Looks like NPR has "discovered" that millions were murdered in Mao's "Great Leap Forward". Stop the presses! Read and hear all about it here (A Grim Chronicle Of China's Great Famine by Louisa Lim)
Now, I am not sure how many times this historical tidbit needs to be "discovered" before it will sink into the collectivist heads of the Left that, yes indeedie, central planning kills people. In this case, it was exceptionally bad central planning, but central planning is the culprit here.
Before we cross that bridge, we have to get it through their heads that it actually happened at all. If by chance you get a Maoist to agree that the famine did indeed happen, you then have to get over the "dust bowl" excuse. What is the dust bowl excuse, you ask? It is the utter nonsense that China's Great Leap Forward starvation of millions was due to bad weather "not unlike the American dust bowl of the 1930s."
Be forewarned, that is their answer for every Communist famine, including the Holodomor. No, I am not kidding:
- WHAT CAUSED THE FAMINE AND RELATED DEATHS?
1. Severe drought across the Ukrainian SSR and southern RSFSR from 1931 through 1933 literally burned up the crops in the field.
Meteorological records from that time period can confirm this.
2. Epidemics of typhoid, typhus, and dysentery broke out when much
of the limited water supply was infected. Hundreds of thousands
died from these diseases.
3. In resistance to collectivization the kulaks (private, rich
peasants), with the blessing of underground White counter-
revolutionaries, burned their crops and slaughtered their animals
rather than bring them to market. This exacerbated the situation
and cost hundreds of thousands of lives that could have been saved
by kulak food supplies.
4. The incompetence of more than a few local Communist officials
and, in many cases, their direct disobedience to the directives of
the Central Committee and Stalin caused situations that
contributed to the problem in a number of regions.
The truth is, the Bolsheviks/Soviets, Red Chinese and North Koreans all used mass starvation as a weapon against their populations. The "famines" never started when collectivism was on the rise in popularity, it always appeared when voluntary collectivism stopped working.
Mao's brilliant idea was to tell his staff to increase grain production, in part to pay back debt to the Soviets. Problem was, the grain quotas were higher than the farmers could produce. He piled onto that more brilliance of trying to industrialize his agrarian country "quicker" than the Soviets did theirs. Steel quotas were given to all of the collectives and the way they met it was to melt down everything they had made of steel. Soviet made tools, paid for with Chinese grain, was destroyed into "steel" that was not useable for anything.
Mao's intentional starvation of tens of millions has been well known and well documented since just a few years after it started. It was not like there was a Great Duranty making up stories for the New York Times was throwing anybody off the trail . . .
Oh, wait. Yes there was. For some reason, "The Great" never got pinned on John Roderick, so I will pin it on him. The Great Roderick was pulling Duranty duty in China during Mao's grand starvation:
On 3 Dec., 1961, The Great Roderick checked up a bit and did not go Full Duranty in - Industrial 'Leap Forward' Curtailed to Strengthen Farm Front Where I discovered that Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery was the one doing The Full Duranty.
Here are two movies from the 1960s (or late 1950s). Oh yes, they appear to be training films from the CIA, which oddly are more factual than anything you will get from your typical Maoist of any period, and they match what Yang Jisheng's writes Toumbstone, as well as what was mentioned in the NPR piece.
This one from May, 2007 by Philip Short, "reveals" everything that the NPR story reports about Yang Jisheng's new book Toumbstone and it matches the CIA movies too. It includes testimony from Sidney Rittenberg, a US Army linguist who joined the Chinese Communist Party while stationed in China in the 1940s.
By golly, here is one from 1997 covering that period. Includes testimony from Li Rui, Mao's Secretary speaking of the Great Leap Forward (about 0:36:00):
Seriously, how often do these atrocities need to be proved? Don't worry, this latest proof will be swept into the dustbin of Leftist history in short order, only to be "discovered" anew in a couple of years.
This year, 23 JAN 2012 happens to be both Chinese New Year and World Freedom Day. If you thought World Freedom Day was in November, then you may be as new to this celebration of freedom thing as is president Obama.
