Russia tests world's biggest bomb
- Thread starter Carrera
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Multiple millions died in natural and man-made disasters, civil wars and during the Japanese invasion prior to the revolution. As a matter of fact, it's not uncommon for a million or more to die in old China when natural disasters hit. So a million death in the history of China is almost like a drop in the bucket but is a number that's incomprehensible for Western countries. And as much as there's turbulence along the way, the communist party did keep China together and dug it out of a slum.nns1400 said:Unless you're one of the millions of dead people....
In comparison to western world events in the 21st century, the number of Iraqis civilian deaths attributable to American's illegal invasion of Iraq since 2003 has been estimated to be at 665,000. Add up all the direct war death, it's getting pretty close to that million death mark too, all just under five years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
Explain that! There's no moral high ground for Americans at this point in time.
One of the big differences is you can have your say, like you are here, and criticize America, which is fine, and you can live in America. If you do the same thing in China, ie. live there and criticize the Chinese government as a Chinese citizen, then you get thrown into the Chinese legal system, which works like this: You're a counter-revolutionary...you're dead.sogood said:
BTW...I've lived in China for 4 years...in case you think I am just shooting my mouth off.
Nope. The last ten years have provided a nice comparison. The pace of economic development in China is light years beyond what it was before they transitioned to a market economy. We can only wonder what China might have been like today if they had spen the last fifty years with a capitalist system.sogood said:
Of course, of course. Invasion, secure oil resource and mass murder in a foreign country are perfectly acceptable as long as one has that domestic freedom of speech and be able to keep driving that fuel guzzler around. After all, it was a democratically elected government so it's perfectly legit to act in the self interest of the US of A.Crankyfeet said:
Seems to me that China is closer to fascism than communism these days. The nationalism combined with growing economic power and a severe inferiority complex is likely to cause problems in the future. I would not want to be living in Taiwan after the 2008 Olympics, especially as American power and will wanes.Crankyfeet said:
+1.. Everyone here seems to be looking at Russia and China today and saying that their current state is the product of a communist system. Try looking at the USSR and China in 1985, before they opened themselves up to the world and became virtual free-market economies, as a true benchmark for communist achievement.Bro Deal said:
Are we discussing the merits of communism here, or which country we like best? Or the Iraq war?sogood said:
I thought it was about whether communism is a good system for a nation to adopt or not.
You wouldn't take such a simple view if you knew what China was like before the Communist take-over. After close to 40 years of civil war, foreign domination, Japanese invasion, the infrastructure was shot along with gross corruption by the KMT. When the KMT retreated to the province of Taiwan, the national reserve of gold along with all the national treasures were shipped out at the same time (reason why you can see more Chinese treasures in the Palace Museum in Taipei than on the Mainland). Add in the Korean War, Cold War, Western blockade, it was in no shape to develop economically. The pace of development evolved at a steady pace since the establishment of the diplomatic relations with Western countries in the early seventies. The gradual transition gave stability to the process (as opposed to what happened to the USSR).Bro Deal said:
The war talk is only there being beefed up by Western govt and media. It's also there to feed Western perspective of the issue and give Fox TV something to sensationalize on. If you really understand Chinese, there won't be a war there. The simple economic string is much much stronger than any missiles if a resolution is required. Time is on the side of the mainland.Bro Deal said:
No. Communism suited the particular social, political and economic environment of China in those pre-revolutionary days. And as turned out, communism was a transition route for the country. Without that process, China has probably already got carved up by the various powers and at the mercy of foreign powers. Note here that there's no implication that communism suited other specific countries. At the end of the day, what's best for each country has to be tailored to its specific conditions.Crankyfeet said:
I wasn't talking about the thread title...I was talking about your response to an argument about the merits of communism where you went into a diatribe about US actions in Iraq. It seemed totally off the point to me.sogood said:
But there's some good stuff in your above posts.....you do know something about the subject.
Having lived in Asia for 12 years, including four years in China, I concur with some of your sentiments....not that living there really entitles one to any great understanding.
The key to China's success however is less to do with the system IMHO, and more to do with the Chinese culture of hard work, business acumen, and a materialistic bent. The dragon has been unleashed and its awful hungry. But not a threat to world peace.
