China's Communist Revolution

And your name is "Flawless?" LOL

I'll take a look.

Try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

Some more here:

http://www.wsu.edu:8001/~dee/MODCHINA/COMM.HTM

Thanks guys.... So you know any more specific link according to the topic? Like chiangs weaknesses...

You might search on the Koumintang that should turn up some material for you.

remember Mao was possibly the greatest mass murderor there has ever been..

Mao was a mass murderer because of what he did to the farms and farming in China. Millions starved.

the cultural revolution he called it..

The world was turned upside-down by Mao by his "cultural revolution." The intelligentsia and capitalists were treated with disdain by those who never had any 'power or influence' such as farmers and rural bumpkins without much education or money.

One of my closest friend was born in Shanghai, and his father was president of the Bank of China. They escaped to Hong Kong during the cultural revolution, because my friend saw the communists beat his father, and he never forgave them till the day he died. Although he and his wife visited Hong Kong several times, he swore never to visit China, even though I've tried to tell him China is changing quickly into capitalism. The communists also stole many of their family treasures.

today i was watching CCTV Chinese C? TV... and there was a topic on a convention of chinese entrepenuers!! where did communism go... they are capitalist in all but name at the moment, no??

Hard to know what they are really going for over there. From an import/export standpoint they are dominating. Perhaps this gradual change will help prevent the oligarchy that emerged in Russia/NIS in the 90s.

China still has major issues with the press, as does Russia - Russia's are perhaps more concerning because of their "commitment" to democracy.

Russia's government corruption will not go away any time soon. China;s governmetn has an iron-fist control on almost everything. That must change for China to progress beyond a certain point in the economic progress. Their control of the Chinese currency may end up biting them in the rear end.

The workers that produce all the products in China will begin to demand more from their labor. They can't keep it artificially low where the workers purchasing power remains at the lower rung in the world of competitition. They acan't afford to buy much imports on US$79/month salary.

The Weekend Australian 22 October 2005

Recently my father went to China to see the sights.. upon his return i asked him what he thought of The Great Wall etc., but when i asked him what is it like in a communist state, he seriously thought they werent at all but only for show.. funny enough when i asked him about beijing, he just said it was a big ******* construction site!

Okay, lets put it this way. China has a population that is just expanding and expanding. What the hell are we going to do with all the people? let them sit around all day doing absaloutly jack-crap? I think there is more than enough people doing that. We can't pay all of them wages that are normal in the Western world but at least we try our best. Moreover, this 'slave labour' is wrong in the fact that we didn't force them to join up. Besides, which countries are we threating? Taiwan if I may add is NOT a country. Democracy cannot be eaten. Ever tried having a election with 1/3 of the worlds population? Oh no, chaos if any major party loses. Also, I want to add that America didn't need the USSR. Its does however need China. It saw the USSR as a political and military opponent. It sees China as a gold mine. So, good luck to Taiwan trying to keep America on its side.

China has about one-fifth of the world's population. Even if we consider that five percent of its people are "successful," that's more than many developed countries of the world living a middle class or better standard of living.

We cry about "slave labor" in China, but we have illegal immigrants in the US working for sub-minimum wages.

The one thing that is an advantage of living in the US is the simple fact that our poorest live much better than many middle class in other countries.

One of the problems in today's China:

China torture 'still widespread'
Torture remains widely in use across China, a top UN envoy has said.
Manfred Nowak, who has spent nearly two weeks in the country, added that some officials had tried to obstruct his fact-finding efforts.

Mr Nowak - the first UN rapporteur on torture allowed in the country - said abuse was declining in cities, but that "more structural reform" was needed.

Beijing outlawed torture in 1996, but human rights organisations report it is still used to extract confessions.

Mr Nowak visited detention centres in the capital Beijing, and the restive western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

Torture methods cited in a statement at the end of his visit included use of electric shock batons, cigarette burns, and submersion in pits of water or sewage.


