago

MOSCOW — Smoke and drink more, Russia's finance minister Alexei Kudrin urged citizens on Wednesday, explaining that higher consumption would help lift tax revenues for spending on social services.

"If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more to help solve social problems such as boosting demographics, developing other social services and upholding birth rates," Kudrin said, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

"People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state," he said, offering unconventional advice as the Russian government announced plans to raise excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes.

Alcohol and cigarette consumption are already extremely high in Russia, where 65 percent of men smoke and the average Russian consumes 18 litres of alcoholic beverages per year, mainly vodka, according to official statistics.

Russian duties on cigarettes are among the lowest in Europe, with most brands priced at around 40 rubles (one euro, 1.30 dollars) per pack and unfiltered cigarettes selling for much less.

The finance ministry in June announced plans to more than double excise duty on cigarettes over the next three years from 250 roubles per 1,000 filtered cigarettes to 590 roubles in 2013.

The move is likely to be unpopular in the nicotine-addicted nation where a cigarette shortage in the late 1980s and early 1990s incited protests and led then-president Mikhail Gorbachev to appeal for emergency outside shipments.

The state recently imposed a new minimum legal price for vodka, implemented a zero tolerance ban on drink-driving and banned night-time sales of alcohol to curb abuse blamed for the deaths of thousands of Russians every year.

Alcohol abuse kills around 500,000 Russians annually and greatly impacts male life expectancy, which is lower than in such developing countries as Bangladesh and Honduras, according to official figures.

[http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jGzvnPQDSDAZ-_szkxN65OwffAKA]





Nope. I think youve got it all wrong. Kudrin is following in the footsteps of Jonathan Swift whose work A Modest Proposal on how to solve the Irish "overpopulation" problem - by eating succulent babies specially bred for the occasion - is one of the finest peices of political satire ever http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

[ed miliband]

The average Russian only consume 18 litres of alcoholic beverages a year? Disappointing.

[Peter The Painter]

Buy tobacco and Alcohol, spend your wage, that you sweated for, then get cancer or liver disease, then pay for treatment, if you cannot afford it, go die in a ditch you prole

- Russian Gov

[Die Neue Zeit]

But Russia still has to overcome its population decline problem. The Finance Minister is shooting himself in the foot here.

[Dire Helix]

Keep the "middle class" minority happy and satisfied and the rest of the population drunk and drugged. This has been the policy since Yeltsin.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

Nope. I think youve got it all wrong. Kudrin is following in the footsteps of Jonathan Swift whose work A Modest Proposal on how to solve the Irish "overpopulation" problem - by eating succulent babies specially bred for the occasion - is one of the finest peices of political satire ever http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

It ain't unreasonable to suppose that. The stuff I got is from the Russia-hatin' and unfunny AFP.

Another interesting Kudrin idea: ensuring old-age benefits by staving off retirement until 60 for women, 65 for men. The later Soviet period had higher life expectancy and could still guarantee those benefits with a retirement age at 55 and 60. Of course, there was a slowing but still present growth in the economy and demographics until Gorby's idea to accelerate that growth through market mechanisms. (Economy got worse, but growth continued.) The last year of growth was '89, and positive birthrates were soon gone after that.

Kudrin's initial splash took place in Leningrad in 1990. He went ahead with the reformist course, having read too much Swift.

At least the latest tax proposal deals with that legacy; we know the Russian government could use whatever funding it can get.

[Thirsty Crow]

Russians are crazy licks...

No, they're just very candid, whereas other guardians of capital tend to use smoke screens.
Just as any capitalist government, they are trying to find a way out of the mess, but they have guts to invite people to get hammered regularly and smoke their brains out. Very interesting.

[Kayser_Soso]

Keep the "middle class" minority happy and satisfied and the rest of the population drunk and drugged. This has been the policy since Yeltsin.

The funny thing about that middle class(which seems to live almost entirely within Moscow) is that a great deal of them would rather leave. Even a moderately good standard of living in Moscow cannot compensate for the utter lack of rights and arbitrary nature of authority here.

And it seems any complaint anyone raises is met with "No, that's not happening. It's just Western propaganda."

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

"....aaaaaand THAT'S why you're goin' to the GULag!!!"

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NzHG4HjtdwI/R0xgXgX-mcI/AAAAAAAAAYA/khT3hNztzvY/s400/Dolbanem.jpg

[Lolshevik]

Holy crap cigarettes are cheap in Russia. Maybe I ought to visit...

I do appreciate the relative honesty of capitalism's political reps. in Russia, by the way. Most American politicians don't have the guts to come out and openly say - "go kill yourselves, proles!"

[Comrade Mango]

Wouldn't more smoke & drink kill you? Unless people just buy and bin.

[Kayser_Soso]

Holy crap cigarettes are cheap in Russia. Maybe I ought to visit...

I do appreciate the relative honesty of capitalism's political reps. in Russia, by the way. Most American politicians don't have the guts to come out and openly say - "go kill yourselves, proles!"

Cigarettes are incredibly cheap. A pack of Marlboro even in Moscow is somewhere around $2. LD and various local brands are actually less than a dollar. Occasionally you find the CCCP brand cigarettes, which go for something around 30 cents a pack. This is why it's so hard to quit here.


I have to say though that it wasn't until I had been in Russia so long that I started to feel positive about the rise in Straight-edge graffiti. Obviously no youth sub-culture is going to save the day but so long as young people are copying Western sub-cultures, it's good that some are adopting an anti-alcohol one.

[RotStern]

This must be a joke, alcohol is one of the core reasons for many of Russias problems.

[Kayser_Soso]

This must be a joke, alcohol is one of the core reasons for many of Russias problems.

Don't use logic. The government here does not even pretend to give a damn about the people.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

"People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state," he said, offering unconventional advice as the Russian government announced plans to raise excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes.

In other words, sacrifice your personal health before the alter of the economy, the same message the bourgeoisie has given us for centuries! :mad:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Keep the "middle class" minority happy and satisfied and the rest of the population drunk and drugged. This has been the policy since Yeltsin.

The Brezhnev regime didn't care that much more on the vodka front.

[NGNM85]

Oh, that's just brilliant.

[Kayser_Soso]

In other words, sacrifice your personal health before the alter of the economy, the same message the bourgeoisie has given us for centuries! :mad:

Yeah but it won't help the economy, it will just put more money in the pockets of billionaires. Russia BTW, has a flat tax at 13% I believe. It has had it for many years now because it was supposedly the only way to get oligarchs to pay taxes(PROTIP: Many still don't).

[Adi Shankara]

What I really don't like about this article is it solely exists to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Russians, seeing as Polish people and Lithuanians drink about as much as we do, yet there is no article about that.

People just enjoy the stereotype of the abusive, cold Russian male drinking himself to death too much to let it die already.

[Adi Shankara]

The average Russian only consume 18 litres of alcoholic beverages a year? Disappointing.

Now maybe my statistics are a bit outdated, being 6 years old, but fuck, many nations in Europe drink much more per capita compared to Russia, including Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Nigeria, and Britain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption

So yes, it's based on a negative ethnic stereotypes, aimed at painting Russians as raging alcoholics. it shows the propaganda hasn't changed much in the years since the fall of the wall.


And it seems any complaint anyone raises is met with "No, that's not happening. It's just Western propaganda."

That's because it is Western Propaganda; and if they're leaving Russia, they're either going to the United States only because they have family here (a la my cousins) or they're going to Kazakhstan, Moldova, Estonia, etc. because it's cheaper.

[Kayser_Soso]

That's because it is Western Propaganda; and if they're leaving Russia, they're either going to the United States only because they have family here (a la my cousins) or they're going to Kazakhstan, Moldova, Estonia, etc. because it's cheaper.

Yes yes, everything's fine in Russia. Everyone has freedom of speech, the courts aren't corrupt, the police don't hit people up for bribes, abuse them, kill and rape. Elections aren't rigged and opposition politicians, journalists, leaders, etc. aren't killed. It's just made up by the evil Western media who wants to ruin Putin's day. SLAVA ROSSII!!! SLAVA POBEDA!!!




And who the hell goes from Russia to those countries? If anything people from FSU countries go to Russia.

[Adi Shankara]

Yes yes, everything's fine in Russia. Everyone has freedom of speech, the courts aren't corrupt, the police don't hit people up for bribes, abuse them, kill and rape. Elections aren't rigged and opposition politicians, journalists, leaders, etc. aren't killed. It's just made up by the evil Western media who wants to ruin Putin's day. SLAVA ROSSII!!! SLAVA POBEDA!!!

Dude, we have all that shit in the United States and Western Europe too. Lol, you think Police brutality, corrupt courts, and lack of free speech are a hallmark of Russian society alone? or is it that you just like picking on Russians?

look up Mumia Abu Jamal or Oscar Grant, why don't you, and get back to me on whether that shit only exists in Russia.

[Kayser_Soso]

dude, we have all that shit in the United States and Western Europe too.

Yup, Russia's JUST like the US or Europe or any other country if we can find isolated examples of various things happening in both Russia and the US, Canada, Europe, etc. No problems at all!!! SLAVA ROSSII! SLAVA POBEDA!!!




The scent of fascism doesn't go away so easily. All of these things are FAR more pronounced in Russia than in the US or Europe. Let me know the next time some cop in America stops Mexicans day to day and hits them up for money.

[Adi Shankara]

Yup, Russia's JUST like the US or Europe or any other country if we can find isolated examples of various things happening in both Russia and the US, Canada, Europe, etc. No problems at all!!! SLAVA ROSSII! SLAVA POBEDA!!!

well why the hell are you living in Rodinamat if you can't find anything good about it? seriously, you are like those fat tourists who go to third world ghettos and criticize the people for being dirty or poor. go to hell.

[Kayser_Soso]

well why the hell are you living in Rodinamat if you can't find anything good about it? seriously, you are like those fat tourists who go to third world ghettos and criticize the people for being dirty or poor. go to hell.

Oh yes, mean old Americans picking on poor Russia, which is not responsible at all for it's own problems. SLAVA ROSSII! SLAVA POBEDA!!


This is what is wrong with you. What I have written about in this thread is NO different than what dozens if not hundreds of Russians living right here would tell you in conversation. But when the evil foreigner says it, it's wrong and totally false. Apparently everything I have seen in Russia is some kind of bizarre illusion- I must have stumbled into some kind of Matrix where Russia is a corrupt fascist country.

