The CCP is better than cannibalism

And the CCP still believes in "glorious Mao Zedong revolutionary thought."

The commoner still belives the 70/30 thing, from my observation (those that don't research history, etc). But I believe Chinese people who are history buffs (to the extent that you can do this in China)do not feel this way.

Why is communism better than cannibalism, anyways? If you're talking about Mao style communism, this means lots of killing, and starvation. If you take the ones you kill and cook them, you can save a lot of starvation.

Just joking, everyone. Please don't start a government sanctioned demonstration.

Hm, Lightyear, you actually raised a good point, and it's NOT a joke:

During Mao's Great Famine, many starving Chinese people DID turn to cannibalism, including eating babies.

So, actually, the evidence shows that Communism CAUSES cannibalism.

Ivan, you've just proved that communism is every bit as bad as cannibalism, by virtue of the former causing the latter.

But I want to be clear. It's not that communism causes cannibalism in every theoretical scenario. It's just the CCP's screwed it up implementation of it.

But this is all in the past.

"It's not that Communism causes cannibalism in every theoretical scenario"....

...Yes, but the "theoretical scenario" does not matter. All that matters is what happened in history. The CCP caused a famine which caused cannibalism. That historical fact - rather than any abstract theory about how Communism "should" work - is the only basis on which to judge the CCP.

Chinese Cannibalism Party.

Yeah, I'm not bashing communism, just the CCP.

You're hilarious man.

Actually, cannibalism is better than the CCP. In ritually cannibalistic societies, at least the cannibals respect their victims.

I can't cite the sources offhand, but aren't there accounts of Red Guards ritually eating parts of the bodies of slain foes from other Red Guard factions during the Cultural Revolution?

Ah, here we are:

"Cannibalism was also an act performed by the Red Guards. The Red Guards ate some of the citizens that the Red Guards killed. During the later 1960s, over a hundred people were killed and eaten. The cannibalism took place in a rural area in the southern part of China called Guangxi.

An example of the cannibalism that took place was that school leaders were murdered by pupils, and then prepared and eaten. Another example of cannibalism that took place during the cultural revolution was in lunchrooms that were controlled by the government, dead bodies were exhibited from meat hooks and then served for lunch."

-- Mabry, Marcus, "Cannibals of the Red Guard," Newsweek. January 18, 1993.

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/China/02/carroll/carroll.htm

Wow, that's just like Hannibal Lecter. No wonder one of our former trolls was so defensive of the CCP.

You know, until today, I always believed that the CCP was better than cannibalism. Now I know better.

But as a control, does anyone know:
1) Did the nationalists ever sanction cannibalism? (I'm thinking no)
2) Was the chinese economy bad enough during the mainland ROC period such that cannibalism widely occurred? (this is to drive whether or not the CCP's economic policies led to cannibalism, or that China was just susceptible to it under any regime since things were already bad)

An interesting book on cannibalism in Guangxi and elsewhere is Zheng Yi's (nom de plume) "Scarlet Memorial".

I'm sure instances of cannibalism occured during the Republican era, but it probably wasn't as bad as in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward.

I doubt cannibalism was state-sanctioned in the case of either regime, though.

From Jung Chang's "Wild Swans", Anchor Books edition, page 234:

"...One day in 1960, the three year old daughter of my aunt Jun-ying's next-door neighbor in Yibin went missing....It turned out that the parents of the young girl were selling wind-dried meat. They had abducted and murdered a number of babies and sold them as rabbit meat at exorbitant prices. The couple were executed and the case was hushed up...Years later I met an old colleague of my father's...He told me with great emotion what he had seen during the famine in one particular commune...One day a peasant burst into his room and threw himself on the floor, screaming that he had committed a terrible crime and begging to be punished. Eventually it came out that he had killed his own baby and eaten it."

More: Yi Zheng (journalist born and raised in China) has documented over 100 incidents of cannibalism in just one province (Guangxi) during the Cultural Revolution, all of which happened pursuant to state-sanctioned purges. His book's title is "Scarlet Memorial."

mmmm, babies...

what was in that yu xiang ro si i ate for lunch. i will never know...

Didn't those other communists (the soviets) also practice cannibalism when the food was short?

Didn't the Americans do the same in Donner Pass in 1868?

t_co,
Um, you confused the Sonner party with the rest of Americans. They were a small group of people trapped and lost in the high Sierras. Hunger and insanity set in and they submitted to cannibalism. Equating that tragic ordeal to a total government fiasco is criminal stupidity.
Please, Chinese people do NOT equal to CCP.