There were serious incidents of obstructing my mission
Manfred Nowak
UN rapporteur on torture

Mr Nowak spoke of one detainee forced to lie on a bed in a particular position for 85 days.
He also raised concern about psychological torture, particularly in labour camps, which he said was designed to alter the personality of the detainees.

Asked about the prevalence of torture, he answered: "I consider it on the decline, but still widespread."

Mr Nowak said the continuing use of torture was due to pressure on police officers to provide evidence in the form of confessions.

Interference

The UN official also accused Chinese officials of systematically interfering with his investigations.

He said the authorities frequently monitored his interviews with relatives of prisoners.


"Victims and family members were intimidated by security personnel during the visit, placed under surveillance, instructed not to meet with him [Mr Nowak] or physically prevented from meeting with him," the statement said.

While interviewing inmates, Mr Nowak said he had observed "a palpable level of fear and self-censorship".

Mr Nowak said that until major legal reforms allowed for an independent judiciary, the problem of torture could not be brought under effective control in China.

"There is much that still needs to be done, there is a need for many more structural reforms," he said.

Mr Nowak's visit came at a time when a public debate is going on in the Chinese media about the use of torture and coercion by the police.

In one recent case, a man who had been sent to prison for murdering his wife was released after she was found alive.

The man, She Xianglin, said he had been tortured into confessing to the murder, and had already served 11 years of his sentence.

A BBC correspondent in Beijing says the fact Mr Nowak was allowed to visit Chinese prisons - after a decade of failed attempts - does indicate the country's leaders are willing at the very least to acknowledge the problem.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4491026.stm

Published: 2005/12/02 15:17:01 GMT

I've just noticed this thread, and couldn't resist. First, regarding the relative strengths and weakness of Mao and Chiang. Chiang had a couple of wonderful assets. His wife was beautiful and Americans loved her almost as much as they did Jackie-O thirty years later. She was a wonderful lobbyist for American support of the KMT, and helped provide more than enough money and materiel to keep the KMT in power. The times also worked in Chiang's favor. The Japanese attacked China using the most brutal tactics against the population. Some Japanese officers had a contest, for instance, to see who could behead the most civilians with their swords. We would expect this sort of behavior to rally the population to their government's defense. Even before December 7th, Americans were active in supplying the KMT with materials, arms, training, and a very successful fighter group. After Pearl Harbor, American commitment to the KMT was total.

On the other hand, the CCP had virtually no advantages at all. They had been rousted out of Shanghai and other cities into the countryside after a major KMT effort to destroy the party entirely. The refugees had little more than they could carry on their backs against the KMT's control of the air and well-equipped military. Mao and Chu-teh, along with other leaders later to become famous, led the Communist survivors on The Long March, one of histories more improbable successes. They overcame, terrible odds and privation. They won small battles against the KMT, and began to rally support in the Chinese masses. Eventually the party found refuge in the caves along the northern frontiers of China. The Japanese invasion was their salvation. Mao and Chu-teh seized the opportunity and commenced an active and vigorous guerilla campaign against the Japanese. Their cadres, hardened by the Long March, were ferocious and experienced fighters. They armed themselves with captured weapons and supplies, while rallying the peasantry to their cause. It was Maoist cadres that inflicted most of the damage to the Japanese on the Chinese mainland.

In the meantime, Chiang was unable to rid himself of his fixation on destroying the Communists. He was reluctant to attack the Japanese, preferring to hope that they would wipe-out the Communists for him. KMT troops were not very effective against the Japanese, but they were very oppressive to the peasantry. Chiang, despite his PR, was little more than a very powerful warlord intent on preserving and building his personal power base. The contrast between the behavior of the KMT and the Communists did not go un-noticed by the populace, and Mao became a national hero while Chiang retained power by force. As the war went on the CCP became ever stronger, while popular support of the KMT dwindled almost to nothing. After 1945 the conflict between the CCP and the KMT was again open, direct, and hot. The Communist north was now well armed with vast popular support, while the KMT still retained American logistics and support … but was generally despised among the peasantry. Chiang became even more despotic, often jailing and torturing leading citizens and compatriots for the slightest deviation from the party line. Mao on the other hand, was rewarding loyal followers and peasants as he expanded his fief. Mao, at least on the surface, did seem to really try to make the Communist ideals reality, and that greatly appealed to the masses. So far as the masses knew, Mao live a very plain and modest life. Chiang, on the other hand, was seen as favoring his rich friends. By 1948, the KMT was lucky to escape to Taiwan.

