quote:The GLF deaths only happened in a relatively short period of time 4-5 years probably less I don't know off the top of my head, so moment in time and would be forgotten in time.
Quite so. How long were the death camps running in Poland? Only a few years. They'll be forgotten in time, and Hitler's legacy will recover from this minor blemish.
quote:I'd think that the economic problems with the Soviet Union are not so simple as to be simplified into a single sentence, it worked perfectly fine when at war, efficiently as well.
No. The Soviet economy in wartime was effective, that is, it produced a lot of dang tanks. That is not the same as being efficient, producing many tanks per man-hour of labour and kilo of steel.
At what point is "effective" different from "efficient"? Fact is by 1943 the Soviet economy WAS producing tanks at better quantity AND quality, some research would show that it WAS not just producing alot of it but was doing so efficiently. They had what? 150 million people? lost 30 million in the war and had over 16 million men in uniform? At some point its noticible that there is probably not very much waste, producing vehicals and weapons that are designed from conception to be EASILY and cheaply and quickly produced is in its way efficient.
Orincoro you actually have to look at the accomplishments Mao and by extention the Communist Party managed to do in the period they have been in power both when he was alive and now when he isn't a very large list;
1- Unified China, considering Soviets WANTED a divided China, gave no support to the Communists of real value besides meddlers and seeing as how Stalin seemed to try every single way possible to keep Mao from succeeding just so he COULD either have the more manipulatable Chiang Kai Shek or at leats a divided Balkanized China the overwhelming success of the CCP and of the People's Liberation Army is staggering, in 1947 the Red Army was only 400,000-500,000 men versus an Nationalist army of over four and a half million and armed with billions of dollars worth of American equipment the Chinese Communists could only make do with leftover Japanese arms caches and had next to no means of producing anything, the Japanese may have stocked Manchuria with alot of stuff to try to continue fighting the war there but the Soviets striped Manchuria bare of everything it had that they could find.
Why did the Communists win? The Mandate of Heaven, Chiang Kai Shek lost the Mandate of Heaven, he was corrupt and his government could not manage the territory it did control, inflation was rampant, nepotism ran amok, had no popular support and couldn't feed the people. And there are absolutely horrible stories about how they treated the draftees in the Republican Army.
And Chiang Kai Shek was a poor military leader and his generals were worse ignored all American advice overstretched his armies chasing the Red Army deep into Manchuria past their supply depots, the Reds counter attacked HARD and utterly crushed the front armies.
And the Nationalists desserted en mass to the Red Army eventually the situation by late 48' switched to the PLA having the 4 million of well fed soldiers to the 400,000 Nationalists who retreated to Taiwan.
Mandate of Heaven has by now officially switched hands with the capital moved to Peking.
Simply winning the civil war is a massive accomplishment and one well deserved, George C Marshall in fact had spoken in support of them and had originally in 47' tried to get Chiang Kai Shek to agree to a coalition government with them but things quickly broke down and Chiang got his ass kicked and Truman at the time cut off all aid to the nationalists until the Korean war.
So the CCP brought peace, stability, and good fortune, and with the Korean war though at the cost of Taiwan brought back National pride to the nation and for a time gave the government ALOT of political capital.
I can keep on naming other accomplishments that Mao and the CCP eventually did for China, universal sufferage (more or less, can't blame them for not trying), universal education, an expansion of universities and near elimination of most STD's, diseases, the near extinction of pests in China (source: "Inside the People's Republic" look for the heading "Chou Enlai speaks!"), and roughly the high digit to double digit economical growth albeit on the Soviet model every year which is fine! As China needs light industry anyways and planned economies work just fine with nations that are running behind and lack outside investment.
The point is my argument is NOT "it could have been worse" but instead that despite the massive setbacks and problems China had/has that the CCP accomplished for China in a scant 60 years is still very much phenomenal and there is undeniable good that its government has done. They even have a space program now!
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I can't do this right now, maybe tomorrow when I'm willing to give up 30 minutes to an hour to do it.
For starters Blayne, why don't you look up how much money the Commintern gave the CCP. That should help you with your concern that Stalin gave "nothing of real value" to the Chinese communists.
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quote:At what point is "effective" different from "efficient"?
C'mon Blayne, this is basic. Effective can be different from efficient in that Uncle Sam could produce enough tanks to effectively roll over Mexico, but be incredibly inefficient doing it.
quote:At some point its noticible that there is probably not very much waste, producing vehicals and weapons that are designed from conception to be EASILY and cheaply and quickly produced is in its way efficient.
'At some point'? 'Probably not very much'? 'In its way'?
quote: Why did the Communists win? The Mandate of Heaven, Chiang Kai Shek lost the Mandate of Heaven, he was corrupt and his government could not manage the territory it did control, inflation was rampant, nepotism ran amok, had no popular support and couldn't feed the people. And there are absolutely horrible stories about how they treated the draftees in the Republican Army.
Oh, man, please tell me horror stories of things done to the powerless don't suddenly start mattering to your considerations now that you're not looking at Mao.
"Mao did such and such." "Poo poo, he unified China, and what's a few dozen million in the grand scheme of things?"
vs.
