25th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square

[Jomme]

That's why the earth thingie. Still naming every garbage dictatorship communism is wrong by definition.

Garbage dictatorship is exactly what communism is by definition (there is anarcho-communism ofcourse and similar utopic branches, but still, if we're talking about USSR, China or North Korea style, it is). Unlike other ideologies, communism led to casualties not because it was wrong interpreted or corrupted, but because it is based on idea of bloody revolution and extermination of all the enemies.

Terribly fitting of this game isn't it.

[cultist]

I agree with what you said grapefruit but i was trying to tell you that no one reached communism and they never wanted to... Everyone claimed they reached socialism (for example communist country is a paradox, there are no countries in communism ).
Anyway i was expecting that kind of "forgetfulness" in a society resembling more and more orwell's 1984

[_Gunnar]

God damn, it makes me feel emotional, even though I'm a little too young. I hope to never forget the sacrifices people make in vain or otherwise for stuff a lot of us take for granted every day, and the people who want to betray or corrupt those sacrifices in places where it seemed like it might not be in vain.

[Tonkyhonk]

Unlike other ideologies, communism led to casualties not because it was wrong interpreted or corrupted, but because it is based on idea of bloody revolution and extermination of all the enemies.

im not very familiar with the communist parties of east europe or russia, but in case of china, it is wrong interpreted AND corrupted. sure, bloody revolution and extermination of enemies must be preconditions for communism, however, in its original ideal form of the ideology it is supposed to have true democracy and anti-capitalism to achieve it.

the principle of upholding the socialist path
the principle of upholding the people's democratic dictatorship
the principle of upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC)
the principle of upholding Mao Tse–Tung thought and Marxism-Leninism

what china has done since the days of mao is exactly the opposite; denying the majority called proletariat - which is supposed to be the class to have the dictatorship to reach communism - but instead creating the new class by applying select capitalism for the economy to grow, and it runs the blinded socialist path by the dictatorship of the communist party, shutting up eveyone else.
it started with huge failures called "the great leap forward" that caused the horrible famine and killed millions and deserted land, and "the great proletarian cultural revolution" which only rushed killing people, cultures and religions, using youths to exterminate all who were against mao, harming a billion people, all in order to retrieve the power back to mao.
people of china had been protesting untill tiananmen square massacre occured. there had been quite a few notable demonstrations carried out by them for democracy before tiananmen square massacre. currently, people are allowed to gather and demonstrate only to shout for anti-japan and all else are terminated by the government and its military.

chinese communism is just a name given for their convenient dictatorship to deceive and exploit their people by the wrong interpretation. i do see that they want stability, and purposeful amnesia and ignorance may be helping the stability for the moment by dumbing all down as long as people feel the economy growth, which can be another forged one, just like how "great leap forward" was reported as success and made other african countries such as somalia to follow to fail miserably. those who noticed the tricks by seeing the corruption or understood the interpretation, who are wealthy enough, have already been settling overseas as rich immigrants.

[TeckXKnight]

I am unfortunately too young to have any memories of Tienanmen Square beyond what I learned in school and from the articles on it later in life. I do have a very strong opinion against the Chinese government though and I hate the propaganda they spread even over here in the US. It's disgusting to see people paid to announce in the middle of Chinatown that Falun Gong practitioners are less than human, quietly promoting the practice of butchering them while they're alive to sell their organs for the crime of opposing the Chinese government. It's worse to hear people murmuring in agreement. Then there are all of the news reports and personal stories. Friends getting sick after eating too much rice in China, which turned out to be plastic rice. The company responsible was "shut down", renamed, and began selling the exact same product again. I avoid buying food imported from China now after finding so many disgusting things in my potstickers and dumplings. The FDA may not do a lot but they at least keep food mostly edible. Then there is the speculations that China is purposefully maintaining wealth disparity amongst its people by keeping wages and inflation artificially low.

Of course no one does anything about it. It doesn't concern anyone in the western world what happens to Chinese citizens and if you're Chinese and you try to do anything about it, well, bad things happen to you. Bad things have happened in the past, such as Tienanmen Square, and they'll keep happening into the future for as long as this current government holds power.

