Mao Zedong- crimes against humanity? [Archive]

danyboy27

21st July 2011, 21:11

I think it's an amazing magic trick if he managed to kill that many people at the same time as doubling the population and doubling life expectancy, as well as putting the infrastructure in place which prevented any more famines occuring in China (and anyone who's taken a look at chinese history will know that is a major achievement).

Also amazing how he managed to be responsable for every death that occured under his government, unlike capitalist leaders who for some reason are never blamed for the people that die from poverty in their countries..

Seriously, that death toll is ridiculous both in terms of number and in the way its attributed to one person. Why don't we hear about the tens of millions who still are starving to death in capitalist india and africa ? Or the holocaust carried out by Winston Churchil in Bengal ? Or, more significantly, the people who were killed under US-backed capitalist regimes in asia like chiang kai shek, south korea, south vietnam, etc..The double standards be crazy/

You know, the number of people killed dosnt really matter, beccause at the end, its the actions and the intention to do harm that really count.

40 million, 10 millions, 1 millions, it dosnt really matter, if you kill a bunch of innocent people intentionally you are a butcher anyway.

it dosnt only apply to china, every country on earth have blood on its hand, beccause well that what state does.

RGacky3

22nd July 2011, 07:44

Why don't we hear about the tens of millions who still are starving to death in capitalist india and africa ? Or the holocaust carried out by Winston Churchil in Bengal ? Or, more significantly, the people who were killed under US-backed capitalist regimes in asia like chiang kai shek, south korea, south vietnam, etc..The double standards be crazy/

You hear it from leftists when talking to Capitalist or patriots. But you'll also hear it from us if you support Mao.

Nox

22nd July 2011, 07:55

Bloody hell 80 million??

Is it just me or do the estimates keep rising and rising over time...

Last time I heard it was 30 million :confused:

Octavian

22nd July 2011, 08:08

Where do people get their figures from? The big black book of communism? The last academic estimate I heard was 5 to 10 million. Mind you at the time, that's out of a population around 550 million.

Bloody hell 80 million??

Is it just me or do the estimates keep rising and rising over time...

Last time I heard it was 30 million :confused:
I'm pretty sure Mao killed almost the whole world the only thing that saved it was a time traveling Glenn beck who contained it within the borders of China.

caramelpence

22nd July 2011, 08:12

Incidentally, it's worth pointing out that the article the OP posted is not actually from the ICC - the host site is a Model United Nations site at an American university, i.e. a student-run political simulation, and the article has obviously been drawn up as part of that simulation, in order to serve as some kind of mock judgement by the ICC, judging not only by the host site, but also the fact that the actual ICC was only created more than two decades after Mao's death and has never issued a posthumous judgement on Mao, as well as the numerous factual inaccuracies and ambiguities in the article. If you want to present arguments about Mao's role in the Great Leap Forward and the impact of the Cultural Revolution there is plenty of scholarly material out there, from different political and academic perspectives, and one can only assume that the OP pointed to this article because they thought it was actually from the ICC, without having checked the host site and not knowing much about the history and work of the actual ICC.

That aside, and speaking as someone who is not a partisan of Mao, it is far too simplistic to see Mao as a "tyrant" or as personally responsible for tens of millions of deaths. To say that someone "intentionally" (danyboy25's term) caused the deaths of millions is a severe judgment and one that demands a powerful body of supporting evidence - but I have never found any good evidence that shows that Mao did want the Great Leap Forward, for example, to kill millions of people. The deaths that did result from that policy were complex, in terms of why people actually died (it is, for instance, important to distinguish between people literally starving to death, and people who were already vulnerable like the elderly and sick dying prematurely as a result of diseases that were more readily transmitted and were more deadly in conditions of prolonged low caloric intake - we need to be able to determine how the Great Leap Forward was similar to and differed from other famines in these respects), the role of the policy itself versus other factors that were less subject to official control, like adverse weather conditions, the ability of the central government to accumulate accurate information on the implementation and consequences of the policy at a local level, and Mao's personal role in changing the policy and implementing emergency response measures as the human consequences manifested themselves. There are also serious issues concerning how the death toll, regardless of how responsibility should be allocated, can best be determined, as reflected by the widely varying estimates that have been put forward by different scholars and commentators. For me personally (and, to repeat, I am not a Maoist or any kind of supporter of Mao) the Great Leap Forward, to say nothing of other aspects of the Maoist period, was so complex that it is absurd to reduce our understanding of that policy and its consequences to a set of hyperbolic slogans about tyranny and genocide. A progressive understanding of Mao and his period demands nuance and attention to evidence - you won't get that from Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, but you don't get it from people like the OP either.

Apoi_Viitor

22nd July 2011, 08:42

A quote from Noam Chomsky (http://www.spectrezine.org/global/chomsky.htm):

He (Amartya Sen) estimates the excess of mortality in India over China to be close to 4 million a year: "India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame," 1958-1961 (Dreze and Sen).

This section below is taken from here this (http://www.historum.com/asian-history/20376-peoples-opinion-mao-zeodong-5.html):

In fact the GLF excess deaths are calculated relative to the low levels of mortality that the communists had achieved in the first decade of the PRC. The actual mortality rates during the GLF were not much different from the mortality rates prevailing over the first half of the 20th Century. And not too much different from the mortality rates of India at the same time. In fact anti-communists unwittingly give huge credit to the communists for reducing mortality up to the GLF, in order to max out the excess deaths calculations. So they use this to label Mao a mass murderer. It’s ridiculous.
Look at the mortality rate trend here:

http://www.bikealpine.com/p_10.gif

Great Leap Forward
The maximum death rate is abotu 25/1000 in 1960. This compares to 21/1000 in 1949, not that much of a difference.
But here is the kicker. Look at the death rates in India over the same time (1951 to 1960). They averaged at 22.8/1000 over the entire decade.
So India was more or less at GLF conditions for the entire 1950s. Whereas China for one year only had death rates slightly exceeding the Indian average for the decade.
It can be said that the century leading up to 1949, the Chinese people suffered more or less GLF conditions continually. I repeat the GLF tragic as it was, was more or less the norm for China before the revolution. And the Indians underwent continual GLF conditions over the entire 1950s.
Look at these horrific pictures of a typical Chinese scenes in Nationalist China 1946 (and this period was never even described as a famine period).
LIFE - Google Books (http://books.google.com/books?id=81QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=1946,+china,+famine,+child&source=bl&ots=PipWY2aPx-&sig=EaQQV01IVdN85DLlZ2yLdbGYQc0&hl=en&ei=HiyhTPq-BcvFswaM6p3wAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=1946%2C%20china%2C%20famine%2C%20child&f=false)
Note the children dying of hunger in the streets while people walk around them, the dying child in front of a fat well fed smiling rice merchant. This was the norm in pre-revolutionary China!
(by the way you will also note there is a picture of a starving boy with a begging bowl at the same link. Dated 1946. Yet Dikotter incredibly dishonestly misrepresents this image as from ‘Mao’s’ Great famine on his book cover).
The huge tragedy of the GLF is it bucked the trend in post 1949 China, and the millions of ‘excess’ deaths arise from calculating against the low mortality that the communists had achieved in the decade leading up to the GLF, and brought New China back, for a while, to pre-revolutionary conditions.

And for reference, here's India
http://envfor.nic.in/divisions/ic/wssd/doc2/Image12.gif

Valdemar

22nd July 2011, 11:35

I don't believe he should hold responsible for all deaths, and i also believe that those numbers, they are little bit stretched, beside some eggs must be broken in my opinion to make omelette, and all beginnings are hard...Look at birth of capitalism:"Child prostitution (still today), Child labour (still today), Children orphanage used as both, "workshops"....
and beside all that, like Zenga said, its The double standards.

RGacky3

22nd July 2011, 11:41

, beside some eggs must be broken in my opinion to make omelette

And what an omelette was made right?

Double standards, maybe with patriots and Capitalists, but not here.

Mao, and the Chineese ocmmunist party leadership made the policy, so they are responsible for the outcome of their policies.

scarletghoul

22nd July 2011, 11:54

You know, the number of people killed dosnt really matter, beccause at the end, its the actions and the intention to do harm that really count.

40 million, 10 millions, 1 millions, it dosnt really matter, if you kill a bunch of innocent people intentionally you are a butcher anyway.
I agree completely with these two statements.

Now i would join you in your condemnation of mao if only you could show me why he intentionally killed 1000000s of people ... Was he just pure evil, and pretended to be a good communist for decades to get the peoples trust so he could massacre them and get fat off his own power ?? cuz that seems to be the comic book villain type narrative you people are agreeing with

RGacky3

22nd July 2011, 12:07

Well, no he was'nt pure evil, niether was George Bush, niether was Thatcher.

He thought that his ideas were the right ones, and he thought that other people that challenged him were a threat to his ideas so he killed them.

danyboy27

22nd July 2011, 12:22

I agree completely with these two statements.

Now i would join you in your condemnation of mao if only you could show me why he intentionally killed 1000000s of people ... Was he just pure evil, and pretended to be a good communist for decades to get the peoples trust so he could massacre them and get fat off his own power ?? cuz that seems to be the comic book villain type narrative you people are agreeing with

We obviously cant get at him for the peoples he killed by incompetence or by accident, unless of course we could prove he had those people killed intentionally, on the other hand we can get at him for the people he intentonally had killed.

the intention behind such actions are not really that relevant, if you murder 2000 peoples to save another bunch of 2000 peoples, you are still a murderer, some people might like you for saving their friends and families, but the family of those you murdered will hate your guts and will expect something to be done about it.

he was not evil, he was thinking he was doing the right thing, like 90% of the murderers

scarletghoul

22nd July 2011, 13:19

We obviously cant get at him for the peoples he killed by incompetence or by accident, unless of course we could prove he had those people killed intentionally, on the other hand we can get at him for the people he intentonally had killed.

the intention behind such actions are not really that relevant, if you murder 2000 peoples to save another bunch of 2000 peoples, you are still a murderer, some people might like you for saving their friends and families, but the family of those you murdered will hate your guts and will expect something to be done about it.

he was not evil, he was thinking he was doing the right thing, like 90% of the murderers
I'm confused, what incidences are you referring to ? When did he choose to kill people

danyboy27

22nd July 2011, 13:50

I'm confused, what incidences are you referring to ? When did he choose to kill people

The dao county massacre of 1967 for exemple.

Apoi_Viitor

22nd July 2011, 13:56

Mao obviously didn't intend to kill people...

"In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million. When people died in Guangxi [in 1955-Joseph Ball], wasn’t Chen Manyuan dismissed? If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths."

“As to 30 million tons of steel, do we really need that much? Are we able to produce [that much]? How many people do we mobilize? Could it lead to deaths?”

Apoi_Viitor

22nd July 2011, 13:57

The dao county massacre of 1967 for exemple.

Mao had absolutely no control over the violence during the cultural revolution.

Marxach-LÃ©inÃnach

22nd July 2011, 14:16

The measure of success for any revolution is how many people the media says you've "killed"

RGacky3

22nd July 2011, 14:20

Then I guess Hitler did pretty good dickwad.

danyboy27

22nd July 2011, 14:28

Mao had absolutely no control over the violence during the cultural revolution.

Its was a systematic action carried out by high ranking member of the CCP, with a verry particular procedure; kangoroo court, depending on how the ''judgement'' went, they where either shame paraded in the street or brought home to be killed there.

the main organizer of this where members of the CCP, and nobody did nothing to stop them in their tracks.

either it was ordered by mao, or mao was fully aware of what happening and did nothing to stop it.

either way, it dosnt look good.

danyboy27

22nd July 2011, 14:31

The measure of success for any revolution is how many people the media says you've "killed"

Yes indeed pinochet revolution was extremely succesfull.

Marxach-LÃ©inÃnach

22nd July 2011, 14:47

Then I guess Hitler did pretty good dickwad.
The media are generous as fuck to Hitler They say he killed only 6 million when he actually killed something like 50 million.

RGacky3

22nd July 2011, 14:51

No they say he killed 6 million Jews.

Anyway, who cares? NO ONE is arguing hitler was a nice guy, all we are arguing is that your insane for supporting Stalin and calling yourself a Stalinist and defending Mao, and your not really a socialist as much as you are a fetishist.

Bronco

22nd July 2011, 14:51

The media are generous as fuck to Hitler They say he killed only 6 million when he actually killed something like 50 million.

They say that the Holocaust killed 6 million Jews, no-one says that is the total number of deaths that he is accountable for

Edit - beaten to it

CommunityBeliever

22nd July 2011, 15:17

your insane for supporting Stalin and calling yourself a Stalinist and defending MaoThe high point of communism was around 1949-1953 when Stalin and Mao were around and the Soviet Union had just developed its first nuclear weapon.

So at that time the bourgeoisie, especially in the U.S, made up all this bullshit about how Stalin and Mao were horrible dictators who killed ~100 million people.

Hiero

22nd July 2011, 15:21

Its was a systematic action carried out by high ranking member of the CCP, with a verry particular procedure; kangoroo court, depending on how the ''judgement'' went, they where either shame paraded in the street or brought home to be killed there.

the main organizer of this where members of the CCP, and nobody did nothing to stop them in their tracks.

either it was ordered by mao, or mao was fully aware of what happening and did nothing to stop it.

either way, it dosnt look good.

I don't think you know what systemic means or you have no idea about the cultural revolution. The cultural revolution was more fanatical and chaotic then systemic. Stalin's purgers were more systemic, for instance.

This is the problem of the typical Western analysis of the cultural revolution, the emphasize is on leaders over people and dichotomize sections into into good and bad. Hence you have made the mistake of Mao and CCP against "..." you don't acttually say who the victims were, because you have no idea.

Anyway the basics. The cultural revolution was a social phenonoman with multuple factions. Some CCP members supported different factions. In Mobo Gao's books The Battle For China's Past he distinguishes between Red Guards and Rebels, the former are groups of militant students linked with prominent rightest CCP members and the later militant students supporting the Mao orientated CCP members. The cultural revolution was instigated by Mao and carried out by the Rebels, the Red Gaurds were formed to defend thoose being targeted by the Rebels. There were lots of interplay, for instance you claim that the CCP directed the Red Guards against whoever (you did not state who the victims were)., when infact Mao's slogan was "Bombard the Headquarters". Prominent targets of the Rebels were CCP members and the Red Guards defended them. Such people included Deng Xiaoping who began the liberalisation of the Chinese economy (a designated capitalist roader). At times during the conflict, some CCP memebrs were able to call in the army to stop the Rebels and remove them from cities or regions.

You have completely under estimated how factionalised the CCP, the Red Army, the student movement and Chinese society overall was and condense these multiple conflicts and groups of actors into Mao/CCP verse everyone else, which is a typical Orientalist logic. The Chinese masses are slaves, victims and Mao/CCP the master. It is the typical head/body dialectic of the West applied to the social world.

I would encourage you to read Mobo Goa's book.

Edit: Also, you would never be able to prove intent, Mao never told anyone to go out and kill people. The idea was the challenge rightest trends in cultural aspects of society. Mao's crime is that he did not handle it very well and the result was fanaticism, rather then revolution. That has been a huge trend of Marxism, the creation of fanatics rather then critical social theorist/revolutionaries. Reading this website infact, many people here have supported violent acts against "capitalists", they have never really thought about what that would mean in reality. Basically the bad guys don't just stand in line waiting to be clubbed to death.

Marxach-LÃ©inÃnach

22nd July 2011, 15:45

They say that the Holocaust killed 6 million Jews, no-one says that is the total number of deaths that he is accountable for

Edit - beaten to it
No, "Hitler killed 6 million people" is basically the default thing I always hear. It then gets used as an anti-communist thing ie. "Hitler killed millions, Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions. Nazism is bad but communism is clearly worse people blah blah blah"

ComradeMan

22nd July 2011, 17:31

I was hoping that we could have a more open debate about this without ending up with people insulting each other. :crying:

Some points:-

1) It's not a numbers game, saying other people were worse is no defense. We all know that Hitler systematically killed around 6 million Jews and probably up to 12 million in total during the Holocaust. Many of those victims died of starvation and disease, so are we to argue that the numbers should be reduced because it wasn't "deliberate" as in gas chambers and firing squads and they may have died during Allied bombing raids anyway? This isn't pure maths, these are not just numbers on a page but these were people FFS. Arguing who was the "worst" misses the point entirely.

2) The famine defense is a little weak, although I can kind of see where people are coming from. Yet when Heile Selassie was resigned to the fate of people starving in a famine no one was sympathetic or offered apologetics on his behalf. Are we running the risk of double-standards? I don't suppose Mao himself went hungry. :rolleyes:

3) I found the following, and it doesn't look pretty from a Maoist sense- now I can't vouch for the sources, so perhaps it would also be useful to discuss them- but sources they are and I don't think people are just pulling stuff out of the air because anyone who dares critique Mao must de facto be a hell-bent anti-communist/reactionary etc... before we start! ;)

"In official study materials published in 1948, Mao envisaged that "one-tenth of the peasants" (or about 50,000,000) "would have to be destroyed" to facilitate agrarian reform.[112] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-Goldhagen-111) Actual numbers killed in land reform are believed to have been lower, but at least one million.[111] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-Rummel223-110)[113] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-112) The suppression of counterrevolutionaries targeted mainly former Kuomintang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang) officials and intellectuals suspected of disloyalty.[114] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-113) At least 712,000 people were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned in labor camps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai) and 1,200,000 were "subject to control at various times."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#People.27s_R epublic_of_China

"In Mao's Great Famine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao%27s_Great_Famine), historian Frank Dikötter writes that "coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward" and it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history."[118] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-117) His research in local and provincial Chinese archives indicates the death toll was at least 45 million, and that "In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death."[119] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-Dikotter-118) In a secret meeting at Shanghai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai) in 1959, Mao issued the order to procure one third of all grain from the countryside. He said: “When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”[119] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-Dikotter-118) Dikötter estimates that at least 2.5 million people were summarily killed or tortured to death during this period.[120] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-119)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#People.27s_R epublic_of_China

and

"Sinologists Roderick MacFarquhar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_MacFarquhar) and Michael Schoenhals estimate that between 750,000 and 1.5 million people were killed in the violence of the Cultural Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution), in rural China alone.[121] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-120) Mao's Red Guards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29) were given carte blanche to abuse and kill the revolution's enemies.[122] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-121) For example, in August 1966, over 100 teachers were murdered by their students in western Beijing alone.[123] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#cite_note-122)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#People.27s_R epublic_of_China

danyboy27

22nd July 2011, 17:40

Considering how messed up was China at the time, i doubt we will ever be able to come out with a real number or even with any evidence that Mao has ordered the killing of innocents.

but i have yet to discover 1 stateperson or 1 state not guilty of crime against humanity at a certain extent.

RGacky3

22nd July 2011, 18:42

but i have yet to discover 1 stateperson or 1 state not guilty of crime against humanity at a certain extent.

