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 ProtoClone wrote:
So, now that we have established Mao as 0.00000000000001% less evil than before, are we good?

Yeah. Let's get back to planning the next revolution.

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 ProtoClone wrote:
So, now that we have established Mao as 0.00000000000001% less evil than before, are we good?


Oh, snark. How witty.

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 Techpriestsupport wrote:
 ProtoClone wrote:
So, now that we have established Mao as 0.00000000000001% less evil than before, are we good?


Oh, snark. How witty.


I try.

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 ProtoClone wrote:
 Techpriestsupport wrote:
 ProtoClone wrote:
So, now that we have established Mao as 0.00000000000001% less evil than before, are we good?


Oh, snark. How witty.


I try.


Epic fail.

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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Took a semester long course on "revolutionary china" during undergrad. . . . Short answer: No. Chairman Mao was gak, and should continue to be viewed as such.

After his utterly failed policies during the Great Leap Forward (lol), he then encouraged students and younger people to riot, planting the Cultural Revolution of the 60s-70s. When that brought him back fully into power, he said somewhere that he thought (paraphrasing) "we should do that again ever 20 years or so, to keep the revolutionary spirit alive!"



Automatically Appended Next Post:
SirWeeble wrote:

I think if someone else was in Mao's place in history - perhaps someone with the same zeal, but perhaps more ability to listen to the suggestions of others or not be swept up in his own rhetoric, the results may have been better for China. If the country had continued to follow his economic policies today, they country would also be in a much worse position. Nowadays, I've heard that schools in China don't really teach students much about Mao other than the fact that he was the founder. Even in his own time, they tried to push him out of power.


You mean someone like Chiang Kai-Shek?


Chiang was everything but competent in civilian governance. He was a military dictator that could seize the power in the repulic thanks to his army position, not because he was legitimate.
Not to mention that he was corrupt.

The best thing in my opinion ,would've been, ofcourse , if sun yat sen would've survived.

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Sorry to take this on a tangent, but I am going to. Does anyone have any recommended reading material in English for the build upto and the events of the Chinese civil war that arnt involving the Japanese invasion nor Mao's own works?

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 Techpriestsupport wrote:
One thing I do criticize is the way some people view any change in the status quo whatsoever as "Communism!" and start waving around mao, hitler, stalin, etc whenever anyone calls for any sort of reform or change to the SQ.

Part of the reason I looked at the original article was to see it it might help defuse some of the automatic, reductio ad absuredum invocations on the dreaded specter of Mao by some people anytime anyone called for any change or reform in a system that grows more imbalanced and unjust every day.

While even if we acknowledge mao was not responsible for every death that occurred in china during his tenure he is still a horrible person and leader.





I'm sure you will understand that re-evaluating Mao of all people in order to "reform the status quo" might – to many people – sound exactly like what hardline communists/leftists would do in order to exonerate communism from being perceived as a tried and failed concept.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2018/12/13 11:08:08


 
   
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BertBert wrote:
 Techpriestsupport wrote:
One thing I do criticize is the way some people view any change in the status quo whatsoever as "Communism!" and start waving around mao, hitler, stalin, etc whenever anyone calls for any sort of reform or change to the SQ.

Part of the reason I looked at the original article was to see it it might help defuse some of the automatic, reductio ad absuredum invocations on the dreaded specter of Mao by some people anytime anyone called for any change or reform in a system that grows more imbalanced and unjust every day.

While even if we acknowledge mao was not responsible for every death that occurred in china during his tenure he is still a horrible person and leader.





I'm sure you will understand that re-evaluating Mao of all people in order to "reform the status quo" might – to many people – sound exactly like what hardline communists/leftists would do in order to exonerate communism from being perceived as a tried and failed concept.


And here we go again...

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Bodt

Communism is a success! I mean, you see students the world over wearing hammer and sickle shirts.. Ironic really as I dont feel swastika shirts would be as revered, despite communism being responsible for a fair few more deaths than national socialism was...

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 ingtaer wrote:
Sorry to take this on a tangent, but I am going to. Does anyone have any recommended reading material in English for the build upto and the events of the Chinese civil war that arnt involving the Japanese invasion nor Mao's own works?


Let me take a look at any remaining course materials from my undergrad years where I took a course on the subject. . . I think we had some stuff, but I'm not sure atm.


Edit: found my stuff, and of the required readings from that course, I think Jonathan Spence's "Search for Modern China" may be the closest/best English book on the subject.

We also read "Chinese Village, Socialist State" and "Man Awakened From Dreams: One mans life in a north china village" during that course, so you may/may not find them of use.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/13 17:44:06


 
   
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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Communism is a success! I mean, you see students the world over wearing hammer and sickle shirts.. Ironic really as I dont feel swastika shirts would be as revered, despite communism being responsible for a fair few more deaths than national socialism was...