For my fellow Americans, it is easy to be unaware of the day when China and South Korea celebrate the 1954 repatriation of 14,000 Chinese prisoners of the Korean War. 22,600 Communist soldiers total refused to return to Communist People's Republic of China or to Communist North Korea and instead requested repatriation to the Republic of China or to South Korea. 14,000 of them were Chinese and they formed the "Anti-Communist League" after arriving in free Taiwan. (Note: 86 chose India over China)
People like Noam Chomsky may toss out the true but still misleading trivia that soldiers of both sides refused repatriation to the countries they were fighting for, just like he did in his famous 1960s "Firing Line" appearance that I like to call his "which way did those refugees go" moment. During the first installment of the Korean War, 22 American Soldiers and on British soldier refused repatriation too. Thus, to folks like Noam Chomsky who say "refugees went both ways" later in Vietnam, the 1,000-1 ratio is meaningless. Just as the 7-1 ratio of those fleeing North Vietnam to those leaving the South is no issue. The issue to them is that somebody went to the Communists. A list of the 22 from WikiPedia is copied at the bottom of this post. Not the fate of each, when they were returned to freedom.
Here is a video about the UN forces who refused repatriation, known as the Turncoats, that passes itself as a documentary. Any reasonable assessment is that it is modern Communist Chinese propaganda. One of the keys is their referring to the Chinese Red Army as volunteers, when in fact they were conscripts. The propaganda so preposterous that the truth shines through the lies, especially in clips of the Turncoats who spoke of how things changed in China after their propaganda value ended. I add it in the interest of fairness. Speaking of "fairness," the video notes the Courts Martial and sentencing of two Americans who returned and were convicted of Treason. The video mentions their sentencing, but not that they did not serve a single day in jail after their trials. See the Wiki information farther down.
See more in parts two, three, four, and five. This series of videos will be the subject of another post and this general issue will be covered in great detail in Would You Like Borders With That Socialism?
On the other hand, people like president Obama seem to have deep seated reasons for not recognizing the free zone of China. In September, 2009 the Communist Chinese were celebrating the 60th anniversary of Maoist Stalinism on the Ellipse,with the White House as a backdrop.
Since the 1954 POW exchange there has been the occasional American service member who defected to North Korea, not unlike college students and others who decide to get involved with terrorist causes, Communist or not.
Six American servicemen are known to have defected to North Korea after the war:
United Nations Service Members who defected during the first installment of the Korean War (via WikiPedia):
American
Adams, Clarence (Cpl.)
A soldier fromMemphis, Tennessee. Adams cited racial discrimination in the United States as the reason he refused repatriation. While a prisoner, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. During theVietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling black American soldiers not to fight:
You are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, but what kind of freedom do you have at home, sitting in the back of the bus, being barred from restaurants, stores and certain neighborhoods, and being denied the right to vote. ... Go home and fight for equality in America.
A native of Belgium who immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He lived in China for ten years, working in a paper factory in Jinan, before returning to Antwerp, Belgium.[5][4]
Bell, Otho Grayson (Cpl.)
Originally fromOlympia, Washington.[4]In China was sent to a collective farm with William Cowart and Lewis Griggs (see below). Bell described himself, Cowart and Griggs as "the dummy bunch", saying they were sent to the farm because they could not learn Chinese. They returned to the United States together in July 1955, were arrested, but were released when it was found that the military no longer had jurisdiction over the defectors after they were dishonorably discharged. Bell died in 2003.[5]
Corden, Richard (Sgt.)
A native ofChicago,Illinois. He returned to the United States on 19 January, 1958. He was reported to live inMilwaukee,Wisconsinin 1961 and moved to Chicago in 1962.[4]He reportedly continued to favor communism even after returning to the United States.[5]He died in 1988.
Cowart, William (Cpl.)
Returned with Bell and Griggs. Later the three soldiers sued for their back pay. The case went all the way to theUnited States Supreme Court, which held that Bell, Cowart and Griggs were entitled to their back pay from the time they were captured to the time they were dishonorably discharged.[6]
Douglas, Rufus (Sgt.)
Died in China a few months after arrival in 1954. The manner of his death is not certain but is believed to have been from natural causes.[5]
Dunn, John Roedel (Cpl.)
FromAltoona, Pennsylvania.[4]He married a Czechoslovakian woman while in China and settled in Czechoslovakia in December 1959.[4][5]
Fortuna, Andrew (Sgt.)
