Battle for the History of China

[Jonathan Ingram]

Allowing for optimism, it's worth remembering 30yrs ago the entire country was a billion-strong peasant population dying of starvation. There are bound to be remnants of that era such a short while on. More impressive by far is how many people's lives have done an unrecognisable 360 as a result of Deng Xiao Ping's inception. Comparing this to the UK, where unemployment, affordability and standards of living are in visible decline; It's all well and good to finger wag about China's existing poverty and policies, but the revolutionary advances are no less, well, revolutionary. How it will address the natural capitalist inequality stretch is the current hot potato.

The credit for bailing China from complete misery goes to Mao first and foremost - China after him was better than China before him. Deng made inroads into integrating China into the global economy by turning it into the main supplier of cheap labor to top capitalist countries. Some sell gas and oil, China sells labor. A questionable achievement, but not completely without positive sides - China`s rural population is getting rapidly proletarianized and the productive forces are much more developed now than they were 20 years ago(Mao`s China never quite managed to properly industrialize itself). No matter what`s going to happen in the future, at least China not being a largely rural society anymore brings some hope for a positive social change.

And China is even more vulnerable to the fluctuations in the global economy than UK is. Should a dire economic depression hit the first-world countries, China is going to be affected in an even bigger way than any of them unless it manages to quickly disassociate itself from capitalism like USSR did in 1929(which is unlikely to happen given the nature of Chinese leadership, even though CPC`s mouthpiece, People`s Daily, keeps insisting that CPC is preparing the material base for a full switch to socialism).

Also for optimism, it's worth noting that long before 30 years ago, the only reason the Communists were able to take over China and enjoy support was because the Nationalist leadership did such a poor job that many people literally only had bits to eat at times.

Same argument can be applied to anyone anywhere - political force A came to power in "insert name" region because political force B did a poor job.

[Ed Oscuro]

lol wanting the people to disappear, that's happened before but the Japanese and the Great Leap / Cultural Revolution had something to do with it.

Speaking of which, Mao is the guy who told Jan Myrdal not to go to the little village he did, since it was a "backwater" and not as interesting as the industrializing towns. For the man behind the Great Leap Forward, some progress was better than other progress...when you take off-hand comments like that with his bluff about sacrificing "300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution" and you put them together with some other odds and ends about how he "got things done," and you wonder what kind of people he was really remaking the country for.

[Hagane]

and you wonder what kind of people he was really remaking the country for.

For him and his bureaucrat bootlickers, just like every communist regime so far.

By the way, nice thread Skykid. I always enjoy travel logs such as these.

[Jonathan Ingram]

For the man behind the Great Leap Forward, some progress was better than other progress...when you take off-hand comments like that with his bluff about sacrificing "300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution" and you put them together with some other odds and ends about how he "got things done," and you wonder what kind of people he was really remaking the country for.

*claps hands*

Quoting Mao: The Unknown Story now... Could you stoop any lower than that?

I actually have that book in printed form. It`s like The Black Book of Communism except dedicated entirely to Mao. Good read... for comic relief.

[Ed Oscuro]

For the man behind the Great Leap Forward, some progress was better than other progress...when you take off-hand comments like that with his bluff about sacrificing "300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution" and you put them together with some other odds and ends about how he "got things done," and you wonder what kind of people he was really remaking the country for.

*claps hands*

Quoting Mao: The Unknown Story now... Could you stoop any lower than that?

I actually have that book in printed form. It`s like The Black Book of Communism except dedicated entirely to Mao. Good read... for comic relief.

Damnit, I didn't think I was quoting that book...not my intention. Ironic, too, since I was just reading some criticism of that book earlier and wanted to avoid it.

Mao's rather beligerent and reckless nature has been pretty well-recorded. Outside of the perhaps self-serving Soviet view of Mao (which is a source for the 300 million figure), there is Mao's exchange with the first Prime Minister of India, seen here, along with another explicatory passage from his own remarks to a Party Congress, where he states "eliminating half the population occurred several times in China's history."

Mistakes aside, I have to ask, are you credulous enough yourself that you think Mao didn't say pretty much exactly this? What do we gain from sweeping this terrible man's terrible utterances under the rug? A justification of a revolution? Hooray! The revolution could have happened without these excesses.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Mistakes aside, I have to ask, are you credulous enough yourself that you think Mao didn't say pretty much exactly this? What do we gain from sweeping this terrible man's terrible utterances under the rug? A justification of a revolution? Hooray! The revolution could have happened without these excesses.

I`m not credulous enough to take everything I read at face value, so unless a solid evidence is presented that Mao actually said that, I`m going to have to file it under "never happened". And if we are fishing for "evil" quotes, anyway, Marx and Engels are a much better source of those than Mao could ever hope to be.

The excesses had much more to do with the existing material conditions, the unprecedented social mobility created by the revolution and the remaining social backwardness of the still largely feudal society than with Mao`s or someone else`s character traits. Whether Mao was a terrible monster that drank the blood of virgins is largely irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. All the moral criticism nonsense should be cast aside in favor of a more pragmatic approach when dealing with historical figures and events.

