04-04-2019, 03:02 PM
** 31-Mar-2019 Communist ideology and the Great Leap Forward
I'm going to have to partially revise my answer to this message
to be in closer agreement with you.
I still believe that revenge was Mao's primary motivation for
the Great Leap Forward, but it seems that ideology played a
much larger role than I had assumed.
Here's what Mao wrote in 1939:
This stuff is so completely delusional, so completely out of touch
with reality that it's amazing that anyone could believe it, and yet
Mao not only believed it but killed tens of millions of Chinese in the
pursuit of those beliefs.
On April 15, 1958, Mao wrote "Introducing a Co-operative," saying the
following:
This is the cruelest part of Mao's delusion. China's people were flat
on their backs from the Sino-Japanese war and the civil war, and they
wanted to put their lives back together. Mao took advantage of these
poor, credulous people by inflicting on them one of the greatest
horrors of any nation in history, an even greater horror than the
Holocaust that the Nazis had just inflicted in the previous decade.
So obviously this insane ideology was a major driving force behind the
Great Leap Forward, but the desire for revenge must have also driven
him.
There's a comic aspect to all this. Mao completely destroyed any
credibility that communist ideology might have had. He had
tried pure Communism in the Great Leap Forward, but instead of
producing a Socialist Paradise, it killed tens of millions of
people and was a total disaster.
Mao's death in 1977 was a turning point for China. Mao had devastated
the country with the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural
Revolution, and the economy was in shambles. China was still as much
flat on its back as it had been after WW II, while "economic miracles"
had been occurring in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. They
were all turning into economic superpowers, while China was still a
backwater land of peasants that could barely feed itself. This was
thoroughly humiliating to China in every possible way.
So out of desperation, Deng Xiaoping introduced the 'Reform and
Opening Up' of China in 1978.
The Chinese people believe themselves the superior race, and everyone
else being barbarians and vassals. It was completely a violation of
Chinese culture to turn to the lessons of other nations, and apply
them to themselves. So it must have been an act of total desperation
when Deng Xiaoping demanded that China "open up" to other nations,
trying to catch up to Japan, which had opened up a century earlier.
The elements of Deng's reform including the de-collectivization of the
countryside, followed with industrial reforms aimed at decentralizing
government controls in the industrial sector and a much wider range of
personal rights and freedoms for average Chinese.
What's really laughable about this is that it was a complete
repudiation of Marxism, Socialism and Communism. China was no longer
a "socialist" country.
This, however, was a major public relations problem for the
government, which was still the Chinese Communist Party. This was
when various phrases started being used, like "socialist
modernization" and "socialism with Chinese characteristics." What
these phrases mean is "socialism with capitalism and free markets and
private property, but we're going to call it socialism anyway for
public relations purposes."
The phrase "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" is used all the
time by Xi Jinping. Insofar as this phrase means anything at all,
it's the same as Hitler's "National Socialism." Basically, China is a
Fascist country, very close to launching a war against Japan.
Navigator Wrote:> Sorry to have not explained myself better. I am not blaming wars
> on religion, but rather I think that these super committed
> communists (or socialists, or national socialists) believe in
> their ideology as if it were a religion. I believe it is their
> misplaced blind faith in these systems that causes them to do
> things like put everyone on a collective farm and think its going
> to work out well. And then to start shooting people when it
> doesn't (because they are "sabotaging" what they feel should
> obviously be working).
> I certainly believe that Revenge plays a greater role in a war
> actually starting than some philosophy or even religion. That and
> ideas of ethnic superiority. Europe's history is one of two
> thousand years of moving homogeneous people together (an ethnicity
> into a nation) and securing some kind of defensible frontier. And
> then trying to expand those frontiers by attacking those who are
> "ethnically inferior".
John Wrote:> I'm not aware of any war or major policy launched by any country
> at any time in history simply because of religion or ideology. I
> know of plenty of wars and policies that were launched for other
> reasons, and the leaders then used religion or ideology as a
> justification.
> It doesn't even make sense to say so. Why would I launch a war
> against you just because you have a different religion or
> politics? What do I care what religion you have? But I might
> launch a war against you to get your land or because I hate you or
> want revenge, and then I would blame the war on religion or
> ideology or "religious fervor," since it's not "politically
> correct" to simply want to steal someone's land or get revenge,
> particularly for domestic consumption.
