Mao vs Stalin

[CatsAttack]

Which of them was the greater warlord?

When Mao came to Petrograd, he was shown some sites of the siege, and Mao waved it off, said he wasn't interested, he had seen plenty of warfare.

This seems very anti-intellectual on his part, surly the chinese civil was nothing like the great patriotic war?

This is an interesting subject. On the one hand Mao lead his troops, on the other hand, Stalin's war was much more significant.

Stalin didn't write anything of note on warfare, while mao wrote his famous books on guerrilla warfare, but that book is a bit of a joke i think, as krushchev pointed out in his memoirs.

What do you guys think? Who was the superior military mind?

[TheIrrationalist]

First of all Stalin wasn't a warlord and he didn't win "the Great Patriotic War". The Chinese civil war lasted much longer, from 1927 to 1950, and remember it wasn't just the Kuomintang they had to fight, there were other warlords and the Japanese had invaded much of China in 1936. Mao certainly had superior military mind as he was a military leader and had read works on military strategy and wrote them too. Stalin didn't take any direct part in "the Great Patriotic War" so it would be silly to even compare them.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Mao clearly was, for reasons already stated above.

[CatsAttack]

I'm inclined to very strongly disagree. Stalin defeated the nazi war machine. You will not finds battles like stalingrad or berlin in the chinese example. he crushed the japanese in manchuria, he liberated eastern europe, he took berlin itself for goodness sakes.

mao's war was a bunch of bumpkins poking eachother in their rears as krushchev comically points out.

mao read military strategy? his works on the subject look like they were written by a 12 year old.

stalin took a backseat to his generals? nonsense! his general's were young greenhorns since stalin had executed his general staff before their promotions. stalin was the principal leader of the russian war effort. no question about it.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Why did you ask who is better if you already have a strong opinion of the matter?

[CatsAttack]

Why did you ask who is better if you already have a strong opinion of the matter?

it could be because i like to discuss history. or it could be i would like to get different perspectives. take your pick.

[ind_com]

Thread title and OP indicate an amateur troll.

[Lenin1986]

I think Mao was by far the superior warlord. He was the master at strategy for guerrilla warfare. He has many writings on the subject. I think its not fair to say they look like they were wrote by a 12 year old. I don't think it matters much how something is wrote. Once a theory works is the main thing and it worked for the guerrilla army. The theory of the protracted war was a genius.

[Per Levy]

I'm inclined to very strongly disagree. Stalin defeated the nazi war machine.

all by himself of course, no army and army personel needed for that.


You will not finds battles like stalingrad or berlin in the chinese example.

wich might be because the second world war and the chinese civil war are quite different wars all in all.


he crushed the japanese in manchuria, he liberated eastern europe, he took berlin itself for goodness sakes.

yup, and he did so, armed only with a knife between his teeth and a soviet banner in his hands.


mao's war was a bunch of bumpkins poking eachother in their rears as krushchev comically points out.

bumpkin, you like that word i see. also a war between 2 of the largest armys and countries in the world at that time and a guerillia war are obviously very different. just saying.


mao read military strategy? his works on the subject look like they were written by a 12 year old.

maybe the works were just badly translated, ever thought of that?


stalin took a backseat to his generals? nonsense! his general's were young greenhorns since stalin had executed his general staff before their promotions. stalin was the principal leader of the russian war effort. no question about it.

seriously now, you might want to troll better, cause this is kinda lame and boring. its not even creative, what happend to good quality trolls? "revleft by birth" come back.

[Per Levy]

I think Mao was by far the superior warlord.

mao was not a warlord, neither was stalin, mao was the leader of a guerillia army. the chinese warlords were quite something different http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_era . @op stalin was also no warlord but the head of a state.

[Bostana]

What do you guys think?

You're asking for a flame war

[connoros]

all by himself of course, no army and army personel needed for that.

Given that a state is merely organized violence, that the military is the most clear expression of this violence, and that those with administrative power within the state are responsible for directing the use of this violence, I'd say Stalin played a significant role in the Great Patriotic War. I don't know what you think you were adding to this conversation with the above, but I very sincerely doubt anyone thinks Stalin was singlehandedly slaughtering entire German detachments. "Man of steel" or not, he wasn't from Krypton.


wich might be because the second world war and the chinese civil war are quite different wars all in all.

This is absolutely right. I think someone earlier in this thread expanded upon why that is, including the fact that there was more than one belligerent seeking to crush the revolution during this time.


yup, and he did so, armed only with a knife between his teeth and a soviet banner in his hands.