I'm sure there are some, and I'm sure there are not many that did as much as Mao.

Apoi_Viitor

22nd July 2011, 19:34

I don't know anything about the sources you posted, but there was a good article by Joseph Ball where he shows the dishonesty in a few of the most popular sources which deal with the great leap forward. To be honest though, I know very little about repression and violence during the Maoist era, but from the little I've read, it seems that most of it was very decentralized and chaotic.

In the last few years a new generation of writers has published alleged eyewitness and documentary evidence for the “massive death toll” hypothesis. The key issue with this evidence is the authentication of sources. These authors do not present sufficient evidence in the works cited in this article to show that the sources are authentic.

Jasper Becker in his book on the Great Leap Forward, Hungry Ghosts, cites a great deal of evidence of mass starvation and cannibalism in China during the Great Leap Forward. It should be noted that this is evidence that only emerged in the 1990s. Certainly the more lurid stories of cannibalism are not corroborated by any source that appeared at the actual time of the Great Leap Forward, or indeed for many years later. Many of the accounts of mass starvation and cannibalism that Becker uses come from a 600 page document “Thirty Years in the Countryside.” Becker says it was a secret official document that was smuggled out of China in 1989. Becker writes that his sources for Hungry Ghosts include documents smuggled out of China in 1989 by intellectuals going into exile. The reader needs to be told how people who were apparently dissidents fleeing the country during a crack-down were able to smuggle out official documents regarding events thirty years before.

Also, Becker should have discussed more generally why he believes “Thirty Years in the Countryside” and the other texts are authentic. In 2001 Becker reviewed the Tiananmen Papers in the London Review of Books.18 The Tiananmen Papers are purportedly inner party documents which were smuggled out of the country by a dissident. They supposedly shed light on the Party leadership’s thinking at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In his review Becker seriously discusses the possibility that these papers might be forgeries. In Hungry Ghosts, Becker needed to say why he thought the documents he was citing in his own book were genuine, despite believing that other smuggled official documents might be inauthentic.

Similarly, Becker cites a purported internal Chinese army journal from 1961 as evidence of a massive humanitarian disaster during the Great Leap Forward. The reports in this journal do indeed allude to a fairly significant disaster which is effecting the morale of Chinese troops. However, is this journal a genuine document? The journal was released by U.S. Department of State in 1963 and was published in a collection by the Hoover Institution entitled The Politics of the Chinese Red Army in 1966. According to the British Daily Telegraph newspaper 19 “They [the journals] have been in American hands for some time, although nobody will disclose how they were acquired.” Becker and the many other writers on the Great Leap Forward who have cited these journals need to state why they regard them as authentic.

Becker’s book also uses eyewitness accounts of hunger in the Great Leap Forward. During the mid-nineties, he interviewed people in mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Chinese immigrants in the west. He states in his book that in mainland China he was “rarely if ever, allowed to speak freely to the peasants.” Local officials “coached” the peasants before the interview, sat with them during it and answered some of the questions for them. Given that there is a good chance that these officials were trying to slant evidence in favour of the negative Deng Xiaoping line on the Great Leap Forward it is surely important that the reader is told which of the interviews cited in the book were conducted under these conditions and which were not. Becker does not do this in Hungry Ghosts. Nowhere in this book does he go into sufficient detail to demonstrate to the reader that the accounts he cites in his book are authentic.

For a few years, Hungry Ghosts was the pre-eminent text, as far as critics of Mao were concerned. However, in 2005 Mao: the Unknown Story was published and very heavily promoted in the West. Its allegations are, if anything, even more extreme than Becker’s book. Of the 70 million deaths the book ascribes to Mao, 38 million are meant to have taken place during the Great Leap Forward. The book relies very heavily on an unofficial collection of Mao’s speeches and statements which were supposedly recorded by his followers and which found their way to the west by means that are unclear. The authors often use materials from this collection to try and demonstrate Mao’s fanaticism and lack of concern for human life. They are a group of texts that became newly available in the 1980s courtesy of the Center of Chinese Research Materials (CCRM) in the U.S. Some of these texts were translated into English and published in Mao’s Secret Speeches.20

In this volume, Timothy Cheek writes an essay assessing the authenticity of the texts. He writes “The precise provenance of these volumes, which have arrived through various channels, cannot be documented…” Timothy Cheek argues that the texts are likely to be authentic for two reasons. Firstly, because some of the texts that the CCRM received were previously published in mainland China in other editions. Secondly, because texts that appear in one volume received by the CCRM also appear in at least one other volume received by the CCRM. It is not obvious to me why these two facts provide strong evidence of the general authenticity of the texts.

http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward

Rafiq

22nd July 2011, 19:38

You know, the number of people killed dosnt really matter, beccause at the end, its the actions and the intention to do harm that really count.

40 million, 10 millions, 1 millions, it dosnt really matter, if you kill a bunch of innocent people intentionally you are a butcher anyway.

it dosnt only apply to china, every country on earth have blood on its hand, beccause well that what state does.

There were no intentional massacres commanded by Mao.

I don't like Mao, he's an asshole imo, but still.

Comintern1919

24th July 2011, 00:19

Well, I think, people saying Stalin and Mao didn't purposly killing innocents is like Nazis saying the Holocaust never happened. The Nazis say, the Holocaust never happened because the only sources are non-fascists. Stalinists say the two didn't killed those because the only sources are non-communists.

But we all know. the Holocaust DID happened, as proved by all the dead, and by all the jews who survived it, and we (should) know that Stalin and Mao DID kill innocents as there are also survivors. If communists as well as capitalist confirm the deaths, how can someone still refuse it? The only reason you refuse that all is 'cause they are communists. If they wouldn't have been communists, but capitalists, you'd be the first to blame them.

Don't tell me you really belive that nonsense, that those two weren't the least bit responsible for those murderers. If not directly, they KNEW of them, and didn't stop them. Which doesn't make it any better.

Anyone who kills innocents, and says he's a communist, lies, as real communists act FOR the people, never against them!

And about the cultural revolution: I consider that one of the biggest mistakes since the WW2, as so much of the beautiful chinese culture was lost, so many innocent people killed, so many forced to move, and Mao DID know of it, if he wasn't even the main force behind the cultural revolution.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for revolutions, but not like this. Not AGAINST, but FOR the people.

We should stop defending people just because they're communists. Communists are as much responsible for their actions as capitalists, fascists and all others.

Sir Comradical

24th July 2011, 01:28

The GLF:

Some scholars have used a very dubious method of arriving at grossly unrealistic and inflated ‘famine deaths’ during this period (1959–61) by taking account not only of the higher crude death rate (which is a legitimate measure) but also counting the ‘missing millions’ as a result of the lower birth rate, as part of the toll. There is a great deal of difference between people who are already there, dying prematurely due to a sharp decline in nutritional status, and people not being born at all. The former can enter the statistics of famine deaths according to any sensible definition of famine, but people who are not born at all are obviously in no position to die whether prematurely or otherwise.

- Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, Mobo Gao

Drosophila

24th July 2011, 03:32

Why do some of us look up to Mao? People in a modern day society would revolt on day one of his regime.

Hiero

25th July 2011, 12:25

scarletghoul

25th July 2011, 12:49

Yeah there's a reason i dont usually bother with these threads

Rafiq

25th July 2011, 15:58

Don't get me wrong, Stalin and Mao did kill people intentionally. But to say they systematically massacred people village to village, or intentionally brought famine is complete bullshit

Comintern1919

25th July 2011, 17:13

So you just ignore all posts preceding yours? cool..whatever.

Yeah there's a reason i dont usually bother with these threads

What? Why should I have to participate in the discusion before? I'm not part of that discusion, so I didn't wanted to participate. Also, the last post was 2 days old, so I thought it was over. Why can't I start my own? The question of this thread is, if Mao was guilty of crimes against humanity, and I did answer it with my opinion. Isn't that a general question, rather than a personal one? If the participants of the former discusion would go on, they just can ignore mine. If someone want to discuss with me, he can, and so create a new discusion. Isn't that the way a Forum works? Should I have to open my own thread, just to say my opinion on that exact matter? Isn't exactly that greatly disliked? That someone opens a new thread, even though there already is one of the topic? Isn't that why it is always said to use the search function? If you don't like my post, just ignore it. Shouldn't be that difficult.

Hiero

26th July 2011, 02:48

Yeah there's a reason i dont usually bother with these threads

It is a good reason why not to bother with revleft. I usually just post here to work through my own logic and read a few interesting points of view. I don't usually expect any meaningful or indepth conversation here, there are too many hysterical people.

Isn't that the way a Forum works?

No.

If you want to make a comment in a thread, you read the posts that come before. It was two pages, it would have taking the same amount to write the post to read the thread. If people did that, then there would be no discussion and no reason to have a forum.

If you are two lazy and can't even show the tiniest bit of respect to read a couple pages back then don't post in the thread, because the point you are about to make is probably going to be unimformed and unintelligent.

Libertador

26th July 2011, 04:06

As I understand it Mao placed the value of human capability over industrial capability. Why would he consciously choose to kill what in his mind would make China great?

Drosophila

26th July 2011, 05:58

As I understand it Mao placed the value of human capability over industrial capability. Why would he consciously choose to kill what in his mind would make China great?

A person can be trapped in a certain mindset. He may have thought what he was doing was right, but in reality there was much death occurring.

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 06:26

It is a good reason why not to bother with revleft. I usually just post here to work through my own logic and read a few interesting points of view. I don't usually expect any meaningful or indepth conversation here, there are too many hysterical people.

Oh, so YOU think my post wasn't meaningful? Indepth? So I'm "histerical" (despide it having a totally different meaning)? Because I started a new and valid discussion? Or just because it's not your opinion? Or is it because I'm a new member? I wonder, would you have criticesd me if I would have a higher reputation? Or if I would even be a commited user or a mod? I doubt it.

And if you usually don't bother with such threads, why do you read them? In fact, why are you on a Forum at all? Isn't it that most threads contain more than one discussion?

If you want to make a comment in a thread, you read the posts that come before. It was two pages, it would have taking the same amount to write the post to read the thread. If people did that, then there would be no discussion and no reason to have a forum.

Rather the Forum would be overloaded because of thousand of threads with the same question. "Do you think Mao is bad?" "Is Mao bad?" "What's your opinion of Mao?" "Was Mao a criminal?" "Your opinion on Mao." etc. You'd rather have me open yet another thread about the same question, about Mao, just because here is already a discussion? Just to start a new one?

Yeah, I'm sure, the mods would love that.

If you are two lazy and can't even show the tiniest bit of respect to read a couple pages back then don't post in the thread, because the point you are about to make is probably going to be unimformed and unintelligent.

I told you that I did read it, that's why it seemed to me it was over. If you can't see it, they didn't continued yet. So this thread should be closed for further discussions?
I mean, how else can I know if there discussion is over? Should I personaly ask them? Should I wait some weeks? And how else can you explain threads who are 10 pages and more long?

Besides the fact that the thread opener himself thanked my posts, so he doesn't seem to mind me starting a new discussion, huh?

As I understand it Mao placed the value of human capability over industrial capability. Why would he consciously choose to kill what in his mind would make China great?

See? Now I'm gonna answer him and may begin another discussion. Without the need of a new thread! It may get THE thread for discussions about Mao! Didn't many sticky threads begin like that? Isn't the begin of them often a totally different discussions as on the last page?

Anyway:

As I understand it Mao placed the value of human capability over industrial capability. Why would he consciously choose to kill what in his mind would make China great?

He's a politican. They always say how "much value" they playce on fairness, equality, and many other nice things. In reality, it's most of the time totally different.

Other Question: IF he placed so much value in it, why then didn't he at least stop it?
I wonder, has the one who's doing the evil things more fault, or the one who sees it but doesn't stop it? Even though he could?

If Mao didn't ordered it himself (I'm quite sure he did), he at least willingly let it continue. Which isn't better at all.

CommunityBeliever

26th July 2011, 06:51

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for revolutions, but not like this. Not AGAINST, but FOR the people.*sigh*

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 07:51

*sigh*

I can do the same! *sigh* what a very informativ critic... How about telling me what's wrong with my statement?

Hiero

26th July 2011, 11:31

Oh, so YOU think my post wasn't meaningful? Indepth? So I'm "histerical" (despide it having a totally different meaning)? Because I started a new and valid discussion? Or just because it's not your opinion? Or is it because I'm a new member? I wonder, would you have criticesd me if I would have a higher reputation? Or if I would even be a commited user or a mod? I doubt it.

And if you usually don't bother with such threads, why do you read them? In fact, why are you on a Forum at all? Isn't it that most threads contain more than one discussion?

Rather the Forum would be overloaded because of thousand of threads with the same question. "Do you think Mao is bad?" "Is Mao bad?" "What's your opinion of Mao?" "Was Mao a criminal?" "Your opinion on Mao." etc. You'd rather have me open yet another thread about the same question, about Mao, just because here is already a discussion? Just to start a new one?

Yeah, I'm sure, the mods would love that.

I told you that I did read it, that's why it seemed to me it was over. If you can't see it, they didn't continued yet. So this thread should be closed for further discussions?
I mean, how else can I know if there discussion is over? Should I personaly ask them? Should I wait some weeks? And how else can you explain threads who are 10 pages and more long?

Besides the fact that the thread opener himself thanked my posts, so he doesn't seem to mind me starting a new discussion, huh?

I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Forums do not follow the same flow as actualy conversation, there can be a few days between people replying. Your point had already been addressed in my post above, and that was about the complexity of the cultural revolution. It is not just "he ordered it!", it is about a whole series of conflicts and multiple sides in that conflict. You should address that point.

You made yourself look ignorant by not addressing what people had already said. You added nothing to the conversation, you didn't start anything new. My response would be to just repost my original response danyboy25, but that would be just for the sake of sequence. Do you require me to actually repost my response, do you have a problem with non-sequential information?

scarletghoul

26th July 2011, 12:04

Comintern1919 I like you because you have a Touhou avatar, but really, all hiero is saying is that you should read a thread before 'contributing' to it. Because that is the whole point of a written discussion, so that people learn from each other .. its not just a montage of 'say what you think about mao without reading what anyone else says '

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 12:13

I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Forums do not follow the same flow as actualy conversation, there can be a few days between people replying.

Exactly, they don't. You cant see the other person, you don't see if he's finished or not. So the only way to tell if the discussion is finished, is a. The participans write it (but almost none does this) or b. It was days ago the last post was written.

Your point had already been addressed in my post above, and that was about the complexity of the cultural revolution. It is not just "he ordered it!", it is about a whole series of conflicts and multiple sides in that conflict. You should address that point.

Why? I'm neither part of that discussion, nor have I anything to add, at least not in this particular discussion. You rather have me trolling instead? Or should one only be able to write if I quote someone? If so, many great and intelligent discussions wouldn't have been held.

You made yourself look ignorant by not addressing what people had already said. You added nothing to the conversation, you didn't start anything new.

Did I know? I'd really like to hear what other think. And no, I didn't add something, as I didn't wanted to. And I don't know if I started something new, only time could tell if someone want to discuss it with me.

My response would be to just repost my original response danyboy25, but that would be just for the sake of sequence. Do you require me to actually repost my response, do you have a problem with non-sequential information?

Why? I didn't wanted to response to him. The only thing I could have written was "Yes, I agree with you", then I would have written the same I did.

Do you have a problem with just tolerating my post, or is it that you just use it as an excuse not to answer me? (Sorry, I don't want to attack you, it just seems conviniend that the two who critice me for this, seem to be Maoists, or at least fond of him)

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 12:18

Comintern1919 I like you because you have a Touhou avatar [...]

Thanks ^_^. To be exactly, Touhou (Cirno) and Azumanga Daioh (Osaka) ^_^. Though that shouldn't be the only reason you like someone.

[...] but really, all hiero is saying is that you should read a thread before 'contributing' to it. Because that is the whole point of a written discussion, so that people learn from each other .. its not just a montage of 'say what you think about mao without reading what anyone else says '

Don't get me wrong. I DO understand what you all mean, it's just that I THOUGHT it was over, but still wanted to write my opinion on that matter. If it wasn't over, sorry, but that shouldn't mean my post is useless or something like that. It's just that one thread rarely contains only one discussion. And yes, I want to learn from others, that's why I did read the posts before me. And that's why I thought it was over, that I couldn't add something useful to it, and decided to try and start a new discussion. Again, I'm deeply sorry if it wasn't, but they still didn't continued, so it seems I was right. If I would have known it wasn't over, I wouldn't have written what I did.

ComradeMan

26th July 2011, 12:41

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Chill out guys.... can we just kind of stay a little bit on topic here?

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 13:06

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Chill out guys.... can we just kind of stay a little bit on topic here?

Yeah, I'm deeply sorry, I already thought of writing that I don't want to discuss it anymore, at least not here. But I think you can understand me if I don't want that to stick on me.

But I agree, we really should go back to topic. Though I still would like to hear the opinion of some others.

scarletghoul

26th July 2011, 15:27

Yes I love Azumanga too but Touhou is imo the best game series of all time, and Cirno is awesome. (9)

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 18:02

Yes I love Azumanga too but Touhou is imo the best game series of all time, and Cirno is awesome. (9)

Okay, now that is too much Off-Topic, here we have to stop. If you want, write me a pm, but not here.

C'mon, no more opinion? Not to my discussion, but about Mao! Use my first post as a start, if you want.

CommunityBeliever

26th July 2011, 18:02

I can do the same! *sigh* what a very informativ critic... How about telling me what's wrong with my statement?

I really don't want to address your nonsense because you apparently are totally ignorant about Maoism and about basically everything else written in this thread.

The Nazis say, the Holocaust never happened because the only sources are non-fascists. Stalinists say the two didn't killed those because the only sources are non-communists. All arguments against drinking come from non-drunks, therefore we should all be alcoholics!

If communists as well as capitalist confirm the deaths, how can someone still refuse it?It doesn't matter who is bringing about the claim comrade. What you need is actual evidence not appeals to authority.

Do you have any actual evidence of innocents being killed?

Stalin and Mao DID kill innocentsInnocent people die all the time of various causes (famine, natural disasters, diseases, old age etc), but it is only Stalin and Mao who get instant credit for their deaths.

Don't tell me you really belive that nonsense, that those two weren't the least bit responsible for those murderers.Let me quote what I said in the part of the thread you skipped over:

The high point of communism was around 1949-1953 when Stalin and Mao were around and the Soviet Union had just developed its first nuclear weapon.

So at that time the bourgeoisie, especially in the U.S, made up all this bullshit about how Stalin and Mao were horrible dictators who killed ~100 million people.

So yes I do believe that they were not murderers. The reason Stalin and Mao are both criticised is that when they were both around the imperialists had a serious threat to their power so they made up all this anti-communist nonsense that you are now spouting, for example they blame Stalin and Mao for ever death that happened in their countries even if they had nothing to do with it.