[Ed Oscuro]

The excesses had much more to do with the existing material conditions, the unprecedented social mobility created by the revolution and the remaining social backwardness of the still largely feudal society than with Mao`s or someone else`s character traits.

Basically, let's grab at everything we can if it excuses Mao from having to abide by basic social mores...or even acting in a reasonable way (aside from the lying to keep up appearances on the international stage) when it came to the deaths of millions of Chinese from starvation. Of course, when people in Western democracies act like this, it's an inexcusable slide back towards imperialism (but never mind that Mao himself was comfortable with the idea of being a king in his time).

The 300 million quote is pretty representative of the kind of thing he said, so at this point it's basically quibbling about terminology or "feeling" from the gentle remove of more than forty years.

The other stuff I posted is well sourced. To quote Foreign Policy's contemporary review of a reissue of the Terrill biography:

Terrill's book is a paperback version of his widely and justly acclaimed biography of Mao. It is extremely readable, covers a great deal of ground, and has shrewd insights into one of the great and complex revolutionaries of the twentieth century. Terrill sees Mao's many faults, but he writes more in sorrow than in anger, and he is basically sympathetic to the founder of the PRC.

It's here juxtaposed with a work that "lacks balance" written by somebody who finds, close up, that nobody in the PRC really cared about the people, which has been pretty typical for American reporters since the blinkered reporting of Walter Duranty. Leave it to the academic to reflect "sorrow" that Mao was an obnoxious chauvinist. If there isn't justice for anybody, why should we assume in blind faith that justice is reflected in some other dimension, like an industrialization index? China is a big country with many resources, and had cooperation with the Soviets from the time Mao took over, so it's not as if the bragging rights of a quick industrialization really were a response to some exigency. The break with the Soviet Union and even the fights with India may have been ultimately necessary for Chinese policy, but the way these were conducted was inexcusably bad. In an economic sense, the destruction and suffering of the people are certainly a blemish on this record. The reckless speed by which these projects were pursued, along with the nationalistic foreign policy, was strictly unnecessary. Of course it's easy to laud them as an outsider who has no sense of the viciousness and abandonment of justice taking place beyond (and in some cases, within) the narrow spotlight of Mao's vision.

If there isn't even the semblance of justice for people who are at the bottom, that's not a sign the system is too stern to care about meeting appearances. It's a sign they don't fucking care.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Basically, let's grab at everything we can if it excuses Mao from having to abide by basic social mores...or even acting in a reasonable way (aside from the lying to keep up appearances on the international stage) when it came to the deaths of millions of Chinese from starvation.

No intentional starving of people to death ever took place. Western propaganda constantly regurgitates this myth about "monster Mao" killing millions of people and feasting on their bodies without even bothering to back up their bullshit with facts, because hey, why even bother - no one is going to question it anyway. To quote Marxist historian William H. Hinton, the chronicler of the socialist revolution in China, "Isn’t it indeed strange that this famine was not discovered at the time but only extrapolated backward from censuses taken 20 years later, then spinning the figures to put the worst interpretation on very dubious records."

Any starvation that might have taken place in 1958-1961 was the result of the systemic problems in Chinese economy, crop failures and natural disasters, not the misdeeds of one individual. You could say that Chinese leadership cutting ties with the USSR over petty ideological tosh and, as a result, the latter withdrawing all of the specialists, equipment and financial support that it was providing to help China industrialize did exacerbate the country`s economic problems to a whole new degree, but that`s not the same as someone consciously leading millions of people to starvation.

Overall, Mao`s rule tremendously improved the living conditions in China with death rates falling sharply compared to Kuomintang years. There was a temporary drop in living standards in 1958-1961 when death rates once again became comparable to pre-1949 years, but from 1961 and onwards things were constantly improving.

The 300 million quote is pretty representative of the kind of thing he said, so at this point it's basically quibbling about terminology or "feeling" from the gentle remove of more than forty years.

The other stuff I posted is well sourced.

Gromyko is about as reputable a source on Mao as Stalin is on Trotsky. Aside from that "let`s lure the US army in China to attack it with nuclear weapons" nonsense he also claimed that Mao had mentioned to him in a private conversation that "an artificial island will be constructed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that will harbor the capital of the new socialist world post nuclear war". Am I supposed to believe that too? You know, in his theoretical works Mao doesn`t leave an impression of a nutter. Yet, if some of these sources are to be believed, he was both a nutter and a complete degenerate, always talking about sacrificing millions of people and whatnot.

[Ed Oscuro]

Basically, let's grab at everything we can if it excuses Mao from having to abide by basic social mores...or even acting in a reasonable way (aside from the lying to keep up appearances on the international stage) when it came to the deaths of millions of Chinese from starvation.

No intentional starving of people to death ever took place.

I didn't say that. I'm sure somebody will say the same with regard to Stalin, of course. It doesn't excuse the severe disinterest in the people's well-being the regime showed.

My major thesis here (amazing it should be so contentious) is that there was no exigency which would pardon sacrificing the well-being of so many for these gains. I'm not saying there was no development, but the development track they aimed for was (at least in hindsight) not of paramount importance. Five years of abject misery for the sake of some industrial production. Even Mao recognized the Leap was a failure.