That is pretty trivial to explain. The US government is also responsible for a fair few more deaths than national socialism, yet you see loads of people wearing American flag shirts. Christianity is also responsible for a fair few more deaths than national socialism, yet lots of people wear cross necklaces or have a cross or icons in their home. Capitalism is also responsible for a fair few more deaths than national socialism, yet people don't view it in an even remotely similar way as national socialism. Truth is, virtually every single large government, political ideology and religion on Earth is responsible for countless deaths. The reason why national socialism is singled out is that unlike capitalism or communism or any other -ism national socialism includes the killing of people as an essential part of its ideology, which makes it inherently evil and immoral. Communism and any other ideology can be used to justify killing. But national socialism is a justification for killing.

The only reason why national socialism hasn't killed more people than any other ideology in the world is because national socialists were just so aggressive and evil that they managed to pretty much upset the entire world and unite the capitalists and communists against them, which put a relatively quick end to their reign. Capitalism, communism, let alone Christianity, are much more widespread and have been around for far longer, so naturally their "kill count" eclipses that of national socialism which was only around in a single country for less than ten years.

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Bodt

True, but in the context of the 20th century none of those you mentioned actively had killing/political disappearances as part of their modus operandi, in the same way that Hitler, stalin or pol pot did, and generally of innocent people, eg not war/conflict casualties/collateral.

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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
True, but in the context of the 20th century none of those you mentioned actively had killing/political disappearances as part of their modus operandi, in the same way that Hitler, stalin or pol pot did, and generally of innocent people, eg not war/conflict casualties/collateral.

In the context of the 20th century capitalism actively did. Sure it wasn't as big/flashy as Mao or Stalin but to defeat the 'commies' the US actively supported regimes and even participated (such as with US trainers in South America) in the killings of hundreds of thousands if not more. The main difference is that one side did it to their own citizens, the other in some third world or aligned country that people didn't really care about.

Its not at all on the same scale if were talking about a confined timeline, but the defense of capitalism was (and in some cases still is) pretty brutal.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/12/13 22:25:09


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Halandri

Capitalism also empowers companies to do some pretty terrible things, leading to a lot of death, which would have been done instead by state controlled organisations in communism and so on.

Just because it wasn't the government that caused the death doesn't mean the political ideology is blameless.

I'm not anti capitalist, but I just want to be realistic and admit despite its benefits it can cause death and suffering too.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/14 00:17:50


 
   
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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
True, but in the context of the 20th century none of those you mentioned actively had killing/political disappearances as part of their modus operandi, in the same way that Hitler, stalin or pol pot did, and generally of innocent people, eg not war/conflict casualties/collateral.

Eh, there have been loads of capitalist regimes in the 20th century that made their political opponents "disappear". Not on the complete genocide level that Pol Pot did, but Pol Pot is probably one of the few people on the world who could rival Hitler in terms of having an ideology that is pure evil. Their ideologies were also eerily similar, both being ultra-nationalists who strove for "racial purity" and a great empire. There are plenty of differences as well of course (Pol Pot was a communist for one, while Hitler on the other hand was very fond of big corporations), but the most toxic elements (like racism, expansionism and a glorification of violence) of their ideologies are essentially the same. Coincidentally, both were also stopped when a bunch of angry communists invaded their country (the Soviets in Germany and Vietnam in Cambodia.
Hitler and Pol Pot are pretty much special cases. Every ideology and many political leaders throughout history have been responsible for massive amounts of deaths, but few have ever so actively pursued genocide or racked up such massive "kill counts" in such short timespans. Again, this is why you don't see normal people with a swastika or Khmer Rouge emblem on their t-shirt, but there are plenty of people with a hammer and sickle. The Nazis and the Khmer Rouge actively called for genocide. Communism does not. Although as the example of Pol Pot shows, even communism with its anti-racist and anti-nationalist message can be twisted around and used as an excuse for racism and genocide. But that again is no different from Christianity, Islam, capitalism or pretty much any ideology in the world. We Humans love killing each other so much we can twist absolutely everything, even the most peaceful and good ideas, in an excuse for mass murder.

Finally, you can't separate war and political killings, because they blend into one another. War is often just political killing on a larger scale. Virtually every regime, including the Nazis, Soviet Union, US, China, ISIS or anyone really does most, if not almost all of its political/ideological killings as part of a war.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/14 01:23:29


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Several points towards the OP

#1 Whataboutism is not a legitimate defense. What about Hillary Clinton's emails?!?!?! Yea it's definitely not cool when the other side embraces Whataboutism as a distraction. It's a deep rabbit hole that should be avoided.