Originally fromGreenup, Kentucky.[4]He was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service in Korea before he was captured.[5]He returned to the United States on July 3, 1957. He worked inPortsmouth, Ohioin 1958, inDetroit,Michiganfrom 1963-64 and Chicago in 1964. He was reported to be inGary, Indianaas of 1964.[4]He died in 1984.[5]
Griggs, Lewis Wayne
Returned with Bell and Cowart in 1955. He was listed as a senior majoring in sociology atStephen F. Austin State University, graduating in 1959.[7][8]He died in 1984.
FromOklahoma City,Oklahoma. He married a Russian woman in China and returned to the United States in February 1957, shortly before his wife was permitted to come to the United States. He successfully petitioned the government to change his discharge from dishonorable to other than honorable. He raised a family, and has given interviews to the press on the condition that his location not be disclosed.[5]
Pate, Arlie (Cpl.)
Worked in a paper mill before returning with Aaron Wilson (see below) in 1956. He died in 1999.[5]
Rush, Scott (Sgt.)
Married in China. After living in China ten years, he and his wife moved back to the United States and settled in the Midwest.[5]
Skinner, Lowell (Cpl. )
His mother begged him to come home over the radio at the time of the prisoner exchange, to no avail. He married in China, but left his wife behind when he came back to America in 1963. Later he would have problems withalcoholand spent six months in a psychiatric hospital. He died in 1995.[9]
Came home in 1955. He went to Louisiana a few months later to welcome home fellow defector Aaron Wilson (see below). He settled in Utah before dying in 2001.[5]
FromVandergrift, Pennsylvania.[4]He stayed in China and became a dedicated communist, taking the Chinese name 'Lao Wen'. He worked in a steel mill, participated in theGreat Leap Forward, hung posters during theCultural Revolution, married three times, and had children. He visited the United States in 1976 but returned to China, where he is buried.[10]
Webb, Harold (Sgt.)
FromJacksonville, Florida[4]. He married a Polish woman in China and moved to Poland in 1960, reportedly settling inKatowice.[4][5]In 1988, he was given permission to settle in the United States.[5]He is the subject of theYouth Defense Leaguesong Turncoat about rejection of a Korean War defector seeking a return to America.[11]
White, William (Cpl.)
Married and got a bachelor's degree in international law while in China. He returned to the United States in 1965.[5]
Originally fromUrania, Louisiana.[4]He came home from China 06 December 1956[4]. Wilson married an American girl and worked in hisLouisianahometown's mill.[5]
Scotsman of41 (Independent) Royal Marine Commando, was the only Briton to decline repatriation. He returned to Britain in 1960, and faced no disciplinary action.
Communist Red China is in the news again, mainly because the mainstream media Stalinists love anything Big Communist. Maybe I should lower-case that to "stalinists" since it refers to the default position of everybody on the Left, and as we all know Stalin defined the Left and the Right in 1928.
This time Reason sent their decidedly anti-Communist Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey to the latest Red China showcase event: The U.N. Climate Change (sic) Conference in Durban, South Africa. The self-professed fan-boy of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) was actually amazed that so many pundits buy the claptrap that if we only accede to Red Chinese demands we can save the world. Those demands being Communist China gets to do whatever they want and all of Red China's industrial competitors get to provide welfare to "developing" (aka backward, aka Third World) countries. Read his article, he was there and covers it better than I can. It is a breath of fresh air after a short series by the insufferable Bradley Gardner, Reason's resident Friedmanosiscarrier.
Tom Friedman, Red China Fanboy
During the past week the Friedmanista concubines of Red China have been touting the big strides of Red Chinese crony capitalism and warning the US that we need to watch out for them. They have seen the future and it is Capital Communist! Never mind that they are channeling Lincoln SteffensandWill Rogersat the same time, they have the guts to say that the US will be 'overtaken' by a country whose economy is smaller than Mexico's.
About this "economic overtaking" business for a moment. Who cares? As long as we have freedom and a comfortable standard of living it really does not matter who is "bigger," it matters only that we are free to make our own choices as individuals and that we have a decent comforts. Do you know who cares? Andy Stern and others who wish to scare us deeper into Socialism, that's who.
If you do not know who Andy Stern is, Worker's World glowingly describes him like this (links added by me):
Andy Stern, former head of the giant Service Employees union in the United States, recently visited China as part of a delegation organized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation and the Center for American Progress. Stern, knowing very well that U.S. workers are in the midst of a long-term crisis of unemployment that shows no letup, was highly impressed with the goals of China’s 12th five-year plan, which were explained to the visiting group by high-ranking Chinese officials.
