Sir Elton hates Taiwan. So there.

[gummigut]

Well shit on a stick.

 

The education of the people who fled to Taiwan has a hell of a lot to do with what happened afterward.

 

The general education level was significantly higher than the population left in China. Their savvy especially in the international market place allowed them to survive. Yes they had a lot of US help. As power and money corrupts, you can even say in spite of that they've come up with a pretty damn strong economy and democracy. How much help is Korea getting and how are they doing?

 

Yah my last sentence condensed a hell of a lot of history. Chiang Kai Shek (CKS) was no pretty boy, but to say CKS record of massacres ... is in no way better than mao's is LUDICROUS.

 

You high or what? Ask an average Joe in Mainland China about the aspects of the cultural revolution and he'll go "what?". Why? Cause they don't know jack. Talk to the elderly and see if you'll get any information. Hah! So where did all the "educated" people go? Tell me that FOZW? They got the bullet or went to re-education camps. Fun huh?

 

Least in Taiwan you'll get some answers. They've atleast heard of it there! They CAN look it up on the internet there.

 

"just try to give a bit of a realistic picture. the high amount of victims under mao was mainly due to the great leap forward, which was not a political cleansening but a horrific mistake of planned economy."

 

Victims as in plain stats, or victims as in deaths and loss of culture and history. I don't know the exact numbers, but I'd say the cultural revolution led to more victims than the famine of the great leap forward if you want to be "realistic".

 

Mao instituted culls of the powerful/educated after CKS was beaten. Needed to for the land distribution and reform (that consisted of nationalizing ALL banking, industry and trade). A new set of "educated" replaced them who did the banking, industry and trade for the gov't.

 

As we see, power corrupts. I guess these new "educated" people were taking advantage of things. Mao rode on the back of his vehicle the "Great Leap Forward" and two fuck'n huge leaps back to consolidate power.

 

Famine hits, great leap forward is a disaster, so Mao goes down and is marginalized in the early 60's.

 

BUT he comes back with the Cultural Revolution!!! Gahhhh.

 

So what's better? Dying of famine in the Great Leap? Or getting killed or beaten until you believe what the State wants you to beleive in re-education camps? Or you going NOW tell me THAT's not political cleansing?

 

so "s'cuse me" for condensing a bit of history in one line, but on the whole it is still true. The "educated" left behind on the whole were killed or beaten to the point of submission that they really aren't common. Yet there are still a hell of a lot of them alive in Taiwan!

 

<<burp>>

[gummigut]

I also think EJ has a point.

 

They have no concept of personal space and can be extremely obnoxious, especially in pursuit of the all common $. I don't think "tact" in terms of social etiquette is in the dictionary over there or in Hong Kong! Oh, unless it means huge ass gaudy rolexes and rolls royce.

 

<<burp>>

[chuckwoww]

Dangerous ground here but what the heck. Yes, a very pushy bunch (generally speaking). They can be very generous and hospitable though. Lot of respect for age and ancestors too which I appreciate as I get older.

[Guest]

>>>Chiang Kai Shek (CKS) was no pretty boy, but to say CKS record of massacres ... is in no way better than mao's is LUDICROUS. <<<<

 

 

read his biography - millions dies during his purges and wars.

 

 

 

 

>>>>You high or what? Ask an average Joe in Mainland China about the aspects of the cultural revolution and he'll go "what?". Why? Cause they don't know jack. Talk to the elderly and see if you'll get any information. Hah! So where did all the "educated" people go? Tell me that FOZW? They got the bullet or went to re-education camps. Fun huh? <<<<

 

 

i don't know which decade you are living, mate, but we are not in the 1970's anymore.

well, i don't know if you have ever been in mainland china, but i have many times over the past 12 years, and have had intensive talks about the cultural revolution with many people. and they have told me a lot of their experiences. party cadres, university professors, jiang yi mo - the filmdirector, workers in factories, artists, actors, writers, etc.

go to any bookstore nowadays in china, and you will find countless books on the horrors of the cultural revolution, also in english. i know, because i bought lots. still have them. the cultural revolution after the arrest of the gang of four was officially and openly condemned and still is.

and talking about educated people, i have met heeps, in universities, during trainjourneys, etc.

'ya now, we have 2004 now, after the end of the cultural revolution most intellectuals were rehabilitated and rejoined society. the statistics i have read about the cultural revolution were that not more than 1 mio. people lost their life during the ten years of madness. this is still 1 mio. too many, but bring it into perspective please - china at that time was a country with more than 800 mio people population. this regarding percentage of the population and pure number is nothing compared to the sovietunion. and don't get me wrong - it still is 1 mio. too many.

there is a lot wrong in china. lots of grave wrongs have been done during the 50 years of communist history, lots of wrongs are still done today. but i prefer to see things in perspective and let the propaganda to the ones who can't help themselves.