Once again, when someone says an individual won a war (in which we usually mean there were clearly entire states acting as belligerents), that person is speaking figuratively, although the individual in question may have had very significant responsibilities with regards to the war. It's a little bit like calling the government of the United Kingdom "the Crown" or that of the United States "the White House." An actual crown or building isn't the thing making big decisions, and most people really don't need that pointing out.



maybe the works were just badly translated, ever thought of that?

It may also be that what is considered expert use of language in Mandarin and the like don't come across that way when translated into English. In Mao, you do see a lot of weird ways of putting things, like (and I'm making this up): "Let us comrades all study diligently to discern how that which determines the goodness of a thing is demonstrated by the goodness of the results of that thing." Now, granted my Chinese is a little non-existent, but Mao does seem to say simple things in rather explicit ways. In English, we abhor redundancy, but perhaps in the Chinese languages, they view redundancy the same way a security firm views redundancy in call centers and dispatch units; you really can't not know what Mao means when he says something.


seriously now, you might want to troll better, cause this is kinda lame and boring. its not even creative, what happend to good quality trolls? "revleft by birth" come back.

I wasn't here for early RevLeft, but it does seem like CatsAttack is making a habit out of starting piss-poor topics and then really contributing nothing overall to the conversation

[Ace High]

Funny how Stalin and Mao CLAIMED to be heroes of the proletariat, yet they were funded by capitalist scum who used their movements to further the profit of banking cartels. David Rockefeller called Mao's mass economic mismanagement "one of the most important and successful [experiments] in history."

Stalin, of course, was an ultra-nationalist. He did not want international freedom for workers. He wanted a state led by fear and a personality cult only matched by the likes of the Kims and Saddam Hussein.

BUT, since the question asks who is the better "warlord", it would probably have to be Mao. Stalin did not lead the revolution, he just stepped in as a military dictator and ruined what Lenin created. Mao actually led an impressive revolt in a country much heavily populated than Russia.

[connoros]

Funny how Stalin and Mao CLAIMED to be heroes of the proletariat, yet they were funded by capitalist scum who used their movements to further the profit of banking cartels. David Rockefeller called Mao's mass economic mismanagement "one of the most important and successful [experiments] in history."

Stalin, of course, was an ultra-nationalist. He did not want international freedom for workers. He wanted a state led by fear and a personality cult only matched by the likes of the Kims and Saddam Hussein.

BUT, since the question asks who is the better "warlord", it would probably have to be Mao. Stalin did not lead the revolution, he just stepped in as a military dictator and ruined what Lenin created. Mao actually led an impressive revolt in a country much heavily populated than Russia.

Seriously? Do you have anything that backs any of this up, or are we just going to keep perpetuating the same anti-communist diarrhea?

[CatsAttack]

Mao's work was poorly translated? Did it ever cross your tiny mind that some us arn't monolingual smart-asses and know other languages?

Mao's works are garbage in the original chinese and in the 'poor translation'

Some of you guys seriously don't understand what a moron Mao was. Just watch a video of him trying to speak Mandarin.

I'm dissapointed so many of you take the side of mao here. maybe you'd also take of che guavara over napoleon as warlord though, so i shouldnt be suprised.

[connoros]

Mao's work was poorly translated? Did it ever cross your tiny mind that some us arn't monolingual smart-asses and know other languages?

Mao's works are garbage in the original chinese and in the 'poor translation'

Some of you guys seriously don't understand what a moron Mao was. Just watch a video of him trying to speak Mandarin.

I'm dissapointed so many of you take the side of mao here. maybe you'd also take of che guavara over napoleon as warlord though, so i shouldnt be suprised.

How are you not banned yet? Honestly, who's asleep at the switchboard here?

[Fourth Internationalist]

I don't see how the inability to speak Mandarin makes one a moron. I don't know a single person who speaks Mandarin.

[Comrade Samuel]

I think that it is fairly unanimous that Mao was the superior military mind between the two but if you're looking for the real genius' behind the Soviet victory in WWII I would start with this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Zhukov

Learning is never pointless but honestly this seems like a pretty shit thread- what did you hope the discussion to be other than sectarian squabbling and Stalin/Mao fapping?

[CatsAttack]

I don't see how the inability to speak Mandarin makes one a moron. I don't know a single person who speaks Mandarin.

If you are Chinese. If you spent your whole life in China. If you know no other language than your local Chinese dialect. If you present yourself as a master of theory and force an entire nation to carry around a book of your quotes as you are the master on all subjects.

And at the same time you are unable to even speak the national language? Then yes, you might not be quite the master after all.