This is really a matter of (dare I say it) ethics. I can understand why Mao would not have run out to the streets to tell everybody they were doing well, but perhaps I'm blinkered enough to expect that you don't need to "stay the course" through those years of famine.

And, as we have seen in this thread, the development has ultimately resulted in a lopsided culture where there are "special" people...and everybody else. Mao's own statements reflect a willingness to embrace this as reality, rather than to at least reject it. The classic problem of some being "more equal" than others.

Gromyko is about as reputable a source on Mao as Stalin is on Trotsky.

You're not very bright today. Gromyko didn't write Ross Terrill's biography of Mao. I didn't use Gromyko as a source on Mao for what you are referring to, so even if I granted that the 300 million quote is false, it nevertheless fits the tenor of many other pronouncements Mao made. This is stuff Mao actually said I'm referring to, as recorded on official occasions or in the recollection of many other people (including some sources I have not even named here). Surely you have a reasonable explanation for how it came to be that the account of Mao has become so strikingly regular amongst the accounts of people on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and also members of non-aligned nations? If there is some "alternate" account of Mao, I would suppose that it has been composed not from facts in the record but sprouted from the imaginations of frustrated Communist apologists.

An example of this fanciful imagination at work:

Any starvation that might have taken place in 1958-1961 was the result of the systemic problems in Chinese economy, crop failures and natural disasters, not the misdeeds of one individual.

Longtime Xinhua writer and Communist Party member Yang Jisheng perhaps may be a member of a generation predisposed to look unfavorably on Mao, and who knows, maybe there's even some malign Western influences on his thought. But he found no evidence of abnormal crop or weather patterns in meteorological record. And I dare say that if conscientious apologists went out of their way to look into the matter, rather than blindly spouting nonsense, they might find they were not able to construe things as otherwise. It should also be noted that at the time this was happening, the matter was not that these crop production and weather records were being falsified, because you could not even take the first step of bringing an acknowledgement that there was famine.

I always welcome alternative histories - but cannot take them on the word and special pleading of one person alone. I had to learn that lesson expensively with the Institute of Historical Review. Alternate views need to be based in the record somehow. If it really was a matter of "revisionism" (Mao's special term of abuse for the Soviets during the split), then perhaps somebody would have been able to start to disentangle it later on. But the more people look at this matter, the more tragically fruitless the whole policy starts to look. I could have accounted for the total collapse of the demographical study of China during the period of the famine if it had happened because the Party's priorities lay elsewhere. But in fact it appears that they merely plodded along unimaginatively with the political nicety of transferring control of those statistical studies to Party functionaries and bureaucrats, who proceeded to unintelligently destroy the for contemporary demographic studies while contributing nothing to the situation. And yet here, many years later, their apologists want to use the official vacuum (caused by those same fools) to claim that the whole world (even many modern Chinese Party members) has become conspiratorial against some "truth." It should be clear even to those who want to take Mao's more preposterous-seeming statements a reasonable reading that officially he often discounted the account of "truth" when inconvenient. It is a difficult stance to reject if it is justified for utilitarian reasons. However, far from seeing that justification being brought forward, we see a rather jarring modern-day emphasis on some unaccountable "correct" account and construal of history, which is of course a fancy way of sidestepping the fact that no justification really has been brought forward, beyond empty theoretical arguments that do not correspond to the reality of the time or today.

[Jonathan Ingram]

I didn't say that. I'm sure somebody will say the same with regard to Stalin, of course. It doesn't excuse the severe disinterest in the people's well-being the regime showed.

No doubt about it. I`m sure you`ll make up excuses for "Western democracies" and the abominable system they represent any day of the week while pointing fingers at Mao and Stalin who are but petty crooks compared to the real monsters.

You're not very bright today. I didn't use Gromyko as a source on Mao. This is stuff Mao actually said I'm referring to, as recorded on official occasions or in other peoples' recollection.

Not even double-checking your sources now? The Los Angeles Times article that you linked to explicitly references Gromyko`s memoirs in the very first sentence:

"Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung wanted the Soviets to attack U.S. troops with nuclear weapons after his forces had lured the Americans into China, according to a memoir by Soviet President Andrei A. Gromyko, the New York Times reported Monday."

And lol at the "Soviet President" A. Gromyko. No such position existed until 1990 and even if it did, Gromyko wasn`t head of the state anyway - he was the minister of foreign affairs. Spend some time to actually read what you cite to avoid any further embarrassment in the future.



Edit: I see you`ve added more.

Your reply the way it was when I was writing my answer. I`m not going to be adding anything more.

[Ed Oscuro]

Jon, the antidote for the kool-aid of the Western democracies is not more kool-aid - even if it is Communist brand. That is all I actually need to say. However:

I'm not sure what that image paste was supposed to prove. It doesn't show me being a hypocrite. It's good you know how to stay occupied.

The thing about the LA Times is just that - there are plenty of sources used in the Terrell biography you've been consistently avoiding, and it should be obvious that is what I'm referring to now. There are other sources I've got which I haven't named because it seems to be a waste of my time to bring up even reputable sources, because at one time I mentioned something which has as its original source this Mr. Gromyko, and that is apparently a red cape under your eyes which averts any necessity of dealing with where the conversation may actually have moved. By all means, though, stand there flat-footed and pretend that screaming about the Western hypocrites doesn't make your peculiarly ironic treatment of Mao all the more delicious.