 

i would ask you to leave out your sarcasm, and instead stay with facts please. not just because my post was factual, and reasonable without any sort of attack against you, but also because you as a moddy should not really provoce and incite trouble here. so, i you have a beef with me, do that via PM, but on the open board just lets discuss using facts, and not misplaced sarcasm and semiflames.

[Nervous_Dog]

I think Gummy raises som interesting points, the education in Taiwan is very good, most of them once educated left Taiwan, until forced to return.

 

Given the island has virtually no natural resources they didn;t do too bad a job with it.

 

Fly - surely you must admit the cultural revolotion was very harsh? maybe not EVERY educated person was shot, but education basically came to a halt for many years, not unlike Myanmar

 

DOG

[Guest]

>>>Fly - surely you must admit the cultural revolotion was very harsh? maybe not EVERY educated person was shot, but education basically came to a halt for many years, not unlike Myanmar<<<

 

 

of course the cultural revolution was madness kept in control by basically one single man. and yes, it was more than a bit harsh.

but to only reduce it to a whitch hunt against "intellectuals" and educated does not justify what happened in those ten years.

 

if you read all different accounts you will find out that nobody except mao was safe. especially noteworthy is the book by mao's personal doctor who gives are rather shocking account in the inside going ons of the court, and mao's increasing madness. even the highest echelons of the party fell from grace in regular turns, had to spend years in reeducation camps. even veterans of the long march such as deng xiao ping spend some years in a camp, his son as far as i can recall was paralised because he was thrown out of a window during one of the many purges.

even the ones who started the cultural revolution were eaten up by it a few months after, and so on.

and then, it must have been a more than exiting time for some as well. just imagine - children taking over schools all over the country, travelling via train all over china. and beyond - i have met former revolutionary guards in wa state as mid and high ranking members of the present wa army and the wa administration.

 

but horrific as it was you cannot compare the cultural revolution to the far more brutal stalinist purges.

 

 

and concerning the great leap forward - in all accounts i have read, from all sides, i cannot come to any other conclusion that it was a grave mistake costing at leats 20 million starvation victims, but not a planned mass murder. just read for example the account of edgar snow, who travelled china in the height of the great leap forward in his follow up book to read star over china. i know that snow has been accused of many things, but he was not a dialectically trained communist cadre, in that case his books would be unreadable, incredibly boring, which they aren't.

he was a bit romantic concerning mao and the revolution in china, had strong socialist leanings. but he still was basically a journalist. and he did not realise while travelling all over china that a catastrophy was in the making. he was so positive about the great leap forward it would be funny if the amount of victims would not have been so high.

even shapiro, who is a bit of a twat, does until today not believe that the great leap forward cost so many lifes.

all accounts point to one over all reason - it was a grave mistake partly caused by the overenthusiasm of local cadres and the complete lack of communicating correct numbers to the higher echelons of the party, and the inherent problems of the party sythem where even in the higher echelons criticism was basically not possible due to the strange dialectics, and last but not least due to the inexperience of the top echelon.

which is a part failure of the west as well, when, directly after the victory of the revolution it turned away completely from mao's china due to purely ideological reasons. mao, as many other communist leaders, was uncomfortable with stalin. don't forget - during the long march he did break with the comintern policy as he was opposed to the dogma of the revolution driven by the urban proletariat. his philosophy was a revolution driven by the peasentry. he argued that china was not yet according to marxist historical analyses in the state prerevolution russia was. and in that point he was right.

the only foreign participant who has finished the long march, by the way, was a certain otto braun, a german comintern agent, who later on fell from grace, and then reappeared in the POW camps for the german POW's as a commissar. fascinating biography, that bloke. it was even hinted at that the idea of the long march might have been an inspiration by braun.

 

nevertheless, as gummie has said, mao was criticised, had to do selfcriticism (a not very nice thing in the highly logic and intellectual, and utterly brutal methodic of marxist leninist dialectics) and fell from grace for a while (stalin never did). and yes, the cultural revolution was a machiavellian tactic to get back to his former power, which also worked for him.