There is almost no admission of responsibility here in the face of a foreigner. Everything is someone else's fault. The West, the Americans, the Jews, the Chechens, whatever. Virtually nobody sits down and says: "Gee, maybe our 'Russian traditions' or 'Russian mentality' isn't working out so well. Maybe those things aren't real and we need to stop allowing such excuses for corruption. Maybe we should figure this out some time BEFORE we are reduced to 30 million people."

The problem is that you end up defending the Russian state because you still have no figured out, after all these years, that the number one thing destroying the Russian people is the Russian state and all it's myths about traditions and Russian culture.


And for the record I am neither fat, nor a tourist. Honestly I used to sound like you before I came here on a more permanent basis. But having lived here for such time I refuse to say that 2 + 2 = 5.

[Adi Shankara]

There is almost no admission of responsibility here in the face of a foreigner. Everything is someone else's fault. The West, the Americans, the Jews, the Chechens, whatever. Virtually nobody sits down and says: "Gee, maybe our 'Russian traditions' or 'Russian mentality' isn't working out so well. Maybe those things aren't real and we need to stop allowing such excuses for corruption. Maybe we should figure this out some time BEFORE we are reduced to 30 million people."

The problem is that you end up defending the Russian state because you still have no figured out, after all these years, that the number one thing destroying the Russian people is the Russian state and all it's myths about traditions and Russian culture.



Oh thou great Western European descendant, please show us dirty, uncouth slavs how to practice the superior culture of your forebears, for obviously we are too stupid to think for ourselves, and you said it yourself, our culture is inferior and corrupt! please show us the way of the westerner so we can learn how to behave! :rolleyes:

If you said this about Africans or asians, this whole board would be up in arms about it, but since you said it about Russians...it's probably okay, which is why you get away with being a western chauvinist snob.

[Kayser_Soso]

Oh thou great Western European descendant, please show us dirty, uncouth slavs how to practice the superior culture of your forebears, for obviously we are too stupid to think for ourselves, and you said it yourself, our culture is inferior and corrupt! please show us the way of the westerner so we can learn how to behave! :rolleyes:

I'm of Slavic descent, genius. And this has nothing to do with Western/Eastern culture because Russia has always been striving to emulate Western culture in the first place. I spend a lot of my time in Turkey, far more "eastern" than Russia. The left there is more organized, more militant, and somehow the government is less corrupt.

Facts are facts. Russia is a fascist dictatorship, and you defend it based on ethnic solidarity. This is called nationalism, it is right-wing.

[khad]

I should point out that the Russian state has the tendency to move in the exact opposite direction of this man Kudrin proposes. It appears that the state uses him as a boogeyman to bolster their own image through opposition.


Russians urged to smoke, drink more
(AFP) – 19 hours ago

MOSCOW — Smoke and drink more, Russia's finance minister Alexei Kudrin urged citizens on Wednesday, explaining that higher consumption would help lift tax revenues for spending on social services.but if you look further into the article


The state recently imposed a new minimum legal price for vodka, implemented a zero tolerance ban on drink-driving and banned night-time sales of alcohol to curb abuse blamed for the deaths of thousands of Russians every year.

This is from a couple of months ago:

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2010/07/09/russias-pension-deficit-moscow-plays-good-cop-to-kudrins-bad-cop/


Their comments echo similar complaints from Andrei Isayev, a top official of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, who in comments posted on the party’s website (http://www.edinros.ru/text.shtml?14/3764,100022) accused Kudrin of being part of a wing set to destroy United Russia. “Kudrin is fatally advocating for raising the retirement age. Doing this detestable thing he understands that he is actively playing against the party, sparking the voters’ outrage,” he argued.

Amidst the squabble, there has been a notable silence from the Kremlin which has long enjoyed the luxury of playing “good cop” to Kudrin’s “bad cop”, continuously promising to raise pensions after reforms sparked protests in 2005 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906EFDB1238F93BA25752C0A9639C8B 63&scp=2&sq=putin%20pension%20protests&st=cse).

While pensions have risen 32 per cent over the past few years and are slated to rise another 42 per cent this year, the government will soon have to come to grips with reality, as a panel of economists and experts warned the pension fund and health and social development ministry in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta article.

Anyway, I said the facts. All I have to do now is wait to be called a nazbol by this American fuck.

[Adi Shankara]

Facts are facts. Russia is a fascist dictatorship, and you defend it based on ethnic solidarity. This is called nationalism, it is right-wing.

Fact: you're Slavic, but not Russian (or you would've said so by now); slavic unity is non-existant, so how do I know you're not Polish or Ukranian descent and just hate Russians? that kinda thing happens all the time.

Fact: I'm not defending fascist dictatorship; I'm defending my culture, but I guess that's "right wing" to not accept a full assault on it by a western chauvinist.

[Kayser_Soso]

Fact: you're Slavic, but not Russian (or you would've said so by now); slavic unity is non-existant, so how do I know you're not Polish or Ukranian descent and just hate Russians? that kinda thing happens all the time.

FACT: You assume criticism of Russia is an attack on the Russian people. Fascists tend to do that. I have spent far more time in my life arguing against Ukrainian nationalists and Poles. What you fail to understand is that I am an internationalist, my only flag is red, and I call things as I see them.



Fact: I'm not defending fascist dictatorship; I'm defending my culture, but I guess that's "right wing" to not accept a full assault on it by a western chauvinist.

Plenty of people around the world, from non-Western countries and even from within Russia itself, confirm and/or agree with what I am saying. Objective statistics and studies show that Russia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It has nothing to do with "the West."

You equate Russian culture with the fascist dictatorship known as the Russian Federation, and then proceed to defend it. Ergo- you're a fascist. I much prefer the Russian nationalists who are up-front about their beliefs rather than cloaking them in Brezhnevite "we-support-the-USSR-because-everything-Russia-has-ever-done-was-right" rhetoric.

[Kayser_Soso]

Anyway, I said the facts. All I have to do now is wait to be called a nazbol by this American fuck.

Awww is Tankie upset? It must really piss you off to have to live in America huh?

[khad]

Awww is Tankie upset? It must really piss you off to have to live in America huh?
Again, who has the facts in this thread? Hint: It's not you, boy.

[Adi Shankara]

FACT: You assume criticism of Russia is an attack on the Russian people. Fascists tend to do that. I have spent far more time in my life arguing against Ukrainian nationalists and Poles. What you fail to understand is that I am an internationalist, my only flag is red, and I call things as I see them.

You're the internationalist, praising the "superior" Western system, Western culture, Western military, Western "democracy" while bashing the hell out of Russian history, Russia, and Russian culture: not Russia itself, Russian culture., thus in a sense, Russian people.



Plenty of people around the world, from non-Western countries and even from within Russia itself, confirm and/or agree with what I am saying. Objective statistics and studies show that Russia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It has nothing to do with "the West."

and you trying to associate that with a cultural and ethnic deficit is disgusting; I'm starting to wonder if you're really living in Russia, for a Russian would've smacked you upside the head for that.


You equate Russian culture with the fascist dictatorship known as the Russian Federation, and then proceed to defend it. Ergo- you're a fascist.

Actually, that's what you're doing. you're the one who blamed my culture for the corruption and lawlessness in Russia.


I much prefer the Russian nationalists who are up-front about their beliefs rather than cloaking them in Brezhnevite "we-support-the-USSR-because-everything-Russia-has-ever-done-was-right" rhetoric.

From the sounds of it, you prefer Americans who live in foreign countries, then try to create little Americas wherever you go what, does Russia not have enough Mcdonalds and crappy yuppies already?

[khad]

If you said this about Africans or asians, this whole board would be up in arms about it, but since you said it about Russians...it's probably okay, which is why you get away with being a western chauvinist snob.
Actually, stuff like this is given a free pass on africans and asians all the time, as well as others. You would not believe how long it took to ban someone who argued that American indians needed colonization and deserved to have more capitalism. This is why so many comrades from the FSU and China have left this forum, but eh, what can you do against the crushing weight of ignorance?

[Kayser_Soso]

You're the internationalist, praising the

Western culture, Western military, Western "democracy" while bashing the hell out of Russian history, Russia, and Russian culture: not Russia itself, Russian culture., thus in a sense, Russian people.

Let's break down your idiotic lies, shall we?

First of all "praising superior Western culture": Nope, never did it, never called it superior.

Western Military: Merely pointed out that some Western weapons systems have a better proven track record than some Russian systems. GASP!!!

Western "democracy": Like any other person on this board I do not consider to be democracy, but if someone asked me to compare bourgeois democratic systems Russia would not be on the list- it is a fascist state controlled almost entirely by one party.

Pointing out that the standards of living or levels of corruption are far different in other countries is not claiming that the West is superior, particularly since not all the countries which best Russia in this respect are Western nations. This is called stating objective facts.

Bashing Russian history: Nope. Didn't do it.

Russia: The state maybe.

Russian culture: What Russian culture? Corruption is Russian culture(many Russians insist that it is)? It has nothing to do with Russian culture. The "Russian mentality" is just a bullshit myth the ruling class peddles to convince people that they cannot change the system.





and you trying to associate that with a cultural and ethnic deficit is disgusting; I'm starting to wonder if you're really living in Russia, for a Russian would've smacked you upside the head for that.


Actually dumbass, most of what I say is based entirely on what Russians have been saying to me for the last four years. So it's you and your buddy Yankee-Doodle-Dandy who are more out of touch with Russia.

Prior to moving to Russia I was just as staunch a defender of the "Rodina-Mat" as you are now. I was still unfortunately very idealistic when I arrived. Then after years of having hundreds of Russians tell me that corruption, cheating, lying, and laziness cannot be changed- because they are "Russian tradition" or a product of the "Russian mentality", I simply gave up arguing with these people. Who the hell am I to tell them otherwise? I wouldn't want to be an arrogant Westerner.




Actually, that's what you're doing. you're the one who blamed my culture for the corruption and lawlessness in Russia.

Nope actually I didn't. Try reading some time. The fact is you're oversensitive and butthurt from our last exchange and like any good fascist, you dived in to defend Mother Putin.




From the sounds of it, you prefer Americans who live in foreign countries, then try to create little Americas wherever you go what, does Russia not have enough Mcdonalds and crappy yuppies already?

Yup, typical Russian fascism. It's not Russia's fault, it's America!! Tell me, how many American troops occupied Russia in 1991? Oh wait, right, ZERO. When did America come in and force the creation of a bribe-hungry bureaucracy? When did America force anyone to prostitute their women like a product? Fuck- Americans didn't force anyone to go to McDonalds either. The restaurants opened, they were immensely popular, and still are. That's America's fault?