Well, I decided to have a bite of the bete noir anyway and I see this:

I didn't say that. I'm sure somebody will say the same with regard to Stalin, of course. It doesn't excuse the severe disinterest in the people's well-being the regime showed.

No doubt about it. I`m sure you`ll make up excuses for "Western democracies" and the abominable system they represent any day of the week while pointing fingers at Mao and Stalin who are but petty crooks compared to the real monsters.

Oh no, the Illuminati! The Bilderbergs, World Bank, Coca-Cola and the Koch brothers. Yes, I have bones to pick with them, but even the Koch brothers don't have responsibility for millions of deaths due to forced relocations. I assume you'd apologize for Hitler if only he was a Communist, too. I'm not asking anybody to believe that the Western democracies and institutions are without any faults throughout their histories, but nobody's about to throw a pity party for present-day apologists who argue and rail on (whilst ensconced in the capitalist comforts a modern home brings), yet who know very little at all (and care less) about the suffering of people during Communist rule in so many nations. It simply not relevant that Western democracies have some fault compared to the Communists, and some contrived argument such as that the Western powers somehow "arranged" or "provoked" Mao, Stalin, and others into pursuing policies that starved or dispossessed their people will be fairly unconvincing as well. At best, that creates a situation where these leaders were simply doomed to fail, despite whatever heroic efforts, and would prove the uselessness of their actions (and the resulting suffering), and it would show them essentially unimportant persons at best (at worst, totally incompetent to the challenge of their times, if you don't believe in fate). It is especially nauseating that you would choose to glorify Stalin of all people - that takes some real crust...but I'd better stop before I start thinking about cooking again

I rarely can feel especially vitriolic towards people (including the "man in the arena," like Mao) but it's not every day you meet a real strenuous truth denier like this who refuses even to make use of hindsight to admit obvious failure. I don't like to deal with Holocaust denial and I don't like to play ball with Stalin apologists either - and both are beyond the pale, man (and if you were wiser you'd realize that this has relatively little to do with the project of worldwide Communism or national pride, or whatever motivates a person to defend the indefensible).

And lol at the "Soviet President" A. Gromyko. No such position existed until 1990 and even if it did, Gromyko wasn`t head of the state anyway - he was the minister of foreign affairs. Spend some time to actually read what you cite to avoid any further embarrassment in the future.

Not nearly as embarrassing as finding out you've wasted your time "citing" tangential arguments that have ceased being relevant a week ago. And oh boy, you totally checked me on a minor error in the Times that had no impact whatsoever on the factual issue at hand! Only one of us has thrown his hat into the ring and even tried to provide sources; you appear to suffer from the delusion that simply railing at people and pooh-poohing all their sources is a convincing counter-proposal (I don't count the chant of "MAO MAO MAO STALIN I HATE GROMYKO YOU SHOULD TOO STALIN IS GREAT" as providing reputable citation for one's beliefs), so all you've managed is to look like an ass. But really, nothing you can do from here on out will begin to dig yourself out of this pit of Stalin (or, I should say, sralin) worship, so it wouldn't trouble me if you just declared an ill-gotten victory and went back to humming the Internationale or whatever is rattling about that bloated, empty head of yours.

[Jonathan Ingram]

The thing about the LA Times is just that - there are plenty of sources used in the Terrell biography you've been consistently avoiding, and it should be obvious that is what I'm referring to now. There are other sources I've got which I haven't named because it seems to be a waste of my time to bring up even reputable sources, because at one time I mentioned something which has as its original source this Mr. Gromyko, and that is apparently a red cape under your eyes which averts any necessity of dealing with where the conversation may actually have moved. By all means, though, stand there flat-footed and pretend that screaming about the Western hypocrites doesn't make your peculiarly ironic treatment of Mao all the more delicious.

No, the red cape was the "300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution"(surprised you didn`t bring up the "70 million killed by Mao" that the Unknown Story explicitly mentions). The memoirs of "Soviet President A.Gromyko" was just adding salt to the injury. It was hard to take you seriously after that. Throughout the thread you`ve failed to provide sources(Terrill included) to support the notion that Mao was a monster who constantly or occasionally talked about killing or sacrificing hundreds of millions of people. I`d appreciate direct quotations from Mao`s works(together with the context). What`s better to demonstrate a person`s views than their own writing after all? I`ve read stuff by Hitler, Strassers and other ideologists of national-socialism, just to become more acquainted with the views of the people on the opposite side of the spectrum from mine, and the malicious intent of their irrational, idealistic ideology was right there on the pages.

Not nearly as embarrassing as finding out you've wasted your time "citing" tangential arguments that have ceased being relevant a week ago. And oh boy, you totally checked me on a minor error in the Times that had no impact whatsoever on the factual issue at hand!

Just pointing out how messy you`re with your sources. Citing Chang and Gromyko was already enough of an offense, but the president thing really cracked me up. I don`t think that`s a typo either - par for the course for bourgeois journalism.