Taiwan had for many years been governed by the Japanese, but the Chinese always regarded the island as part of China. If the KMT and CCP agreed on nothing else, it was that there was only one China and that included Taiwan. The native Taiwanese didn't agree, but they had no say in the matter. The KMT moved in and the Taiwanese became second-class citizens in their own land. Chiang was a brutal dictator, though he always maintained the visage of a Democrat. Chiang and the KMT always were preaching their intent to reconquer the mainland, and Mao and the CCP remained dedicated to retaking Taiwan. Several major incidents have occurred over the years where the outbreak of war might have occurred, but the presence of the US Navy has so-far chilled the hostilities. KMT prisons and torture cells remained full and busy until well after Chiang's death.

Mao's fame and popularity continues, but may have contributed to some really bad decisions he made. The seizure of private property and land to form farming communes resulted in food shortages and famine. The Great Leap Forward was an economic disaster that crippled the economy for years. Central planning worked no better in China than it did in any of the Communist experiments. Communalism was enforced on a culture that revered the family above all, and spies were everywhere. The CCP became just as oppressive as the systems they vowed to destroy. Mao came up with the idea of continual revolution; that once in control every bureaucracy tends to become oppressive and the People should periodically cleans the system by revolution. Thus was born the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution quickly got out of hand and control. I seriously doubt that Mao ever envisioned that he and the CCP would be unable to dominate the forces they unleashed. Whoops. The attacks the Red Guards made on traditional Chinese culture were very destructive, but generated popular resistance. The CCP eventually regained control, and has since been careful to steer a less radical course in imposing its doctrines on the populace.

It seems to me that the thread has drifted from the original topic to a discussion of China, its problems and policies in the last ten years. The history of the CCP going back into the late 1920's remains relevant to our analysis of where it stands today and may go in the future (see the abstract in the post above).

Equally important is to understand the cultural basis of the Chinese, the resources available to the CCP, and the political challenges of the world in the 21st century. A discussion of Chinese culture, its evolution and history, is far too long and complex for this space, as the interested student can find that information in the many books on the topic. I suggest Reichaur's History of Asia as a very good foundation to understanding Chinese history/culture and its place in Asia.

China is larger than Europe and has been a "nation" longer than Rome. It's vastness includes potential mineral and oil resources in the far Western deserts, but most of its billions of people live in the narrow margins along the rivers and seashore. Rice is the primary staple of the diet, with fish and pork providing most of the meat. The cultivation of rice has been labor intensive for thousands of years, and individual peasants' prize whatever small bit of productive land they can obtain. Large families, especially sons, have traditionally been prized. Sons are needed to do the heavy work of farming, are essential to increasing the family's wealth, and to provide for the elderly who are especially revered. This is a very conservative culture with traditions that go back thousands of years. Historically, change has been slow and difficult to manage. National disasters occur on a regular basis. Flood, earthquakes, famine and pandemic disease are all a part of the Chinese reality. A very authoritative central government is more common in China than in the West, and is largely acceptable to the general population.

The CCP has assumed the responsibility for guiding China, and that entails dealing with some very serious problems. Let's look at a few of the problems faced by the leadership of the CCP.