 

and, one has to disciminate there as well. the great leap forward was a not a complete failure on all levels. it was a complete failure in terms of human cost (complete useless bullshit which those village furnaces, everybody cooking unusable iron while the grain rotted on the fields in the potentially biggest harvest in china's history). but in other sectors it was kept well ordered, and has jumpstarted the chinese industrial revolution. i have had a good talk once with an old man in baotou who was part of the original labourforce who built up that steeltown from more or less nothing, just a little railjunction during those days.

was it worth it? no, no, no. nothing is worth such an incredible high amount of dead.

 

but lets not fall into the trap of propaganda from both sides, please. history is a bit more diversified than propaganda wants to make us believe.

[gummigut]

Gah, I know millions died in CKS purges (least on the mainland). THAT WAS NEVER MY POINT. YOU keep trying to make that my point.

 

This all arose from my consolidating a ton of history into one sentence. My point is that the folks who fled with CKS were more educated on a whole than those left behind. The educated of those left behind had a hellofa much harder time. The odds of living through the initial purge after the civil war, the great leap forward, and then the cultural revolution were extremely shitty if you were an intellectual. Most of the current older "intellectuals" were children during the 50's through 70's. Where are the intellectual parents? They are much harder to find in China than in Taiwan. Why? That's my whole point!!!

 

So lets not fall into the propoganda trap and think that all those rehabilitated intellectuals were nicely reintegrated into the system after the cultural revolution and everything was honkeedoree. A lot were purged before the revolution. The effects of the re-education camps were horrendous. What about the people who never returned? blah blah blah. It's NOT the picture that you are painting either.

 

As for my being a moderator... That's irrelevant and takes away from your points by trying to add another tangent. I am NOT a moderator in this forum and am subject to moderation in this forum, as has happened in the past, and am sure will happen in the future. There's no point to bringing this up unless we were in Careers/finance.

 

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[Guest]

OK, good. that's a level where i enjoy talking.

 

 

 

>>>and everything was honkeedoree<<<

 

never meant to give this impression, there are more than a few things which aren't "honkeydoree" in mainland china, and as far as i know things started getting "honkeydoreey" in taiwan mainly after the KMT had to give up most of their initial absolute power. but i cannot make much educated statements on taiwan, never been there, haven't read that much on it.

 

 

 

>>>Most of the current older "intellectuals" were children during the 50's through 70's. Where are the intellectual parents? They are much harder to find in China than in Taiwan. Why? That's my whole point!!!<<<

 

well, i would wish that you back that claim up, also how you define the term "intellectual".

one thing i have to give you though that most likely the density of more educated surly have left for taiwan, so that in terms of percentage you will find there more. in terms of absolute numbers - i doubt. but convince me by coming up with number, please.

another thing of course is, that apart from all political purges on the mainland, the harsh natural conditions, the primitive conditions in a mainly pre revolutionary agrarian state, the lack of outside help have not really contributed to the life expectancy. and of course the political purges did take its toll (read me - i am not a blinded disciple of maoism or stalinism ).

and the build up of mainland china's industry in often more than harsh conditions took its toll. i never forget the old man in baotou i have already mentioned telling me how life there was in the first years under nearly inhuman conditions. no appropriate shelter in the scorching summers, the freezing winters. and he was there out of his will, believing in the promised progress, and now in his old age happy that two of his children finished university, and one is a skilled metalworker on a very good salary, and owning his little apartment he bought cheaply from the government after the economic opening.

pretty good for a young boy from gansu who was born into virtual slavery.

 

and that is basically the point i am trying to make. even though all the purges, the mistakes and whatever happened - life for the average chinese, the majority of the population has tremendously improved after the 50 years of the revolution, compared to the chaos and complete anarchy that was there before.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nervous_Dog]

Fly - I don;t even vaugley like Taiwan, as any thread will show, but they too have made great progress in the last 50 years. In some respects more so than China. Both had a basically no democratic procedures for the public at large, Taiwan now does, China doesn't

 

I much prefer China, but I won't be a appologist

 

DOG

[Guest]

>>>but they too have made great progress in the last 50 years. In some respects more so than China. <<<

 

 

no surprise to me that they have made more progress. taiwan does not have a huge hinterland of extremely unfertile land, natural catastrophies by the hour, vast regions of complete backwardness. severe traditional differences between north and south.

when the KMT left for taiwan, they have left a huge baggage of long standing problems behind in china. and mainland china reached what they did with hardly any outside help apart from a very brief interlude of a war ravaged sovietunion giving them the little help they could afford. a bit different from what help taiwan got from the mighty US hardly damaged at all after WW2, apart from not even threehundred thousand killed.

taiwan had a vastly better headstart than china. that's why i say that it is more of a surprise that mainland china came as far as it did. doesn't mean that they don't have miles to go still before i would call them anything resembling a just sythem.