Look maybe I'm confused but I thought this was RevLEFT, I thought we restrict fascists and nationalists to OI. Maybe I'm confused about that.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

Now maybe my statistics are a bit outdated, being 6 years old, but fuck, many nations in Europe drink much more per capita compared to Russia, including Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Nigeria, and Britain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption


Not only are the Wikipedia statistics based on 2003, but the health impact of the alcohol you drink also depends on just what sort of alcohol you're taking in. Russians drink vodka. And what's especially destructive is consuming cheaply-made moonshine. (http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/10/13/13739.aspx): the samogon has God-knows-what in it.



So yes, it's based on a negative ethnic stereotypes, aimed at painting Russians as raging alcoholics. it shows the propaganda hasn't changed much in the years since the fall of the wall.

That's because it is Western Propaganda; and if they're leaving Russia, they're either going to the United States only because they have family here (a la my cousins) or they're going to Kazakhstan, Moldova, Estonia, etc. because it's cheaper.

So... countless numbers do not die because of alcohol consumption in the Russian Federation? Yeah, western media isn't too nice to Russia -- perhaps, however, you could prove that such statistics are made up.

[Kayser_Soso]

Hell I didn't even bring up the Russian alcoholic stereotype(because while I accept those statistics I find most Western European countries have serious drinking problems), but still manage to get the wrath of the Vlassov army.

The fact is that anyone who translates "Russia is an extremely corrupt country"(fact) into an attack on the people itself and a statement of Western Superiority is at the very least, heavily influenced by Russian nationalism.

And the idea that Russia's corruption is due to some inherent cultural flaw of the Russian people is not my idea, nor do I endorse such nonsense. It is in fact an idea held and espoused by many Russians.

[Revy]

Everyone in this thread is so focused on the alcohol. But tobacco is much much worse. Tobacco is highly addictive, while alcohol is very hard to get addicted to. Tobacco is also cancer-causing, whether you smoke it or you chew it, or you breathe it in secondhand smoke. Moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to be healthful, moderate tobacco is still very bad for you.

[Kayser_Soso]

Everyone in this thread is so focused on the alcohol. But tobacco is much much worse. Tobacco is highly addictive, while alcohol is very hard to get addicted to. Tobacco is also cancer-causing, whether you smoke it or you chew it, or you breathe it in secondhand smoke. Moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to be healthful, moderate tobacco is still very bad for you.

Yeah but I can stand to be around smokers. Nothing is more annoying than some drunkard(unless you yourself are drunk, then there's balance). How many times do you end up with some drunk on your shoulder saying, "Yeah, yeah, I TOTALLY understand what you mean. I understood the first hundred times you made that same speech." And then there's those girls who get all emotional and drag down the whole party by crying for no reason.

[Queercommie Girl]

People shouldn't focus on "alcohol" anyway. It's certainly not Russia's main problem today.

Banal cultural critique really gets in the way of real serious critique of various nations, such as: (and it could make one look like a "racist")

-Criticising McDonalds and TV meals when attacking America rather than America's hyper-capitalist ultra-individualistic ultra-competitive values;

-Criticising dog-eating and the use of tiger bones for traditional medicine when attacking China rather than China's neo-Confucian endemic corruption based on family and clan connections;

-Criticising Russian vodka when attacking Russia rather than the semi-fascistic state that exists now.

Some people just don't see the real serious point of having an actual critique in the first place.

Who in the right mind would give a shit either way about things like vodka, McDonalds, gothic styles, dog-eating etc when there are serious problems faced by workers of every country in existence today?

I say to the hell with all kinds of banal cultural critique: as long as it's not reactionary in the political and socio-economic senses and doesn't directly harm anyone, let people dress, behave, eat and make love however they wish to.

Fuck Cultural Censorship.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

You would not believe how long it took to ban someone who argued that American indians needed colonization and deserved to have more capitalism.

What about the unreconstituted Stalinists who say the same thing about Turks and Tibetans in the PRC, Siberians and Central Asians in the USSR, Hmong in Vietnam, etc.?

[Queercommie Girl]

What about the unreconstituted Stalinists who say the same thing about Turks and Tibetans in the PRC, Siberians and Central Asians in the USSR, Hmong in Vietnam, etc.?

Do you really think they are same kind of thing?

Last time I checked, more Han Chinese have been killed in the inter-ethnic violence in Xinjiang than Uyghurs.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Last time I checked, more Han Chinese have been killed in the inter-ethnic violence in Xinjiang than Uyghurs.

To get a realistic picture you would have to include police murders, deaths from prison conditions, deaths from ecological deterioration, workplace deaths, etc. I'd be interested to see your statistics...

[Queercommie Girl]

To get a realistic picture you would have to include police murders, deaths from prison conditions, deaths from ecological deterioration, workplace deaths, etc. I'd be interested to see your statistics...

I'm no "Han nationalist", in principle I always agree with a multi-ethnic socialist federation on the basis of equality.

But pragmatically ethnic separatism in China now really isn't the way to go. We have the FSU and former Yugoslavia as previous examples of this. Look at the brutal inter-ethnic violence in former Yugoslavia. Look at the Central Asian republics now, are the workers there really better off now than they were under the USSR? I don't think so.

So pragmatically I only support a pan-PRC worker's movement in China now, involving workers from all the ethnicities, not ethnic separatism. Because I consider the real lives of real workers to be more important than the semi-illusory abstract national sentiments of the national bourgeois.

Shouldn't the proletarian class technically have no actual "nationality" anyway but be internationalist?

[Adi Shankara]

Last time I checked, more Han Chinese have been killed in the inter-ethnic violence in Xinjiang than Uyghurs.

You know...that could be because the Chinese capitalist government is actually Colonizing Xinjiang (or as I like to call it, East Turkestan), and naturally, the native inhabitants are a bit upset?


So pragmatically I only support a pan-PRC worker's movement in China now, involving workers from all the ethnicities, not ethnic separatism. Because I consider the real lives of real workers to be more important than the semi-illusory abstract national sentiments of the national bourgeois.

Of course, you'd have to disband the PRC if you wanted that; the very demographics of the state makes it very eschewed in favor of Han Chinese above all else; that could've been by accident, but that's the reality today; if this wasn't the case, ethnic violence wouldn't be so acute in Tibet and Xinjiang.

[Queercommie Girl]

You know...that could be because the Chinese capitalist government is actually Colonizing Xinjiang (or as I like to call it, East Turkestan), and naturally, the native inhabitants are a bit upset?



Of course, you'd have to disband the PRC if you wanted that; the very demographics of the state makes it very eschewed in favor of Han Chinese above all else; that could've been by accident, but that's the reality today; if this wasn't the case, ethnic violence wouldn't be so acute in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Xinjiang never was the Uyghur's native land. Learn some Asian history. The real natives were the Indo-European-speaking Tocharians, they were long ago destroyed. Han Chinese actually moved into the region earlier than the Uyghurs, during the Western Han dynasty 2000 years ago.

Not that this kind of thing matters for a socialist anyway, since we should support the freedom of movement of peoples, in any direction. Colonialism is never due to migration of people in itself, it is due to unequal socio-economic conditions, which creates racism. I do not deny that socio-economic equality and racism exists in Xinjiang now, but to stop the free movement of Han Chinese people into the region is not the answer. The answer is an united working class movement against capitalism and bureaucratic corruption, which will serve to eliminate racial antagonisms and economic inequality.

What about Russia then? Does this mean you are happy that the FSU broke up? I hope you don't apply a double standard and start to defend "Mother Russia"...

Ideally the entire world is a single socialist federation. Pragmatically I still do not want to see the PRC break-up, since it will certainly negatively affect the lives of workers on the ground, workers from all ethnicities.

Your idea to "just disband the PRC" is idealistic rubbish. It would only lead to actual suffering among the people. We've already seen this in the FSU and in former Yugoslavia.

I won't want to sacrifice the actual welfare of the people for some kind of abstract dogma of national independence.

People care more about food than what is on their flag.

[Adi Shankara]

Xinjiang never was the Uyghur's native land. Learn some Asian history. The real natives were the Indo-European-speaking Tocharians, they were long ago destroyed. Han Chinese actually moved into the region earlier than the Uyghurs, during the Western Han dynasty 2000 years ago.

Nice revisionist history; You think the Xiongnu simply disappeared from the region? no, they were absorbed into the local population. it's just like the ancient egyptians, they never disappeared either, they just absorbed into the Arab population.

I love the lengths Chinese nationalists go to justify everything mother China does, from Tibet to East Turkestan to the invasion of Vietnam and yet you have the gall to call other people "tankies".

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

You know...that could be because the Chinese capitalist government is actually Colonizing Xinjiang (or as I like to call it, East Turkestan), and naturally, the native inhabitants are a bit upset?

Of course, you'd have to disband the PRC if you wanted that; the very demographics of the state makes it very eschewed in favor of Han Chinese above all else; that could've been by accident, but that's the reality today; if this wasn't the case, ethnic violence wouldn't be so acute in Tibet and Xinjiang.

What makes you think most of the people in Xinjiang would favor independence? They likely wouldn't. (The Uyghurs are only 45% of the Xinjiang population, and certainly not all of them would be in favor.)

Yes, there are many Chinese moving to Xinjiang, and China has a capitalist government that serves the interests of the capitalists and the state bureaucrats -- who, like the population, generally happen to be Han Chinese. But you should try to show that most of the people in Xinjiang would find themselves better off without the Chinese state in order to put forth a case for separatism.

Because no one is saying that problems for Uyghurs don't exist; problems exist and burden minorities worldwide. The actual question is whether the separatist alternative would be the best solution to the problems now existing.

National liberation is an ideology for places where a majority is occupied and suffers from the occupier's exploitation and the special repression that reinforces it, and separatism can be the answer in such cases. The Palestinians, for example, are clearly oppressed in just this way by Israel's brutalities and military occupation. The entire population of the Palestinian territories would benefit from liberation. But certainly not every racial group, not every ethnic group, not every population from a certain territory would gain from following a separatist movement.

You wouldn't ask for a black nation independent from America in the Deep South and Harlem, although black people still face racism in the U.S. The 1930s laws drawn up against the German Jews did not amount to a case for any German-Jewish separatism. Neither did Nazi violence. (From what I understand, proportional representation for minorities in Xinjiang is already written into law, and there are various preferences for minority groups such as the Uyghurs, like the exemption from the one-child policy.)