Only one of us has thrown his hat into the ring and even tried to provide sources; you appear to suffer from the delusion that simply railing at people and pooh-poohing all their sources is a convincing counter-proposal (I don't count the chant of "MAO MAO MAO STALIN I HATE GROMYKO YOU SHOULD TOO STALIN IS GREAT" as providing reputable citation for one's beliefs), so all you've managed is to look like an ass.

I could reference Joseph Ball, William Hinton and Min Qi Li whom all question the validity of the claims that Mao was responsible for millions of deaths, but what`s the point? There`s little reason to try to argue with someone who believes that the socialist regime in China had a severe disinterest in people`s well-being. Everyone would be written off as a "frustrated Communist apologist".

Oh no, the Illuminati! The Bilderbergs, World Bank, Coca-Cola and the Koch brothers. Yes, I have bones to pick with them, but even the Koch brothers don't have responsibility for millions of deaths due to forced relocations. I assume you'd apologize for Hitler if only he was a Communist, too. I'm not asking anybody to believe that the Western democracies and institutions are without any faults throughout their histories, but nobody's about to throw a pity party for present-day apologists who argue and rail on (whilst ensconced in the capitalist comforts a modern home brings), yet who know very little at all (and care less) about the suffering of people during Communist rule in so many nations. It simply not relevant that Western democracies have some fault compared to the Communists, and some contrived argument such as that the Western powers somehow "arranged" or "provoked" Mao, Stalin, and others into pursuing policies that starved or dispossessed their people will be fairly unconvincing as well. At best, that creates a situation where these leaders were simply doomed to fail, despite whatever heroic efforts, and would prove the uselessness of their actions (and the resulting suffering), and it would show them essentially unimportant persons at best (at worst, totally incompetent to the challenge of their times, if you don't believe in fate). It is especially nauseating that you would choose to glorify Stalin of all people - that takes some real crust...but I'd better stop before I start thinking about cooking again

Social being determines consciousness, and in your case, your consciousness was defined as that of a middle-class, petty-bourgeois dipshit who`s completely oblivious to the fact that the world where millions die yearly from hunger and malnutrition and the majority of its residents are forever doomed to live in grinding poverty is indeed the direct product of the system that disregards human life only slight more than completely and is driven solely by the pursuit of profits(that`s your "basic social mores"). I`ve seen people being kicked from their homes just because someone bought the land they were built on, I`ve seen people being denied medical treatment simply because they couldn`t pay for it, the modern China and most of the world is a cesspool of horrific poverty and social inequality but oh noes - the fucking Mao and the billions he ate, the nutter - because that`s so relevant to the fucked up state the world is in. It takes some nerve for a resident of an imperialist country that enriches itself by means of extracting the surplus value from its third-world colonies through a complex system of economic exploitation it has built over decades and is directly responsible for all the misery in the world(simply by virtue of standing at the stop of the imperialist chain) to be pointing fingers at Mao. Even the shitty Mao-style socialism would do a better job at meeting the basic needs of the world population than the capitalist system that breeds homeless and unemployed even within the confines of the first-world.

(whilst ensconced in the capitalist comforts a modern home brings)

Class character is not necessarily defined by class membership. Use your brain for a change. And for the record, the "capitalist comforts" I live in were given to my family for free under socialism without anyone breaking their back trying to pay off the mortgage to avoid eviction, otherwise I`d live on a street or in a mudhut since capitalism doesn`t recognize housing as a basic human right and buying one without taking mortgage is nigh impossible for anyone who doesn`t belong to the capitalist class.

It is especially nauseating that you would choose to glorify Stalin of all people - that takes some real crust...

Didn`t happen in this thread and couldn`t happen. The Marxist tendency I subscribe to is critical of the man. But I might just start upholding even him in a conversation with a reactionary like yourself. I do, after all, have infinitely less contempt for him than for people of your political beliefs(it pains me to admit that about 12 years ago my views were no different from yours, but traveling around the world, seeing how people live and talking with them thankfully changed my views to diametrically opposite and made me embrace the system based on common good and cooperation as opposed to the one based on upholding private property, the individual rights tied to it and the neverending pursuit of profits at the expense of everything else).

But really, nothing you can do from here on out will begin to dig yourself out of this pit of Stalin (or, I should say, sralin) worship

Point me to where I said anything positive about him let alone worshiped him or just kindly shut up. And even those on the left who do uphold the man are not necessarily worshipers. They may be mistaken in their positive assessment of his theoretical contributions and his role in socialist construction, but worshipers they are not(at least certainly not as much as those who talk about "Western democracies" whenever they can and believe in the holy tenets of the laissez faire capitalism).


You can have the last word as I`m not going to be posting in this thread anymore. Looking forward to your shitty threads about US presidential debates in four years, because those are oh so relevant to the class struggle and the well-being of people.

[Skykid]

Guys, I'm going to need to ask a mod to excise your debate to a new thread, only because my touching on street level social economic changes wasn't with the intention of turning the thread into a full blown historical political argument. I still have pictures to post!

[Jonathan Ingram]

There`s no need to anymore. The debate is over, at least for me.

Looking forward to your pictures. Would especially appreciate some pics of Kharbin(if you plan on going there).

[Skykid]

There`s no need to anymore. The debate is over, at least for me.