I think that the point is that EVERYBODY has resported to canabalism in during desperate times. It is not unique to one culture, and it is not a sign that the culture in which it happened was depraive in some way. Itis just a sign of desperation.

Early American settlers are recorded as having eaten each other during hard winters.

Japanese soldiers who were cut off from supplies during the war resorted to canabalism (and contrary to what you might hear in China, many were rightly tried executed for it)

Russians comitted Canabalism during the Seige of Leningrad after Gemany cut them off from supplies

Shipwrecked French from a ship called La Meduse reportedly ate each other in 1816

Let's not forget that sports team whose plan went down in the mountains.

This is a bit of a change of subject, but Lightyear earlier mention the 70% good, 30% bad "statistic". Did the CCP ever bother to calculate those figures? I can't even imagine how one would calculate them. Or do numbers just make Chinese feel more comfortable, like they know something, e.g. Three Represents and all that (and I've even come across sayings like "the six faults of the ruler" in the Tso Chuan or Zuo Chuan so it isn't just a Communist thing). Such lists always seem silly to me and I can't understand them. Does anyone?

It's not likely that they calculated it. Slogans spread to the masses more effectively, and it's certainly got to be above 50% for the CCP, and it's got to be less that 100% because it's got to at least be remotely based in reality. So there you go.

The 70/30 proves only one thing if it's still prevalent, and that is that the masses are brainwashed. If you asked people in their repsective nations regarding G Washington in the US, CKS in ROC, or Lenin in any of the former Soviet states I'm sure you'd get a bigger variance in answers, and not a slogan.

The Russians don't give a shit about Lenin anymore, and most Russians under age 25 or so barely have any idea about who he was. Lenin means about as much to young Russians as President Calvin Coolidge means to young Americans.

Hardly anyone bothers to visit Lenin's tomb anymore. I'm not even sure if his body is still on display. If you go to Red Square you won't see anyone lining up to see Lenin's body, that much I can tell you.

You'll meet a few old, old Russians who still have some respect for Stalin, mostly because of memories of WW II. But they're dying out. And many others of that generation toast the anniversary of Stalin's death every year. And some younger ones will express vague admiration for Stalin as a "strong leader", but he really has no cult following, I mean, NOTHING like Mao has in China.

Today the main historical heroes of Russia are military leaders who saved the country, like Zhukov in WWII and Kutozov in 1812. Defenders of the country, rather than politicians or "revolutionaries." Actually, if any historical memories are sacrosanct in Russia, they're the memories of World War Two.

And of course writers remain highly respected, often with heroic status.
This is one area where I especially respect Russia FAR more than I respect China: The traditional role of a "Writer" in Russia is to be the conscience of the nation and to challenge authority. But in China, the traditional role of a Writer has always been - and still is - to be a whore for the government.

Ivan, I am sure you're right that there is nothing in Russia to rival the somewhat creepy "cult of Mao". But aren't you being too optimistic about Stalin? A number of recent opinion polls seem to be suggesting that his status is once more on the rise:

Certainly, we should interpret opinion polls concerning different problems rather cautiously. But this time results of the poll seem to be trustworthy. It is well known that in the minds of majority of the Russian population the name of Joseph Stalin is associated with order in the country. We often hear that all people were equal under Stalin, nobody stole and (this is one of the key arguments) prices were constantly reducing. At that, these cliches were knocked not only into the heads of older generations, but even of younger people. We should say that younger generations especially respect Stalin for the fact that in the times of his rule the Soviet Union was a super power respected and treated with fear all over the world."

-- http://newsfromrussia.com/society/2003/03/06/44072.html

It'd be interesting to have your thoughts on this.

Sojourner, you asked a good question.

The poll you cited, said that 53 percent of Russians "think that Stalin's role in the history of Russia was great."

And I agree with them! I agree with them without any reservations.

First of all, you need to know what "great" means in Russian. It does NOT mean "Good." It means, "formidable, influential, powerful." So, there is a problem of translating the meaning of that poll into English.

cf, the name of Tsar Ivan "the Terrible", in Russian is "Ivan Groznuy", and in Russian, "Groznuy" has a meaning somewhat different from "terrible" in English. In Russian, it means "formidable", actually very close to the meaning of "Great" (veliki) in Russian. It is a morally neutral term.