#2 The complete reorganization of society including farms in a country will cause a massive famine in a country like China. That's 2018 common sense because it has happened multiple times in the 20th century. That being said there wasn't much evidence available when that decision was made. The Soviet famines were viewed at the time as either as capitalist propaganda and lies or 100% intentional neither of which is the good modern evidence that putting non farmers in farms causes catastrophic failures.

#3 From a purely machiavellian point of view and the data available at the time China was justified in fearing outside powers enough to kill 80 million of their own people to shore up the security of their state. Between the opium wars, Imperial Japan, a nuclear armed USSR, and the USA adopting a nuclear blitzkrieg strategy killing 80 million of your people to save 600 million would make sense at the time. With 2020 historical hindsight that's an obvious mistake but history is full of mistakes.

#4 The big problem with China at the time is it's a 1 party system with no checks and balances. When Mao decides #3 is a necessary sacrifice the lack of checks and balances is what got so many people killed.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/15 03:00:18


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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
True, but in the context of the 20th century none of those you mentioned actively had killing/political disappearances as part of their modus operandi, in the same way that Hitler, stalin or pol pot did, and generally of innocent people, eg not war/conflict casualties/collateral.


Sounds like you aren't familiar with your US history. The US has backed murderous dictators who disappeared political enemies, knowing perfectly well what they were doing, so whether or not a US citizen fired the fatal shot is a pretty irrelevant nitpick. And capitalism has certainly resorted to murdering its enemies in trying to suppress labor movements, whether in the form of state power or by the use of hired thugs.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/15 06:38:00


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So we've gone from "Mao, mustche-twirling villian" to "Mao, part mustche-twirling villian, part incompetent buffoon" correct?
   
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PourSpelur wrote:
So we've gone from "Mao, mustche-twirling villian" to "Mao, part mustche-twirling villian, part incompetent buffoon" correct?


Nope. . . because part of the mustache-twirling villain IS their incompetent buffoonery. . . so we've basically been forced to respell out his incompetence.
   
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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
PourSpelur wrote:
So we've gone from "Mao, mustche-twirling villian" to "Mao, part mustche-twirling villian, part incompetent buffoon" correct?


Nope. . . because part of the mustache-twirling villain IS their incompetent buffoonery. . . so we've basically been forced to respell out his incompetence.


So, really, there isn't anything to "reconsider", or in better terms "revision"?

We looked at him from different perspectives and it still comes out the same, he caused many people to die...Not all of them, but more than can be overlooked.

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PourSpelur wrote:
So we've gone from "Mao, mustche-twirling villian" to "Mao, part mustche-twirling villian, part incompetent buffoon" correct?

No. Mao is one of the rare communist leaders to be completely clean-shaven. No moustache-twirling for him.

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 Iron_Captain wrote:
PourSpelur wrote:
So we've gone from "Mao, mustche-twirling villian" to "Mao, part mustche-twirling villian, part incompetent buffoon" correct?

No. Mao is one of the rare communist leaders to be completely clean-shaven. No moustache-twirling for him.


He clearly twirled other people's mustaches.

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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
 Iron_Captain wrote:
PourSpelur wrote:
So we've gone from "Mao, mustche-twirling villian" to "Mao, part mustche-twirling villian, part incompetent buffoon" correct?

No. Mao is one of the rare communist leaders to be completely clean-shaven. No moustache-twirling for him.


He clearly twirled other people's mustaches.


He had mustache envy. He didn't know how to deal with the depression of not growing his own mustache so he resorted to killing millions.

Mustaches, they save lives.

...and flavors.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/16 21:07:39


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 ProtoClone wrote:


Mustaches, they save lives.

You sure about that?





Maybe they had beard envy.

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 Iron_Captain wrote:
 ProtoClone wrote:


Mustaches, they save lives.

You sure about that?





Maybe they had beard envy.


There is always exceptions...

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So little if any revaluation of Mao is necessary, and at most he perhaps demonstrated incompetence can be even deadlier than intentional malice.

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 schadenfreude wrote:

With 2020 historical hindsight that's an obvious mistake but history is full of mistakes.


Its not possible for that to be obvious. We don’t know what would have stopped China from falling back into the hands of the many warlords whom the CCP defeated, or from being conquered by the colonial powers. We don’t know what it would have taken to stop that.

We do know that it would have been terrible if the feudal nationalist warlords had been in power or if an external invasion in the name of democracy had crushed the communists and turned over to more garbage local warlords as has happened when local socialist governments were destroyed in places like Congo or Libya.


[size=18]#4 The big problem with China at the time is it's a 1 party system with no checks and balances. When Mao decides #3 is a necessary sacrifice the lack of checks and balances is what got so many people killed.


Yeah we’ve had problems with checks and balances in most new governments. Zhou and Deng put things aright. Zhou is vastly discounted as a great leader of China.
   
 
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