And about the cultural revolution: I consider that one of the biggest mistakes since the WW2I doubt you know much about the cultural revolution.

beautiful chinese cultureAh yes the *beautiful* Chinese culture:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1202/695789688_48f7778660.jpg

We should stop defending people just because they're communists.I think Mao would agree with you on that. You ever heard of the Sino-Soviet split (http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sino-soviet-split/index.htm)?

CHE with an AK

26th July 2011, 20:16

China's Population

(1949) when Mao took over ~ 550 million

(1976) when Mao died ~ 900 million

... famine and mass murder must do wonders for population growth.

CHE with an AK

26th July 2011, 20:16

...

"During the years when Mao was china’s 'great helmsman', change of many sorts came to china. These include improvements in public health, health care, and the distribution of food, all of which helped to raise life expectancy to age sixty-seven for men and age sixty-nine for women ... China’s socialist system concentrated on bringing benefits to everyone in the population in an equitable fashion. It deserves credit for the doubling of the proportion of the population in school, the provision of housing for everyone, and the abolition of unemployment and inflation."

— The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 2010

ComradeMan

26th July 2011, 20:21

China's Population

(1949) when Mao took over ~ 550 million

(1976) when Mao died ~ 900 million

... famine and mass murder must do wonders for population growth.

Yeah that shows a total lack of understanding of mathematics and demographics... well done. :thumbup1:

All this talk of not being able to make omelettes without breaking eggs is fine... as long as you're not one of the eggs. ;)

agnixie

26th July 2011, 20:29

China's Population

(1949) when Mao took over ~ 550 million

(1976) when Mao died ~ 900 million

... famine and mass murder must do wonders for population growth.

Clearly, by your account, there was never a famine in Ethiopia.

CHE with an AK

26th July 2011, 20:33

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_z3zLnwZeL3o/SOnIFqpzedI/AAAAAAAAAUs/bkfkJK2XSPs/s400/Mao.png

- Revolutionary

- Military strategist

- Poet

-Political philosopher

- Intellectual

- Commanded parts of the heroic "Long March"

- Lead the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War

- Defeated an assortment of powerful regional and ethnic warlords in the process of unifying China

- Enacted sweeping land reform

- Overthrew feudal landlords and seized their large estates, before dividing the land up among the common people who worked it

- Laid the economic, technological and cultural foundations of modern China

- Put an end to China's rampant Western-driven opium addiction

- Eliminated unemployment and inflation

- Doubled the school population

- Increased life expectancy and doubled overall population

- Transformed the country from an underdeveloped peasant-based agrarian society into a major industrialized world power

:star3: :star3: :star3: :star3: :star3:

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 20:35

I really don't want to address your nonsense because you apparently are totally ignorant about Maoism and about basically everything else written in this thread.

Well, if you don't adress my "nonsense", how should I defend myself? And I'm not ignorant about what was written before, but I won't further discuss that, as I already have it enough, and would please you not to do it, too.

All arguments against drinking come from non-drunks, therefore we should all be alcoholics!

You misunderstood me. It's just that people like you don't listen to anything that isn't socialist or communist. Everything you don't agree with, is either capitalist or imperialist propaganda. But not all are pro-capitalism. And you think communism propaganda is so much more thrustworthy? Why? So communists never lie, while non-communist always lie?

It doesn't matter who is bringing about the claim comrade. What you need is actual evidence not appeals to authority.

Exactly. However, if there is a claim, you should investigate it, instead of almost instantly dismissing it as rubbish.

Do you have any actual evidence of innocents being killed?

No. Do you have some of him not being responsible? Evidence that he didn't knew of those innocents being killed? Sure you can't say he's responsible for all that's being claimed, but from so much, coming from so many different sources, capitalists as well as some communists, there must be something true about it. If not, that's fine, but as long as there is no proof that he didn't do such, I won't consider him innocent.

Innocent people die all the time of various causes (famine, natural disasters, diseases, old age etc), but it is only Stalin and Mao who get instant credit for their deaths.

No, such deaths are caused by their "revolution in one country" theory. Which I consider as false and bad, as seen with the famines of other socialist countries after the fall of the USSR.

Those deaths I speak about are the people who got executed by them. Often for nothing more then saying their opinion.

Let me quote what I said in the part of the thread you skipped over:

The high point of communism was around 1949-1953 when Stalin and Mao were around and the Soviet Union had just developed its first nuclear weapon.

So at that time the bourgeoisie, especially in the U.S, made up all this bullshit about how Stalin and Mao were horrible dictators who killed ~100 million people.

So yes I do believe that they were not murderers. The reason Stalin and Mao are both criticised is that when they were both around the imperialists had a serious threat to their power so they made up all this anti-communist nonsense that you are now spouting, for example they blame Stalin and Mao for ever death that happened in their countries even if they had nothing to do with it.

Again, you say that all that claims such, are capitalists and imperialists. All. But I can't believe that from the thousands of sources, there is none that isn't western propaganda. Maybe most, but certanly not all.

I doubt you know much about the cultural revolution.

Why? Can you look into my brain? And you know so much more? Just because I don't share your opinion, doesn't mean I don't know anything about that topic. That's quite arrogant and intolerant to claim that.

Ah yes the *beautiful* Chinese culture

Of course, typical for intolerant people, out of the many great, beautiful and nice things, you choose to show only the worst, to show me how "bad" the cultur is. You know whose tactic is the same? The fascists and capitalists. Don't you agree that them showing only the worst part of communism (USSR, North Korea etc.), is very annoying and silly? And yet you do the same.

I agree that this thing with the feet is absolutly disgusting, but that doesn't mean it's like this always, everywhere in China. What's about the great wall? The buddhist, confucist and daoist religion? The works of the many chinese philosophs. Chinese Music, chinese clothes, chinese food (and no, they don't just eat dogs!), chinese games (Go), chinese architectur, chinese boats, I could go on like this for quite a time. You want to dismiss all this just because of one or two disgusting traditions? If so, you'd also condemn Africans, all other asians, even some europeans, as all those cultures have such bad things. That pretty sounds like a Nazi to me. (I'm really Sorry, don't want to attack you this way, it just seems to me this way).

And the cultural revolution destroyed so much of it, it discriminated the minority, it destroyed century-old artifacts and scriptures, just because it "seemed" to be anti-revolutionary by the follower of Mao. Mao may not be directly responsible for all of it, but part of it, he started it and didn't stoped it in any way when it began to go out of control.

And most communist, at least those that are not Maoists (which are quite much), condemn it, too.

I think Mao would agree with you on that. You ever heard of the Sino-Soviet split?

Of course I did. That doesn't mean he's better. He may just have done it to get more independend, more powerful.

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 20:46

China's Population

(1949) when Mao took over ~ 550 million

(1976) when Mao died ~ 900 million

... famine and mass murder must do wonders for population growth.

Sure, 'cause populations doesn't grow over time, huh. Because the 20th century isn't famous for it's giantic population growth all over the World.

Just look at the US population from 1950 and 1980:

1950: 150.7 Million
1980: 226.5 Million

And don't forget: The more population your country has, the faster it will grow. Shouldn't be too difficult mathematics, right?

CommunityBeliever

26th July 2011, 20:49

And the cultural revolution destroyed so much of it

And here is why I think you don't know much about the cultural revolution. It was not about destroying all of Chinese culture, but rather it was about destroying superstitious or feudal practices like foot-binding. It helped lay the foundation for the "red culture" in China today.

Again, you say that all that claims such, are capitalists and imperialists. All.I asserted the existence of lies at the hands of imperialists I didn't state that all of their claims are lies.

Do you have some of him not being responsible?No. Its called innocent before proven guilty. Look it up.

No, such deaths are caused by their "revolution in one country" theory. Which I consider as false and bad, as seen with the famines of other socialist countries after the fall of the USSR.

Those deaths I speak about are the people who got executed by them. Often for nothing more then saying their opinion.This is what I am talking about. I am not going to explain the last 140 years of revolutionary experience to you here.

ComradeMan

26th July 2011, 20:49

Just look at the US population from 1950 and 1980:

1950: 150.7 Million
1980: 226.5 Million

Damn those pinkos---- capitalism must be the way forward! ;):lol:

You know, under apartheid in South Africa the black population grew too...

What ridiculous reasoning- especially when people are reduced to statistics!

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 20:52

Damn those pinkos---- capitalism must be the way forward! ;):lol:

You know, under apartheid in South Africa the black population grew too...

What ridiculous reasoning- especially when people are reduced to statistics!

Yeah, wasn't it Stalin who said: "One death is a tragedy, a million death is a statistic". (know probably come the I-know-all-people and scream at me, that he didn't said this, and that's just western propaganda...)

ComradeMan

26th July 2011, 20:57

Yeah, wasn't it Stalin who said: "One death is a tragedy, a million death is a statistic". (know probably come the I-know-all-people and scream at me, that he didn't said this, and that's just western propaganda...)
It probably wasn't Stalin, I found this:-

"This quotation probably was originated from «Französischer Witz (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/de:Franz%C3%B6sischer_Witz)» by Kurt Tucholsky (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Tucholsky) (1932): «Darauf sagt ein Diplomat vom Quai d’Orsay: «Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!»» («At wich a diplomat from France replies: «The war? I can't find it too terrible! The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!»»"
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

But the saying is true enough.

I prefer this:-
(John Donne)

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

CommunityBeliever

26th July 2011, 20:57

But I can't believe that from the thousands of sourcesLet me know when you are willing to show one of your thousand sources.

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 21:10

And here is why I think you don't know much about the cultural revolution. It was not about destroying all of Chinese culture, but rather it was about destroying superstitious or feudal practices like foot-binding. It helped lay the foundation for the "red culture" in China today.

Yeah, it may have been the goal, but that doesn't mean they tried to reach that goal. They may have done it, but along the way didn't just destroyed such "feudal" practices, but also so much good you can't redone, and terrorized the people, that it is, for me at least, unforgivable.

I asserted the existence of lies at the hands of imperialists I didn't state that everything about them was lies.

Yeah, and still you tell me that all of the statements, which states that Stalin did killed those people, are western propaganda.

No. Its called innocent before proven guilty. Look it up.

I know that term, you again seem to think I'm silly.

But wouldn't you agree that you shouldn't stop investigating a murderer, who most people agree is the murdere, just because there's no immediallity proof? That's one of the reasons the current Law System sucks. While most real criminals get away because there is no proof, the not guilty or small offender will be jailed for years just because of the smallest evidence.

This is what I am talking about. I am not going to explain the last 140 years of revolutionary experience to you here.

You don't need to. You can't deny the collapse of the economies of at least the smaller socialist states after the collapse of the USSR. And China's even worse, it became as much a state capitalism as the USSR. And as much as I have seen, many other communists agree that this theory didn't worked.

I am basically done discussing this with you.

Well, thank you for not trying to make me a bit more educatet (sarcasm). If you don't want to discuss with me further, how should I ever see your point? The only thing your'e doing with this is that I see you as yet another intolerant, ignorant Stalinist/Maoist.

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 21:19

It probably wasn't Stalin, I found this:-

"This quotation probably was originated from «Französischer Witz» by Kurt Tucholsky (1932): «Darauf sagt ein Diplomat vom Quai d’Orsay: «Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!»» («At wich a diplomat from France replies: «The war? I can't find it too terrible! The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!»»"

But the saying is true enough.

Well, I kinda thought it wasn't, but I think it fits in Stalins general mindset.

And yeah, though for the imperialist and capitalists, like the USA and USSR, even one death isn't more than a little number on their notice board.

I prefer this:-
(John Donne)

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Well, for me as an non-english it's quite difficult to understand, I have to admit. I'm actually german, so it wasn't necessary to also post the translates of your first quote ^_^. I mean, of course it's good for the non-germans.

As much as I understand, it means that every death hurts him, right?

CommunityBeliever

26th July 2011, 21:24

how should I ever see your point?Your talking style is incredibly confrontational when you talk about things like killing innocents, terrorizing the population, murdering, when you use strong adjectives like unforgivable, beautiful, etc. Please stop being so dramatic about this.

You also say that all were doing is using communist propaganda and denying everyone else's claims as capitalist propaganda. We have listed out his actual accomplishments (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2185568&postcount=61) so stop with the appeals to authority. It is irrelevant who makes the claim.

You also demonstrate an ignorance of the history of revolution, especially in China and basic concepts like innocent until proven guilty.

So if you want to have a civilised discussion free of all of these subjective value judgements, personal attacks and appeals to authority then I am all for that.

Are you deliberately trolling or trying to cause a tendency war here?

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 21:56

Your talking style is incredibly confrontational when you talk about things like killing innocents, terrorizing the population, murdering, when you use strong adjectives like unforgivable, beautiful, etc. Please stop being so dramatic about this.

Then I'm sorry. But I can't correct it if you don't tell me this. In a discussing, your'e opponent is like a mirror, like a broken mirror if he doesn't tell you your mkistakes.

However, I'm not being "dramatic" over it. People who didn't do anything but say their opinions are innocent, destroying books, artifacts etc. of the people, and sending intellectuals against their will to work on a farm like a slave is terror, killing innocents is murder, for me it's unforgivable, for me it's beautiful. I'm just telling you my opinion. But a Maoist isn't for free speech anyway, right?

You also say that all were doing is using communist propaganda and denying everyone else's claims as capitalist propaganda. We have listed out his actual accomplishments so stop with the appeals to authority. It is irrelevant who makes the claim.

Exactly, it is. So we have to see communist sources as well as capitalist sources in a neutral light. And many of them claim that Stalin DID kill innocents.

You also show a blatant ignorance of the history of revolution, especially in China and basic concepts like innocent until proven guilty.

Well, if you find me ignorant for seeing China as a state capitalism, you at least call 50% of the communist community ignorant, as most, or at least many, Non-Maoists and Non-Stalinists agree on that.

And I think, someone who loves justice can at least partly, if only a little bit, understand my point, even if he doesn't completly agree with me, that criminals without proof aren't necesary innocents.

So if you want to have a civilised discussion free of all of these subjective value judgements and free of all these appeals to authority I am all for that.

Well, if it would be free of all subjectivities, it wouldn't bring us any further. But maybe our understanding of subjectiv is different. What exactly would one of these subjectiv judgements be, and how can we discuss about it objectiv? Wouldn't that mean, that I couldn't say my opinion? That isn't really the goal of a Forum, now is it.

Are you deliberately trolling or trying to cause a tendency war here?

So, because I'm not your opinion, and am defending my opinions, I'm trolling? Aren't rather you trolling with telling me that I am trolling just for discussing things with you and not agreeing to your points?

And no, I'm not trying to cause one. However, with that question, it's only natural to cause much dislike from the Maoists. While Maoists will defend their beloved Mao, the others will point out the Mistakes he did. So fights are unavoidably.

CommunityBeliever

26th July 2011, 22:14

And many of them claim that Stalin DID kill innocents.The claim that Stalin killed an innocent is subjective, can't you just say he killed a person? It would much less confrontational.

telling me that I am trolling
Well, if you find me ignorant for seeing China as a state capitalismYou are misinterpreting my words again. I never really said that.

And I think, someone who loves justice can at least partly, if only a little bit, understand my point, even if he doesn't completly agree with me, that criminals without proof aren't necesary innocents. In a capitalist society, most can buy some "proof-disapearence".The point is until evidence is provided we can't make a judgement either way.

What exactly would one of these subjectiv judgements be, and how can we discuss about the objectiv?In an objective discussion you would refrain from dramatic or confrontational claims and just stick to the facts.

the other one will point out the Mistakes he didOkay, feel free to point out Mao's mistakes, but please don't present a confrontational claim again like he terrorised the population, do you have any sources and can you go into any detail?

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 22:39

The claim that Stalin killed an innocent is subjective, can't you just say he killed a person? It would much less confrontational.

But then it wouldn't be correct. He DID killed people, I think that's nothing to dispute. That he executed anti-revolutionaries is understantable, I'd do the same, and that's necessary for a revolution to suceed. The question is, if he killed those countless innocents, the farmers because they may not be so productiv, and intellectuals because they might be a danger.

You are misinterpreting my words again. I never really said that.

Oh, well, then I'm sorry. Would you mind then telling me how you meant it?

The point is until evidence is provided we can't make a judgement either way.

Exactly that's what I'm talking about. It seems at least we can agree about that, you think he didn't killed those, and I think he did. Neither one of us can ever say for 100% sure, as we weren't there when it happend. But we should try to find the most probablity answer for it.

In an objective discussion you would refrain from dramatic or confrontational claims and just stick to the facts.

Well, I admit that I could have seperated my opinion and my facts a bit more. But if you say how bad the chinese culture is, while my opinion is that chinese cultur is beautiful, I tell you this.

Okay, feel free to point out Mao's mistakes, but please don't present a confrontational claim again like he terrorised the population, do you have any sources and can you go into any detail?

I know I heard it quite often. I promise you to look for these tomorrow, if you don't mind (in germany it's almost midnight).

But I admit, and promise, when I can't find any sources, I will not claim it anymore until I do find some.

CommunityBeliever

26th July 2011, 22:47

Oh, well, then I'm sorry. Would you mind then telling me how you meant it?
But if you say how bad the chinese culture is, while my opinion is that chinese cultur is beautiful, I tell you this.I am not going to explain everything to you more then once. For example, I never once claimed Chinese culture was "bad."

However, I question your subjective judgement of it as "beautiful", because I doubt you think foot-binding for example is beautiful.

I know I heard it quite often. I promise you to look for these tomorrow, if you don't mind (in germany it's almost midnight).Okay.

Comintern1919

26th July 2011, 22:52

I am not going to explain everything to you more then once. For example, I never once claimed Chinese culture was "bad."

However, I question your subjective judgement of it as "beautiful", because I doubt you think foot-binding for example is beautiful.

No, of course not. But you tried, or at least it seemed like you would, to simplify it by taking one bad tradition and conclude, that's the reason chinese culture isn't worth saving.

But it doesn't make much sense to discuss any further until I found, or found not, the sources. 'Till tomorow then.

Drosophila

27th July 2011, 02:49

- Revolutionary

- Military strategist

- Poet

-Political philosopher

- Intellectual

- Commanded parts of the heroic "Long March"

- Lead the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War

- Defeated an assortment of powerful regional and ethnic warlords in the process of unifying China

- Enacted sweeping land reform

- Overthrew feudal landlords and seized their large estates, before dividing the land up among the common people who worked it

- Laid the economic, technological and cultural foundations of modern China

- Put an end to China's rampant Western-driven opium addiction

- Eliminated unemployment and inflation

- Doubled the school population

- Increased life expectancy and doubled overall population

- Transformed the country from an underdeveloped peasant-based agrarian society into a major industrialized world power

:star3: :star3: :star3: :star3: :star3:

Please, do spare me the horseshit. Mao Zedong was a tyrant who wanted complete control over everyone's lives. Everything was under his party's control, including every aspect of Chinese culture. Kids were brainwashed by the party's teachings. He was an egocentric maniac.

Flying Trotsky

27th July 2011, 02:54

A lot of people have already commented, so I'll just try to keep my answer quick.

