Nothing New Under the Sun, Especially when Communism is involved

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.

Update: It is not like nobody was reporting this in the 1950s and 60s either.  Witness the Modesto Bee, 27 AUG 1959
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.

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 11 May, 1960 he waxes poetic about a Yellow River dam project - Project To Build Yellow River Dam Rivals Biggest Of Any Past China Engineering Feats

• 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.

After participating at the highest levels in both the "Cultural Revolution" and "Great Leap Forward", Rittenberg returned to the USA in 1980 with not even a threat of punishment.  For those of you unfamiliar with this unwavering American tenancy for forgiveness, see the "Turncoats" of the Korean War.  Contrast that with the "repatriation" of Soviet soldiers who merely were captured during WWII, to non-Soviets who dared to fight against Stalin and frequently were never Soviet citizens.

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.

Coming soon!

The SDS All Over Again

If all of this #Occupy claptrap, as well as the modern Democrat Party, sound familiar, it is because it is recycled crap from the 1960s.

Click to enlarge, or look at the archive of the Students for a Democratic Society newsletter, New Left Notes, Volume 4, Number 22, 18 June 1969 (PDF) in full.

Some choice bits:
What is now a classic line, from near the top of column two (bolding mine):
The crisis in imperialism has meant triple taxes (really strange to hear Leftists complain about taxes), cutbacks in safety (which ironically allowed terrorist groups like the SDS to flourish), speed-up, falling wages, and death on the front lines to working people.  Black and brown workers have been hit the hardest . . .

Update: this is the oldest use of the "minorities hardest hit" gag that I can find.

(middle of column four)
Up until now, a lack of international solidarity on the part of US white workers has meant that they were objectively scabbing on the rest of the word proletariat.

One of the ways in which we build this solidarity is by attacking white supremacy.  We should see that white supremacy and national chauvinism are key factors in the war in Vietnam and that the war is a white supremacist war.  By attacks on white supremacy, we can also connect the war in Vietnam to the war in the black colony in the minds of the people.

The big demands for what they wanted, and when they wanted it (column five):

• Immediate withdraw from Vietnam
• Immediate release of Huey Newton and all political prisoners
• No more surtax
• Independence for Puerto Rico
• Support for GI's rights and GI rebellions

The article closes with an ironic quote from the murder most grand, Mao Zedong:
Mao says that "all reactionaries attempt to stamp out revolution by mass murder, and they think that the more people they massacre, the weaker the revolutionary will become.  But contrary to this wishful thinking of reaction, the facts are that the more people the reactionaries massacre, the greater the strength of the revolution becomes, the nearer the reactionaries are to their doom.  This is an irresistible law.

The bombings conducted by the Students for a Democratic Society began a few months later, on 7 October 1969, at the Chicago memorial statue to police officers murdered at the Haymarket riot of 1886.  After the statue was replaced, they blew it up again almost one year later to the day.  The SDS blew up more things and people over the coming years during their armed struggle.

Was Hitler Really That Bad?

Yes, of course he was.  Now that I have your attention, the real question is: How can anybody think that Lenin, Stalin and Mao were not bad, or even half bad?  It has to do with marketing, called propaganda when it comes from the government.

Hitler bad

As I have mentioned before in Socialists and Marketing, the Socialist is under the impression that every consumer choice is made due to some marketing campaign.  An additional thought now is that Socialists, and Leftists in general, are particularly susceptible to advertising.  It does explain the actions of the Bloombergs, Obamas, and Ayers of the world quite nicely.  Whatever they decide is right and proper is always accompanied by a massive marketing blitz, along with attempts to silence any opposition to their "we are doing it for you" do-goodery.

Stalin not so bad?

What does this have to do with Hitler?  Everything, actually.  With one edict, Stalin turned his Socialist kinsman, atheist Germanic Pagan, vegetarian, cigarette hating, industry nationalizing, frustrated artist into a Right-Winger.  Stalin's order, that Communism was "Left" and everything else was "Right" went out to the Communist true-believers in the "commanding heights of society" to echo for centuries.  In 1928, not even Social Democrats were "Left" enough for Stalin:

Hence the tasks of the Communist Parties:

Firstly, to wage an unceasing struggle against Social-Democratism in all spheres -- in the economic and in the political sphere, including in the latter the exposure of bourgeois pacifism with the task of winning the majority of the working class for communism.

Secondly, to form a united front of the workers of the advanced countries and the labouring masses of the colonies in order to stave off the danger of war, or, if war breaks out, to convert imperialist war into civil war, smash fascism, overthrow capitalism, establish Soviet power, emancipate the colonies from slavery, and organise all-round defence of the first Soviet Republic in the world.

Such are the principal problems and tasks confronting the Sixth Congress.

These problems and tasks are being taken into account by the Executive Committee of the Comintern, as you will easily see if you examine the agenda of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern.

An adorable Mao?

Stalin was in a squabble about Socialist competition and a few years later, he was executing folks like Trotsky, not because they were free-market capitalists, but because they were not Communist enough, especially as their followings grew.  Note the beginnings of the conflagration of fascist.  Stalin lumped the Fascists of Italy in with the Nazis of Germany, whirled the red blender and they became one-in-the-same for the rest of Leftwing history.

Any lie was fine after that, like this one: Not until Germany’s tanks were on the borders of England and France did those governments ‘switch’ sides: now it was their imperialist domination being threatened.  Bolding mine, least anybody miss the detail of absurdity that Socialists toss about.

In their attempts to draw a distinction between the "real" Socialists and those fake National Socialists, the Communist hive came up with a neat little checklist aimed at the National Socialists.  One little problem with that, it describes the Soviet system to perfection.  Quoting just the first point here, the rest is just as comical.