Just showing that threads do drift and this thread is not a static discussion on one topic. Pretty natural on this forum.Crankyfeet said:
Well, in terms of a country's success, I think that there's not one system that works for any particular country. As long as the particular chosen system has flexibility and is tuned to the needs of the country at any time point, then it'll work and let its citizens flourish. I guess this is the pragmatic way of governing, one that doesn't depend on some hard ideology. The irony is that while China's government went for pragmatism, the US leaders (Bush et al) turned into hard ideologues.
Crankyfeet said:
The Communist Party runs every part of Chinese life, Crank.
Big business has flourished in China - but for anything to get done in China, you need to get documentation signed by the Party official.
Even simple things like getting a letter of credit from a bank in China requires the documentation to be stamped by the Party official.
The Party authorises who can trade within China, the regional Party officials have the power to allow/disallow commerical transactions.
Tim Clissolds book "Mr.China" is a good read - it tells the story of how commerce works under party rule in China.
Crankyfeet said:
The russians that I have met are either engineers/accountants or business managers?
Are they ordinary russians? I would suggest that they are, just like you and me.
Crankyfeet said:
There was no allowance for the entrepreneurism under communism in USSR.
But I never argued that the commercial system under communism worked.
What I did advocate was the scandinavian economic model.
For example, Norway discovered oil off her coast 25 years ago.
Norway, rightly, decided that this antinal resource should be benefit of it's people and not be allowed to be utilised by the private sector.
To this end, she created the state oil company, Statoil, and has developed the oil resources found of her coast.
All profits from those oil revenues go to Norway.
In addition because of the huge revenues, Norway has also created one of the largest pension funds in the world for all her citizens.
Those funds have been invested and have reaped further wealth which is distributed to all it's citizens also.
This for me illustrates how goverment should operate : looking after all citizens is the primary duty of goverment and the economic model of scandinavia ensures that this is so.
To a lesser extent, most western european countries hold that all citizens should have free health care, free education, good social welfare policy that pays benefits to those less fortunate.
To me, that represents an enlightened society and as a tax payer (41%), plus
social welfare tax (6.75%), I am more than happy to pay my taxes to this type of support this system.
Lately Americans have been losing their freedom and it's the same in the U.K. Also there has been censorship in America for some time which I found about when I read a book by M Gorbachev. He pointed out that the Russian perspective on the Cold War or books on the Russian perspective were banned in the U.S. press. Americans never had the opportunity to read both sides of the conflict. I also seem to recall anyone entering America had to declare they weren't a communist? That struck me as weird from the freedom perspective as well as the fact that, when all is said and done, millions of Russian died fighting ****** and liberated the concentration camps.
What Americans never understood were the conditions that led to communism too. Russia under the Tsars had huge populations of peasants and impoverished workers while the Tsars and bourgeoisie lived very well. As Mr K once stated, in Dickensian England the people never had the heart or resolve to do something about their situation so remained exploited and impoverished. The Russians and French did rise up and changed their situation for the better.
Of course, that was another time and capitalism in most countries has accepted welfare and reform so there are no more workhouses. Workers now have better conditions for the time being so revolution isn't half as likely. Plus, those changes were forced by the communist threat.
The reason communism lost out really was due to living standards and, above all, the fact capitalist countries were able to solve the issues that gave rise to Leninism by improving economies and welfare, plus trade unions.
Incidentally, when Russia did embrace capitalism I think they were looking more at Sweden and France as a role.
What Americans never understood were the conditions that led to communism too. Russia under the Tsars had huge populations of peasants and impoverished workers while the Tsars and bourgeoisie lived very well. As Mr K once stated, in Dickensian England the people never had the heart or resolve to do something about their situation so remained exploited and impoverished. The Russians and French did rise up and changed their situation for the better.
Of course, that was another time and capitalism in most countries has accepted welfare and reform so there are no more workhouses. Workers now have better conditions for the time being so revolution isn't half as likely. Plus, those changes were forced by the communist threat.
The reason communism lost out really was due to living standards and, above all, the fact capitalist countries were able to solve the issues that gave rise to Leninism by improving economies and welfare, plus trade unions.
Incidentally, when Russia did embrace capitalism I think they were looking more at Sweden and France as a role.
Crankyfeet said:
A couple of years ago I read a book by an American economist who specialised in Russian affairs. His theory was interesting. He pointed out that at the time of the collapse of Gorbachev and, despite the queues for food and economic ills, the Russian economy was really quite strong compared with under Yeltsin. Taking a look at all the data, he concluded Russia had serious economic problems but nothing so serious as to cause outright collapse.