In spite of all that he did for China, Mao was guilty of various crimes. He was a dictator, and none one's a dictator without some blood on their hands. That said, Mao was in no way, shape, or form responsible for the number of deaths people usually attribute to him- famines are famines, and there's nothing you can do about that.

Hiero

27th July 2011, 04:08

Please, do spare me the horseshit. Mao Zedong was a tyrant who wanted complete control over everyone's lives. Everything was under his party's control, including every aspect of Chinese culture. Kids were brainwashed by the party's teachings. He was an egocentric maniac.

Here is my post a few pages back.

This is the problem of the typical Western analysis of the cultural revolution, the emphasize is on leaders over people and dichotomize sections into into good and bad. Hence you have made the mistake of Mao and CCP against "..." you don't acttually say who the victims were, because you have no idea.

Anyway the basics. The cultural revolution was a social phenonoman with multuple factions. Some CCP members supported different factions. In Mobo Gao's books The Battle For China's Past he distinguishes between Red Guards and Rebels, the former are groups of militant students linked with prominent rightest CCP members and the later militant students supporting the Mao orientated CCP members. The cultural revolution was instigated by Mao and carried out by the Rebels, the Red Gaurds were formed to defend thoose being targeted by the Rebels. There were lots of interplay, for instance you claim that the CCP directed the Red Guards against whoever (you did not state who the victims were)., when infact Mao's slogan was "Bombard the Headquarters". Prominent targets of the Rebels were CCP members and the Red Guards defended them. Such people included Deng Xiaoping who began the liberalisation of the Chinese economy (a designated capitalist roader). At times during the conflict, some CCP memebrs were able to call in the army to stop the Rebels and remove them from cities or regions.

You have completely under estimated how factionalised the CCP, the Red Army, the student movement and Chinese society overall was and condense these multiple conflicts and groups of actors into Mao/CCP verse everyone else, which is a typical Orientalist logic. The Chinese masses are slaves, victims and Mao/CCP the master. It is the typical head/body dialectic of the West applied to the social world.

I would encourage you to read Mobo Goa's book.

The cultural revolution was very complex, that is all that really has to be said.

The question has to be asked, what does it mean to be innocent, a victim, and perpetrator? Who were the rebels, the red gaurds, the army and what were there roles during the cultural revolution? Who were Mao, Lin Biao, the gange of four, Choue Enlai and Chen Boda? What did they say, what did they stand for and what were their dissagreements? Who were, Liu Shaoqi, Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping? What did they stand for?

These are complex questions. Without addressing them you reduce your argument to an Orientalism where the Chinese are just stupid slaves under one tyrant who willing destroyed their own culture because Mao wanted control.

CommunityBeliever

27th July 2011, 04:16

Yeah there's a reason i dont usually bother with these threads

I now understand what you mean. There is only so much one can put up with discussing things with people whose only knowledge of revolution is derived from capitalist propaganda, so it is best to stay away from these threads I think.

Hiero

27th July 2011, 04:35

I now understand what you mean. There is only so much one can put up with discussing things with people whose only knowledge of revolution is derived from capitalist propaganda, so it is best to stay away from these threads I think.

Well it would just be good to actually have a proper discussion. So far people have said "the cultural revolution was bad" "Mao killed million innocents", the question remains, what is the cultural revolution? Why did it happen? Who was involved? And no one with the above mentioned opinion wants to anwser thoose questions.

Dan74 really showed his ignorance when he said the party brainwashed kids, the party was the major target of the cultural revolution!

Drosophila

27th July 2011, 05:24

Well it would just be good to actually have a proper discussion. So far people have said "the cultural revolution was bad" "Mao killed million innocents", the question remains, what is the cultural revolution? Why did it happen? Who was involved? And no one with the above mentioned opinion wants to anwser thoose questions.

Dan74 really showed his ignorance when he said the party brainwashed kids, the party was the major target of the cultural revolution!

It can't be called a cultural "revolution" if the culture was forced upon the people.

Whether or not it was the party that did it, the people were brainwashed by Mao's government.

Hiero

27th July 2011, 06:21

It can't be called a cultural "revolution" if the culture was forced upon the people.

Whether or not it was the party that did it, the people were brainwashed by Mao's government.

And what does any of this mean?

Robocommie

27th July 2011, 06:37

Comintern1919

27th July 2011, 08:15

I now understand what you mean. There is only so much one can put up with discussing things with people whose only knowledge of revolution is derived from capitalist propaganda, so it is best to stay away from these threads I think.

Did I ever give you the expression I'm not willing to accept your statements? I promised you I will look for evidence, and I did it. And I must admit, that the only sources I found which aren't dubious state that Mao wasn't responsible for much of these, and that he helped China. However, I will still always be critical of Mao, as I still think he was kind of a dictator. After all, you don't deny he did start the cultural revolution, which I still consider a great mistake. But I will admit that he didn't killed as many as claimed. See, your discussion made me rethink, if only a bit. That's one of the goals of a discussion, right?

One good articel I found is this one : monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward
Are there maybe books or something like that you can recommend me?

But I can't help but wonder, why your on a forum, if you don't want to discuss things with people who aren't your opinion, and/or doesn't have that much knowledge on a topic. Then there are surely Maoists-only forums, maybe there you feel more comfortable. There all share the same opinion. It would be b

And if the intentions were pure?

No. The end doesn't justify the means. How can we say we want freedom, equality, and justice for all humans, if we do the same? If we do the same fascists and capitalists do? Killing innocents doesn't do anything besides making people, who are the fundament of communism, hate communism.

RGacky3

27th July 2011, 08:40

And if the intentions were pure?

Most tyrants have pure intentions (in their eyes). It does'nt matter.

And what does any of this mean?

It means it top down cultural engineering, not an actual cultural revolution.

the party was the major target of the cultural revolution!

Maos enemies in the party yes.

Hiero

27th July 2011, 09:15

It means it top down cultural engineering, not an actual cultural revolution.

And how did this occur in the cultural revolution? What is "cultural engineering"? These are just abstract statements, where is the empirical evidence?

How can it be top down when the participants were students and the targets were highly influential.

Maos enemies in the party yes.

Yes, and that contradicts his statements that the party engineered.

It was at a Party congress that it was decided to officially shut down the cultural revolution and condemn the Cultural Revolution.

ComradeMan

27th July 2011, 11:52

I think this 1957 quote by Mao after his Soviet trip sums up a bit of Mao's almost machiavellian cynicism:-

"If the worse came to the worst and half of mankind died, the other half would remain, while imperialism would be razed to the ground, and the whole world would become socialist: in a number of years there would be 2.7 billion people again and definitely more."

The Cultural Revolution was a direct result of Mao's allegations that the bourgeoisie were trying to undermine the revolution. The documents that launched the Cultural Revolution of May 1966 were prepared under Mao's personal supervision.
See: MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006 pp.39-40

There is also of course the whole issue of the Hundred Flowers Campaign of the 1950s too.... critique was solicitied "freely" and then after a few months the critics were hunted down and persecuted. ;)

RGacky3

27th July 2011, 11:55

And how did this occur in the cultural revolution? What is "cultural engineering"? These are just abstract statements, where is the empirical evidence?

Cultural engineering is trying, through public policies, or through coercion, to change the culture of a nation.
It occured in the cultural revolution, through violence and public policy.

How can it be top down when the participants were students and the targets were highly influential.

Because these were followers of Mao.

Apoi_Viitor

27th July 2011, 15:41

Because these were followers of Mao.

So, is Marx responsible for the Bolshevik revolution?

mosfeld

27th July 2011, 19:57

Violence during the GPCR is greatly exaggerated. The Cultural Revolution Group (CRG) did not condone and discouraged violence, and a minority of rebels participated in violent acts.

ComradeMan

27th July 2011, 20:10

Violence during the GPCR is greatly exaggerated. The Cultural Revolution Group (CRG) did not condone and discouraged violence, and a minority of rebels participated in violent acts.

Usual Maoist apologist unsourced statement that works on the premise of "they're all lying and exaggerating" yet at the time cannot refute the facts. :rolleyes:

Next he'll tell us that the Sendero Luminoso are progressive and Pol Pot was misunderstood....

RGacky3

27th July 2011, 21:35

So, is Marx responsible for the Bolshevik revolution?

No Because marx was'nt around at the time, nor was he the major leader of the revolution.

mosfeld

27th July 2011, 22:23

Usual Maoist apologist unsourced statement that works on the premise of "they're all lying and exaggerating" yet at the time cannot refute the facts. :rolleyes:

ok

"You only hear about the terrible violence done by the Red Guards, that in that generation of young people, everyone was Red Guards. No! Statistically, the Red Guards were a small minority of my generation. I never joined the Red Guards. Many of us didn’t. We were called “Xiao Yao Pai.” We didn’t like violence, we didn’t like all those struggles, we just dropped out. We didn’t participate in violence, we didn’t do any of those things. We would just go home, doing whatever we wanted to do.

"The representation of the Red Guards (...) is of them smashing things, beating people. Yes, many Red Guards did that, but I am afraid that may not be the majority."

Interview with Wang Zheng (http://www.rwor.org/a/059/some-of-us-en.html) (editor of "Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up in the Mao Era")

Lots of the violence during the GPCR were also from rightist "red guards", such as the United Action Committee which was composed of the children of rightist Party officials (the target of the GPCR).

What's generally ignored about the GPCR is also it's constructive period, when things generally "cooled down" after 1969.

"All the documentary evidence (...) suggests that the initial intention of the Cultural Revolution by Mao, the Chairman of the CCP, was to teach an ideological lesson to the officials within the CCP. Emotional humiliation was intended, but physical violence was not. While the Cultural Revolution radicals wanted to stir up more movements for change, the pre-Cultural Revolution establishment wanted to maintain the status quo. As Mao’s plan of regenerating the CCP unfolded, new developments emerged and unforeseen violence of one kind led to another. If anything the CCP under the leadership of Mao, and chiefly managed by Zhou Enlai, tried hard to control violence. Eventually the army had to be brought in to maintain order. By 1969, a little more than two years after the start of the Cultural Revolution the political situation was brought under control and China’s economic growth was back on track."
(Mobo Gao, "The Battle for China's Past" p. 19)

The Cultural Revolution Group, with, as far as I know, only the notable exception of Chen Boda, did not condone violence and discouraged physical struggle.

"Struggle by force can only touch the skin and flesh, while struggle by reasoning things out can touch them to their very souls."
(Jiang Qing, quoted in "Literature and Art Workers Hold Rally for Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1966/PR1966-50b.htm)")

ComradeMan

27th July 2011, 22:32

"The representation of the Red Guards (...) is of them smashing things, beating people. Yes, many Red Guards did that, but I am afraid that may not be the majority."

The SS-Totenkopfverbände were not the majority of the German armed forces... so what?

None of your quotes and anecdotal material actually refute the figures for the dead.

Mao's 1st Speech to Party Congress 17th May, 1958:

"He (Qin Shi Huang the first emperor of China) only buried alive 460 scholars, while we buried 46,000. In our suppression of the counterrevolutionaries, did we not kill some counterrevolutionary intellectuals? I once debated with the democratic people: You accuse us of acting like Qin Shi Huang, but you are wrong; we surpass him 100 times".

Os Cangaceiros

28th July 2011, 00:03

*shrug* it doesn't matter to me whether Mao "killed" 10,000,000 people, or 1,000,000 people, or even a thousand. Or even one. His policies are more than enough for me to question his legacy. Like his hobnobbing with Kissinger or sending his best regards to Mobuto Sese Seko (from one "great helmsman" to another), the same guy who, as is frequently brought up, was praised by the likes of Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush as a great ally and partner. This all supposedly happened in the era of the old and dementia-addled Mao, though, not the razor-sharp theoretician who graced the world with so much folksy Chinese populism mixed with his own "unique" understanding of Marxism & communism.

Mao laid out the groundwork for the China of today, just as Stalin and the careerist bureaucracy he helped create laid the groundwork for the USSR well into the rest of the Cold War. Saying that the Dengs of China today are some kind of perverse, hideous deviation of Mao's intentions that somehow sprang out of nowhere is just so dishonest. Yes, the Cultural Revolution happened, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the Red Army was called in as soon as "ultraleft deviation" had to be combatted due to over-exuberant participants, perhaps those who wanted a real revolution and not just a cleaning house of the bureaucracy/party.

That along with the class collaboration, the weirdo mythology that ultimately became Maoism proper, the fetishism of violence (although to be fair I don't know how much of that can be blamed on Mao), etc.

Drosophila

28th July 2011, 00:43

And what does any of this mean?

It means that Mao used his power to make his people see him as a god. No dissent allowed at all.

Hiero

28th July 2011, 09:15

It means that Mao used his power to make his people see him as a god. No dissent allowed at all.

That is basically racist.

The SS-Totenkopfverbände were not the majority of the German armed forces... so what?So, your comparison is shit. The SS were not fighting the different factions of the German armed forces.

That is why I am starting to call you all a bunch of racist, because you can not compherend a fractured China. There is just Mao and the idiot Chinese mass bashing each other up.

I am highly critical of the Cultural revolution, you guys are just a bunch of racists.

RGacky3

28th July 2011, 09:39

That is basically racist.

How the hell is that racist? Where was race even mention or implied, other than by you.

That is why I am starting to call you all a bunch of racist, because you can not compherend a fractured China. There is just Mao and the idiot Chinese mass bashing each other up.

I am highly critical of the Cultural revolution, you guys are just a bunch of racists.

Thats not what any of us said, nor any of us implied, but now its clear your running out of defenses.

Hiero

28th July 2011, 09:44

How the hell is that racist? Where was race even mention or implied, other than by you.

It means that Mao used his power to make his people see him as a god.It is the typically orientalist analysis of Asiatic peoples. Dumb, mindless, accepting leaders as god. It is the same old shit.

ComradeMan

28th July 2011, 09:57

It is the typically orientalist analysis of Asiatic peoples. Dumb, mindless, accepting leaders as god. It is the same old shit.

Nonsense. The personality cult of Mao is well-known. The giant images of Mao towering above Chinese monuments, landscapes or the people with the sun rising behind him or rays of sunlight emanating from him.

Check out this picture and the site with Mao posters-

http://chineseposters.net/posters/e13-549.php

"Respectfully wish Chairman Mao eternal life" (1968)

Here's one you posted yourself for the Maoist Group

http://www.revleft.org/vb/album.php?albumid=220&pictureid=1539
;)

Comintern1919

28th July 2011, 10:50

It is the typically orientalist analysis of Asiatic peoples. Dumb, mindless, accepting leaders as god. It is the same old shit.

That's so completly nonsense, I don't know if to cry or laugh about you stupidness. Just because we're not your opinion, and don't like neither the state capitalist China nor the brutal North Korean Dictatur, doesn't mean we're Rascist. I hate the North Korean Government, and have a big dislike for the Chinese Government, but I'm FAR from hating Asians! In fact, I'm a big fan of Asia! I love Japan and China, I can even speak and read a bit of both, I'm a big Samurai- and Animefan (as you should see from my Avatar), a fan of Asian Movies and Videogames, I love the culture of many Asian countries, also of Korea, and we even get a japanese exchange student in september, who will live with us for a year! So don't you dare saying I'm a rascist, especially not against Asian people!

ComradeMan

28th July 2011, 12:03

So, your comparison is shit. The SS were not fighting the different factions of the German armed forces.

That is why I am starting to call you all a bunch of racist, because you can not compherend a fractured China. There is just Mao and the idiot Chinese mass bashing each other up.

I am highly critical of the Cultural revolution, you guys are just a bunch of racists.

The reason why you are whining racist is that you don't have any counter-arguments so the last defense is to accuse of being bourgeois white liberal radical chic pseudo-socialists etc etc.... :rolleyes:

The Red Guards were put down by the PLA when they got out of hand but initially they were rampaging around China at Mao's behest to destroy the four olds.

"The 11th Plenum, which was meeting in August, had ratified the 'Sixteen Articles', a document that stated the aims of the Cultural Revolution and highlighted the role students would be asked to play in the movement. After the August rally, the Cultural Revolution Group directed the Red Guards to attack the 'Four Olds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Olds)' of Chinese society (old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas). For the rest of the year, Red Guards marched across China in a campaign to eradicate the 'Four Olds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Olds)'. Old books and art were destroyed, museums were ransacked, and streets were renamed with new revolutionary names and adorned with pictures and the sayings of Mao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao).[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29#cite_note-Meisner339-6) Many famous temples, shrines, and other heritage sites in Beijing were attacked.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29#cite_note-7)

However, attacks on culture quickly descended into attacks on people. Ignoring guidelines in the 'Sixteen Articles' that stipulated that persuasion rather than force were to be used to bring about the Cultural Revolution, officials in positions of authority and perceived 'bourgeois elements' were denounced and suffered physical and psychological attacks.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29#cite_note-Meisner339-6) Intellectuals were to suffer the brunt of these attacks. Many were ousted from official posts such as university teaching and allocated manual tasks such as "sweeping courtyards, building walls and cleaning toilets from 7am to 5pm daily" which would encourage them to dwell on past "mistakes".[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29#cite_note-8) An official report in October 1966 reported that the Red Guards had already arrested 22,000 'counterrevolutionaries'.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29#cite_note-9) Occasionally, the Red Guards brought a large group of targeted people for firing squads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firing_squad), who left some randomly chosen people alive while others around them were shot.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29#cite_note-comingapart-10) This "Chinese roulette" was said to leave a bullet of fear and repression inside the brain.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29#cite_note-comingapart-10)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29

gaz8sVaK8s4

Hiero

28th July 2011, 12:13

The Red Guards were put down by the PLA when they got out of hand but initially they were rampaging around China at Mao's behest to destroy the four olds. A point I made a few pages ago, but whatever.

Hiero

28th July 2011, 12:24

Nonsense. The personality cult of Mao is well-known. The giant images of Mao towering above Chinese monuments, landscapes or the people with the sun rising behind him or rays of sunlight emanating from him.

Check out this picture and the site with Mao posters-

http://chineseposters.net/posters/e13-549.php

"Respectfully wish Chairman Mao eternal life" (1968)

Here's one you posted yourself for the Maoist Group

http://www.revleft.org/vb/album.php?albumid=220&pictureid=1539
;)

Yeah and if you interpret as Mao making "his people" believe he is a God, then you are a racist.

Comintern1919

28th July 2011, 12:36

Yeah and if you interpret as Mao making "his people" believe he is a God, then you are a racist.

No. Are you Rascist if you say that Hitler made the german people believe that he's the ultimate "Führer"? That he knows the best for the Aryan Race? That jews are a danger? That the slaws are less worth? He did made the people believe him, as did Mao, Kim Il-Song, Stalin and any other dictator. That's no theory, that's fact. You ain't rascist to see and point that out. We're not saying this because we dislike the people who get brainwashed, but the leader who does that.

Or do you say, germans weren't made to believe Hitler, but did it because we're evil? That would be rascist.