I might have qualms with governing bodies all over the world, but I think I can safely say that I detest no government more than the Chinese government.

[GrapefruitV]

I agree with what you said grapefruit but i was trying to tell you that no one reached communism and they never wanted to... Everyone claimed they reached socialism (for example communist country is a paradox, there are no countries in communism ).
Anyway i was expecting that kind of "forgetfulness" in a society resembling more and more orwell's 1984

I'd say USSR was pretty close at one point. Difference between party leaders and simple people in economical sence was insignificant. Corrupted clerk and fair worker lived in the same pile of shit. All the benefits you could get from being at some good government spot is a couple of extra loafs of bread in local store, advance in line for the shitty car and a bunch of asslickers bringing you vodka from time to time.
I find it hard to believe some people call communism an utopia. It is not. It is a dystopia, because it's horrible even in theory. After some failed experiments theoretics of communism realised, that it can't be achieved without totalitarianism and mass executions and even though anarcho-communism and idea of slowly dying state are reborn and popular again, I wouldn't imagine communism as total equality and lots of fun, which were only spoiled by cruel reality.

[...]

Yeah, I'm aware of situation in China, didn't mean to say communism was never corrupted. What I meant to say is it doesn't even have to be corrupted in order to justify freedom limitations and mass murder.

[Satan_from_Brodgar]

REALLY sucks, but we would have Anniversaries everyday for unjustly deaths.

World is unfair, more powerful kill less powerful. Arguing about different rulers and governments is useless.


RIP all those who died because other guys were dicks.

[Bampfylde]

I always think that communism should be an ideal by which to guide your views/choices rather than something that one should actually try to implement directly through a violent revolution. In that sense its a utopia, in that it will never be realised, probably. In fact communism should be characterised by a stateless society, and the vanguard-party marxist-leninist bullshit is just a supposedly "temporary" situation. However -

Any reasonable person realises that when you use violence as a tool to implement something, what happens is that the most violent and brutal people will end up on top.

What I think the best mode for changing the world is is to try to push back the bars of the cage peacefully and more or less gradually depending on the situation, until there is no cage. I'm pretty distrustful of general ideals and isms, but I kindof have a lot of sympathy for pacifist anarcho-communists (eg Kropotkin). In particular I like the fact that anarchism is by its nature self-contradictory. I think its pretty important to have a duality (doublethink) between holding some general ideals in your mind
("freedom", defined in a particular way, "equality", ditto, for me)
while in fact deciding what to do on a somewhat case by case basis. Where revolutionaries seem to often go wrong is they sacrifice specific instances of their ideals to try to achieve them more generally. Which seems like its often really disastrous. In the west we have gradually affected change relatively peacefully and this seems like it has been relatively successful, although there are obviously steps backwards and sideways all the time, especially in the last 30-40 years, and there are many problems yet to be solved, I don't know what sane person would rather there had been a violent revolution.

I think that there are also other dualities between things like the individual and society - communism ignores the former while capitalism (at least some more philosophical branches, obviously pragmatic capitalists will exploit this) ignore the latter. I'd rather think the point of the latter is to allow the former to grow freely. I'm not satisfied with any "system" of political thought I guess. But I could still classify things into "good" and "bad" almost always, according to some sort of internal ideology, which I think is maybe a healthier thing to do.

[Jomme]

Any reasonable person realises that when you use violence as a tool to implement something, what happens is that the most violent and brutal people will end up on top.

Look what happened in France The violent people that chopped off people's heads won, for sure, but were quickly gotten rid off once it got out of hand. I'm wondering why that didn't happen in the USSR.

[Bampfylde]

I'm not sure what you mean but I think that you're saying Napoleon was not a violent man?

What happens when violent people win is that they eventually lose the will to power that put them there in the first place, or they start to feel some sort of similarity to those they oppress, and so they are forced out either by a new type of violent guy or some peaceful process takes place to moderate the system put in place by the initial revolution. But the violence that puts them in power in the first place is generally rather horrible and I don't think is worth it.

In china there is still a rather strong will to power from the party it seems. In the USSR i guess the old communists lost [most of] the will to power and the kleptocracy & attendant state are the new generation of violent men.