But then, ANOTHER aspect of how the Russians view Stalin (to this day) has a lot to do with the fact that - after all - he led Russia during Russia's mortal struggle against Hitler. And you must understand that it was a life or death struggle for Russia (and for all of civilisation) in that war.

That is the main reason why Russians still hold out some respect for Stalin. It's mostly because of the war, although abstract polls will not indicate this.

And, honestly, I agree with them about this. Stalin was an evil son of a bitch. But at least he was on the right side in WW II. THAT is why he still gets SOME respect in Russia, today. And that is why he gets SOME respect from me today.

And please, take a close look at the CLOSING paragraph of the poll study which you cited. It goes on to say that it is "well known" that the Russians think of Stalin as representing "order." But, IS IT WELL KNOWN? Or did the writer of that piece just ASSUME that the Russians admire Stalin for being a man of "order"?
You see? The piece you cited, was partly an opinion piece, stating assumptions about what the poll meant. That poll did NOT indicate WHY the Russians said Stalin was "great." The article just made assumptions about why.
All I can tell you, is that I have never heard any Russian praise Stalin for bringing "order" to the country. The only way I have ever heard them pay any respect to Stalin, is as the man who led Russia to victory in WW II.
And that's a fair reason to give him a BIT of respect.

Does that make it more clear?

Yeah, Ivan ... Cheers.

Having just seen a BBC documentary on "Ivan the Terrible" I was particularly intrigued by your explanation of the common (mis)translation of "terrible". I guess it's similar to the way the word "awful" has changed its meaning in English over some 200 years.

China says that Japanese text books gloss over the crimes of its wartime leaders, yet it would be unthinkable for even 5 percent of Japanese children to think that Tojo Hideki had a great role in history.

Maybe Russian children have been allowed to forget too much.

I think one of the differences is that Tojo lost the war and he did not lead his people in repelling the "evil" invading foreigners. Also, if I recall correctly, Tojo was one of the few Japanese military leaders who felt that expanding the war to include the West--ala the US--would only lead to failure for his country.

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." type of thing.

@Ivan

I don't see how Chinese writers have always been whores for the government. Some examples that come to mind are Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, and Wu Jingzi (author of The Scholars). None are marginal figures. No doubt the government wanted writers to support them unconditionally, but that does not mean writers did.
Russian writers in general probably are more outspoken, but I'm not sure Chinese authors are as subservient as you think they are.

Tojo shamed his people, Stalin brutalized his.

Stavrogin,

You cited two Chinese writers. Two writers out of all those who have lived ever since the First Emperor 2,200 years ago, IS exactly what "marginal" means, in contrast to what I said about the "traditional role" of Chinese writers.

You can throw out a few more names and it won't change the general rule, and it won't change the fact that the major universities in Beijing are intellectual whorehouses and propaganda factories.

Congratualtions, you've just described every state run institution in the country.

Well I was just giving some a conservative set of examples. Considering that almost every institution in the country is state-run to some extent (including the publishing industry), well, that just shows you how widespread is the problem of Chinese Intellectual Prostitution.

As opposed to the prostitution by Washington think-tanks (think the AEI or the Brookings Institution) to corporate donors and PACs?

Although I will agree that it's more widespread in China--but at least it's improving there.