ComradeMan

28th July 2011, 12:37

Yeah and if you interpret as Mao making "his people" believe he is a God, then you are a racist.

:laugh: Pathetic non-argument.

No one said Mao made his people believe he was God- the point that was being made by Comintern, perhaps not well-worded but the member is a non-English speaker, was that Mao's personality cult elevated him to god-like status in terms of propaganda, indoctrination and political "worship". This is certainly not new in the world either, Alexander? The Persian Kings? The Caesars? The Divine Emperors of China and Japan? Stop trying to turn this into a race issue, the same comments could be made about most dictatorial super-leaders, Hitler, Stalin and certainly the "Eternal President" Kim Il Sung. The fact that in a thread about Mao it happens to be directed at Mao is in no way any evidence of implicit racism towards the Chinese.

Derp.

Hiero

28th July 2011, 13:11

No one said Mao made his people believe he was God- the point that was being made by Comintern
It means that Mao used his power to make his people see him as a god. No dissent allowed at all.

And Comitern is on my ignore list, I am not paying attention to him.

The fact that in a thread about Mao it happens to be directed at Mao is in no way any evidence of implicit racism towards the Chinese.
It is an Orientalism. I suggest you research the word. As I mentioned earlier, it is enforcring the head-body dialectic that is common of Western culture on a scenario where it does not fit. Mao had a position on the cultural revolution, but each actor believe it or not was a human being with their own form of agency and intelligent capacity to engage. They have their own ability to interpret the multiple positons around the cultural revolution. Thoose who joined the supporting side of the cultural revolution symbolised Mao as a master sign for socialist progress. The Chinese people were not brainwashed, I am given them more benifit of the doubt that people acted for their own political agendas. People have the ability to create and adapt even in the most confined spaces.

It is the fact that the thread is directed at Mao and not about the people in China is evident of the underlying racism directed against China.

mosfeld

28th July 2011, 13:11

That's so completly nonsense, I don't know if to cry or laugh about you stupidness. Just because we're not your opinion, and don't like neither the state capitalist China nor the brutal North Korean Dictatur, doesn't mean we're Rascist. I hate the North Korean Government, and have a big dislike for the Chinese Government, but I'm FAR from hating Asians! In fact, I'm a big fan of Asia! I love Japan and China, I can even speak and read a bit of both, I'm a big Samurai- and Animefan (as you should see from my Avatar), a fan of Asian Movies and Videogames, I love the culture of many Asian countries, also of Korea, and we even get a japanese exchange student in september, who will live with us for a year! So don't you dare saying I'm a rascist, especially not against Asian people!

Does not change the fact that you're a eurocentric "leftist" (like ComradeMan) who denies the Chinese people their own agency and their own capacities to determine what's good for them, who they support and what they want. The Chinese people could *never* have supported Mao due to the centuries of exploitation, famine, genocide and cruelty and found Maoism to be a superior alternative... No, the only explanation is that Mao brainwashed everyone -- since the stupid peasants see a portrait of Mao and think "must... worship..."

ComradeMan

28th July 2011, 13:16

Does not change the fact that you're a eurocentric "leftist" (like ComradeMan) who denies the Chinese people their own agency and their own capacities to determine what's good for them, who they support and what they want. The Chinese people could *never* have supported Mao due to the centuries of exploitation, famine, genocide and cruelty and found Maoism to be a superior alternative... No, the only explanation is that Mao brainwashed everyone -- since the stupid peasants see a portrait of Mao and think "must... worship..."

That's a big strawman, well done.

You see with all of this conveniently circumventing the arguments you cannot actually face the numbers of those who died and the countless sources from all sides, including the Chinese themselves, that seem to confirm that Mao was indeed responsible- along with his cadres- for what would be deemed as crimes against humanity.

All you can do is to attack the poster and not really address the post, which just goes furthermore to show how bankrupt your arguments are. Like I said before.... next you'll be telling us how progressive the fucking Sendero Luminoso are....

But as usual we would expect the parroting of "eurocentrism" and the like from a jumped up pseudo-intellectual apparatchik wannabe Maoist. It's easy to talk from a history book and try to be radical- it's a different story when you have gun in your face.

Hiero

28th July 2011, 13:20

since the stupid peasants see a portrait of Mao and think "must... worship..."

That is what I am getting at! It is a colonial logic that was applied to Asian, African and Pacific people especially. It is still latent in regards to the Cold War and now currently the people of Islamic faiths.

Even in this thread it has got to the point where the idea of an army attacking students is not criticised. Maybe the army was right to intervene, but you would assume the trend would be to support a student movement against the Army. Very strange when it is turned against non-Europeans on the other side of the cold war.

ComradeMan

28th July 2011, 13:29

That is what I am getting at! It is a colonial logic that was applied to Asian, African and Pacific people especially. It is still latent in regards to the Cold War and now currently the people of Islamic faiths.

How did you work that out when we have already mentioned Hitler and his cult of personality? Do you deny that Mao had a cult of personality? Look up the word "cult" to see its connotations.
But Mao himself actually gives a good definition and indeed uses the word "worship" at Chengdu in 1958

“ There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analyzed and blind worship.[98] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#cite_note-97)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#Personality_cult
http://library.thinkquest.org/26469/cultural-revolution/cult.html

Even in this thread it has got to the point where the idea of an army attacking students is not criticised. Maybe the army was right to intervene, but you would assume the trend would be to support a student movement against the Army.

Yeah, the Red Guards were your average bunch of student protesters.... :laugh:

Comintern1919

28th July 2011, 13:34

And Comitern is on my ignore list, I am not paying attention to him.

Ooooh, am I now? Why? Because I'm not your opinion? Because I say my opinion? Oh yes, that's the way adults behave...

No, but really, tell me why you ignore me.

It is the fact that the thread is directed at Mao and not about the people in China is evident of the underlying racism directed against China.

O_ö So if I say, the chinese people are the bad thing, I'm no rascist, but if I say Mao, a single person is bad, I'm a rascist? Hello, logic, where are you...

Does not change the fact that you're a eurocentric "leftist" (like ComradeMan) who denies the Chinese people their own agency and their own capacities to determine what's good for them, who they support and what they want. The Chinese people could *never* have supported Mao due to the centuries of exploitation, famine, genocide and cruelty and found Maoism to be a superior alternative... No, the only explanation is that Mao brainwashed everyone -- since the stupid peasants see a portrait of Mao and think "must... worship..."

Eurocentric? No, most certanly not, as I said, I love the Asian people, and I don't deny the anything, it's the opposite, I'd grant them the right to have proper socialism, not some degenerated capitalism hidden between socialism and perosnal cult. And why the "" ? You think, just because I don't like Stalin, I'm no "leftist"? More than 50% of all communists wouldn't be left then, as I know many who don't like him, or Mao.

And yes, they did support Mao due to those things you said, however, they didn't had much choice, it was either Mao and the red guard, or death and terror.

And I liked to hear your version of "Eurocentic" and why I am one just because I don't support Mao. If Mao would have been a german, and did the same things, I still wouldn't support him.

Paul Cockshott

28th July 2011, 13:51

That's a big strawman, well done.

the countless sources from all sides, including the Chinese themselves, that seem to confirm that Mao was indeed responsible- along with his cadres- for what would be deemed as crimes against humanity.

I would be interested in your 'sources' for this claim, on the claims about famine deaths it is worth reading the account of an Indian demographer here
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/patnaik260611p.html
and for a review of the 'scholarship' of sources like Halliday take a look at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47530815/Benton-Gregor-Lin-Chun-eds-Was-Mao-Really-a-Monster-2010

Paul Cockshott

28th July 2011, 13:53

Yeah, the Red Guards were your average bunch of student protesters....
No, they were very much more left wing and radical than most student protestors.

Pirx

28th July 2011, 14:48

I would be interested in your 'sources' for this claim, on the claims about famine deaths it is worth reading the account of an Indian demographer here

Ah, great! Finally someone can provide the source! Years ago I read in the "Junge Welt" about an Indian demographer, who is disputing the body count of GLF. Two years or so I was searching in vain :). Thanks!

miltonwasfried...man

28th July 2011, 15:37

I think it's an amazing magic trick if he managed to kill that many people at the same time as doubling the population and doubling life expectancy, as well as putting the infrastructure in place which prevented any more famines occuring in China (and anyone who's taken a look at chinese history will know that is a major achievement).

Also amazing how he managed to be responsable for every death that occured under his government, unlike capitalist leaders who for some reason are never blamed for the people that die from poverty in their countries..

Seriously, that death toll is ridiculous both in terms of number and in the way its attributed to one person. Why don't we hear about the tens of millions who still are starving to death in capitalist india and africa ? Or the holocaust carried out by Winston Churchil in Bengal ? Or, more significantly, the people who were killed under US-backed capitalist regimes in asia like chiang kai shek, south korea, south vietnam, etc..The double standards be crazy/

Do you have a book that you would recommend on Mao and his views? I personally do not believe in authoritarian socialism, but I would like to be educated on the matter.

Paul Cockshott

28th July 2011, 16:27

Do you have a book that you would recommend on Mao and his views? I personally do not believe in authoritarian socialism, but I would like to be educated on the matter.
I am not sure where you get the idea that he was an authoritarian socialist, what distinguished him from almost all other communist leaders was the way he encouraged young people to rebel against the communist hierarchy and put forward all sorts of anti-authoritarian slogans.
I suggest you look at the book by Joan Robinson , The Cultural Revolution in China, for a contemporary account. It is still reasonably easy to get from Amazon.

ComradeMan

28th July 2011, 18:47

I am not sure where you get the idea that he was an authoritarian socialist, what distinguished him from almost all other communist leaders was the way he encouraged young people to rebel against the communist hierarchy and put forward all sorts of anti-authoritarian slogans..

...and once they had served their purpose the PLA was sent in to suppress them, somewhat brutally, with Mao keeping his hands clean! ;) Killing two birds with one stone comes to mind...

RGacky3

29th July 2011, 08:28

Thoose who joined the supporting side of the cultural revolution symbolised Mao as a master sign for socialist progress. The Chinese people were not brainwashed, I am given them more benifit of the doubt that people acted for their own political agendas. People have the ability to create and adapt even in the most confined spaces.

Will you give the same benfit of the doubt to Germans in Nazi Germany?

This never was a race thing until your brought it up and you know it, when you run out of arguments you bring up race.

I am not sure where you get the idea that he was an authoritarian socialist, what distinguished him from almost all other communist leaders was the way he encouraged young people to rebel against the communist hierarchy and put forward all sorts of anti-authoritarian slogans.

Yes, against the communist hierachy .... EXCEPT FOR HIM, btw, he did support free speach in the hundred flower campain, ohhh except afterwords ....

His encouraging people to attack other people in the communist party was basically a way to get rid of his political opponents, arguing that this was some how pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian is a joke.

Being someone with harsh words for Mao would'nt have gotten you very far in Maos China would it, even the fact we call it Mao's china.

Hiero

29th July 2011, 09:23

Will you give the same benfit of the doubt to Germans in Nazi Germany?Why would I do that?

This never was a race thing until your brought it up and you know it, when you run out of arguments you bring up race.

I gave my arguement earlier on, no one engaged with it. You just don't want to compherend the factional divisions in China society. Given you provided no counter arguement I called you all on your Orientalism.

RGacky3

29th July 2011, 09:35

Why would I do that?

So that are not a hypocrite with double standards.

You just don't want to compherend the factional divisions in China society. Given you provided no counter arguement I called you all on your Orientalism.

The idea that people can be controlled and coerced by a dictator bent on power is not orientalism, its possible anywhere.

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 10:18

Having skimmed through it, this thread is awful. Really. On the one hand we have simplistic assertions about "brainwashing" (which do in fact stink of Orientalism) and on the other we have absurdly simplistic characterizations of the Cultural Revolution being a noble struggle against bureaucracy with Mao at its head. We have fools like ComradeMan resorting to quotes from wikipedia and youtube videos (seriously!) as "evidence" for their Orientalist narrative.

At the risk of simplification, if you want to understand the Cultural Revolution you have to acknowledge the following: Chinese society in 1966 exhibited a wide range of political and social divisions, especially along the lines of class origin and between so-called activist and backward elements, and those divisions had a crucial impact on the development of factions and factional conflict over the course of the first stage of the Cultural Revolution, giving rise to Red Guard and Red Rebel groups within the student body, and radical and conservative organizations within the working class. These factions all drew on the most immediately available discourse, consisting of Mao's works and particular terms like "capitalist roader", but used that discourse in radically different ways, to articulate a wide range of ideas and objectives, which is why it is wrong to assume that the whole of Chinese society was brainwashed, despite the central place of Mao in political language and visual culture. Hiero emphasizes this by saying that actors made Mao a "master sign", and he is right on that point. That there were ongoing processes of appropriation and manipulation of Maoist discourse is most clear if we look to the end of the first-three year period, in 1968/9, because the suppression of factional conflict by the PLA marked the emergence of groups like Sheng-wu-lian that called the emerging structure of revolutionary committees into question and pointed to the Commune model as a radical solution to the inequalities that had manifested themselves in Chinese society since 1949. These bodies also drew on the language of Maoism but they were implicitly orientated against Mao. The fact that they emerged whilst factional conflict was being suppressed through armed force also means that we have to problematize the tendency to think of the Cultural Revolution as a ten-year event and to look at how the initial three-year period gave way to a subsequent period characterized by the militarization of Chinese politics and society. Mao's role throughout the Cultural Revolution and especially its first three years needs to be seen as a contradictory one, as Mao's decision-making exhibited simultaneous attempts to restrain and unleash mobilization, and his position in relation to other interest groups at the top of Chinese politics, such as the PLA, the radicals around Jiang Qing, and the existing cadre apparatus, was constantly changing with the progress of events. This is a much more nuanced approach than just seeing Mao as a cynical evil genius.

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 11:01

Agent Equality

29th July 2011, 11:20

I'd say yes simply because I hate maoists and stalinists.....But if you want a real answer from me, I'd have to say I don't know, probably. His "people's republic" is a lie anyway and has been a lie since its founding sooooo sure why not?

There are close to a billion people(bight me if my rounding aggrivates you) living in poverty now in his "People's Rebulic", which may I mind you is not of the people and never has been of the people so I don't necessarily think its so incredibly important that less than a fifth of that number died from his policies/actions, only to the point as to prove that his "form" of communism (if you can call it that) doesn't work.

Again, I'd have to say maoism is a crime against humanity in itself, but then that'd be my completely biased opinion. :D That little bit explains that I'm not trying to flame, just stating my truthful opinion and answering the thread ;)

Paul Cockshott

29th July 2011, 12:07

Will you give the same benfit of the doubt to Germans in Nazi Germany?
Are you now suggesting that the Chinese Communists were engaged in genocide?

His encouraging people to attack other people in the communist party was basically a way to get rid of his political opponents, arguing that this was some how pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian is a joke.

Well encouraging your supporters to criticise your opponents is something all political leaders do. You have to realise the seriousness of the situation as it appeared to the Left in China. They thought that there was a real danger that a wing in the communist party was not interested in socialism but wanted just to develop a capitalist economy in China. The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to rouse first the youth and then the working class and peasantry of the country to oppose this development.
In the light of later developments the fears of the Left were justified.

Shortly after Mao died, the right that people had during the cultural revolution to express their criticisms of the authorities via big character posters and open mass debate were suppressed. It was not the Left which carried out the armed attacks in Tienanmin square but the people whom the left were attacking during the cultural revoluton.

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 12:14

And you also have big strawman arguments built up by apologists and pseudo-apologists like yourself.

What strawman have I constructed? There have been several members in this thread who have asserted that the Chinese people were "brainwashed", which suggests an inability to think critically about their society and the presence of a single worldview amongst a vast population. In my last post I pointed to the weaknesses of that standpoint, in particular its failure to grasp the ways in which Maoist discourse was appropriated and manipulated to articulate very different social interests and political positions. In what way am I an apologist, given that I am not a Maoist, and have highlighted Mao's role in suppressing mobilization through the PLA? What does "pseudo-apologist" even mean - that I am trying or pretending to be an apologist, but not succeeding?

The question in the OP is how much Mao is responsible for the countless millions of people who suffered under his regime-

Yet neither you nor any other restricted member has come close to presenting a nuanced analysis either of what responsibility means in the abstract or of how Mao actually was responsible for anyone's death. Another user went so far as to argue that Mao "intentionally" caused famine during the GLF, yet no justification was forthcoming.

The quotes are all sourced quotes and are included only if they have a source. I never vouch for sources and if you would like to discuss the sources themselves feel free.

People can look at wiki articles themselves, and they almost invariably present highly limited and partisan views. If you feel capable of asserting that the Chinese people were brainwashed or that Mao was directly responsible for X number of deaths then you should have a decent grasp of the relevant secondary scholarship and the corresponding primary sources and you should be able to refer to that material in your arguments - you should, for example, be familiar with authors like Elizabeth Perry when it comes to working-class mobilization during the Cultural Revolution, you should be familiar with what Emily Honig has to say about the role of young women in violence against teachers and the ways in which the construction of gender and sexuality before the Cultural Revolution influenced their activity, you should be familiar with heterodox accounts from participants like those presented in the collection Some of Us...but you are not familiar with this large body of scholarship, and I would advise that you get clued up before you go around making huge assertions without any supporting evidence or analysis.

The Youtube link.... err from a documentary in which Chinese people who lived through the period- including former Red Guards- speak about their experiences? Isn't that called primary source evidence?

Again, if you were familiar with the treatment of the Cultural Revolution in post-Mao party historiography and contemporary discourse, you would know that under Deng there were sustained attempts to monopolize the meaning of the Cultural Revolution and to present the event as one of constant chaos and bloodshed - that articulation of that narrative (which is summed up by the Chinese term "shinian haojie" - ten years of chaos) involved the state promoting a particular genre of memoir known as "scar literature", based around themes of suffering and madness, and it is largely that genre that has come to inform Western understandings of the Cultural Revolution, both through the publication of written memoir in the English language, and through other media like documentaries. The issue at hand is that the creation of memory and historical narrative is a political act, or a series of political acts, and there are heterodox voices that defy the prevailing narrative in both China and the West but remain largely unheard, especially outside of China - one key example that is accessible is the Some of Us volume I mentioned above, but the process of problematizing the dominant narrative has largely been carried out online, on Chinese web forums, for example, and what this shows us is that, whilst you can easily present documentary footage that draws on the views of Chinese participants and affirms your view of the Cultural Revolution as unmitigated horror, they cannot speak for all participants, as the Cultural Revolution was experienced differently by different constituencies. We also have to account for the ways in which participants may have internalized the state narrative since the end of the Cultural Revolution and adjusted their own memories, despite having felt very differently at the time - this is one of the themes that Mobo Gao explores in his academic articles on the contemporary narration and remembering of the Cultural Revolution.