> China had been thoroughly brutalized by Japan, and had lost
> Taiwan. Mao and the Chinese were full of fury, and were not
> interested in some theoretical exercise. They did not put
> everyone on a collective farm as a social experiment. They were
> bloodthirsty, looking for revenge. Mao was looking for a quick
> solution to his desire for revenge and launched the Great Leap
> Forward out of total desperation, and used "Communist theory" as a
> justification for the media.
> Xi Jinping keeps talking about the China Dream, the "dream of
> realizing great national rejuvenation for over 170 years,"
> referring to China since the Opium Wars. China has abandoned
> Communist theory, and "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics"
> changes every decade. If you look at Chinese history since WW II,
> Communist ideology has not survived except as a media talking
> point. What has stayed the same is the "dream" of getting revenge
> against the West, and especially Japan.
> I would add that there's nothing in Marxist theory that calls for
> the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs. That's pure
> racism.
I'm going to have to partially revise my answer to this message
to be in closer agreement with you.
I still believe that revenge was Mao's primary motivation for
the Great Leap Forward, but it seems that ideology played a
much larger role than I had assumed.
Here's what Mao wrote in 1939:
Quote:> "The socialist revolution aims at liberating the
> productive forces. The change-over from individual to socialist,
> collective ownership in agriculture and handicrafts and from
> capitalist to socialist ownership in private industry and commerce
> is bound to bring about a tremendous liberation of the productive
> forces. Thus the social conditions are being created for a
> tremendous expansion of industrial and agricultural
> production."
This stuff is so completely delusional, so completely out of touch
with reality that it's amazing that anyone could believe it, and yet
Mao not only believed it but killed tens of millions of Chinese in the
pursuit of those beliefs.
On April 15, 1958, Mao wrote "Introducing a Co-operative," saying the
following:
Quote:> "Apart from their other characteristics, the
> outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they
> are "poor and blank". This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it
> is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for change, the
> desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet
> of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful
> characters can be written, the freshest and most beautiful
> pictures can be painted."
This is the cruelest part of Mao's delusion. China's people were flat
on their backs from the Sino-Japanese war and the civil war, and they
wanted to put their lives back together. Mao took advantage of these
poor, credulous people by inflicting on them one of the greatest
horrors of any nation in history, an even greater horror than the
Holocaust that the Nazis had just inflicted in the previous decade.
So obviously this insane ideology was a major driving force behind the
Great Leap Forward, but the desire for revenge must have also driven
him.
There's a comic aspect to all this. Mao completely destroyed any
credibility that communist ideology might have had. He had
tried pure Communism in the Great Leap Forward, but instead of
producing a Socialist Paradise, it killed tens of millions of
people and was a total disaster.
Mao's death in 1977 was a turning point for China. Mao had devastated
the country with the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural
Revolution, and the economy was in shambles. China was still as much
flat on its back as it had been after WW II, while "economic miracles"
had been occurring in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. They
were all turning into economic superpowers, while China was still a
backwater land of peasants that could barely feed itself. This was
thoroughly humiliating to China in every possible way.
So out of desperation, Deng Xiaoping introduced the 'Reform and
Opening Up' of China in 1978.
The Chinese people believe themselves the superior race, and everyone
else being barbarians and vassals. It was completely a violation of
Chinese culture to turn to the lessons of other nations, and apply
them to themselves. So it must have been an act of total desperation
when Deng Xiaoping demanded that China "open up" to other nations,
trying to catch up to Japan, which had opened up a century earlier.
The elements of Deng's reform including the de-collectivization of the
countryside, followed with industrial reforms aimed at decentralizing
government controls in the industrial sector and a much wider range of
personal rights and freedoms for average Chinese.
What's really laughable about this is that it was a complete
repudiation of Marxism, Socialism and Communism. China was no longer
a "socialist" country.
This, however, was a major public relations problem for the
government, which was still the Chinese Communist Party. This was
when various phrases started being used, like "socialist
modernization" and "socialism with Chinese characteristics." What
these phrases mean is "socialism with capitalism and free markets and
private property, but we're going to call it socialism anyway for
public relations purposes."
The phrase "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" is used all the
time by Xi Jinping. Insofar as this phrase means anything at all,
it's the same as Hitler's "National Socialism." Basically, China is a
Fascist country, very close to launching a war against Japan.