The debate is cool though, it's interesting (esp. for me, since I'm kind of 50/50 both sides of the Mao argument, in that historical evidence is scant and oft manufactured, as in Unknown Story, but also that his policies constituted little more than self-important colossal failings that cost lives, infrastructure, development, education and economy.)

That aside, taking it to a new thread would probably still be best, since it's a discussion worth having, but I'm running out of clean space in here.

[Ed Oscuro]

Nice pictures, and thanks for the information, Skykid!

There`s no need to anymore. The debate is over, at least for me.

Don't even pretend you were debating. You were just haranguing.

Imagine if I had believed what you were selling unquestioningly. Would you say I had the right reasons for believing it? Consider what would have happened: I could have run out into the street and shaken the nearest person until they would stop and agree to listen to me. "We've all been mistaken! That all the terrible men throughout history have bad reputations, it's all due to coincidence or conspiracy, whichever is more convenient!" "Oh, and what were you saying?" "Well, I had some sources that were definitively dismissed, and then there was a biography that was never addressed at all, so it apparently wasn't important." "Ah. So how do you know this?" "Some guy on the internet told me." "Is there anything else?" "Yes, it was a Russian Communist who only cites books he doesn't like and knows about PlayStation games." After this, pretty soon the whole world would be convinced.

I think you must admit that would not be a satisfactory way to pursue your agenda, if your agenda really is winning converts, as opposed to lazily scoring points with (non-existent) Maoists.org cheerleaders.

You can have the last word as I`m not going to be posting in this thread anymore. Looking forward to your shitty threads about US presidential debates in four years, because those are oh so relevant to the class struggle and the well-being of people.

Yep, because I've always said that Presidential politics are super effective in getting things done.

I could reference Joseph Ball, William Hinton and Min Qi Li whom all question the validity of the claims that Mao was responsible for millions of deaths, but what`s the point? There`s little reason to try to argue with someone who believes that the socialist regime in China had a severe disinterest in people`s well-being. Everyone would be written off as a "frustrated Communist apologist".

I was never going to beg you to quote sources, but it certainly would have been preferable to hear from Joseph Ball (who has actually not been as nearly strongly defensive of Mao as you suggest here, instead arguing for a softening of the view of Mao and Stalin - in comparison with Hitler that is of course reasonable, but it is also a relative measure, and Mao and Stalin come off incomparably worse compared to the average Western statesmen of the time), "An American farmer and Marxist," and Li Minqi, for whom the "revolutionary legacy" is more important than the deaths, and who squarely puts the blame on his subordinates Liu Shaoqi and Deng, as if they hadn't already been scapegoated by Mao.

[Hagane]

and Mao and Stalin come off incomparably worse compared to the average Western statesmen of the time

That's because Western statemen became more subtle after the 19th century when it came to massacring and enslaving people. They switched regular slavery to economic slavery, made native upper classes do their dirty work in places like South America, and even when they personally invaded and massacred countries (see Vietnam) they still managed to come off relatively well image wise. Mao and Stalin just kicked it old school, so they are harder to defend than a civilized, refined Western mass murderer.

[Ed Oscuro]

and Mao and Stalin come off incomparably worse compared to the average Western statesmen of the time

That's because Western statemen became more subtle after the 19th century when it came to massacring and enslaving people. They switched regular slavery to economic slavery, made native upper classes do their dirty work in places like South America, and even when they personally invaded and massacred countries (see Vietnam) they still managed to come off relatively well image wise. Mao and Stalin just kicked it old school, so they are harder to defend than a civilized, refined Western mass murderer.

That's not the whole story, but even if it was, those same Western statesmen would still be doing better by their people using the typical utilitarian benchmark, or by ends-based calculation. If the Communists love these simple metrics so much, then why are they shown objectively worse performers? Less mass starvation is a good thing, if you want to split hairs. (And please, let's not continue the farce of "starvation in Communist nations is either caused by Western interference or crop failures, but starvation in capitalist nations is by design.) Even in 1948 Winston Churchill strongly repudiated the system of reparations (and the resulting disorder in Germany) in the opening pages of his history of the Second World War as greed that backfired, and he was right to do so. Of course the discussion has moved on since Churchill - something that certain Marxists seem incapable of doing. If there is a future for world socialism, it is not going to be preserved by defending the failings of the dictators. If the discussion had only been on their theory and calculations, I would have more reason to be respectful and attentive.

I am also rather disturbed by the undercurrent of "even if you try to reform your own system, it's not good enough." Hence Jon making strange and unhistorical accusations that I justify the current politics in all respects. Excuse me for thinking that small-d democratic politics are more fruitful and stable than a communist dictatorship. What should we be doing, hanging landowners and lenders from lampposts in the streets?

[Hagane]

Starvation in capitalism IS by design. Some have to be poor or starve so the rest can consume. You need cheap labor to keep prices low, and if you can't get it in your country you'll get it in countries with "competitive" working conditions. You often don't see the starvation caused by "democratic" nations because it tends to happen in their economic colonies.