It is not orientalism to point out that Mao had a cult of personality and despite his ambiguous stance towards it, did encourage it when it suited him

This is exactly what I meant by a simplistic approach. Yes, there was a cult of personality in the sense that Maoist texts and symbols were absolutely central to political discourse and popular culture, but it is one thing to say this and quite another to assume that Chinese people were brainwashed. What is more important is to look at how those texts and symbols were manipulated, with varying degrees of consciousness, to suit different agendas and interests, as I've already stressed. Generally, when people in authoritarian societies resist their exploitation, they do so through the languages and symbols that are most immediately available, even when those languages and symbols are also used by the state and ruling classes to justify their privileges, and part of the task of the social theorist is precisely to penetrate beneath the surface of speech-acts and to look at how even the most official discourses can be manipulated and given a subversive character. A similar example is how Muslim women in contemporary France have responded to Islamophobia by embracing and emphasizing their Muslim identity.

RGacky3

29th July 2011, 12:16

Are you now suggesting that the Chinese Communists were engaged in genocide?

Well, they did murder a lot of people, but the point was to show that it has nothing to do with Orientalism, and that him bringing racie into it was a pathetic move. People were manipulated by Hitler, and they were be Mao.

They thought that there was a real danger that a wing in the communist party was not interested in socialism but wanted just to develop a capitalist economy in China. The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to rouse first the youth and then the working class and peasantry of the country to oppose this development.
In the light of later developments the fears of the Left were justified.

So basically to hell with demoracy.

Shortly after Mao died, the right that people had during the cultural revolution to express their criticisms of the authorities via big character posters and open mass debate were suppressed. It was not the Left which carried out the armed attacks in Tienanmin square but the people whom the left were attacking during the cultural revoluton.

The questioning of communist authority is not the problem with the cultural revolution, it was more the arresting and inprisoning anyone that did not have a communist or maoist background, sending religious people to prisons, shooting some of them, purging anyone that was not a marxist-leninist.

"This man Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler) was even more ferocious. The more ferocious the better, don't you think? The more people you kill, the more revolutionary you are." Mao

I'm pretty sure the persicution of anyone not totally loyal to Mao was the problem here.

RGacky3

29th July 2011, 12:18

Yet neither you nor any other restricted member has come close to presenting a nuanced analysis either of what responsibility means in the abstract or of how Mao actually was responsible for anyone's death.

Yeah and Charles Manson never actually murdered anyone.

If your making those arguments then George Bush was'nt responsible for any civilian deaths in Iraq.

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 12:24

Yeah and Charles Manson never actually murdered anyone.

If your making those arguments then George Bush was'nt responsible for any civilian deaths in Iraq.

This is not an argument. You have actually gone further than saying that Mao was responsible for people's deaths during the Great Leap Forward by saying that he intended to kill people, in their millions - after all, someone can be responsible for an outcome even if that outcome was not their conscious and central aim. Seeing as you assert Mao's intention so confidently, you presumably have access to some kind of letter or speech where he explicitly declared his aim - so why don't you point us all towards this source?

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 12:32

Yeah and Charles Manson never actually murdered anyone.

If your making those arguments then George Bush was'nt responsible for any civilian deaths in Iraq.

Good point Gacky, I don't suppose Hitler ever "personally" pushed someone into a gas chamber either.... :rolleyes:

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 12:37

This is not an argument. You have actually gone further than saying that Mao was responsible for people's deaths during the Great Leap Forward by saying that he intended to kill people, in their millions - after all, someone can be responsible for an outcome even if that outcome was not their conscious and central aim. Seeing as you assert Mao's intention so confidently, you presumably have access to some kind of letter or speech where he explicitly declared his aim - so why don't you point us all towards this source?

Mao 1958: “What can Emperor Qin Shihuang brag about? He only killed 460 Confucian scholars, but we killed 46,000 intellectuals. There are people who accuse us of practicing dictatorship like Emperor Qin Shihuang and we admit it all. It fits the reality. It is a pity that they did not give us enough credit, so we need to add to it."

RGacky3

29th July 2011, 12:39

This is not an argument. You have actually gone further than saying that Mao was responsible for people's deaths during the Great Leap Forward by saying that he intended to kill people, in their millions - after all, someone can be responsible for an outcome even if that outcome was not their conscious and central aim. Seeing as you assert Mao's intention so confidently, you presumably have access to some kind of letter or speech where he explicitly declared his aim - so why don't you point us all towards this source?

I'm not talking about the famine, I'm talking aobut his encouraging or violence against those not loyal to him, arresting and inprisoning those not loyal to him, murdering those not loyal to him.

Btw, you just saw the quote, if that is not a call to violence i don't know what is.

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 13:02

Good point Gacky, I don't suppose Hitler ever "personally" pushed someone into a gas chamber either.... :rolleyes:

Again, this is not an argument, you are now just relying on insinuation. I don't know how you could think that, based on what I've said so far about the nature of responsibility, I could be forced to conclude that Hitler was never personally responsible for killing anyone. At no point have I said that responsibility depends on someone being the direct and immediate agent behind someone else's death. Hitler was responsible for a large number of deaths because he made authoritative decisions with the conscious aim of causing those deaths. In order to allocate a similar level of responsibility to Mao you would need to point to decisions that he made with the aim of causing death. You would need a source where Mao says, in so many words, "let's do X in order to cause people to die". Yet you have not pointed to any such materials. Personally speaking, however, I think that responsibility can be allocated even when someone does not have death as their key aim, if they nonetheless take authoritative decisions, and do so with good reason to believe, on the basis of the available evidence and information, that those decisions will result in death, and then do nothing to intervene once the fatal consequences have begun to manifest themselves.. According to that conception of responsibility, you could say that the British administrators India were responsible for the Bengal famine of 1943, because whilst they did not want to cause death as their key objective, it is fair to say that they had good reason to expect that their policies were liable to create famine conditions, and they did nothing once those conditions came into being. But I am not convinced that, even according to that broader conception, Mao can be held responsible for mass death, especially during the Great Leap Forward. During that policy, which is what people generally point to when they want to accuse Mao of being a mass murderer, were consistent problems of accurate information flow between the central government and local officials, and when it did become apparent that the countryside was in danger of famine, Mao swiftly advocated emergency relief measures, rather than just letting people die.

It is really for you to explain what you mean by responsibility and to show that Mao was responsible for many deaths. RGacky3 in particular needs to support his repeated allegation that Mao "intentionally" killed millions of people, because intention is a special case within the broader category of responsibility.

Mao 1958: “What can Emperor Qin Shihuang brag about? He only killed 460 Confucian scholars, but we killed 46,000 intellectuals. There are people who accuse us of practicing dictatorship like Emperor Qin Shihuang and we admit it all. It fits the reality. It is a pity that they did not give us enough credit, so we need to add to it."

I consider myself something of a Mao scholar, and I have never seen a primary source for that quote. Please provide it - point to the appropriate edition of Mao's collected works, or his unpublished speeches, or whatever.

I'm not talking about the famine, I'm talking aobut his encouraging or violence against those not loyal to him, arresting and inprisoning those not loyal to him, murdering those not loyal to him.

You should be able to provide an analysis then. What specific periods of PRC history are we talking about here? What specific policy directives and decisions by Mao?

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 13:27

I consider myself something of a Mao scholar, and I have never seen a primary source for that quote. Please provide it - point to the appropriate edition of Mao's collected works, or his unpublished speeches, or whatever.

Mao's First Speech to the Party Congress, May 17, 1958 is the reference I found for this but I can't find the full text online.

[/URL]Mao Zedong sixiang wan sui! (1969), p. 195. Referenced in Governing China: From Revolution to Reform (Second Edition) by Kenneth Lieberthal. W.W. Norton & Co., 2003. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0393924920"]ISBN 0-393-92492-0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#cite_ref-79) p. 71.

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 13:29

Mao's First Speech to the Party Congress, May 17, 1958 is the reference I found for this but I can't find the full text online.

There was no Party Congress in 1958.

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 13:36

There was no Party Congress in 1958.

Err... yes there was.

Mao Zedong, “Speeches at the Second Session of the Eighth Party Congress (8-23 May 1958),” The First Speech (8 May 1958), in Joint Publications Research Service, Miscellany of Mao Zedong Thought (1949-1968). Part I (Arlington, VA; 1974)

See p15- "In May 1958, a special Second Session of 1956 Congress was held...."

http://books.google.it/books?id=WQcAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=chinese+communist+party+congress+1958&source=bl&ots=27T7pAF1lT&sig=037CM2HUTOS4HgEQ00TxjZhChEA&hl=it&ei=jKkyTuP9EYnRsgan583oBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%20congress%201958&f=false

From www.marxists.org (http://www.marxists.org) citing ’Long Live Mao Zedong Thought,’ a Red Guard Publication- I found what seems to be the quote-

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NmYvD2KmABcJ:www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_10.htm+Second+Session+of+the+Eighth+Party+Co ngress&cd=1&hl=it&ct=clnk&gl=it&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.it

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 14:03

Err... yes there was.

Mao Zedong, “Speeches at the Second Session of the Eighth Party Congress (8-23 May 1958),” The First Speech (8 May 1958), in Joint Publications Research Service, Miscellany of Mao Zedong Thought (1949-1968). Part I (Arlington, VA; 1974)

http://books.google.it/books?id=WQcAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=chinese+communist+party+congress+1958&source=bl&ots=27T7pAF1lT&sig=037CM2HUTOS4HgEQ00TxjZhChEA&hl=it&ei=jKkyTuP9EYnRsgan583oBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%20congress%201958&f=false

From www.marxists.org (http://www.marxists.org) citing ’Long Live Mao Zedong Thought,’ a Red Guard Publication- I found what seems to be the quote-

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NmYvD2KmABcJ:www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_10.htm+Second+Session+of+the+Eighth+Party+Co ngress&cd=1&hl=it&ct=clnk&gl=it&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.it

Yes, the Second Session. You should know that when people refer to "the Party Congress" the assumption is usually that they are referring to the year in which the First Session of the Congress took place (in this case, 1956) due to it being in the first Session that bodies like the CC are selected. But no matter I suppose. There are more important issues to discuss. Firstly, the fact that you so uncritically accept a speech from a Wansui edition of Mao's works indicates your lack of knowledge when it comes to the current scholarship on Mao's writings. The Wansui editions were produced by a wide range of Red Guard organizations during the Cultural Revolution, often based on documents recovered from the houses of officials who were being struggled against, and were not made available by the Chinese government but through an academic body located in Taiwan - as you can tell from skimming over the documents there was always at least some level of editing by the Red Guards because the names of alleged capitalist-roaders like Liu Shaoqi have been replaced with Xs to indicate their disgrace, and whilst the academic consensus is that these texts are otherwise accurate and a valuable resource when it comes to Mao's speeches and writings, the fact that they are still unofficial in origin means that we have to be careful and that it is entirely possible that particular texts were altered or simply forged in order to justify the aims of particular Red Guard organizations. This is not my opinion, it is a point made by scholars in the field like Timothy Cheek. In the second place, I am not convinced that this speech, even if an accurate record of what Mao said, really supports your allegation that Mao was responsible for millions of deaths. Mao was known to draw on classical comparisons as well as a great deal of black humor in his speeches, and it is one thing to cite that quote as evidence of Mao's particular mode of speech, and another to cite it as evidence of tens of thousands of intellectuals being put to death before 1958, let alone Mao being personally responsible for their deaths. You need evidence other than a passing remark that Mao may or may not have made (and which is actually slightly different in the link you provided) in an obscure speech. You need to point to particular policy directives, their consequences, and Mao's role in the formulation and implementation of those directives.

Most importantly, however, I honestly feel that you are asking the wrong questions to begin with. You may feel it is valuable to accuse Mao of mass murder and to try and make him responsible for the deaths of millions. But I am a Marxist, though no friend of Mao or the PRC. For me, what is more important is to conduct an analysis of the nature of Chinese society under Mao and to consider why Mao and his fellow leaders saw it as necessary to launch initiatives like the GLF...and to do that you need to consider China's condition of historic underdevelopment, its position in the world-system at the time of the Leap, the voluntarist strands in Mao's thought, the CPC's relationship with the peasantry, and so on. Those more important issues require that you abandon moralistic condemnation and gain a real appreciation of Chinese history.

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 14:05

.....

:laugh:

You asked for a quote by Mao, you got one from a leftist source, the Red Guards were also fervently dedicated to Mao too.

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 14:10

:laugh:

You asked for a quote by Mao, you got one from a leftist source, the Red Guards were also fervently dedicated to Mao too.

I've already gone over this, and it's also been highlighted by others. There was no single body called "Red Guards" during the Cultural Revolution. To say that they were a "leftist source" is a gross oversimplification. There were a whole multitude of factions and organizations with different objectives and social bases. The unofficial Cultural Revolution editions of Mao's works, including the Wansui editions, were produced informally by a similarly wide range of organizations. A single black-humour remark by Mao does not in any case prove that he was a bloodthirsty murder.

Unless you start responding with some content, or, better yet, get a real knowledge of China under Mao, there's no point in continuing any discussion.

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 14:11

Unless you start responding with some content, or, better yet, get a real knowledge of China under Mao, there's no point in continuing any discussion.

I suggest you get a better knowledge of Mao before trying to dig yourself out of a hole- Party Congress, 1958. :laugh:

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 14:14

I suggest you get a better knowledge of Mao before trying to dig yourself out of a hole- Party Congress, 1958. :laugh:

This has already been explained to you. To simply say "the Party Congress in 1958" makes it seem as if the First Session of a Party Congress - along with changes in the CC, and, for the 8th Congress in particular, the removal of Mao Zedong Thought from the party constitution, a pretty significant event - took place in that year. There was of course no Party Congress in that sense in that year. It was a lack of clarity on your part, as you should have specified the Second Session. The fact that you quibble over something so irrelevant that I let pass just shows again that you can't engage with the substantive issues.

Hiero

29th July 2011, 16:04

Caramlpence, what do you much know about the Gang of Four and Lin Biao conflict. As I have had to explained to me Lin Biao promoted the cult of personality and wanted to continue using Mao as the symbolic head for the Mao faction of the red gaurds. The Gang of Four wanted to replace Mao with "The People" as the symbolic head. It was only explained to me but I never read any material putting forward this analysis.

And you are correct, there is no point continue this discussion with Comrademan and others.

The other point with the Mao quote is that in translation (accros language and culture) we lose alot of the intent because the metaphor is not translated. Often I have read an English translation of Chinese and not understood it because I don't understand Chinese metaphors.

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 18:24

This has already been explained to you. To simply say "the Party Congress in 1958" makes it seem as if the First Session of a Party Congress - .

Except I gave the full title and links/sources from a marxist website too...
:rolleyes:

You are the one who is the self-proclaimed Mao scholar and yet you seem to have fucked up on this one.

And you are correct, there is no point continue this discussion with Comrademan and others.

Because you have no arguments other than obfuscation.

The other point with the Mao quote is that in translation (accros language and culture) we lose alot of the intent because the metaphor is not translated. Often I have read an English translation of Chinese and not understood it because I don't understand Chinese metaphors.

Yeah because the quote in question was a poem rich in metaphor--- how is 460 versus 46 000 nuanced then in Chinese?

Please- give me a break. that is one of the single most pitiful attempts to "trash" a source I've seen at RevLeft.

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 19:16

Except I gave the full title and links/sources from a marxist website too...

You are the one who is the self-proclaimed Mao scholar and yet you seem to have fucked up on this one.

Except, in post 135, where you first attempted to provide a source, you didn't provide a full title, you didn't specify that you were talking about the Second Session of a Party Congress, the extent of the reference you gave Mao's First Speech to the Party Congress, which would lead most people to assume that you were talking about the First Session of that Party Congress, when the key decisions took place - and the First Session did not take place in 1958, it took place in 1956. If you think you have scored a killer point against me, though, then fine, because ultimately this is not an interesting issue. The important point is that you and others have alleged that Mao was responsible for the deaths of millions. You have not taken up my points concerning the complexities of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, all you have done is point to a single quote. Not only is the accuracy of that quote open to question, given that it is taken from an unofficial Red Guard publication, there is also the more obvious issue that, as myself and Hiero have emphasized, Mao was known to engage in both black humor and phrases that do not easily translate from Chinese, and there is really nothing in that quote to support your assumption that Mao was a mass murderer. I say this as an ideological opponent of Mao.

Caramlpence, what do you much know about the Gang of Four and Lin Biao conflict. As I have had to explained to me Lin Biao promoted the cult of personality and wanted to continue using Mao as the symbolic head for the Mao faction of the red gaurds. The Gang of Four wanted to replace Mao with "The People" as the symbolic head. It was only explained to me but I never read any material putting forward this analysis.

I am not sure about what you say about the Gang of Four (and it's worth pointing out that some scholars have questioned whether there ever really was a Gang of Four in the sense of four individuals who were organized and in constant communication with one another - the term was widely used only after the Cultural Revolution, having been introduced by Mao, rather than being taken up by the four themselves) but I think the point you are implying is a correct one - namely, not only was it the case that Maoist language and symbology was constantly appropriated, it was also the case that the intensity of the cult of personality was not pre-given, instead it changed in accordance with the balance of political power. It was definitely the case that Lin Biao was the most enthusiastic supporter of the cult and I would argue more generally that the cult became most intense as part of the restoration of order by the PLA, in that phenomena like loyalty dances, for example, were implemented by the army as it took control of workplaces and schools, and were part of a broader array of mechanisms that were used to restore party-state authority and discipline. After all, if you don't want students and workers engaging in factional organization, making them do study sessions after work and on weekends is a good way of taking up their free time, not to mention giving the authorities an additional set of reasons to target dissidents. Needless to say, in the dominant narrative these phenomena are not contextualized or problematized, they are assumed to always be there, just as the Chinese population is assumed to always be brainwashed.

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 19:18

Except, in post 135, where you first attempted to provide a source, you didn't provide a full title, you didn't specify that you were talking about the Second Session of a Party Congress, the extent of the reference you gave Mao's First Speech to the Party Congress, which would lead most people to assume that you were talking about the First Session of that Party Congress, when the key decisions took place - and the First Session did not take place in 1958, it took place in 1956.

Semantics....

You said quite clearly there was "no Party Congress in 1958" and their was. "First Speech" to the Party Congress 17th May 1958- speech is not the same as session so that's a pretty weak argument.
It's also telling that you didn't suddenly point out this information either- seeing as you're are such a Mao scholar that is. :laugh:

Whatever.....

caramelpence

29th July 2011, 19:19

Semantics....

I agree, it is a semantic issue, not a substantive one. So engage with the substantive issues. Explain how Mao was responsible for millions of deaths.

ComradeMan

29th July 2011, 19:57

I agree, it is a semantic issue, not a substantive one. So engage with the substantive issues. Explain how Mao was responsible for millions of deaths.

Who was in charge in Mao's China? Who had the final say? Who signed the bits of paper and on whose authority?

Hiero

30th July 2011, 02:29

Who was in charge in Mao's China? Who had the final say? Who signed the bits of paper and on whose authority?