Nationalism is quite a big problem in itself. (And this should never be forgotten.) It can be helpful only if it can help solve greater problems. That independence-minded Uyghur or Tibetan ethnic nationalism can solve problems that are greater than itself is nowhere shown. And it's unlikely.

I'm not sure where you could go with that "the very demographics of the state makes it very eschewed [sic]...." (Since no one would desire a world of homogeneous nation-states.) You need to make explicit for your argument what mere demographics of the state should help to illustrate.

[Adi Shankara]

What makes you think most of the people in Xinjiang would favor independence? They likely wouldn't. (The Uyghurs are only 45% of the Xinjiang population, and certainly not all of them would be in favor.)

Yes, there are many Chinese moving to Xinjiang, and China has a capitalist government that serves the interests of the capitalists and the state bureaucrats -- who, like the population, generally happen to be Han Chinese. But you should try to show that most of the people in Xinjiang would find themselves better off without the Chinese state in order to put forth a case for separatism.

Because no one is saying that problems for Uyghurs don't exist; problems exist and burden minorities worldwide. The actual question is whether the separatist alternative would be the best solution to the problems now existing.

National liberation is an ideology for places where a majority is occupied and suffers from the occupier's exploitation and the special repression that reinforces it, and separatism can be the answer in such cases. The Palestinians, for example, are clearly oppressed in just this way by Israel's brutalities and military occupation. The entire population of the Palestinian territories would benefit from liberation. But certainly not every racial group, not every ethnic group, not every population from a certain territory would gain from following a separatist movement.


Uyghur separatism has very popular support, and this can be gauged by the fact that the PRC has put such strict controls on media in Xinjiang; the fact that the Uyghurs are now a minority is through aggressive Han Supremacist policies put in place by the PRC's government; these are the same policies which threaten to displace Tibetan populations in the TAR as well.

I think what makes it esp. bothersome to me is the fact that Tibet was independent for many hundreds of years, and was always respected as independent; this is proven by stelae found in Tibet that prove the same thing. why shouldn't they be entitled to National Liberation, if they are a subdued, oppressed people?

People need to recognize that the PRC is the exact same thing as the Irish and the British, the Vietnamese and the French, etc. and the treaties establishing a cause for Chinese rule in Tibet are just as flimsy.

[Kayser_Soso]

East Turkestan liberation is an intriguing idea. Perhaps they could join with Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.

[Queercommie Girl]

Nice revisionist history; You think the Xiongnu simply disappeared from the region? no, they were absorbed into the local population. it's just like the ancient egyptians, they never disappeared either, they just absorbed into the Arab population.


You must be totally illiterate I think. When did I ever say the Xiongnu completely disappeared? The Xiongnu were not the first ones in the Xinjiang region however, the Tocharians were, so the Xiongnu were not the "natives". Also, it is mistaken to think the Uyghurs today are the direct descendants of the Xiongnu. They are certainly related, sure, but it's not a simple linear relationship.

But then do you think the ancient Han Chinese peoples in the region just disappeared?

Fact of the matter is, what is called "Xinjiang" now has always been a multi-ethnic region ever since the decline of Tocharian influence in the area more than 2000 years ago. It is not a homeland for the Han Chinese, nor is it a homeland for the Uyghurs.

Besides, the whole argument based on "who are the natives" is intrinsically right-wing. The people who use it today are largely the "nativist" contemporary "neo-Nazis" in Europe and the like who are intrinsically against immigration. Socialists should not even consider this kind of argument, since we should totally support the freedom of movement of all peoples. Fundamentally speaking the Earth belongs to no-one, there is no such thing as a "native land".

As I said, colonialism is never caused by migration of peoples in itself, only by socio-economic inequality and racism that arises from that.

Also, to compare the Xiongnu with the ancient Egyptians is pretty dumb, it shows your lack knowledge in Asian history. Because the Xiongnu were not the "natives" of the Xinjiang area (or whatever you call it) like the ancient Egyptians were "natives" in North Africa. The real "natives" of Xinjiang were the Tocharians who spoke an Iranian-like language.

And certainly this has absolutely nothing to do with your ridiculous accusations of "Han nationalism". If I were a "Han nationalist", wouldn't I have said that the Han Chinese were the "natives" of Xinjiang rather than the Tocharians?

I'm just being objective here, something you are not doing.



I love the lengths Chinese nationalists go to justify everything mother China does, from Tibet to East Turkestan to the invasion of Vietnam and yet you have the gall to call other people "tankies".
How the fuck am I a "Chinese nationalist"? I support neither Han nationalism nor Uyghur nationalism-separatism. What I support is a genuine multi-ethnic worker's movement against capitalism and bureaucratism.

Nor have I anywhere justified the geo-political actions of the PRC in this thread.

Since when is supporting internationalist proletarianism "nationalist"?

Funny how a person like you who relies on intrinsically right-wing anti-immigration "nativist" arguments, like the Han and Uyghur nationalists on the Chinese internet who uses amusingly ridiculous documents from 1000 - 2000 years ago to argue back and forth and justify what they think should be the contemporary geopolitical situation, has the gall to call someone like me who truly support proletarian internationalism "nationalist".

[Queercommie Girl]

Calling me a "tankie" here is pretty hilariously ridiculous considering that I acknowledge that Tibetans and Uyghurs have been treated somewhat unequally in the PRC and I don't even support many of the "orthodox policies" the PRC implements in these ethnic regions. Don't you ever get tired of throwing around baseless ad hominem accusations at other members, I wonder?

All I'm saying is that the best way to tackle the ethnic inequality, racism, as well as the economic inequality that all workers regardless of ethnicity suffer is to rely on proletarian internationalism and unite together to fight against the capitalists and the bureaucrats rather than rely on the ethnic separatist tactics of the national bourgeois class. "The proletariat fundamentally has no nationalities".

Ethnic separatist terrorist violence against Han Chinese civilians in Tibet and Xinjiang can no more really solve the problems of ethnic inequality than 9-11 can solve the problems of US imperialist domination in the Islamic world. Funny how you can so argue against the one but not the other in such a disgustingly unprincipled manner.

[Queercommie Girl]

If you are so fundamentally against Han Chinese migration into Xinjiang, shouldn't you be against white migration to the Americas too?

Quick, let's drive the white colonists out of America and return the land to the natives!

Why are you applying a double standard here? Not to mention that quantitatively despite some inequality and mistreatment Han people never did in either Xinjiang or Tibet what the whites did in the Americas and in Africa.

I don't believe in any kind of double standards. So I don't blame Han Chinese workers fundamentally for the ethnic inequality in Xinjiang and Tibet, just like I don't blame white workers fundamentally for the genocide of native Americans and the enslavement of blacks. I believe in proletarian internationalism. I put the blame on Chinese bureaucratic capitalists and white capitalists respectively, not on the working class. And I think to fundamentally oppose migration is frankly reactionary.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

If you are so fundamentally against Han Chinese migration into Xinjiang, shouldn't you be against white migration to the Americas too?

Han should be free to live in Tibet and East Turkestan, as Europeans should be free to live in the Americas, Sinhala in Sri Lanka, and Russians and European Jews in Palestine. However, in all of these cases, such freedom comes with the responsibility of negating one's privileged status as the 'favored underclass' and standing in total solidarity with the destruction of the colonial system.


Not to mention that quantitatively despite some inequality and mistreatment Han people never did in either Xinjiang or Tibet what the whites did in the Americas and in Africa.'Oppression Olympics' is always boring.


I always agree with a multi-ethnic socialist federation on the basis of equality.

Which the PRC has not been since the late 60s.


pragmatically ethnic separatism in China now really isn't the way to go. [...] So pragmatically I only support a pan-PRC worker's movement in China now, involving workers from all the ethnicities, not ethnic separatism.

I'm not arguing for ethnic seperatism, so this is a strawman attack. A "pan-PRC worker's movement" to reform the capitalist regime? Or to destroy it in place of proletarian control?


Look at the brutal inter-ethnic violence in former Yugoslavia.

Another example of the folly of patriarchal state-bureaucrats, no sadder than the misery and subjugation experienced by the citizens of 'socialist' Yugoslavia.


Look at the Central Asian republics now, are the workers there really better off now than they were under the USSR?

Nope, but unlike the USSR at the end of the 20th century, the PRC is an imperialist faction on the rise. And the USSR was as complacent as every other imperialist camp in the genocidal restructuring of Central Asia during the end of the Cold War.


Shouldn't the proletarian class technically have no actual "nationality" anyway but be internationalist?Which is not an excuse to ignore questions of material differences in the conditions of varying strata of the working class.


National liberation is an ideology for places where a majority is occupied

Technically we are all "occupied" by capitalism, however in regards to the national liberationist question you are incorrect. For example, according to the US census, only around 9 percent of the Hawai'ian population is indigenous. To my knowledge the only reigons of the continental US where the colonized nationalities are the majority are the Deep South, (ie: 'the Republic of New Afrika), the Southwest, and parts of Alaska. (maybe Appalachia if you consider Euro-Appalachians a colonized nation)

Under your deluded reasoning a French-Canadian seperatist movement is more valid than a seperatist movement of indigenous Hawai'ians.


and suffers from the occupier's exploitation and the special repression that reinforces it, and separatism can be the answer in such cases. The Palestinians, for example, are clearly oppressed in just this way by Israel's brutalities and military occupation. The entire population of the Palestinian territories would benefit from liberation. But certainly not every racial group, not every ethnic group, not every population from a certain territory would gain from following a separatist movement.I am not nostalgic for the past achievements of Stalinist party-bureaucrats in Palestine for co-opting the anti-colonial struggle into the construction of a proxy political force for Soviet imperialism, nor do I give a damn about the "national liberation" struggle of Islamic-supremacist fascist petty-capitalists. The only way the Palestinian people can be free from colonialism is to be 'seperatists' against capital.


You wouldn't ask for a black nation independent from America in the Deep South and HarlemI tend to use the term "nation" to describe a social category. If you're asking me if I would want an independent black state in reigons of the US where the Africans are the majority, as envisioned by Garvey; Of course not, I'm obviously an anarchist. But are you telling me this hypothetical new regime would be worse than what the Africans in the US currently live under?