Now, I don't precisely like Maoist or soviet socialism (I prefer Tito's economic policies, much closer to my ideals), but it would be pretty blind to deny that, with all its defects, Communism turned a backwater rural country like Russia into the second world super power in a few decades. If anything, flawed social concepts like the dictatorship of the proletariat (there can never be a dictatorship of proletarians) are what fuck things up, but economically I'd say Communism has been quite successful.

Finally, I don't defend the atrocities caused by these dictatorships, but it always strikes me as hypocritical to demonize those while the Westerners are seen as the good guys.

[Moniker]

Starvation in capitalism IS by design. Some have to be poor or starve so the rest can consume. You need cheap labor to keep prices low, and if you can't get it in your country you'll get it in countries with "competitive" working conditions. You often don't see the starvation caused by "democratic" nations because it tends to happen in their economic colonies.

I don't quite understand this idea. How does starvation in one country effect full bellies in another? As far as I'm aware, starvation is the result of extreme internal food shortages, not the inability of the lower classes to afford food. Have there been instances of widespread starvation in nations with sufficient rations to feed the public?

[Ed Oscuro]

Starvation in capitalism is often the result of poorly thought-out or vicious policies, and there is no reason to believe that a democratic society cannot address either problem. Churchill gives an example of a poorly thought-out policy in that discussion I mentioned earlier, which was something like this - President Coolidge's demand American loans to Britain be paid back because "They hired the money, didn't they?" was one part in a vicious chain of links which had the consequences of making Britain seem like a vicious tax collector to the Germans, caused "juggling" with the massive American loans for Germany without, again, any feeling of good will, even while there was still enough money to build up German industry, but the portion of the money going in to debtors and as war reparations ended up distorting those economies, similar to the process you might have heard about whereby massive looting of gold from the South American continent devalued local currencies and provoked inflation.

If capitalism lacks a macroeconomic policy, then clearly it is possible for a very narrowminded view of things such that debts must always be repaid and goods must always be looted. But we are not at that primitive stage in capitalism; people have realized for many years that there are distorting effects and there are all manner of policies which can be pursued. Does the system often fail to protect other interests? Yes, of course. But there is nothing "built in" to capitalism that it must fail, and nothing built in to the various flavors of communism that it always effectively stifles these avaricious impulses (as I think has been demonstrated in the case of the often woefully inadequate leadership of some historical communist states). The tendency of individuals to take advantage is going to be a reality no matter which of the systems you adopt.

Now, where I part company with some capitalists is the view that the process of smoothing out all imbalances and "inefficiencies" by the process of predatory speculation is to be unquestioningly celebrated. Even so, it does seem like one cannot avoid this kind of reckoning - if people in a specific place lack one of the critical components of trade including people, raw goods, climate, or other resources, then they are inherently more expensive to produce goods for. The situation that Hagane mentions is slightly different, for example nations with the so-called "oil curse" - which I should note is not universally applicable, i.e. there is no direct causality between having abundant natural resources like oil, and a resulting economic imbalances in society. How could this be? Easy, a smart macroeconomic policy. The Churchill example earlier gives a relatively simple account of the various problems (both emotional and accounts-wise) from a poor economic policy, but it also carries with it the recognition that such a policy is also bad for nations on the whole.

The problem then becomes more one of politics - of finding the will to exert control over runaway economic influences (and it seems to me that anarchism and communism inherently understand this, because the political will to confront community-wide problems should be found). This is perhaps easier said than done, and Europe's handling of the Eurozone policy seems like a case of history repeating itself, in at least a few dimensions. But I should also mention that what will either sink or fulfill the local demands in that crisis will be the local response - in a sense my basic problem is the idea that shared sacrifice (without allowance for local needs) is sustainable between highly different members. And relationships between nations or communities that are not tightly bound up by shared regulations, such as between a nation producing goods with cheap labor, and another nation consuming them, is one where it seems that smart policy to smooth out some of the artificial "imbalances" would be quite practical. It is a different kind of problem and solution, but take the proposed carbon tax as an example - it is a measure, which no doubt will have some minor distorting effects of its own, but if the end result is smaller imbalances and a meeting of the goals the policy is meant to deliver, then it seems quite reasonable as one example of a piecemeal policy towards reducing imbalance.

What is left is for the smaller countries to get some recognition and to find joint protection. You can question their effectiveness, but systems that point the way include various Fair Trade associations, defenses of local economies by associations of smaller ('exploitable') nations, promotion of local industry and technique (which only works up to a point, for reasons of natural resources, climate, manpower, etc. - although Peter Kropotkin attempted a defense of strictly local production many years ago, and it seems that it should work for many goods) and at least some simmering interest of Western consumers towards buying products that are not harmful to the nation of production (or the nation of consumption, for that matter). And a nation's people can certainly do more to protect their interests without fully embracing anarchism or communism (or some variant). Will that be enough? Well, it seems to me prudent to allow a good try, before throwing the baby out with the bathwater

[Jonathan Ingram]

(I prefer Tito's economic policies, much closer to my ideals),

Tito`s economic policies of introducing market mechanisms to socialism until the system implodes on itself? That had quite a few supporters in the upper ranks of the Soviet leadership starting with Kosygin and Kruschev. Janos Kadar`s so called "Goulash Communism" operated on the same principles. It`s a road to self-destruction and all it leads to is a full-blown restoration of private property and capitalist relations in the economy. I think there`s no need to follow such failed concepts that are in direct contradiction to the socialist goal.