LMAO!

You think Mao was receiving what would be hourly documents for the approval to do x and y? (We the Red Guards want to put 100 posters up in Shanghai, we are waiting your approval Chairman Mao) That is abosutely ridicilous. You keep underestimating the initiatives and agency of the different factions of the red gaurds. Mao's positions changed frequently during his life. You can see this easily on wikipedia.

In regards to the great leap forward, no one would doubt Mao's responsibility, the solution however is quite a conservative one. Mao should have centralised the reporting system for accuracy and accountability.

You keep putting this into Nazi like context, it just does not work here. As I have said agian and again, the fascist system tries to create a an organic whole, as they vision the nation as natural and eternal. Communism, and Mao took this to its hieght, seeks to fragment society. You under estimate the level of criticism in Chinese society, Mao was greatly criticised after the Great Leap Forward and it was denounced, which is basically denouncing Mao.

You seem to be more influenced by the liberal concepts from civil society of accountability and responsibility. Which ignores the "how" factors, because that problematises any attempt at international criminal law.

cogar66

30th July 2011, 03:20

It is the typically orientalist analysis of Asiatic peoples. Dumb, mindless, accepting leaders as god. It is the same old shit.

Are you fucking serious? :laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZWsFmjSi78

It happens to everybody.

Hiero

30th July 2011, 03:48

Are you fucking serious? :laugh:
ZZWsFmjSi78

It happens to everybody.

Do you know what Orientalism is? It is a Western discourse of depicting "Asiatic people" as monolithic whole through cultural constructions of art, "culture", politics and history. In this case, it is just Mao and "his" People, the only individual with agency happens to be a dictator (in some peope's minds). The pople are either victims or brainwashed.

We in the west were constantly told that colonial people accepted things (objects and people) as Gods and unquestionably. And here in 2011 I am hearing the same thing about Chinese people.

ComradeMan

30th July 2011, 17:27

......

On your basis then a lot of people who have been condemned throughout history were "not guilty". If you take command and style yourself "father of the country" etc then the buck stops with you. Afterall, the Great Leap Forward's flops were admitted by Mao for which he took full responsibility:
"The one with the most responsibility is me. . . . Yours is a question of ideology, mine of 10,700,000 tons and ninety million people going into battle. The chaos caused was on a grand scale and I take responsibility. Comrades, you must all analyse your own responsibility. If you have to shit, shit! If you have to fart, fart! You will feel much better for it."
8th Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China 23rd of July, 1959

ComradeMan

30th July 2011, 23:00

Maoists very quite all of a sudden :confused:

CHE with an AK

30th July 2011, 23:26

Maoists very quite all of a sudden :confused:

... Probably because if we wanted to hear an asshole ... we'd fart.

cogar66

31st July 2011, 03:32

... Probably because if we wanted to hear an asshole ... we'd fart.

You are a very annoying person.

Hiero

31st July 2011, 09:01

Maoists very quite all of a sudden :confused:

Because you keep repeating yourself.

RGacky3

31st July 2011, 14:40

ComradeMan

31st July 2011, 14:42

And you keep ignoring the argumeny by making up the racist boogieman that comes from nothing, because you ran out of real arguments, this is beyond that regular "just call them liberals" thing to the point of just sillyness.

They ask for quotes, they get quotes- they then attack the quotes, so they get the sources- the sources happen to be Mao himself or the Red Guards and then they go silent? :confused:

RGacky3

31st July 2011, 14:47

THen they call you racist, or claim your just being a liberal, or try and point out the exception to the rule, or say it was impossible for one man to control everything and so on and so forth and other totally non-arguments.

Hiero

1st August 2011, 05:55

They ask for quotes, they get quotes- they then attack the quotes, so they get the sources- the sources happen to be Mao himself or the Red Guards and then they go silent? :confused:

It is about the quality of the argument, which you lack greatly. See we are back to the Red Guards problems, when we already stated the Red Guards were factional, yet you speak of them as a whole. I don't know why you can not grasp this. If you can not grasp such a basic fact it explains why you keep going in circles. It explains why you are restricted.

RGacky3

1st August 2011, 08:13

See we are back to the Red Guards problems, when we already stated the Red Guards were factional, yet you speak of them as a whole.

And the republican party is also factional, look you can nit pick all you want, the facts remain.

ComradeMan

1st August 2011, 10:40

And the republican party is also factional, look you can nit pick all you want, the facts remain.

The Nazis also had factions, most groups have factions- again that's not a defense but a line of apologetics they are forming.

Paul Cockshott

2nd August 2011, 00:27

The Nazis also had factions, most groups have factions- again that's not a defense but a line of apologetics they are forming.

The factions in the Republican party do not take up arms against one another. The factions in the NSDAP did take up arms against one another, the same was true of Red Guard factions, this indicates that there were particularly sharp class contradications within the NSDAP prior to the Night of the Long Knives and the Red Guards and that it is unrealistic to treat either of these as a monolithic body.

Hiero

2nd August 2011, 14:44

Rgacky3 and ComradeMan, you are both so dumb. I am not apologising or defending. If you want simplicity, that is your choice and I was wrong to assume you wanted or were capable to debate the complexities of the Maoist China.

The factions in the Republican party do not take up arms against one another. The factions in the NSDAP did take up arms against one another, the same was true of Red Guard factions, this indicates that there were particularly sharp class contradications within the NSDAP prior to the Night of the Long Knives and the Red Guards and that it is unrealistic to treat either of these as a monolithic body.

I don't think they understand.

RGacky3

2nd August 2011, 14:53

We did'nt treat them as a monolithic body.

If someone says "the nazis did such and such" it is not an argument to say that the nazis had different factions, that fought one another.

If you want simplicity, that is your choice and I was wrong to assume you wanted or were capable to debate the complexities of the Maoist China.

What happens a lot by people who want to defend Mao (not saying you are doing this), or minimize the damage that he did, is bring into argument irrelivant things, its the same thing that happens with arguments about Stalin, just throwing a bunch of irrelivant things that have nothing to do with the cause and effect we are talking about, and us dismissing it as irrelivant is'nt over simplifying it.

ComradeMan

2nd August 2011, 14:57

Rgacky3 and ComradeMan, you are both so dumb. I am not apologising or defending. If you want simplicity, that is your choice and I was wrong to assume you wanted or were capable to debate the complexities of the Maoist China. I don't think they understand.

Is that your best means of argument, accusing people of being "dumb" because they disagree with you?

You haven't actually refuted any of the facts/statistics and systematically refuse to acknowledge the sources- even when they are probably "pro-Mao" sources. We know your tendency is MLM but FFS, a bit of intellectual honesty and objectivity is required.

Paul Cockshott

2nd August 2011, 15:57

Is that your best means of argument, accusing people of being "dumb" because they disagree with you?

You haven't actually refuted any of the facts/statistics and systematically refuse to acknowledge the sources- even when they are probably "pro-Mao" sources. We know your tendency is MLM but FFS, a bit of intellectual honesty and objectivity is required.
I notice you did not make any response to my citing of Patniak on famine deaths.

Anti Propaganda

2nd August 2011, 17:12

Yes, to me Maoism is worse than Stalinism and Leninism combined.
Mao executed everyone who opposed him and starved hundreds of millions of people.
Mao and the Soviets were not Socialists, they were Capitalists and Fascists.
They were State Capitalists.

Paul Cockshott

2nd August 2011, 19:53

this is complete fantasy, why not claim that he starved billions

ComradeMan

2nd August 2011, 20:18

I notice you did not make any response to my citing of Patniak on famine deaths.

"One authoritative account of the famine, a 1,100-page study by Yang Jisheng (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jisheng), a long-time communist party member and a reporter for the official Chinese news agency Xinhua (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhua), puts the number of deaths from the Great Chinese Famine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine) at 36 million. His book, entitled Tombstone (Mùbēi, 2008), challenges the official Communist Party line that the famine was largely a result of "Three Years of Natural Disasters" and he puts the blame squarely on Maoist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoist) policies, such as diverting agricultural workers to steel production instead of growing crops, and exporting grain at the same time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Deaths_by_starvation
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/world/asia/18iht-famine.1.18785257.html?pagewanted=all

Paul Cockshott

2nd August 2011, 21:54

I suggest you look at the link I posted it shows the unreliability of the methods used to arrive at these figures.

ComradeMan

2nd August 2011, 22:09

I suggest you look at the link I posted it shows the unreliability of the methods used to arrive at these figures.

I have looked at the link. I sugget you have a look at mine too. But you may note that in the OP I did kind of suggesting leaving the famines to one side.
;)

Paul Cockshott

3rd August 2011, 23:11

I have looked at the link. I sugget you have a look at mine too. But you may note that in the OP I did kind of suggesting leaving the famines to one side.
;)
I note that the wikipedia page you link to does include reference to the scholars who cast doubt on the claims of tens of millions of deaths. If you acknowledge that the overall effect of communist policies was to greatly increase life expectancy, where is the basis for the accusations that they were responsible for huge numbers of deaths? Why pick on Mao not Nehru since the life expectancy grew much faster in China than in India.

ComradeMan

4th August 2011, 21:19

I note that the wikipedia page you link to does include reference to the scholars who cast doubt on the claims of tens of millions of deaths. If you acknowledge that the overall effect of communist policies was to greatly increase life expectancy, where is the basis for the accusations that they were responsible for huge numbers of deaths? Why pick on Mao not Nehru since the life expectancy grew much faster in China than in India.

So the ends justifies the means?
:thumbup1:

DarkPast

4th August 2011, 21:52

So the ends justifies the means?
:thumbup1:

And what "ends"... China eventually went back to capitalism.

If Mao wanted to make his country into a superpower, he succeeded. But if his intention was to make it communist, he ultimately failed.

milk

5th August 2011, 02:35

China isn't a superpower, economically or with the militarily capability to project its power. The country has only recently begun production of its first aircraft carriers.

Hiero

5th August 2011, 06:31

We did'nt treat them as a monolithic body.

If someone says "the nazis did such and such" it is not an argument to say that the nazis had different factions, that fought one another.

What happens a lot by people who want to defend Mao (not saying you are doing this), or minimize the damage that he did, is bring into argument irrelivant things, its the same thing that happens with arguments about Stalin, just throwing a bunch of irrelivant things that have nothing to do with the cause and effect we are talking about, and us dismissing it as irrelivant is'nt over simplifying it.

You do treat them as a monolithic body, because you keep saying "The Red Guards". I made the point that Mobo Gao, an academic from this field takes it to the next level and designated two opposing groups "Red Guards" and "Rebels". The Red Guards are a faction that defended the very people you declare "innocent" against the Rebels. If anything you would support The Red Gaurds because they are against Mao. So you either criticise Mobo Gao and prove him wrong, provide a source that counters Mobo Gao or acknowledge what he says. If you acknowledge what he says it complicates things.

This is just one example of how complex China's past/present is. It is about the specifics of HOW the violence occured. I don't play the numbers game, I don't want to play fantasy ICC tribunal and that is what your trying to do the, you want a yes or no answer. If you think that the factional nature of the cultural revolution is irrelevant, then you have to prove it. One off hand quote does not prove it's irrelevance, did you ever consider the fact that Mao is wrong and over emphasized his own role? Mao lost control numerous times due the very fraction nature of power.

The Nazi reference is ahistorical and again I refer back to my orientalist comments. This is trying to force a European experience in time onto a non-European experience at a different time, it falls back on the Western head-body dialectic. It doesn't make any sense to compare the two, if someone defended Hitler by saying the NAZIs had factions, it would not make sense.

You haven't actually refuted any of the facts/statistics and systematically refuse to acknowledge the sources- even when they are probably "pro-Mao" sources. We know your tendency is MLM but FFS, a bit of intellectual honesty and objectivity is required.

I have not attempted to refute anything about the statistics, I don't care it is not part of my contribution. You are not even arguing against my points. Intellectual honesty and objectivity is pulling apart the subject and dealing with all the facts. You have not answer any of the really important questions, which are the HOW quesitons. If you think Mao sat in an office writing his atrocities then you might as well believe in magic. And what does it even mean to be an innocent?

RGacky3

5th August 2011, 08:31

You do treat them as a monolithic body, because you keep saying "The Red Guards". I made the point that Mobo Gao, an academic from this field takes it to the next level and designated two opposing groups "Red Guards" and "Rebels". The Red Guards are a faction that defended the very people you declare "innocent" against the Rebels. If anything you would support The Red Gaurds because they are against Mao. So you either criticise Mobo Gao and prove him wrong, provide a source that counters Mobo Gao or acknowledge what he says. If you acknowledge what he says it complicates things.

So then would it be wrong to call the Nazi's, the Nazis???

Mao lost control numerous times due the very fraction nature of power.

Of coarse, but then again so did Hitler.

The Nazi reference is ahistorical and again I refer back to my orientalist comments. This is trying to force a European experience in time onto a non-European experience at a different time, it falls back on the Western head-body dialectic. It doesn't make any sense to compare the two, if someone defended Hitler by saying the NAZIs had factions, it would not make sense.

Its not orientalist, its human, I'm showing inconsistancies in your argument. It makes total sense, if one is a defence for the Maoist regiem, then it should also be a defense for other ones.

ComradeMan

5th August 2011, 10:10

China isn't a superpower, economically or with the militarily capability to project its power. The country has only recently begun production of its first aircraft carriers.

2nd after US for GDP?

Nuclear power?

2.3 million active troops- largest army in the world?

Largest creditor nation in the world?

How do you define a superpower anyway?

DarkPast

5th August 2011, 11:21

Yeah I guess "superpower" is a vague term. But there's no denying China was much more powerful - in just about every aspect, from economy to military - when Mao died than it was before he came to power. The imperialist powers of the early 20th century had colonies in China. Under Mao, China started exerting its influence on other countries.

China's rise to power cannot, of course, be attributed to Mao alone. But his policies, along with Deng's, certainly helped lay the foundations for that rise.

milk

5th August 2011, 12:07

2nd after US for GDP?

Nuclear power?

2.3 million active troops- largest army in the world?

Largest creditor nation in the world?

How do you define a superpower anyway?

What is the point in having the largest standing army in the world, if it can't be deployed with global reach? But that is counter-factual, with the trend in the PLA shedding troop numbers over the last twenty years, as the Chinese military has rethought its planning and practice for modern warfare - highly-skilled and fewer personnel, using advanced precision weapons. The shedding numbers of troops seems to be heading towards the same levels as the US and Russia. They have only just recently finished the Shi Lang aircraft carrier, however, and have yet to develop their missile-guidance technology well enough to make their new and potentially devastating East Wind missiles effective at what they were designed to do - destroy aircraft carriers. Such power now, is restricted to a small part of the Pacific and exerting influence over Taiwan, in how it chooses to rely on the US. It can't yet expand and strategically control trade routes, in the Pacific or elsewhere. It's certainly not a superpower, in military terms. It can't project such influence that way, globally, in more than one place at a time. And military spending in China is only a fraction of what the US spends.

Paul Cockshott

5th August 2011, 14:25

So the ends justifies the means?
:thumbup1:
The end result of much better life expectancy in China than India certainly justified the revolutionary mean used by the cpc as opposed to Congress Party.

ComradeMan

5th August 2011, 19:04

....

Experts have predicted military parity within 15-20 years. You seem to be fixed on the idea of military strength alone, economic strength, population size, geographical area and policies pursued etc all need to be taken into account. China's economy is predicted to be number one by around 2021.

The end result of much better life expectancy in China than India certainly justified the revolutionary mean used by the cpc as opposed to Congress Party.

Oh well, life expectancy increased and populations boomed in Africa under colonialism.... what's your point?

milk

5th August 2011, 19:36

Experts have predicted military parity within 15-20 years. You seem to be fixed on the idea of military strength alone, economic strength, population size, geographical area and policies pursued etc all need to be taken into account. China's economy is predicted to be number one by around 2021.

I picked on one area, but not above others. I pointed out to you troop strength isn't indicative of such status, and the PLA trend is of cutting down troop levels.

China certainly isn't a 'superpower.' Just as DPRK isn't because it has nuclear technology. The way you're talking it has 'yet' to become one. So thanks for agreeing with me.

ComradeMan

5th August 2011, 19:58

I picked on one area, but not above others. I pointed out to you troop strength isn't indicative of such status, and the PLA trend is of cutting down troop levels.

China certainly isn't a 'superpower.' Just as DPRK isn't because it has nuclear technology. The way you're talking it has 'yet' to become one. So thanks for agreeing with me.

Can you define what superpower actually means though?

The words emerging superpower are often used- but basically when we are talking about a decade here either way- which in the history of China is nothing- then really the mechanisms for China's superpowerness are already well in motion. I don't think being the second biggest economy in the world makes you small fry either.;)

milk

5th August 2011, 20:00

So China isn't a superpower, then.

Nox

5th August 2011, 20:19

ComradeMan is right.

Just because China isn't #1 on all of the lists yet, doesn't mean it isn't a superpower. That's like saying the Soviet Union wasn't a superpower because it was second to the United States in almost every category.

milk

5th August 2011, 20:37

Agent Equality

5th August 2011, 20:43

lol these maoists make me giggle :laugh:

ComradeMan

5th August 2011, 23:34

The Yuan isn't an internationalised currency, like the US dollar or Euro. The GDP might be more than any single European country, but taken together, collectively, the EU economy is almost as large as the US. And per-capita income is far lower than other more developed countries.

Except the EU economy is going down the toilet and China is growing....;) (However taken as a whole EU GDP is larger than the US).

heirofstalin

6th August 2011, 02:41

Mao zedong was a revolutionary and a hero, i dont care what the government history books say, you dont realize how repressed the human spirit was in nationalist china, there was no hope left, if it wasnt for mao, china would be a slave state of the japanese and wouldnt even be a nation state.

He drove the nationalists out, and they fled like cowards to taiwan, declaring themselves the legitimate government of china. pathetic dogs.

If it wasnt for mao, china would be even worse than india, or even africa.
now we have the fastest growing economy in the world. and a growing superpower to retake our dignity and defend the weak who right wing u.s government repress.

time for peace not war.

RED DAVE

6th August 2011, 02:46

RevLeft By Birth

6th August 2011, 02:50

Do you think that Mao was guilty of crimes against humanity?

Between 40-80 million people are estimated to have died in China and Tibet as a result of Mao's rule and policies- if famine is excluded we still have a figure of around 10 million.

Article here:-
http://munch-unc.com/ICC-MAO.pdf

What do you think?

Edit:- The numbers vary hugely and there is of course the debate about how many people "usually" died in famines anyway, having said that- as Danyboy points out- we are still left with a lot of people who died or were killed directly due to Mao and his policies. It is difficult with these cases to find "neutral" sources- however there is no shortage of sources either.

Here is another article
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forward-killed-45-million-in-four-years-2081630.html

How many of these people were members of the Bourgeoisie... one wonders how much of a loss to China they really were.