The 1930s laws drawn up against the German Jews did not amount to a case for any German-Jewish separatism.In so far as the Jews have a right to free association, as do all people, and may not want to associate with genocidal anti-Semites, yes, it did.


and there are various preferences for minority groups such as the Uyghurs, like the exemption from the one-child policy.There was "preference for minority groups" in the US, at least up until recently, with affirmative action, but those minority groups were still entirely disfavored by statistics of poverty, police brutality, imprisonment, ecological racism, and so forth.


That independence-minded Uyghur or Tibetan ethnic nationalism can solve problems that are greater than itself is nowhere shown. And it's unlikely.Yes it's unlikely that those barbaric Buddhist and Muslim hillbillies will learn how to wipe their own asses without the help of the bourgeois party-bureaucrats and their Han supremacist 'fellow citizens', so fuck 'em. :cool:

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

Uyghur separatism has very popular support, and this can be gauged by the fact that the PRC has put such strict controls on media in Xinjiang; the fact that the Uyghurs are now a minority is through aggressive Han Supremacist policies put in place by the PRC's government; these are the same policies which threaten to displace Tibetan populations in the TAR as well.

Han Chinese moving to Xinjiang = "aggressive Han Supremacist policies"? You really think so?

So, Han Chinese can't move and live wherever they want? Last time I checked, they weren't stealing any homes from Uyghurs, so what is there that's so awful and so wrong with Han Chinese from overcrowded eastern China settling in Xinjiang?

The masive European immigration to the New World wasn't "white supremacism." The Europeans' racist ideology -- the ideology behind the brutal dispossession of the native population -- was the "white supremacism."

Would you describe the 19th-century mass migration of American settlers to western Mormon territories like Salt Lake City as an example of "aggressive anti-Mormon supremacist policies"? Would you label the post-WWII mass movement of ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians into Latvia and Estonia for purposes of economic development "aggressive Russian Supremacist policies" put in place by the Soviet Union? You would?

(Incidentally, the Soviet-era Slavic immigrants to Latvia and Estonia and their descendants -- the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Belarusians, and even their Latvian- or Estonian-born children -- are not automatically recognized as citizens of independent Estonia and Latvia. These people are officially stateless residents, since Estonian and Latvian ethno-nationalists tend to share views that are exactly like yours. Has it occured to you that Uyghur nationalism in Xinjiang would likely push for similar policies against the Han Chinese?)


I think what makes it esp. bothersome to me is the fact that Tibet was independent for many hundreds of years, and was always respected as independent; this is proven by stelae found in Tibet that prove the same thing. why shouldn't they be entitled to National Liberation, if they are a subdued, oppressed people?

Tibet isn't Xinjiang. The main difference is that Tibet has a Tibetan majority, and that Xinjiang does not have an Uyghur majority (it only has an Uyghur plurality). If the Tibetan majority is really oppressed by the PRC -- and if it isn't merely the Dalai Lama fans and other reactionaries who think that that's the case -- then it should actually secede. But that would be another kind of argument. The fact that feudal, serf-owning Tibet once used to be independent under the Dalai Lama isn't the way to go about strengthening that argument.

The ancient land of Israel was once a Jewish state, but that does not somehow give modern Jews a reasonable basis for laying claim to sole possession of historic Israel and the concomitant "right" to dispossess the region's Palestinian population. (I view the NATO war against the Serbs because of Kosovo in 1999 as naked imperial aggression, although I certainly would never argue that the Serbs had some "historic right" to Kosovo superior to that of the Albanian majority then living there.)

Ideally, you'd show how ethnic Han migration objectively creates more harm than benefits. (The nationalist arguments for this strike me as shallow.) You'd at least show how Han migration to Tibet erodes the living standards and social conditions for the majority now living in Tibet, and show how independence for Tibet would take care of such things better than any possible alternative.

Even if such a case can be put forward for Tibet, the case with Xinjiang is another animal, because the large Han Chinese minority in Xinjiang is nearly as sizable as the Uyghur plurality.


People need to recognize that the PRC is the exact same thing as the Irish and the British, the Vietnamese and the French, etc. and the treaties establishing a cause for Chinese rule in Tibet are just as flimsy.

Even if similar in certain ways, they clearly are by no means "the exact same thing." Any two things become exactly similar once you dismiss any and every difference.

The only "evidence" you've shown us to support that proposition has been the fact that many Han Chinese are immigrating to the border territories, and that there have been clashes between the separatist nationalists and the authorities.

[Queercommie Girl]

Han should be free to live in Tibet and East Turkestan, as Europeans should be free to live in the Americas, Sinhala in Sri Lanka, and Russians and European Jews in Palestine. However, in all of these cases, such freedom comes with the responsibility of negating one's privileged status as the 'favored underclass' and standing in total solidarity with the destruction of the colonial system.


You are missing the point. It's not that people are consciously "forgetting their responsibility", it's that people cannot be responsible under the current capitalist system, which inherently creates division.

It's not a subjective problem, it's an objective one.



Which the PRC has not been since the late 60s.


Partly true, though it is still in the final stage of degeneration IMO, the PRC isn't a complete capitalist state yet. There are still some "deformed worker's state" elements.



I'm not arguing for ethnic seperatism, so this is a strawman attack. A "pan-PRC worker's movement" to reform the capitalist regime? Or to destroy it in place of proletarian control?


I wasn't attacking you, I was clarifying.

The answer to your question depends on one's evaluation of the PRC state as it stands now. Is it still a deformed worker's state, or is it completely state-capitalist?

Personally, I'm prepared for both routes. As the Chinese socialist saying goes: "One red heart, two preparations".



Another example of the folly of patriarchal state-bureaucrats, no sadder than the misery and subjugation experienced by the citizens of 'socialist' Yugoslavia.


It is true that some of the eventualities of what happened in Yugoslavia were already inherent in the Titoist system...it's difficult to impose ethnic unity from above. Tito should have taken much more of a "mass line", to use a Maoist term.



Nope, but unlike the USSR at the end of the 20th century, the PRC is an imperialist faction on the rise.


This is debatable. Some left analysts in China think China is sliding back into the status of a semi-colonial nation under US imperial domination itself, rather than becoming a superpower.



Which is not an excuse to ignore questions of material differences in the conditions of varying strata of the working class.


Of course. I was only speaking against ethnic separatism of the kind that operates in China now, which frankly is hardly progressive, being associated with Lamaists and Islamic fundamentalists.

[Adi Shankara]

Han Chinese moving to Xinjiang = "aggressive Han Supremacist policies"? You really think so?

It's not that they're just moving to Xinjiang...they're also holding all the reigns to economic production, political involvement (except for a few puppet figureheads to create the illusion that the Uyghurs are in power) and they dominate with the Mandarin language and culture. this isn't a good thing at all. They aren't just peacefully moving in, they're attempting to replace the local people and establish a Han majority for political purposes; afterall, there are other places in Western China that are not as populated as Urumqi, why not go somewhere else? but it's not about land...it's about domination through demographics.



The masive European immigration to the New World wasn't "white supremacism." The Europeans' racist ideology -- the ideology behind the brutal dispossession of the native population -- was the "white supremacism."

Just like it's not the Han migrants that are racist or supremacist--they're just trying to better their lives (since the capitalist state failed to live up to it's promises)--but the Han administrators who wish to dispossess the local Uyghurs at any cost.


Would you describe the 19th-century mass migration of American settlers to western Mormon territories like Salt Lake City as an example of "aggressive anti-Mormon supremacist policies"? Would you label the post-WWII mass movement of ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians into Latvia and Estonia for purposes of economic development "aggressive Russian Supremacist policies" put in place by the Soviet Union? You would?

except that the leaders of Ukraine SSR weren't exactly capitalist imperialists who invited fellow capitalists from Russia to replace the native people through demographic domination, and the USSR was truly international, seeing as it's leader for many years was an ethnic Georgian from Georgia, and many of it's leaders were from non-Russian background as well (Lenin wasn't full Russian, neither was Trotsky)


Has it occured to you that Uyghur nationalism in Xinjiang would likely push for similar policies against the Han Chinese?)

strawman; you don't know that this would be the case.




Tibet isn't Xinjiang. The main difference is that Tibet has a Tibetan majority, and that Xinjiang does not have an Uyghur majority (it only has an Uyghur plurality). If the Tibetan majority is really oppressed by the PRC -- and if it isn't merely the Dalai Lama fans and other reactionaries who think that that's the case -- then it should actually secede. But that would be another kind of argument. The fact that feudal, serf-owning Tibet once used to be independent under the Dalai Lama isn't the way to go about strengthening that argument.[/QUOTE]

as opposed to capitalist, serf owning China? or capitalist, serf owning Tsarist Russia?



The ancient land of Israel was once a Jewish state, but that does not somehow give modern Jews a reasonable basis for laying claim to sole possession of historic Israel and the concomitant "right" to dispossess the region's Palestinian population.

so, not using variously controversially interpreted treaties, explain to me China's claim to Tibet? And even so, why is Tibet just an "autonomous region" within China? why isn't it an independent socialist republic (like your example of Ukraine was), part of a greater union?


Ideally, you'd show how ethnic Han migration objectively creates more harm than benefits. (The nationalist arguments for this strike me as shallow.) You'd at least show how Han migration to Tibet erodes the living standards and social conditions for the majority now living in Tibet, and show how independence for Tibet would take care of such things better than any possible alternative.

are you justifying imperialism? Because it really sounds like it.

Even if such a case can be put forward for Tibet, the case with Xinjiang is another animal, because the large Han Chinese minority in Xinjiang is nearly as sizable as the Uyghur plurality.



Even if similar in certain ways, they clearly are by no means "the exact same thing." Any two things become exactly similar once you dismiss any and every difference.


The only "evidence" you've shown us to support that proposition has been the fact that many Han Chinese are immigrating to the border territories, and that there have been clashes between the separatist nationalists and the authorities.


How about the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps? This is a "development agency" ran directly from Beijing, which has military, political, and economic authority over much of Xinjiang under the guise of "developing the Frontier (sounds a tiny bit familiar, doesn't it?)

also under the guise of development is whole cities built for Han migrants in Xinjiang, which only has land arability of 4%. Why, out of all places, do all these Han need to be moved to Xinjiang? why not Qinghai, which has more arable land and is naturally ethnically plural?

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

You are missing the point. It's not that people are consciously "forgetting their responsibility", it's that people cannot be responsible under the current capitalist system, which inherently creates division.

It's not a subjective problem, it's an objective one.