[CatsAttack]

I think that it is fairly unanimous that Mao was the superior military mind between the two but if you're looking for the real genius' behind the Soviet victory in WWII I would start with this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Zhukov

That 'guy' also claimed Stalin was the principal leader of the Russian war effort and a genius military mind. So your point is mute.

[Bostana]

If you are Chinese. If you spent your whole life in China. If you know no other language than your local Chinese dialect. If you present yourself as a master of theory and force an entire nation to carry around a book of your quotes as you are the master on all subjects.

And at the same time you are unable to even speak the national language? Then yes, you might not be quite the master after all.

It's very easy to insult the dead

[connoros]

That 'guy' also claimed Stalin was the principal leader of the Russian war effort and a genius military mind. So your point is mute.

*moot


And at the same time you are unable to even speak the national language? Then yes, you might not be quite the master after all.

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

[CatsAttack]

*moot



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

Maybe you should comment on why you are posting a link to Chinese dialects?

[connoros]

Maybe you should comment on why you are posting a link to Chinese dialects?

Because those "dialects" are so called for ideological reasons, and, given the fact that they're for the most part mutually unintelligible, linguists unencumbered by certain politics recognize these as distinct languages. It isn't as though Mao lived in an Anglophone country and couldn't speak English; he lived in a country of several languages. I know many Chinese individuals who, having grown up in China, do not speak Mandarin. They are certainly not unintelligent people.

[CatsAttack]

Because those "dialects" are so called for ideological reasons, and, given the fact that they're for the most part mutually unintelligible, linguists unencumbered by certain politics recognize these as distinct languages. It isn't as though Mao lived in an Anglophone country and couldn't speak English; he lived in a country of several languages. I know many Chinese individuals who, having grown up in China, do not speak Mandarin. They are certainly not unintelligent people.

Every uneducated farmer in mainland China has at least a working competency in Mandarin. If a person, in mainland China, spoke poor Mandarin, they would universally be seen as poorly educated. If they didn't know Mandarin at all, then they would be seen as completely uneducated.

Tell me, how did your Chinese friends even manage to go to school if they spoke zero Mandarin?

There, I have caught you red-handed in a lie. But knowing you, you'll just try to side-step it. Perhaps call me a troll while you lie through your teeth.

[connoros]

Every uneducated farmer in mainland China has at least a working competency in Mandarin. If a person, in mainland China, spoke poor Mandarin, they would universally be seen as poorly educated. If they didn't know Mandarin at all, then they would be seen as completely uneducated.

Tell me, how did your Chinese friends even manage to go to school if they spoke zero Mandarin?

There, I have caught you red-handed in a lie. But knowing you, you'll just try to side-step it. Perhaps call me a troll while you lie through your teeth.

I've got a much simpler solution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese

I've noticed you've made a lot of claims about the nature of language in China, and I'm the only one of us two actually posting anything approaching a citation.

Addendum: Half of the people in China can't speak Mandarin, according to the Taipei Times.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/05/23/2003256286
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/09/06/2003326364

[Fourth Internationalist]

Rather than attack Mao and his regime on its policies failures and beaurocracy, you attack him for not being at a certain level of fluency in Mandarin. Wow.

[BOZG]

MOD NOTE: This whole thread is liable to become a flame war. I'd suggest everyone keeps a cool head.

CatsAttack: Consider this a verbal warning. If you want to discuss the topic, then do so. Flamebaiting posts about whether Mao is educated or not will not be tolerated.

[Geiseric]

I would consider both of them to be "despots" in the classic sense, Ambassador Davies actually spoke favorably about Stalin's turn from Marxist communism to "Asiatic despotism," when he was trying to mold relations between the fSU and the US. Ambassador Davies also is quoted by Ismail and the various Stalinoids here as a reputable source for their moscow trials denial.

Both of them didn't allow much democracy and relied on military and state oppression in order to retain power, due to their disastrous economic policies which were made in a very uneducated, detached, impossible manners.

So the term "Warlord," isn't far off.

[supernova]

Warlord? Stalin. Guerilla fighter? Mao. There is a difference, and I would say neither really fits the warlord bill, but of the two, Stalin does.

[BIXX]

I don't see how the inability to speak Mandarin makes one a moron. I don't know a single person who speaks Mandarin.

I almost replied about how almost everyone I know speaks mandarin but then I realized that there was a large part of my school that was mandarin immersion for 85% of their lives, hahahah.

[Comrade Jacob]

I will go with Mao as a revolutionary but Stalin as a warlord.

[UncleLenin]

Mao Tse Tsung was quite clearly the superior military mind.

[Tam Istmat]

Mao unified China and was a great leader. Mao transformed China from a semi-fudal backward land into a modern nation, what had taken centuries in other nations took just a few decades in China.