RED DAVE

6th August 2011, 04:49

How many of these people were members of the Bourgeoisie... one wonders how much of a loss to China they really were.Way to go! A real humanitarian. And what was the result: capitalism!

RED DAVE

RevLeft By Birth

6th August 2011, 05:25

Way to go! A real humanitarian. And what was the result: capitalism!

RED DAVE

I don't see how it is fare to hold Mao responsible for the restoration that took place after he passed away. He held trust that the great leap forward would be worth while and it would set the stage for the development of communism... which I think it did. Of course all that work was undone as you point out.

This is where the DPRK has followed a better ideological line, Kim Il Sung insured the mechanism of the state passed to someone who had an absolute interest in the consolidation of the gains of socialism. He insured this with the election of Kim Jong Il. Mao should have closely groomed a successor to continue socialism as Kim Il Sung did.

Agent Equality

6th August 2011, 10:52

I don't see how it is fare to hold Mao responsible for the restoration that took place after he passed away. He held trust that the great leap forward would be worth while and it would set the stage for the development of communism... which I think it did. Of course all that work was undone as you point out.

This is where the DPRK has followed a better ideological line, Kim Il Sung insured the mechanism of the state passed to someone who had an absolute interest in the consolidation of the gains of socialism. He insured this with the election of Kim Jong Il. Mao should have closely groomed a successor to continue socialism as Kim Il Sung did.

Kim Il Sung did no such thing. He merely passed down power to his son and started a pseudo-monarchic dictatorship. no matter what those crazy coots like to say there is no socialism in North Korea, only Totilitarianism and repression.

I have no intention of unneccesary flaming, but I am sorry, you truly are an idiot if you think that North Korea is anywhere near socialist or communist. And I am sure the vast majority of this forum will agree with me when I say that. Now, go worship your great leader or something and leave socialism to people who at least have an inkling of what it actually is

W1N5T0N

6th August 2011, 11:33

In my opinion, it's rather different from that. Mao was a very intelligent man, and one of his 'great' talents was that he could effectively manipulate large masses while staying behind the shadow of propaganda and secrecy. For Mao, the great masses of mostly poor students who enacted the cultural revolution were a weapon. A means to an end. He "unleashed" them, so to speak, and stirred up their feelings of righteous indignation into a killing frenzy, and thus steered responsibility for their acts away from himself.

Hiero

6th August 2011, 11:58

So then would it be wrong to call the Nazi's, the Nazis???

Of coarse, but then again so did Hitler.

Its not orientalist, its human, I'm showing inconsistancies in your argument. It makes total sense, if one is a defence for the Maoist regiem, then it should also be a defense for other ones.

Your argument is very infantile, I am not dealing with you anymore. I have found you to be one of the worst posters on this forum, you're simple and you're analytical outlook on the social world and life in general is cartoonish. Comrademan is on par with your simplicity. If you are happy, then good luck to you.

RED DAVE

6th August 2011, 12:17

I don't seeYou don't see.

how it is fare to hold Mao responsible for the restoration that took place after he passed away.The process by which private capitalism was restored in China was already contained within the revolutionary program of the CCP. (a) They made an alliance with a section of the bourgeoisie; and (b) they failed to institute workers control of the economy. The bourgeousie continued to exist as a class, and as soon as they were permitted, they took the economy back into their lovely hands.

He held trust that the great leap forward would be worth while and it would set the stage for the development of communism... which I think it did.It set the stage for capitalism.

Of course all that work was undone as you point out.It wasn't "undone" because the fundamental work of the socialist revolution, the working class seizing control of the economy never took place and was explicitly forbidden by the Communists.

This is where the DPRK has followed a better ideological line, Kim Il Sung insured the mechanism of the state passed to someone who had an absolute interest in the consolidation of the gains of socialism.Are you serious? You're talking about his son and the state capitalist bureaucracy. All this has nothing to do with the working class.

He insured this with the election of Kim Jong Il. Mao should have closely groomed a successor to continue socialism as Kim Il Sung did.Are you crazy? The DPRK is a vile state capitalism, which over the next few years is going to morph right into private capitalism.

Neither in China subsequent to the revolution, nor in the DPRK, is or was there ever working class control of the economy.

RED DAVE

CHE with an AK

7th August 2011, 00:02

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/print/2007/3/Mao-Galaxy-92FM.jpg

:ninja:

... carry on

MarxSchmarx

8th August 2011, 03:48

The end result of much better life expectancy in China than India certainly justified the revolutionary mean used by the cpc as opposed to Congress Party.

"Certainly"? Are you suggesting China's higher life expectancy is due to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution or Tiannanmen?

RevLeft By Birth

8th August 2011, 07:47

"Certainly"? Are you suggesting China's higher life expectancy is due to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution or Tiannanmen?

In part I bet it was, look at Venezuela, the doctors of the privileged refuse to service the common people at an affordable price, they band together and attempt to extract higher prices and limit care. They undermine Chavez's efforts to provide cheap universal healthcare forcing him to bring in Cuban doctors. In the DPRK, Kim Il Sung built the healthcare system from the ground up, allowing the previous doctors to play only a limited role.

The Cultural Revolution displaced doctors from the medical system that would refuse to care for the common people. The cultural revolution put the healthcare system on a revolutionary footing.

ComradeMan

8th August 2011, 21:04

In the DPRK, Kim Il Sung built the healthcare system from the ground up, allowing the previous doctors to play only a limited role..

This is just lies and distortion. Most of the healthcare system was built up on foreign humanitarian donations and quite frankly saying that doctors have a limited role in the healthcare system is one of the most idiotic things I've heard said... I suppose chefs have limited roles in restaurants and teachers limited roles in schools too.... :laugh:

ColonelCossack

8th August 2011, 21:13

It's Mao Tse-Tung

RevLeft By Birth

8th August 2011, 22:01

This is just lies and distortion. Most of the healthcare system was built up on foreign humanitarian donations and quite frankly saying that doctors have a limited role in the healthcare system is one of the most idiotic things I've heard said... I suppose chefs have limited roles in restaurants and teachers limited roles in schools too.... :laugh:

The healthcare system was built up using Korean ingenuity and practices, integrating traditional Korean medicine with modern western practices. And the old doctors, from the Japanese system, played a limited role, these doctors attempted to band together just like they are in Venezuela to get more money out of patients. Kim Il Sung instead had a new caste of revolutionary doctors trained, and yes soviet assistance played some role in this.

ComradeMan

8th August 2011, 23:58

The healthcare system was built up using Korean ingenuity and practices, integrating traditional Korean medicine with modern western practices. And the old doctors, from the Japanese system, played a limited role, these doctors attempted to band together just like they are in Venezuela to get more money out of patients. Kim Il Sung instead had a new caste of revolutionary doctors trained, and yes soviet assistance played some role in this.

"North Korea's healthcare system has been in a steep decline since the 1990s due to natural disasters, economic problems, and food and energy shortages. Many hospitals and clinics in North Korea now lack essential medicines, equipment, running water and electricity.[181 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea#cite_note-180)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea#Health_care

"Health Care in North Korea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea) includes a national medical service and health insurance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance) system[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_in_North_Korea#cite_note-0). North Korea’s government provides universal health care (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care) for all citizens; however independent sources claim that in reality health services (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_services) only exist for those can pay for them[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_in_North_Korea#cite_note-1). There are conflicting reports about the quality of the health care system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system) in North Korea. In April 2010 the World Health Organisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organisation) (WHO) director-general Margaret Chan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Chan) visited the nation, and claimed that its health system was the “envy of the developing world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_world),” and that there were sufficient numbers of doctors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physician) and nurses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_in_North_Korea#cite_note-2). However critics argue that UN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations) agencies such as the WHO are disinclined to criticize North Korea in case their future work there is put at risk[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_in_North_Korea#cite_note-3). A report from Amnesty International (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International) reached a very different conclusion to that of Chan. The report is based on interviews with North Korean citizens who have left the country, and foreign health care workers who have worked in the country. Amongst its findings were that the North Korean health system is vastly under funded by the government; that many health facilities are dilapidated, and without a reliable supply of running water (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_water) and electricity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity); and that doctors lack the medical supplies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_supplies) they require, meaning for example that many operations have to take place without anesthesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anesthesia)[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_in_North_Korea#cite_note-4)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_in_North_Korea

etc etc etc etc

Go and peddle your vile propaganda at the expense of ordinary N.Koreans somewhere else....

RED DAVE

12th August 2011, 18:12

Kim Il Sung instead had a new caste of revolutionary doctors trained, and yes soviet assistance played some role in this.So you are admitting that, for good or ill, North Korea is/was a one-man dictatorship. Otherwise you would be saying something like, "The North Korean working class built up ... ."

RED DAVE

Paul Cockshott

12th August 2011, 18:57

"Certainly"? Are you suggesting China's higher life expectancy is due to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution or Tiannanmen?
I think it was a combination of public health measures, the barefoot doctor programme and rising nutritional standards as a result of elminating excess consumption by the landlord class. I dont know of any detailed factorial analysis, but I am not a public health expert, such analyses may exist in the literature.

Azula

18th August 2011, 14:14

No.

"Crimes against humanity" is a bourgeois concept, to justify continued capitalist control over the means of production. This "passive" oppression kills more people every year than the active oppression of any "dictator".

China in 1949 was a war-torn country. It had huge inequalities between the landlords and the commoners, and horrible practices (feet mutiliation, infanticides of girls).

Mao built a modern state, with industrialisation and equal (in theory) rights of females. The reason why there were wrongs were mostly to blame on right deviators, which were dealt with in the Cultural Revolution.

RGacky3

18th August 2011, 14:35

"Crimes against humanity" is a bourgeois concept, to justify continued capitalist control over the means of production. This "passive" oppression kills more people every year than the active oppression of any "dictator".

Really? So working people are absolutely fine with mass murder, genocide mass starvation and so on, its only Capitalists that care about that.

Mao built a modern state, with industrialisation and equal (in theory) rights of females. The reason why there were wrongs were mostly to blame on right deviators, which were dealt with in the Cultural Revolution.

Tons of things are in theory, in theory the US has equal rights for all.

yeah the reason things were wrong was because of the deviators, people that did'nt worship mao enough, who were killed in the cultural revolution, yeah those terrible sabatours, like people with educations, or people that might have a pair of jeans.

Azula

18th August 2011, 14:41

Really? So working people are absolutely fine with mass murder, genocide mass starvation and so on, its only Capitalists that care about that

Mass starvation, genocide and injustices are mostly caused by Capitalism. We could complain all that we want about the authoritarianism of Lenin, of Stalin, of Mao and of other leaders, but the analysis is amounting to nothing without an analysis of the context.

The truth is that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China began as very exposed and vulnerable underdeveloped nations, and the governments of these countries had to be authoritarian or else see the progress of the working masses undermined from inside by bourgeois deviators, or from the outside by Imperialist powers.

The socialist states, no matter their shortcomings, have given the people the means to assert their dignity and to liberate themselves. That is more worth than abstract rights which give the exploiters protection from the revolting masses.

Azula

18th August 2011, 14:45

Tons of things are in theory, in theory the US has equal rights for all.

yeah the reason things were wrong was because of the deviators, people that did'nt worship mao enough, who were killed in the cultural revolution, yeah those terrible sabatours, like people with educations, or people that might have a pair of jeans

Females are not yet equal in any country in the world. Mao struggled from early years to elevate the woman and allow her equal rights (in one essay from 1919, he advocated the abolishment of arranged marriages). Chinese women do not have their feet mutilated today, granted there is still much to do.

As for the "victims" of the Cultural Revolution, they were not killed. It was a struggle inside the country in order to protect the gains of the people.

RGacky3

18th August 2011, 14:48

Mass starvation, genocide and injustices are mostly caused by Capitalism. We could complain all that we want about the authoritarianism of Lenin, of Stalin, of Mao and of other leaders, but the analysis is amounting to nothing without an analysis of the context.

Yeah, and Capitalism is a crime against humanity, that bullshit of crime against humanity being a capitalist concept is rediculous.

If your gonna say that you better not open your mouth about the "crime against humanity" that capitalism is.

You can cry context all you want, but heres what you can do as well, judge systems based on their direct consequences, and authoritarian systems have had direct consiquences that are predictable.

First of which is the destruction of real socialism.

The truth is that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China began as very exposed and vulnerable underdeveloped nations, and the governments of these countries had to be authoritarian or else see the progress of the working masses undermined from inside by bourgeois deviators, or from the outside by Imperialist powers.

Is that so? And who decided that?

BTW, bourgeois deviators? Why are people incapable of free thought that they would'nt be able to, in a free socialist society, choose which ideas made sense? Or did lenin and mao know better than the workers, and have to protect them from themselves? Could it be that they could'nt justify their power? So they just silenced opposition.

As far as outside powers, no one is condemning those systems for fighting outside powers.

You replace the capitalist with authoritarian leaders you don't have socialism, you have state capitalism, and authoritarian state capitalism at that.

The socialist states, no matter their shortcomings, have given the people the means to assert their dignity and to liberate themselves. That is more worth than abstract rights which give the exploiters protection from the revolting masses.

Those "Socialist" states did none of that, the people were not liberated, and my no means were able to assert their dignity. BTW, talking about abstract rights, explain what you mean by "assert their dignity" or be "liberated." I'll tell you what freedom of speach means concretely, the ability to say whatever you want politically without government reprocussions, which is the basis of democracy which is the basis for socialism which was not at all around in your so-called "socialist" states.

Azula

18th August 2011, 15:09

Yeah, and Capitalism is a crime against humanity, that bullshit of crime against humanity being a capitalist concept is rediculous.

If your gonna say that you better not open your mouth about the "crime against humanity" that capitalism is.

If you want to install Socialism, you have to violate the Universal Declaration. Private property, if you don't think so, is counted as a human right.

Is that so? And who decided that?

BTW, bourgeois deviators? Why are people incapable of free thought that they would'nt be able to, in a free socialist society, choose which ideas made sense? Or did lenin and mao know better than the workers, and have to protect them from themselves? Could it be that they could'nt justify their power? So they just silenced opposition.

The USSR and China could not simply tolerate people who advocated individualist behaviour or bourgeois norms, and who tried to hide their true opinions. Just look at what happened in the Soviet Union in 1991.

As far as outside powers, no one is condemning those systems for fighting outside powers.

You replace the capitalist with authoritarian leaders you don't have socialism, you have state capitalism, and authoritarian state capitalism at that.

Mao and Stalin were not gods. They were leaders of the vanguard parties which represented the interests of the masses. The main principle of democracy is that the majority should have power, and the majority did have power in USSR (1922-1956) and in China (1949-1976).

Those "Socialist" states did none of that, the people were not liberated, and my no means were able to assert their dignity. BTW, talking about abstract rights, explain what you mean by "assert their dignity" or be "liberated." I'll tell you what freedom of speach means concretely, the ability to say whatever you want politically without government reprocussions, which is the basis of democracy which is the basis for socialism which was not at all around in your so-called "socialist" states.

The people in China enjoyed the right to say what they thought. Otherwise, how do you explain the Red Guards? The largest mass movement in history?

RGacky3

18th August 2011, 15:17

If you want to install Socialism, you have to violate the Universal Declaration. Private property, if you don't think so, is counted as a human right.

Except it is not a human right, considering it is, by definition, exclusionary.

The USSR and China could not simply tolerate people who advocated individualist behaviour or bourgeois norms, and who tried to hide their true opinions. Just look at what happened in the Soviet Union in 1991.

What happened in 1991 was'nt because of TO LITTLE authoritarianism, and btw, good riddence, now at least we can try and build real socialism.

BTW, of coarse they could'nt tolerate dissenting opinions becuase that might turn into people wanting real socialism, like they did in Hungary in the 50s.

Mao and Stalin were not gods. They were leaders of the vanguard parties which represented the interests of the masses. The main principle of democracy is that the majority should have power, and the majority did have power in USSR (1922-1956) and in China (1949-1976).

Really? Did the masses consent to that? Did they decide public policy? did they control what happened with hte economy? Did they decide themselves to build gulags? Did they restrict their own freedom of speach and information?

The principle of democracy is the people have the power, which was not the case in the USSR and China.

The people in China enjoyed the right to say what they thought. Otherwise, how do you explain the Red Guards? The largest mass movement in history?

how do you explain the red guards? Easy, Mao encouraging people to get rid of his political rivals, easy, btw, there was some freedom of speach in China, the thousand flower campain .... although what happened after that?

Azula

18th August 2011, 15:24

Except it is not a human right, considering it is, by definition, exclusionary.

Ever read the Universal Declaration?

What happened in 1991 was'nt because of TO LITTLE authoritarianism, and btw, good riddence, now at least we can try and build real socialism.

BTW, of coarse they could'nt tolerate dissenting opinions becuase that might turn into people wanting real socialism, like they did in Hungary in the 50s.

If Gorbachev had used massive force, the USSR would still have existed today. I think that the USSR was heavily revisionist, but it at least stood miles above modern Russia, where females and children are exploited by the sex and drug industry and oligarchs have taken all the resources.

Hungary was seceding from the Warszaw Pact. If the USSR had accepted that, more countries might have done the same. No small Socialist country could stand alone against Imperialism. The USSR saved the Hungarian working class.

Really? Did the masses consent to that? Did they decide public policy? did they control what happened with hte economy? Did they decide themselves to build gulags? Did they restrict their own freedom of speach and information?

Yes. They elected their representatives through the party that is.

how do you explain the red guards? Easy, Mao encouraging people to get rid of his political rivals, easy, btw, there was some freedom of speach in China, the thousand flower campain .... although what happened after that?

Wrong.

RGacky3

18th August 2011, 22:16

Ever read the Universal Declaration?

Who cares, the UNiversal declaration is not the bible of what human rights are, a couple people wrote it.

If Gorbachev had used massive force, the USSR would still have existed today. I think that the USSR was heavily revisionist, but it at least stood miles above modern Russia, where females and children are exploited by the sex and drug industry and oligarchs have taken all the resources.

Actually what made the USSR fall was people like you that were against Gorbechev's reforms.

Anyway, yeah the USSR was a mess, and Russia today was a mess, but I would rebel against both of them.

Hungary was seceding from the Warszaw Pact. If the USSR had accepted that, more countries might have done the same. No small Socialist country could stand alone against Imperialism. The USSR saved the Hungarian working class.

Replace the USSR with England, and Hungary with any colonial country in the colonial days.

The USSR saved the hungarian working class .... from themselves?

Listen to yourself, your an imperialist.

The Hungarians were trying to impliment real socialism, THe USSR was forcing state capitalism.

Yes. They elected their representatives through the party that is.

When you say elected, what you mean is they voted yes, on a yest or no ballot, for a candidate selected by the communist party before hand, and who the people had no say in selecting, and who did'nt really have any power to begin with because he was obligated to follow party line due to the sham that is democratic centrism, and also elected by the people who had'nt been shot or sent to gulags for having individual though ....

You call that a democracy?

Wrong.

Ok, where was I wrong?