Ivan
Sorry about this post being somewhat long, and probably repeating what everyone knows, but hopefully it shows that many Chinese authors do in fact traditionally protest against the government. I'll admit I haven't read too much Chinese history or literature, but little of it strikes me as "whorish". Quite the opposite in fact, though that did surprise me at first because I did not expect much criticism of the government.
I'm not sure how the three writers are marginal. To state the obvious, Sima Qian is one of the first, and greatest, Chinese historians. Nearly all historians after him followed his biographical model, and not that of The Spring and Autumn Annals (which is traditionally considered to contain Confucius' judgments about historical characters in rather obscure language, the only example I can think off the top of my head is the Annals saying a prime minister killed his sovereign when he actually just didn't punish the murderers (how that is known to be true, I don't know, though it is in the Zuo Zhuan)). Sima Qian (and the Annals for that matter) is hardly marginal. If you want more names, Sima Guang of the Song wrote his Comprehensive Mirror for the Aide of Government to attack Wang An-shi, the emperor's right-hand man.
And apparently the Qing had to persecuate many Ming loyalist historians.
As for Qu Yuan, he is Chinese poet known by name and along with The Book of Songs (much of which is also traditonally interpreted as criticisms), his poems served as the model for most later boats. The Dragon-boat Festival is in his honor. Other protest poems I can think of are Lu Yu's about the cowardice of the Southern Song court (I think a popular theme at the time) and Li Shang-yin's poems about Yang Guifei (another popular theme of protest, Du Fu's 'Song of the Beautiful Women' [丽人行] being another similarly themed poem). Again, I'm not sure how Qu Yuan, or the others, can be considered marginal.
I've heard that The Scholars is the most influential traditional Chinese novel--I have no idea, though Lu Xun said it was the first satirical Chinese novel, so it probably did influence him and his contemporaries, whores to a man. So perhaps it is marginal. But there are other Chinese novels. Outlaws of the Marsh criticizes the emperor (or rather the bureaucracy, etc. an emperor needs), Romance of Three Kingdoms has the 'bad' kingdom uniting China, and David Roy in his introduction to the Plum in the Golden Vase says the story is a criticism of the Wan-li emperor (beat's me, still seemed like pornography to me). I doubt any of those could be considered marginal since that is most of traditional Chinese fiction (at least the famous books).
So while perhaps the criticism isn't as much or as blunt as one might wish, it certainly exists so far as I can see. And often exists in the most famous and influential of writers.
I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but if so, I would need to who are the mainstream, traditional, whorish, Chinese writers, and why my authors are marginal and unimportant.
And I have no idea about modern Beijing universities.

To lighten the mood, here's a joke I heard from one of my lecturers a while ago..

One day, Mao became so concerned by the widespread famine that he decided to ask the Russians for help. His request for food received the following response:

"I'm terribly sorry, comrade, but we haven't anything to spare. You'll just have to tighten your belts for now."

Having read this, the Great Helmsman replied:

"Please send us some belts."

t-co, Shit-For-Brains, I swear, your total stupidity never, never, never ceases to amaze me.

In China, writers who don't toe the Party Line at the very least lose their jobs and at worst go to prison. In America, writers have other alternatives than to work for the government.

Ivan
You were originally talking about traditional Chinese writers, not modern ones, let alone the Communist government. Yes, Chinese writers lose their jobs, go to jail, and so on. However, that is a non sequitur.
And if you can't be civil, at least be witty.

t_co,

That's just dishonest. In the US for every institution that spouts the government line you can find one or more deriding it. If you can't than you're just lazy. And the propaganda situation is not getting better in China, it's getting worse. In the 5 years I've been here what little freedom of expression there was has taken a nosedive, all since Hu got into power.

Stavrogin,

You can shove your schoolmistress admonishment up your ass.

t-co is one of the most intellectually dishonest commenters here, and dishonesty does not deserve civility.

Also, it's dishonest of YOU to imply that there is any categorical difference between traditional Chinese writers and "modern" ones. The tradition of Chinese writers' principal role to be propagandists for the government, has not changed on iota.

Troll post deleted.

Troll post deleted.

Actually, you've just described China, not America. Nobody orders as writer what to write or publish. Publishers publish what they think people will buy regardless of political content (they're in business to sell books). Third party views are frequently heard but their ideas are:

1. absorbed by and become represented by one of the mainstream parties.

2. Ignored because their ideas are foolish.

Do we have a Party member among us? Tiger's America sounds like a CCP fantasy. A fantasy the party subscribes to to help justify it's brutality and intellectual barreness.

And when will you CCP morons ever learn that blind loyalty does not equal love or respect. For the thousandth time, for the record, just because you critisize the CCP does not mean you are anti-China.

And by the way, Ivan may have just yanking a couple of Communist/Nationalist idiot's chains when he talked about Chinese being barbaric. Seems like it worked.

Troll post deleted.

Get it? Your support for Ivan's denigrating remarks on Chinese people stinks.

Oy, Comrade Tiger,

Language problem here. Allow me to instruct: "yank someone's chain" means to say something sarcastically. Now I don't know if Ivan really was being sarcastic when he said what he said but implied that he might be. And in being sarcastic he was just trying to make YOU and those like you, angry. You missed that entirely. I don't support calling Chinese a barbaric language, and I also don't support Chinese barbarism :D

As for Americans: Spoiled? Probably. Arrogant. Maybe. Most arrogant on Earth? Go to Korea or China sometime where national arrogance is a nearly a virtue.

For the thousandth time? You've been posting 8 post. Or maybe you have been posting before with another username?

Post deleted by author. Troll's gone no need to keep my post up

So, are you a CCP troll?

It ain't ever gonna happen if you don't get started. I know! Let's start tomorrow!