In order for the objective conditions of revolution against capitalism to occur there needs to be changes in psychological subjectivity. More importantly the division between subject and object needs to be abolished.


Partly true, though it is still in the final stage of degeneration IMO, the PRC isn't a complete capitalist state yet.There are still some "deformed worker's state" elements.Please elaborate, I obviously disagree but am eager to hear your rationale.


I wasn't attacking you, I was clarifying.Sorry, I didn't intend to make the debate more hostile.


Some left analysts in China think China is sliding back into the status of a semi-colonial nation under US imperial domination itself, rather than becoming a superpower.If anything the inverse is true.


Lamaists and Islamic fundamentalists.Obviously they suck, but we have to recruit away from their ranks, and standing by the young Tibetan and Uyghur rioters, many of whom may not be Lamaists or Islamists at all, for rebelling in their daily lives against one of the most advanced capitalist regimes on their planet, is the only way to do that.

[Queercommie Girl]

except that the leaders of Ukraine SSR weren't exactly capitalist imperialists who invited fellow capitalists from Russia to replace the native people through demographic domination, and the USSR was truly international, seeing as it's leader for many years was an ethnic Georgian from Georgia, and many of it's leaders were from non-Russian background as well (Lenin wasn't full Russian, neither was Trotsky)


Under Lenin and Trotsky yes, it was more or less truly internationalist, though of course demographically the Russian population still dominated, but that's no-one's fault. Just like if the PRC became genuinely democratic socialist, and all nations are treated equally, then the fact that Han population is still the largest doesn't really matter. Colonialism is not caused by migration or demographics, it is caused by socio-economic inequality and racism.

Under Stalin? Do you seriously believe there was no Russian nationalism in Stalin's USSR? It became even worse in the post-Stalin era when the USSR was ran by the revisionist Tankies. Your double standard when it comes to the USSR and the PRC is truly amazing.

You are dodging the main point of the thread anyway. No-one here is in complete agreement with the PRC's policies in Tibet and Xinjiang, apologising for erroneous policies, or saying that ethnic inequality doesn't exist. All we are saying is the having an ethnic separatist movement based on terrorists blowing up Han civilians isn't the way to go at all. Otherwise you might as well agree with 9-11. What we need is a multi-ethnic worker's movement uniting workers from Han, Tibetan and Uyghur ethnicities together.

[Queercommie Girl]

as opposed to capitalist, serf owning China? or capitalist, serf owning Tsarist Russia?


Actually technically capitalism is more progressive than feudalism. Which is why Marx and Engels considered capitalism to be "partially progressive" in human history.

[Kayser_Soso]

Under Lenin and Trotsky yes, it was more or less truly internationalist, though of course demographically the Russian population still dominated.

Under Stalin? Do you seriously believe there was no Russian nationalism in Stalin's USSR? It became even worse in the post-Stalin era when the USSR was ran by the revisionist Tankies. Your double standard when it comes to the USSR and the PRC is truly amazing.

The extent of Great Russian nationalism during the Stalin era was exaggerated. Most people don't know this if they never had the chance to see the museums in the FSU where you can see propaganda printed and geared not only toward different ethnicities, but also different religions like Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. But after Stalin some people took this too far and began to equate USSR with Russia.

[Queercommie Girl]

Please elaborate, I obviously disagree but am eager to hear your rationale.


I have my own theory of the degeneration of the USSR, which is essentially a mixture of Trotskyist and Left Maoist approaches. This is partly why I am essentially a "Trotskyite Left Maoist".

The main weakness of the traditional Trotskyist approach in my opinion is that it just labels the entire post-Lenin period of the USSR as "Stalinist" and completely fails to recognise the significant difference between the Stalinist era and the post-Stalinist era (what Maoists call the revisionist era). But on the other hand the standard Left Maoist account is problematic too, because it claims that there is a qualitative difference between the Stalinist era and the post-Stalinist era, that essentially after Stalin the USSR became a capitalist or social-imperialist state. But if the change then was indeed qualitative, what about the change in 1991 when the USSR completely broke apart? Surely according to objectively empirical evidence the actual impact of 1991 was far greater than that of 1956 to the Russian people? But according to the standard Left Maoist account, essentially there is no difference between pre-1991 USSR and post-1991 Russia (+ all the other mess), both are basically "capitalist". This surely can't be right.

So my account of USSR history is a mixture of the two. Essentially the entire history of the USSR has been one of continuous degeneration. Why is this the case? I'm certainly not anti-anarchist and I have been influenced by certain anarchists like Kroptokin and Emma Goldman, so perhaps even the original Leninist system was not completely "perfect". After all Lenin was not a god, he was a man, and even he made mistakes. But essentially I disagree with the anti-Leninist stance of some anarchists, and on the fundamental level I still defend Leninism.

The period from Lenin (and Trotsky) to Stalin is the first phase of bureaucratic degeneration: from democratic socialism (more or less) to bureaucratic socialism. During this period it was essentially a deformation in the political superstructure, not at the level of the economic base. The USSR under Stalin was still basically economically equal, even though inequality began to emerge. Stalin himself, despite being a political dictator, essentially led a rather frugal lifestyle. The key issue here is that just because there is dictatorial bureaucratic control of the economy does not necessarily make it "capitalist". Therefore Stalin's USSR was still bureaucratic socialist rather than "bureaucratic capitalist" or "state-capitalist" as the Cliffites claim. This is essentially because capitalism does not exist when there is neither de jure nor de facto private ownership of the means of production. The lack of political democracy by itself is not necessarily equivalent to "capitalism". Feudalism and slavery were also not democratic, but they were clearly not capitalist.

In Stalin's USSR there was no de jure private ownership of production because the capitalist class didn't exist. There was indeed de facto control of production by the bureaucratic caste around Stalin, even though nominally it was supposed to be "owned by the people". But in Stalin's time the nature of this bureaucratic control was not a capitalist one, for it was not directed towards private ends. As I said, Stalin and all the bureaucrats at this time still led a relatively frugal lifestyle. To be sure, the Soviet working class no longer had direct input in the country's policy making and supervision, but the bureaucratic caste was still controlling the economy, in a distorted fashion, for the use of the worker's state as a whole, rather than for their private benefit. This is partly why despite the lack of direct worker's democracy, productivity still increased massively under Stalin. Of course due to the distorted form of the bureaucratic state, this was achieved at high human cost, e.g. the victims of forced de-kulakisatioon etc.

After Stalin, the USSR entered the second phase of bureaucratic degeneration, more severe than the first phase, from bureaucratic socialism to bureaucratic capitalism. This is a significant change which traditional Trotskyist accounts ignore but traditional Left Maoist accounts focus on too much. The Left Maoists think this was a qualitative change, that after Stalin the USSR literally became capitalist. This is incorrect. The change was significant, but it was still a quantitative one, not a qualitative one. However, it is a change that can't be ignored.

Essentially by this time, the country was still effectively controlled by the bureaucratic caste (not an independent class in its own right), but this new generation of officials lacked the idealism and discipline of the old cadres of Stalin's day. Stalin made many mistakes, but subjectively he was still a genuine socialist, not a hypocrite. But after Stalin the Soviet officials gradually became more and more selfish and hypocritical, they are changing from mere bureaucrats within a socialist economic system (that is, publicly owned) to bureaucratic capitalists in their own right. This is when economic inequality began to increase, the bureaucrats began to more and more direct their de facto control of the economy for their own private ends, when nepotism in the party became more entrenched. The Soviet Union began to engage in certain semi-imperialist policies of its own outside its national border. During this period productivity in real terms also began to stall. The USSR was essentially gradually changing into a capitalist state, but this second phase of degeneration was not completed until 1991, when the entire structure of the Soviet state broke apart and ceased to exist totally.

My view is that today the PRC is still technically a "deformed worker's state", but obviously quantitatively the amount of deformation is greater than even the revisionist USSR. However, the second phase of bureaucratic degeneration has not completed yet in China, otherwise the socialist state wouldn't even be able to exist in name. I think China today is like the USSR in the 1980s, but quantitatively even more distorted. It is quite possible that a bourgeois "colour revolution" would happen in China in the near future, since certain sections of the Chinese capitalist class are already calling the CCP to give up political power in various ways.

I don't think China today is state-capitalist since if this were the case, then suppose 2 years from now China totally breaks apart. Then surely that would be qualitatively different from how China is like now, judging simply on the basis of the empirical impact on the working class in China. But if you already label China today as "state-capitalist", and China then would still be "capitalist", then there would be no theoretical means to take account of the massive qualitative change both economically and politically should China ever break up along the lines of the FSU.

However, whether or not China today is completely state-capitalist is certainly a debatable point. Within Trotskyist organisations like the CWI, this is in fact an onging debate. The majority opinion, including the opinion of the CWI executive committee, is that China today is still a "deformed worker's state", albeit a highly deformed one, in the technical sense.

Here is an article from the CWI arguing for this point, from an orthodox Trotskyist perspective:

China – capitalist or not?

In a further contribution to our debate on China, Andy Ford poses the question ‘capitalist or not?’, examining the class character of the Chinese state. Recognising the enormous importance of developments in China, the debate was initiated in Socialism Today No.108, April 2007, "on the nature of the Chinese state and economy; on how long [China] can continue down this road; and to what final destination". So far, this exchange has included the following contributions: China’s future, by Peter Taaffe (No.108, April 2007); Can China be a new tiger? by Ron Groves (No.109, May 2007); China’s capitalist counter-revolution, by Vincent Kolo (No.114, December-January 2007-08); and The character of the Chinese state and China’s hybrid economy, by Lynn Walsh (No.122, October 2008). All are available on our website at www.socialismtoday.org (http://www.socialismtoday.org/)

THERE IS A widespread discussion amongst socialists as to whether China is now capitalist or is still a deformed workers’ state. This is an important discussion with different views. The debate is not sterile or arcane as it has implications for socialists’ approach to work in China.

The debate also has implications for the theory of ‘proletarian bonapartism’, advanced by the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) in the post-war period. This theory was a great achievement that allowed an understanding of developments in the neo-colonial countries such as Cuba and Vietnam. Marxism is a science and its theories should be kept logically consistent and capable of dealing with new developments. The recent changes in China are a new development requiring a Marxist explanation.