In early 1960s a renown Soviet cybernetician Victor Glushkov proposed a bold concept called OGAS(a Statewide Automated System of Economic Management) which was completely in line with communist vision of the world. The concept involved a gradual removal of humans from the economic planning through the creation of a wide interconnected network of computer centers which would gather and process information in places and then forward it to the main planning computer. According to Glushkov, the realization of the project would cost more than a space program, but the result would be worth it as it would lead to an unprecedented social progress coupled with the eventual abandonment of money. Naturally, the prospect of a fully automated, computer managed communist society faced bitter opposition from the upper layers of the Soviet bureaucracy whom all loved to talk about the imminent advent of communism but weren`t willing to lift a finger to move things forward. Glushkov was ostracized with some calling him a crazy technocrat and the project was never given a go.

I think it`s the unwillingness to implement such concepts that doomed socialist prospects in the 20th century. More Titoism is a bad thing as demonstrated by the fate of the USSR, Hungary and Yugoslavia itself.

If anything, flawed social concepts like the dictatorship of the proletariat (there can never be a dictatorship of proletarians)

If there can be a dictatorship of the capital then so can a dictatorship of the proletariat. The term was coined by Marx. It`s the stage during which the working class people assume political power through their organizations and implement a variety of measures aimed at destroying the old order(expropriation of the former upper class, a statewide nationalization, an imposition of state monopoly on trade etc.). What`s impossible about it?

Now, naturally something like the People`s Republic of China was never a dictatorship of the proletariat to begin with. There simply weren`t anywhere near enough workers for that to happen and for the same reason CPC was not a working class party. IIRC, when the revolution happened the working class in China accounted for less than 2 percent of the population.

[Ed Oscuro]

In early 1960s a renown Soviet cybernetician Victor Glushkov proposed a bold concept called OGAS(a Statewide Automated System of Economic Management) which was completely in line with communist vision of the world. The concept involved a gradual removal of humans from the economic planning through the creation of a wide interconnected network of computer centers which would gather and process information in places and then forward it to the main planning computer. According to Glushkov, the realization of the project would cost more than a space program, but the result would be worth it as it would lead to an unprecedented social progress coupled with the eventual abandonment of money. Naturally, the prospect of a fully automated, computer managed communist society faced bitter opposition from the upper layers of the Soviet bureaucracy whom all loved to talk about the imminent advent of communism but weren`t willing to lift a finger to move things forward. Glushkov was ostracized with some calling him a crazy technocrat and the project was never given a go.

I think it`s the unwillingness to implement such concepts that doomed socialist prospects in the 20th century. More Titoism is a bad thing as demonstrated by the fate of the USSR, Hungary and Yugoslavia itself.

That's a very interesting idea. However, I would point out that at various point humans still would be exerting an influence on the system contrary to its design goals. Not only would it have to be well-designed (probably the easiest of the problems to overcome) but one would have to have anticipated errors in data input (some of which would not be accidental, being designed to game the system). We all know of the natural tendency of bureaucrats to polish up figures in order to conform with dictates. Such a system would also threaten ossifying policy choices; although I am sure that Dr. Glushkov would have allowed for varying indexes or priorities to be used in the planning phase, each time such a choice came up to a decision it would be a natural point of rupture amongst the technocrats. At the end of the day I do not see the wisdom in declaring that there is a programmatic answer to human follies, unless one can actually propose an entirely self-contained system with an artificial intelligence - but then such a system's "virtue" would be its separation from human concerns, and that naturally puts it in opposition to those same concerns.

I would rather see a system that allows people to decide, for themselves and without having to conform to some dead planner's vision, what is important to them in personal production and work, with regulations to balance competing goals.

If anything, flawed social concepts like the dictatorship of the proletariat (there can never be a dictatorship of proletarians)

If there can be a dictatorship of the capital then so can a dictatorship of the proletariat. The term was coined by Marx.

lol, spoken finely ideologically. Clearly the obsession with dictatorships started as a reaction to class stratification, not as an endorsement of dictatorships. And that is in line with most philosophy - it is always easier (and of course quite important) to attack what is wrong-headed, but it is far more difficult to justify any given system.

And that is another problem for the programmatic system - somewhere it is assumed that all problems may either be abstracted, or else there must be sufficient data. As you've pointed out, recent American elections have demonstrated that the people rarely have very good information about anything. At best the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is is dictatorship of a wise few.

[Hagane]

Titoism failed mostly because Yugoslavia was a clusterfuck of nationalisms waiting to explode, and Tito was the only reason they were kept in check. Once he died, everything exploded.

There can never be a dictatorship of proletarians because as soon as you form a dictatorship you are creating a new class. You are just replacing exploiters; corrupt bureaucrats living off the effort of the true proletarians are no better than capitalists. Even if the original dictators had good intentions their successors will eventually become corrupted like all governments of that kind, and they are much harder to get rid of.

[Ed Oscuro]

There can never be a dictatorship of proletarians because as soon as you form a dictatorship you are creating a new class.

Have to agree with that. And unlike in a democracy, there's no obvious mechanism to even provoke checks or balances.