Deirdre Griswold expands on the 'virtues' of central planning. The requisite "commanding heights" phrasing always entertains me, but she sounds serious about it -
China allows capitalism to exist — it has stock markets, private ownership of some of the means of production, a growing bourgeoisie, and many social features of capitalism, like a big income gap between rich and poor. But it also has state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, especially the major banks, as well as the industries vital to China’s infrastructure.
If you are into Red porn, read the rest. I did it so you don't have to.
While we debate, Team China rolls on. Our delegation witnessed China's people-oriented development in Chongqing, a city of 32 million in Western China, which is led by an aggressive and popular Communist Party leader—Bo Xilai. A skyline of cranes are building roughly 1.5 million square feet of usable floor space daily—including, our delegation was told, 700,000 units of public housing annually.
Of course, the word of the PRC government is good enough for Stern. One wonders why scenes like this were not mentioned. Perhaps they were not on the tour?
Back to the Stern article:
Meanwhile, the Chinese government can boast that it has established in Western China an economic zone for cloud computing and automotive and aerospace production resulting in 12.5% annual growth and 49% growth in annual tax revenue, with wages rising more than 10% a year.
For those of us who love this country and believe America has every asset it needs to remain the No. 1 economic engine of the world, it is troubling that we have no plan—and substitute a demonization of government and worship of the free market at a historical moment that requires a rethinking of both those beliefs.
America needs to embrace a plan for growth and innovation, with a streamlined government as a partner with the private sector. Economic revolutions require institutions to change and maybe make history, because if they stick to the status quo they soon become history. Our great country, which sparked and wants to lead this global revolution, needs a forward looking, long-term economic plan.
Do not confuse the Stern's idea of streamlined government with anything a libertarian would envision. His version of streamlined government is more like Mao, Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin. Or perhaps what Obama would be doing if that pesky Congress and those radio talk people were not standing in his way.
These reports resemble the infrequent dispatches about Idi Amin's Ugandan public works projects from the 1970s, on a much larger scale. They are also reminiscent of Soviet endeavors to make "the biggest", like airplanes that were 1/4" longer than the American version.
Jonah Goldberg did a fine job of dissecting Stern's WSJ piece: The Problem with China Envy What liberals want to copy is the authoritarianism.
Stern sees the Chinese government’s allegedly keen ability to “plan” its way to prosperity as the new model for America. It is an argument of profound asininity. China had five-year plans before it started getting rich. Under the old five-year plans, China killed tens of millions of its own people and remained mired in poverty. What made China rich wasn’t planning, it was the decision to switch to markets (albeit corrupt ones). The planners were merely in charge of distributing the wealth that markets created.
Indeed, rapid economic growth always makes government planners look like geniuses when the reality is that the planners are more like self-proclaimed rainmakers who started dancing only after it started raining. When the rain stops, which it will, they’ll have much to answer for.
Oh, and what about labor? There’s one labor union in China, and it’s run by the government. (The Nazis had pretty much the same system.) Stern doesn’t seem to care.
Goldberg is much more generous than me with the When the rain stops, which it will, they’ll have much to answer for. phrasing.They will not be answering to anybody, as George Will said to Charlie Rose:
We need to abandon the notion that consumer goods will bring Communist regimes to their knees too, as George F. Will mentions in the video with Charlie Rose. The only thing that brings authoritarian regimes to their senses is force. Showing the Soviets that they could not possibly compete with us militarily is what toppled them from within. The lesson China took from that was to keep their society closed, befriend the wandering useful idiots in the west, and offer up slave labor for western commercial enterprises.
Even with their central planning, massive monuments to government, public works projects that are the envy of Tom Friedman, and central planning, Red China is still a third world economy train wreck.
In his previous article, Gardner painted a rosy picture of the PRC leaving everybody alone, a veritable libertopia of commerce that Liberation Daily touted Wenzhou as the model for the rest of China as far back as 1985, but claims that the recent alarm from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times(!) are nothing to worry about. Apparently Gardner counts everybody with a hammer as a "factory owner" (his count of "factory owners" in the province of 3 Million is 400,000) so ninety of them fleeing after a government crackdown is nothing to worry about. If every "factory" really had only 7.5 workers, this might be nothing. Other opinions differ.
Has history been erased so well that even a former Libertarian standard bearer like reason has forgotten scenes like this?