Trotsky’s theory of the state

THERE ARE MANY good reasons to still understand China as a deformed workers state, albeit one that is uniquely and extensively deformed. China has not yet gone through the transition to capitalism. We have to remember and build on Trotsky’s points in his article, The Class Nature of the Soviet State (1933): "Against the assertion that the workers’ state is apparently already liquidated there arises, first and foremost, the important methodological position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established by means of a political overturn and a civil war of three years. The class theory of society and historical experience equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imperceptible, ‘gradual’, bourgeois counter-revolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counter-revolutions have never taken place ‘organically’, but they have inevitably required the intervention of military surgery.

"In the last analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as reformism has attained to theory, are always based on an inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism. The Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps madly ahead, but also to periods of counter-revolution, when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the soviet government has been gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism".

This is not to rely on dusty quotes from the archives against the reality facing us; it is to seek to understand reality using Marxist theory consistent with its history and development. Our analysis of China has to base itself on our previous descriptions.

To suddenly perceive a gradual transition from one form of society to another in China would be to throw out previous positions without acknowledging or analysing where or why these theories were in error. It is not really a serious way to proceed in any science.

Those who wish to describe China as capitalist today all use the same method. They start from the current picture, using numerous figures and estimates from bourgeois academic sources to show that China, now, this year, is capitalist. They then work backwards to try and identify a point of transition. Was it Tiananmen Square in 1989, or Deng’s speech at the XIV Party Congress in 1992, the incorporation of Hong Kong in 1997, or China’s accession to WTO in 2001, or even the passing of laws explicitly protecting private property in 2004? They prioritise present day impressions over historical analysis and understanding.

The case of China

CHINA WAS DEFORMED from the start. It started in 1949 from the model of Stalin’s Russia of 1945 not October 1917. As was said by our comrades at the time, nothing was left of the October revolution in Russia by 1949 except the nationalised planned economy and the monopoly of foreign trade.

As has been previously discussed, most of China’s progress from impoverished semi-colony to superpower was actually made under Mao, not in the recent development incorporating elements of capitalism. It was precisely this superpower status which gave China the independence from imperialism to undertake its path towards capitalism. Yet we should still regard China as a deformed workers state, but one in which capitalism has been let loose.

China is like a Soviet Union of the 1920s, but in which there is not even a residual element of workers democracy and with an uncontrolled New Economic Policy (NEP), which has been allowed to develop far beyond the NEP in 1920s Russia. Deng’s slogan for the peasants, ‘To get rich is glorious!’, was an echo of Bukharin’s slogan of the 1920s, ‘Peasants enrich yourselves’. Yet Russia in the 1920s was still a deformed workers state.
The NEP-type process in China has probably gone too far to be reversed, whatever the wishes of the bureaucrats of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But this does not mean that the country is capitalist now, although it is likely that a capitalist overturn is more or less inevitable in the future.
An interesting point in Peter Taaffe’s article (Socialism Today, April 2007) was that in China the working class has now experienced capitalism and the market, and therefore should be less likely to support a transition to full-blooded capitalism. In fact workers in China are increasingly fighting back against the nascent capitalists using the traditional weapons of working class struggle such as strikes and trade union organisation.
In the USSR Gorbachev attempted to combine Perestroika (restructuring) with Glasnost (openness), using elements of the market within the deformed workers state, only to be rewarded with a coup and eventual dismissal. The Chinese bureaucracy drew the conclusion from the coup and the subsequent disastrous restoration of capitalism that they had to proceed with ‘perestroika’, restructuring, but without the political reform of ‘glasnost’.

As a result the Chinese working class are having to wage an underground struggle against the restructuring of the economy, against the effects of the capitalist elements introduced by the bureaucrats. We see strikes, protests and nascent illegal trade unions.

Peter Taaffe introduced a very interesting and fruitful idea into the discussion – that in China we have two different compartments of the economy, with sectors of rampant capitalism co-existing with sectors of the planned economy.

The state itself is of a mixed character with capitalist elements co-existing with the deformed workers state; and so the working class has to adopt different methods of struggle depending on which element confronts them. In fact the two elements have co-existed in fully-fledged form in China since the re-incorporation of Hong Kong into the ‘People’s Republic’ in 1997. At that time the CCP proclaimed ‘One country, two systems’. Of course such an amalgam must be inherently unstable, but it has lasted for twelve years so far. It would be quite possible for a ‘Chinese Solidarity’ to be formed, hence the ferocious repression of those workers who do organise their workmates into illegal unions and protests against unpaid wages. But the state in China is still a deformed workers’ state not a capitalist one.
The main task of the Chinese workers therefore is a political revolution along the lines of Hungary 1956 or Poland 1980, and the task of Marxists is to assist this development.

On the other hand the task for those workers in China who find themselves in the capitalist compartment of the Chinese economy, such as workers in Hong Kong, is to organise for socialism and the expropriation of the capitalists.

There is nothing contradictory or eclectic in describing two elements in co-existence in one society. In Eastern Europe the events were a dual process – a political revolution developing dialectically in tandem with a capitalist counter-revolution.

Other countries also have elements of the different historical stages of society co-existing together. In India we can see hunter-gathering, slavery and feudalism all co-existing with capitalism. We have described India as a living museum of historical materialism. But the Indian ruling class is a capitalist class and it is a capitalist state.

In China capitalism co-exists with a deformed workers’ state; but the state is still ruled by the bureaucracy of the CCP. The question is which element predominates and which class controls the state. As the Chinese state is still a deformed workers’ state it is the demands and analysis of the political revolution which should predominate in the workers’ movement and in theoretical discussion of China.

Transition occurs by qualitative change, not gradual evolution

ON RUSSIA SOME have claimed that the transition to a capitalist state was accomplished gradually by a ‘cold transition’ and without forcible revolution.
On the contrary surely the transition in Russia was accomplished by a series of major events – the failed coup, the attack on the parliament, and the deposing of Gorbachev and break-up of the USSR – to make a qualitative change in the state. Because the state and the bureaucracy had so little support the transition can be seen as ‘cold’, especially when compared with October 1917, but a cold transition is completely different from a peaceful evolution.

It is not a question of the use of force itself in the transition but of its qualitative character. The state has to be reconstituted as part of the transfer of power from the hands of one class to another. In 1917 the revolution in Petrograd was almost totally peaceful. The overturn in Petrograd was followed by the assumption of state power by the Bolsheviks and the construction of a new state apparatus, which had been forged by the soviets in the months after February 1917.

A military struggle was not necessary in Petrograd because of the preparations made and the overwhelming strength of the working class, but the important thing is that the old state of Kerensky was dispersed and a new one formed. The qualitative step in Petrograd occurred almost without military force and could be described as a ‘cold transition’; but it was not a peaceful evolution.

Even so the initial overturn in Petrograd was accompanied by quite extensive fighting in Moscow, and then followed by a savage civil war, at the end of which capitalism had been overthrown across the USSR. A new state was constructed, with the leaders of the old state arrested or in exile.

We have seen no such events in China, and the state apparatus has remained of essentially the same character since 1949.

In summary, the Marxist theory of the state asserts that the state is always a class state, and serves the ‘economically dominant’ ruling class. Therefore a new ruling class has to create its own state, although the new state may incorporate elements of the previous state at the lower levels.
To suddenly assert that China has become a capitalist state without a social counter-revolution is to strip the Marxist theory of the state of its class content. It is to allow present day impressions to overrule proper understanding and explanation of the situation in China in its historical context.

A coherent Marxist reading of present-day China would describe it as a uniquely deformed workers state, with major capitalist elements growing and strengthening within it.

Chinese society is therefore heading towards a huge confrontation between the working class and the nascent capitalist class, in which the CCP will be destroyed or split apart. The important practical point then is that the workers’ movement, and our commentary on that workers’ movement, has to prepare for such a confrontation, because the transition has not yet occurred.

Those who believe it has occurred risk disarming the movement into believing that the decisive event has already happened.

[Queercommie Girl]

The extent of Great Russian nationalism during the Stalin era was exaggerated. Most people don't know this if they never had the chance to see the museums in the FSU where you can see propaganda printed and geared not only toward different ethnicities, but also different religions like Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. But after Stalin some people took this too far and began to equate USSR with Russia.

Even if that was the case, firstly I don't think Mao's China was essentially any different from Stalin's Russia, so Shankara's double standard is still completely wrong.

Secondly even an orthodox Stalinist like you can't deny the fact that Russian nationalism was a significant factor during the revisionist era when the country was ruled by the Tankies, just like even orthodox Maoists can't deny the fact that China became more nationalist ever since Deng Xiaoping came to power.

[Kayser_Soso]

Even if that was the case, firstly I don't think Mao's China was essentially any different from Stalin's Russia, so Shankara's double standard is still completely wrong.

Mao's China was quite different. Stalin's Russia was socialist, Mao's China was not.



Secondly even an orthodox Stalinist like you can't deny the fact that Russian nationalism was a significant factor during the revisionist era when the country was ruled by the Tankies, just like even orthodox Maoists can't deny the fact that China became more nationalist ever since Deng Xiaoping came to power.

What is an "orthodox Stalinist" first. I know of no such thing. And it is not entirely 100% true that Stalin's easing up on Russian nationalism during the war would have made a difference. It's just one contributing factor. He probably should have gone all out to destroy Russian tradition from the beginning, the way Mustafa Kemal did in Turkey.

[Queercommie Girl]

Mao's China was quite different. Stalin's Russia was socialist, Mao's China was not.


How is Mao's China not socialist? Even if you talk about the "bloc of the four classes", the fact of the matter is that in terms of ethnic policy, there was not much difference between Stalin and Mao.



What is an "orthodox Stalinist" first. I know of no such thing. And it is not entirely 100% true that Stalin's easing up on Russian nationalism during the war would have made a difference. It's just one contributing factor. He probably should have gone all out to destroy Russian tradition from the beginning, the way Mustafa Kemal did in Turkey.

You can't deny that Greater Russian nationalism became more significant in the post-Stalinist era.

[Kayser_Soso]

How is Mao's China not socialist? Even if you talk about the "bloc of the four classes", the fact of the matter is that in terms of ethnic policy, there was not much difference between Stalin and Mao.

He invited the national bourgeoisie into the party itself. Such people were often put in charge of people's communes. This generally did not happen in the USSR, and if the latter happened by chance(e.g. a kulak being head of a collective) someone would write a letter and they were removed.




You can't deny that Greater Russian nationalism became more significant in the post-Stalinist era.

In the post-Stalin era, exactly. And while you cannot deny that particular point, you cannot also say with certainty that doing something else would have worked. This is my main beef with the Trots. They just think that decades of history were a matter of doing X and not Y, as if everything was so clear to the actors in those times, or as if those alternatives really would have worked. It's idiocy.