There are several fundamental characteristics of fascism, among them are:

1. Right Wing: Fascists are fervently against: Marxism, Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, Environmentalism; etc – in essence, they are against the progressive left in total, including moderate lefts (social democrats, etc). Fascism is an extreme right wing ideology, though it can be opportunistic.

Meanie Mussolini?

Sure, all of these leftist parties are rivals with each other, the same way Republicans and Democrats in America.  The same way that allies Hitler and Mussolini faced off against each other in France, at the beginning. But National Socialists (fascists in the text) are anti-Environmentalism vs. Communists/Socialists as grand stewards of the earth?   Sounds good on paper, but in reality the Soviet Union, and later China, North Korea, Haiti and Cuba, all destroyed the environment they controlled in rates and volumes unparalleled in all of human history.  Meanwhile, the German National Socialists institutionalized their Environmentalist Movement before and during WWII, called Reichsnaturschutzgesetz (RNG, Reich Nature Protection Law).

Of course, the marketing campaign that only a Socialist could fall for does not end there and what has been referenced above does not explain why Hitler, a murderer of 12 million people can overshadow Stalin, a murderer of 20 million, or for that matter Mao, a murderer of 77 million as the worst human in history.  Arguably, the runner up behind Hitler should be Lenin, with his Cheka murders knocking off about 0.5 million and intentional famine starving millions more. They are all bad, all horrible pieces of disgusting human filth.  But not to the Left, who like to sport t-shirts with images like this:

Heroes of the Left have the highest body counts.

It all goes back to Stalin's Third Period Declaration of 1928.  Once the Socialists get an order, the large portion who take their marching orders from Moscow directly or indirectly, they follow it to any extreme.  After Hitler and Mussolini were declared "bad", for being more popular internationally than Stalin and nothing else, the professors, and other writers populating the commanding heights of society, set to work with a "Stalin good/Hitler bad" narrative that continues today.

Still not convinced?  Ever hear of Alexander Solzhenitsyn?  He was a Gulag survivor who wrote a few good books.  However, not until Soviet leader Khrushchev made a secret speech could his books about the Gulag could be published.  At least the speech was supposed to be a secret.  Israeli intelligence furnished the US Central Intelligence agency a copy, they in turn furnished the New York Times a copy and it was published.  Immediate howling ensued from the true believers of Soviet Socialism, they likened any criticism of Stalin to "spots on the sun", partly because the news came from somewhere besides Moscow.  Eventually Moscow did own up to it, but the speech was either ignored or used as evidence by Western Communists that Khrushchev destroyed communism.

No, Hitler's reputation as "worst ever" certainly has nothing to do with genocide, murder, or intentional starvation.  The people of Finland, the Balkan States and Taiwan can attest that it has nothing to do with "totalitarianism" either.  It is due to marketing of the worst kind.

Taiwan vs. That Other China

Less Socialism Equals More Freedom and More Prosperity

A Mao Fan-boy

If you read and believe folks like Thomas L. Friedman, you would think that everybody in China now makes $40,000 per year and that their embrace of "Capitalism" done right brought them there.  Well, Friedman and his cronies are right, but not in the way that they think.  You must give them a little leeway.  They live in a world where Mao is a hero, "The Great Leap Forward" is viewed as a stroke of brilliance gone awry, "The Cultural Revolution" is a great awakening, and Chiang Kai-shek was the fly in the ointment who prevented a 'superior' International Socialist Utopia from emerging in Asia.

For many Chinese and other normal folk, the real government of China is in Taipei, Taiwan. Some hope that any day now the Maoist writers in the West will realize that true freedoms and commerce exist in Taiwan and the wise thing to do is spread that wiseness to the mainland.  Some of us are not holding our breath.  After all, the per capita GDP of Taiwan was $37,209 in 2010, with 1% inflation and less than 1.2% of the population below the poverty line.

A Maoist

Now, the China that Friedman and his lemmings think that they are talking about has some not so shining stats: GDP (PPP) $8,289, 4.1% unemployment and almost 3% below the poverty line.  The last two statistics are questionable.

The People's 'Republic' of China just began allowing private property in 2007 and the state still owns all land.  Proponents of the PRC's recent growth cite the adoption of "capitalism" in the same way that they throw other words around: without meaning or substance.  Sure, China has invited in corporations from the rest of the world and supplied slaves to work in the new factories as China becomes the biggest crony capitalist regime since Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.

Granted, Red China set some incredible records in the 20th century.  During Mao's "Great Leap Forward" Red China produced more unusable steel than all of the other nations of the world combined.  In the process, they destroyed forests (in the manner that American tree farms are falsely accused of) and starved tens of millions of people to death.

A Nationalist

In the mean time, that other China, Taiwan, endured a state of Martial Law, necessary to repel the Red Chinese military incursions that lasted well into the 1960s.  When the state of emergency eased, so did Martial Law, which was replaced by a democracy in the 1980s, that endures to this day.  Something key throughout the evolution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) was something known as the Taiwan Miracle.  This "miracle" was commerce, ownership of private property and a gold standard currency.  Taiwan 'suffered' the same "fate" as Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong.

A phrase I have heard a few times in the past from Socialists is "You are not more free, you just have more stuff."  In a tragic way, this backwards comment describes the current Red China perfectly.  It is a dictatorial regime without the simplest of freedoms, but the slaves have a bountiful choice in consumer goods.  George F. Will expressed some needed concern about this state of affairs on the Charlie Rose Show in 2008.  That a prosperous, market allocating, semi capitalistic economy and an unchanged oppressive regime is quite dangerous.

For some reason, to the likes of Friedman and others, Taiwan is invisible to them at best and the 'reason' for Red China's problems at worst.  It is as if Taiwan is the Israel of the Pacific for all of the failed Socialists to blame their problems.