The actual fall of Gorbachev apparently happened from above, according to this analyst. Chiefly, Russian leaders didn't see the point in spending billions of roubles on missiles in a situation where the differences they had with the West were no longer so extreme as back in the Stalin days. Russians wanted to spend more money on the domestic economy and reform the entire system, hence perestroika.
The key issue is the fragmentation of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia which caught the military off guard and caused the whole Communist Party to split. So, everybody got caught off guard. Yeltsin being an opportunist saw his chance and pushed Gorbachev out before Gorby knew what was going on.
Putin would seem to be Russian answer to the chaotic Yeltsin period and the idea now is to capitalise on the rich oil resources, commercial rocket technology and big business.
The actual fall of Gorbachev apparently happened from above, according to this analyst. Chiefly, Russian leaders didn't see the point in spending billions of roubles on missiles in a situation where the differences they had with the West were no longer so extreme as back in the Stalin days. Russians wanted to spend more money on the domestic economy and reform the entire system, hence perestroika.
The key issue is the fragmentation of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia which caught the military off guard and caused the whole Communist Party to split. So, everybody got caught off guard. Yeltsin being an opportunist saw his chance and pushed Gorbachev out before Gorby knew what was going on.
Putin would seem to be Russian answer to the chaotic Yeltsin period and the idea now is to capitalise on the rich oil resources, commercial rocket technology and big business.
Crankyfeet said:
What you refer to is indeed worrying. Anyone with some sort of critical perspective can see democracy and freedom in the U.S. has taken a battering over the last decade or so. 9/11 was a major factor but even prior to 9/11, democracy in the U.S. has been under threat.
The most worrying situation you hear about is the so-called rendition where suspects are removed to other countries and abused outside of Europe or the U.S. but effectively as part of a State Policy. To my mind, such abuse of fundamental human rights is a major international crime that might as well be taking place on home territory. It amounts to the same thing. No trial or solid evidence - just suspicion.
The problem is it becomes almost impossible to lecture China or Russia on human rights when the Russians and Chinese know only too well how these governments are being run, condoning torture and denying judicial trials. Even Putin gave a speech where he stated the U.S. had been totally disregarding international law and conducting a campaign of imperialism.
Look at the consequences of this too. It only just caused an upset in the Australian elections with John Howard being booted out for another candidate who wishes to remove Australian troops from Iraq.
The U.S. seems to be making the same mistake as Communist Russia - not respecting and upholding basic human rights and losing allies as a result. That's why today Poland and Hungary are still suspicious of Russia.
These days Europe is the only place where freedom and democracy is respected in theory whereas China, America and Russia seem to set a poor example.
The most worrying situation you hear about is the so-called rendition where suspects are removed to other countries and abused outside of Europe or the U.S. but effectively as part of a State Policy. To my mind, such abuse of fundamental human rights is a major international crime that might as well be taking place on home territory. It amounts to the same thing. No trial or solid evidence - just suspicion.
The problem is it becomes almost impossible to lecture China or Russia on human rights when the Russians and Chinese know only too well how these governments are being run, condoning torture and denying judicial trials. Even Putin gave a speech where he stated the U.S. had been totally disregarding international law and conducting a campaign of imperialism.
Look at the consequences of this too. It only just caused an upset in the Australian elections with John Howard being booted out for another candidate who wishes to remove Australian troops from Iraq.
The U.S. seems to be making the same mistake as Communist Russia - not respecting and upholding basic human rights and losing allies as a result. That's why today Poland and Hungary are still suspicious of Russia.
These days Europe is the only place where freedom and democracy is respected in theory whereas China, America and Russia seem to set a poor example.
sogood said:
Again you get the logic twisted. All communist States are centrally planned does not equal All centrally planned States are communist. The former statement was mine. The poster I was referencing was stating the opinion that Russia could have succeeded in its communist endeavour if it had been able to digress away from being centrally planned.Carrera said:
Even though I'm struggling with your definition of Japan and Sweden being centrally planned. IMO It is a gray area rather than a black or white definition in their case. Some things in those countries are centrally planned....some things aren't.
However communist countries were entirely centrally planned. It was part of the definition of communism. It was very black and white.