Thousands of years of continual cultivation on inefficient (by Western standards) small farms is not sufficient to provide the agricultural surpluses needed to feed billions of Chinese. The amount of land capable of producing the food required is very limited, and can only be increased at great cost and with difficulty. Massive public works projects to irrigate previously unproductive land by damming up major river systems are underway. If the major rivers are well controlled, perhaps the risk of flood can be mitigated while increasing agricultural acreage. The cost of these great projects huge, while their success remains uncertain … though promising. The balance between mouths and food stocks can apparently only be addressed by limiting the size of the population, or by bringing in food from abroad. Since China still suffers from an adverse balance of payments, they are left with the very unpopular campaign to limit family size. The success of the campaign has been uneven, and only partially successful. Most of the successes have been in the cities, while in the countryside large traditional style families are still the ideal. Only the most rigorous governmental controls make even the limited successes of limiting population growth possible. There has developed a large imbalance between the sexes. There are many more young men, than young women. That imbalance itself poses problems inside China. How does one control a large population of sexually frustrated young men? One answer is to maintain a large infantry heavy military force that must be fed and kept under strong political control.

The changes forced upon the Chinese by their ballooning population and limited ability to produce enough food to feed them are revolutionary both socially and culturally. China is moving toward a more consumer-oriented and individualistic society. This is a strain on all the traditional values, and the values that form the core of the CCP ideology. The changes have to be controlled to prevent a more explosive political revolution (the ghost of the Cultural Revolution is still a bogeyman). Yet, if change doesn't happen with some rapidity, famine and political unrest are likely. Current changes within China are creating a large gulf between the new wealthy and the poor masses, especially the peasantry. This would be a problem anywhere, but especially in China where Classless-ness has been the political ideal for over half a century. The Communist True Believers and Party faithful who have benefited from the existing system won't go away easily. One wrong move and the CCP will be faced with some very tough political choices.

The demand for more consumer goods is rising, yet China remains pretty poor by Western standards. The cost of owning "things" is still too high for most people, the supplies of consumer goods are still small, but the desires and expectations continue to rise especially in the cities. The demands for goods present their own problems. People want automobiles. The Chinese are today one of the great producers of automobiles, though they are exporting almost zero units. The reason is that Chinese models don't meet any of the pollution/gas mileage requirements of the world, and they aren't very well built anyway. Where are all those cars going? The answer is to Chinese consumers. Millions of new gas-guzzlers with no pollution control standards are reaching the market every month. Imagine how the world oil markets are, and will be, affected to fuel the new Chinese motoring public. Imagine the environmental problems that the China, and their closest neighbors will have to deal with in a few years. Imagine the cost of providing the roads and infrastructure required to support all those cheap cars on a still poor nation. Imagine the difficulties of maintaining political control over a population that will increasingly find it possible to move from one point to another. Similar examples might be drawn from the introduction of mass communications technology so necessary to participate effectively in the global business world.

Chinese infrastructure is still in its infancy, and is being built up at a frenzied pace. This is the way to make some pretty serious and costly mistakes. Much of the country is still without reliable running water, sewage systems, much less electricity. Pressed high-sulfur soft coal is still used to heat homes, cook meals, and power generators while enveloping whole areas in toxic fumes. Airports and air travel is still a novelty in large portions of the country. There is a shortage of doctors, medicines and medical supplies. Chinese science is still largely at the service of the central government, with only a small portion devoted to the private sector. The bureaucracy still exists and complicates most private efforts to make improvements, even when directed from the central party. The military remains, at least nominally, under party control, but that may not always be the case. China's military operates one of the worlds largest and most effective networks of spies located in virtually every country. Industrial espionage predominates and feeds billion dollars worth of counterfeit products onto the world market each year. Technology of military usefulness has already improved Chinese military capabilities. Chinese intercontinental missiles can already reach any point on the globe.

The danger of a major and highly lethal pandemic originating in Southeast China is great, and a threat to the entire world. Famine is a distinct possibility in the next 50 years, and that could easily trigger a world conflagration. Whether the river control projects are able to increase agricultural production and decrease the likelihood of major flooding remains to be seen. Failure of the system might make prior floods seem like a trickle in their destructiveness to the country.

China and its leadership is facing major problems, and having to make difficult choices anyone of which might be catastrophic for China and the world. Will they be able to pull it off? I can give you a definitive answer to that if you'll only ask again 100 years from now.