Tank Man, 5 June 1989
Demolition of a Church in China
Note that Gardner is a reporter in Beijing, presumably with permission from the PRC. Perhaps the Shanghai Commies at Liberation Daily (Jiefang Daily?) were flying under the radar of the home office in Beijing in 1985? Reason being, well, reason, does not mention the state of religious freedom in Wenzhou. However, to be fair, reason has never been big on that aspect of freedom, so one will not find the answer there. However, in 2000 the Baltimore Sun knew what was still happening in China with basic religious freedom:
The recent demolition campaign focused on several areas in Zhejiang Province, particularly Wenzhou, a city of more than 6 million people known for its energetic merchant class and deep religious roots. Protestant and Catholic missionaries began converting people in Wenzhou beginning in the latter part of the 19th century when the city became a treaty port. With more than 700,000 Protestants and several hundred thousand Catholics, it has a higher percentage of Christians than any other municipality in China.
China's state-run media rarely - if ever - publicize demolition campaigns because it only invites international condemnation. This time, though, the government gave some media a green light to report on the demolitions.
Late last month, the Wenzhou Daily reported that thousands of government employees and Communist Party cadres in Zhejiang's Ruian City demolished 28 unapproved "religious sites" and 356 small temples, occasionally using dynamite when needed. - The Baltimore Sun, Places of worship razed in Chinese crackdown, 15 December 2000, by By Frank Langfitt
Chinese factory workerss
Make no mistake, nothing has improved on that front. Note also that Christian missionaries to China from the United States still must take extensive precautions to avoid arrest. Mainland Chinese citizens who attend Churches in America frequently do so under assumed names and still live in fear of being found out by the PRC authorities.
Back to reason, by the time 1989 rolled around, the pulp version of reason was printing this about China:
The emergence of the American world nation also has profound ideological implications. The American message– stressing individual rights and private initiative–is gradually becoming universal and less linked to "white" ideology. Nowhere is this clearer than in China, where American cultural and political influence has a powerful appeal, particularly among the young. When 50,000 Chinese students demonstrated in Shanghai’s People’s Square in December 1986, they waved banners depicting the Statue of Liberty and a dragon bound in chains. Emblazoned on the banners were calls for such American-style values as democracy, human rights, and freedom. - Reason, America's Rising Sun, January 1989, by Joel Kotkin
So, how did reason cover the Tienanmen Square protests five months later? With silence. No, really. They finally mentioned Tienanmen Square in a 1995 book review on non-violent protest. Apparently, as far as reason is concerned, the demonstrations ignored by the PRC are the ones that count and the ones the tanks show up for are the ones that they do not bother mentioning, until 2009, twenty years after the fact:
But the episode was not what it initially appeared to be: the end of China's evolution toward a more liberal system. It was only an interruption of that process. In the aftermath, the Chinese Communist Party grasped that it could hold onto power only by delivering a better life to its people, which it could achieve only by loosening its grip on their lives.
The rose colored bong continues to bubble at 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest. Like many who are blind to the wiley ways of Socialists, the reason staff and contributors seem to be under the false illusion that having the liberty to chose what color shoes to wear on the way to the factory is freedom enough. As Jonah Goldberg has mentioned, the ROC murdered 67 million people before trying (crony) capitalism, and I will add that they have not even given a wink to the free market. It is only a matter of time before the people of Wenzhou get the treat of seeing how well their privately built roads hold up under the load of PRC tanks.
Almost two decades later, the educated elite who led the protests of 1989 have benefited handsomely from China's rapid economic growth, but many Chinese workers still face brutal working conditions and low wages. "A lot of factories do not even have one day off," says labor expert Dr. Anita Chan who has been researching working conditions inside China for 15 years. "That means seven days a week, 13 hours a day."
In fact, some experts see the emergence of two Chinas: one modern, wealthy and urban; the other rural, poor and disenfranchised. There is evidence that unrest among workers and peasants is growing; in 2005, there were more than 87,000 "civil disturbances" in the country.
A real success story, the Republic of China, aka, Taiwan began at the same time as the PRC with much better results. Perhaps Gardner and Friedman could take a little field trip there and see what they can find?
On 15 Nov, 1961 John Strohm of the Newspaper Enterprise Association reported - Red China's Population Hungry, Disillusioned, And In Rags, Writer Says In Report Of Chaos And he does not pull any punches.