[Queercommie Girl]

He invited the national bourgeoisie into the party itself.


No. This is off-topic but no existing capitalist ever joined the CCP in Mao's time. There were party members from essentially bourgeois backgrounds, but no-one says people can't change the class of their birth.

Only in recent years have capitalists proper been allowed to join the party.

But how does this influence Mao's ethnic policy and make it different to Stalin's? In Mao's day the Chinese capitalist class was extremely small and weak, and virtually solely concentrated in cities like Shanghai. In ethnic "frontier" regions there were simply no presence of Han capitalism to make an objective impact on ethnic minority policy.



In the post-Stalin era, exactly. And while you cannot deny that particular point, you cannot also say with certainty that doing something else would have worked. This is my main beef with the Trots. They just think that decades of history were a matter of doing X and not Y, as if everything was so clear to the actors in those times, or as if those alternatives really would have worked. It's idiocy.The Trotskyists are correct to emphasise worker's democracy however. It was indeed the lack of supervision and control by the Soviet working class that ultimately caused revisionism and the restoration of bureaucratic capitalism in the USSR.

Without complete democracy, socialism is surely to be betrayed.

[Kayser_Soso]

No. This is off-topic but no existing capitalist ever joined the CCP in Mao's time. There were party members from essentially bourgeois backgrounds, but no-one says people can't change the class of their birth.

Only in recent years have capitalists proper been allowed to join the party.

Maybe not a capitalist per se but what about landlords?




The Trotskyists are correct to emphasise worker's democracy however. It was indeed the lack of supervision and control by the Soviet working class that ultimately caused revisionism and the restoration of bureaucratic capitalism in the USSR.

Unfortunately the working class at the time was small, and wholly unable to take control of the whole country.


BTW, this whole goddamned thread has gone way off-topic.

[Queercommie Girl]

Maybe not a capitalist per se but what about landlords?


With landlords it was even less likely. I agree that Mao was relatively lenient on the "national bourgeois", a really weak class at the time, objectively probably no more than "small businesses" by Western standards anyway, even though he didn't allow capitalists proper to actually join the CCP.

But landlordism was thoroughly abolished after 1949. If in remote regions there were still landlords operating, then they only operated by going against central policy, not following it. China is a huge country and I don't pretend that the CCP immediately had full political control over every single remote region after they came to power in 1949.



Unfortunately the working class at the time was small, and wholly unable to take control of the whole country.


Of course, much of it was not Stalin's subjective fault, but a result of the objective situation. Stalin was a product of his times.

At any rate, the most gross forms of bureaucratic rule came after Stalin's time anyway, during the revisionist era. This is something traditional Trots fail to recognise.

As long as you recognise the central importance of real worker's democracy, there is no essential dispute here.

[Queercommie Girl]

BTW, this whole goddamned thread has gone way off-topic.

Agreed, but blame those who brought up the topic of ethnic minorities in China for that.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

It's not that they're just moving to Xinjiang...they're also holding all the reigns to economic production, political involvement (except for a few puppet figureheads to create the illusion that the Uyghurs are in power) and they dominate with the Mandarin language and culture. this isn't a good thing at all.

There is proportional representation in Xinjiang, which is supposed to be about more than "figureheads" -- and if that isn't working, then you might be better off asking why it doesn't work. (Too much control by Beijing's central government?)

Of course Mandarin Chinese predominates in China -- just like the English language is the inter-ethnic lingua franca of communication in America. Russian had this same function in the Soviet Union. The Spanish language has this function today within the diverse areas of South America.

So: in what other ways do Han Chinese oppress the Uyghur population?


They aren't just peacefully moving in, they're attempting to replace the local people and establish a Han majority for political purposes; afterall...

How are they not "just peacefully moving in"? More Han Chinese coming to Xinjiang is not "replacing the local people" -- nobody gets kicked out of his or her home for being an Uyghur. Don't you think that's the crucial difference between the Han Chinese moving to Xinjiang and the European and other Jews moving to presently-occupied Palestinian territories?

Why are you so against a Han majority emerging in Xinjiang due to free movement to this region? Would you also oppose a non-European majority -- let's say a black, Hispanic, or even Han Chinese majority -- emerging in America?


...there are other places in Western China that are not as populated as Urumqi, why not go somewhere else? but it's not about land...it's about domination through demographics.

Why are they coming to places like Urumqi? In order to facilitate the local development. (Notice how much less of that there is in western China than in the coastal regions to the east.)

Why don't you ask the Mexican immigrants who are coming en masse to our country to go somewhere less populated than Texas or southern California?


Just like it's not the Han migrants that are racist or supremacist--they're just trying to better their lives (since the capitalist state failed to live up to it's promises)--but the Han administrators who wish to dispossess the local Uyghurs at any cost.

Again: please show how Han administrators are "dispossessing the Uyghurs at any cost." I am not in principle against a certain province going independent, but what you take for granted should actually be demonstrated first.


except that the leaders of Ukraine SSR weren't exactly capitalist imperialists who invited fellow capitalists from Russia to replace the native people through demographic domination, and the USSR was truly international, seeing as it's leader for many years was an ethnic Georgian from Georgia, and many of it's leaders were from non-Russian background as well (Lenin wasn't full Russian, neither was Trotsky)

You sound confused: I didn't write about anything at all related to "the leaders of Ukraine SSR."

Lenin was against Russian chauvinism and worked hard to combat it. But Russian nationalism re-emerged not too long afterward. He even famously referred to Stalin as a "vulgar Great-Russian bully." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm)

You don't think there was Russian chauvinism in the USSR? Not even after WWII?

Not that the massive post-war influx of ethnic Russians to the Baltic states was driven by a chauvinist agenda. Latvia and Estonia were both depopulated and destroyed after the Second World War; natural recovery was slow, and Russian immigration to these two Baltic states helped boost the Soviet Union's development of these two regions. (No comparable migration took place in Lithuania, the third Baltic republic.)

What makes you think the movement of the Han Chinese into Tibet and into Xinjiang is wholly different?


strawman; you don't know that this would be the case.

It's not a straw man: it's a point dealing with nationalism that I raised on the side. (Hence it was prefaced with "Incidentally...") And it's a valid question for someone who thinks that Xinjiang should go independent, as Uyghur nationalists argue: how do you think Xinjiang's Uyghur plurality will hold on to its power when the Han Chinese population in Xinjiang is nearly as large?


as opposed to capitalist, serf owning China? or capitalist, serf owning Tsarist Russia?

I brought up "feudal, serf-owning Tibet" because few people who wholeheartedly support the Dalai Lama's arguments are even aware of what Tibet was like before. (See Michael Parenti's "Friendly Feudalism": http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html) Not that I see historical development as key to problems of self-determination.

You really ought to know that there aren't any serfs in capitalist nations: serfs are a feudal class. Modern wage labor is what happens under capitalism.


so, not using variously controversially interpreted treaties, explain to me China's claim to Tibet? And even so, why is Tibet just an "autonomous region" within China? why isn't it an independent socialist republic (like your example of Ukraine was), part of a greater union?

I don't rely on "controversially interpreted treaties." It's an "autonomous region" because there are no "independent socialist republics" as constituent territories of the Chinese state. The Soviet republics weren't really independent anyway -- and nowhere did I bring up "independent socialist Ukraine." (Where did you even get that from?) Would you feel better if Tibet were called the Tibetan Soviet Socialist Republic?


are you justifying imperialism? Because it really sounds like it.

Nice argument, Adi. :rolleyes:


How about the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps? This is a "development agency" ran directly from Beijing, which has military, political, and economic authority over much of Xinjiang under the guise of "developing the Frontier (sounds a tiny bit familiar, doesn't it?)

So, your best evidence for "Han Supremacism" in China is the Xinjiang PCC, an agency that manages development, and is run from Beijing?

What does the Chinese policy of "developing the Frontier" sound like to you?


...also under the guise of development is whole cities built for Han migrants in Xinjiang, which only has land arability of 4%. Why, out of all places, do all these Han need to be moved to Xinjiang? why not Qinghai, which has more arable land and is naturally ethnically plural?

Contrary to your claims, Xinjiang has more arable land per capita than Qinghai does -- not less: http://nwchina.ipni.net/articles/CNNW0003-EN. (Wherever did you get your own statistics?)

And then what better aims -- if not "the guise of development" -- should new cities in Xjinjiang be built for? If these migrants are better-suited for urban lifestyles or more productively employed in certain urban occupations -- such as industrial work -- what is the point of pointing out the land's arability? You want to see the Han Chinese all become farmers?

Places develop on the basis of the available natural resources, related geographic factors relevant to the economy, the infrastructure that has already been built, and the investments that have already been made. The factual refutation of your claim that Xinjiang has less arable land aside -- have you considered that settling people in certain places (like Xinjiang) is more productive than settling them elsewhere? (The natural growth in Qinghai, by the way, is higher than anywhere else in China, and it already has more people than Tibet.)

Let's take you logic to where it actually leads: why not, then, claim that we should settle Mexicans in the Midwest? It is less populated and has more land for farming than the Southwest, and therefore...

[Queercommie Girl]

It's true that the XPCC as it stands now plays somewhat of a semi-colonialist role, but that's what happens when you restore capitalism. Capitalism naturally creates racism and colonialism everywhere it operates. But that's not the original function of the XPCC at all when it was under Mao.

But Shakara is delusional to blame the semi-colonial policies on "Han administrators", rather than on the Han capitalists.

Obviously the rising inter-ethnic tension in recent years has an objective economic cause: the restoration of capitalism has obviously increased economic inequality and destroyed much of social security. Many of the Uyghurs who participated in the recent anti-Han riots were essentially unemployed.

In short: blame capitalism, don't blame the Han Chinese!

[Queercommie Girl]

Of course, you'd have to disband the PRC if you wanted that; the very demographics of the state makes it very eschewed in favor of Han Chinese above all else; that could've been by accident, but that's the reality today; if this wasn't the case, ethnic violence wouldn't be so acute in Tibet and Xinjiang.


For the last time: "demographics" and migration in itself is not the cause of colonialism and racism, socio-economic inequality due to capitalism is.

If we go by your ridiculous suggestion here, then we might as well disband the early USSR under Lenin, since even though it was more or less truly internationalist and democratic, the Russian ethnicity still demographically dominated the population in the country as a whole.