"Ole Chiang did some real bad stuff to draftees."
quote:
Simply winning the civil war is a massive accomplishment and one well deserved, George C Marshall in fact had spoken in support of them and had originally in 47' tried to get Chiang Kai Shek to agree to a coalition government with them but things quickly broke down and Chiang got his ass kicked and Truman at the time cut off all aid to the nationalists until the Korean war.
Mao won the civil war. Is anyone disputing that? It was a big deal. Also undisputed. But also completely irrelevant to what we're actually talking about. A pretty crappy bit of rhetorical sleight of hand, Blayne.
quote:So the CCP brought peace, stability, and good fortune, and with the Korean war though at the cost of Taiwan brought back National pride to the nation and for a time gave the government ALOT of political capital.
Good fortune? Yeah, those dozens of millions of Chinese starving to death were livin' it up, eatin' their wish sammiches and all. Giving someone political capital is only a good thing depending on what they do with it. And ask a North Korean if they're glad China stepped in to prop up their government.
quote: I can keep on naming other accomplishments that Mao and the CCP eventually did for China, universal sufferage (more or less, can't blame them for not trying), universal education, an expansion of universities and near elimination of most STD's, diseases, the near extinction of pests in China (source: "Inside the People's Republic" look for the heading "Chou Enlai speaks!"), and roughly the high digit to double digit economical growth albeit on the Soviet model every year which is fine! As China needs light industry anyways and planned economies work just fine with nations that are running behind and lack outside investment.
'Universal suffrage' doesn't mean a whole lot when you can't actually use that suffrage to vote for your own choice of candidates.
quote: The point is my argument is NOT "it could have been worse" but instead that despite the massive setbacks and problems China had/has that the CCP accomplished for China in a scant 60 years is still very much phenomenal and there is undeniable good that its government has done. They even have a space program now!
If your point isn't 'coulda been worse', you ought to stop framing nearly all of your arguments in defense of the PRC along the lines of 'the Nationalists were worse' or 'China without Mao would've been worse' and so on and so forth. Hell, you even did it a few times in the that very post.
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A fairly simple measure of efficiency is standard of living of citizens. We even have a nice comparative situation of people who started off with a similar, fairly high standard of living for the time, with the experiment beginning well after the communist economy had plenty of time to settle into doing things: East and West Germany. Oh look, the East German economy was in ruins compared to the West German one.
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Didn't they have to put up a wall or a barrier or something to keep people from fleeing the one crappy 'efficient' economy for the other one, it was so bad? And wasn't Communism so 'efficient' in the USSR and is so 'efficient' in the PRC that they make laws stifling dissent?
Strange how such efficient systems are so fragile they can't handle a little jostling from within.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I can't do this right now, maybe tomorrow when I'm willing to give up 30 minutes to an hour to do it.
For starters Blayne, why don't you look up how much money the Commintern gave the CCP. That should help you with your concern that Stalin gave "nothing of real value" to the Chinese communists.
Incorrect, Stalin only gave aid to CCP/China only AFTER 1949 the Maoists had to make due with supplies money and arms they got from the Americans (because Chiang's own logistics corps sided with the Communists) leading to a hilarious situation where the People's Volunteer Army were fighting Americans with Thompsons.
And of that money given by the Soviet Union to help China develop? Most of it had to be spent on supplies bought from russia to fight the Korean war.
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Even if you were right about that, is there some reason that wouldn't count, Blayne? Money given then used to purchase needed supplies?
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Didn't they have to put up a wall or a barrier or something to keep people from fleeing the one crappy 'efficient' economy for the other one, it was so bad? And wasn't Communism so 'efficient' in the USSR and is so 'efficient' in the PRC that they make laws stifling dissent?
Strange how such efficient systems are so fragile they can't handle a little jostling from within.
I said efficient during WWII, obviously it became less efficient around the Brezhnev era.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Even if you were right about that, is there some reason that wouldn't count, Blayne? Money given then used to purchase needed supplies?
After the Civil War though, and reluctantly, Mao had to go to Russia himself and refuse to leave until some kind of mutually assitance treaty was signed, it got to the point that Zhou was accusing the Soviets of kidnapping Mao before they relented and agreed to sign the treaty and recognize the PRC.
The point is that I think BlackBlade believes that Stalin/Soviet Union gave the CCP 'significant' support during the Civil War when in fact historical fact during the Civil War they were unhelpful and counter productive the only decent foreign adviser was a German. The Russian educated Chinese Communists? Useless. Any foreign aid during this time? Nill, the Maoists used captured German and Japanese rifles and munitions. The only good thing the Soviets did in 47 was simply to not stand in the way and simply let the Maoists and the Nationalists fight over Manchuria amongst themselves while stripping Manchuria bare of everything of value only not touching Japanese arms depots because they didn't FIND them.
The aid they gave after the war reluctantly should have gone to rebuilding and then give them supplies and arms for free or on flexible credits like they do with everyone else, have you SEEN the SHEER amount of aid they gave to North Korea? They build and supplied for them an entire mechanized army and a modern airforce for them from scratch! And took them years to transfer back their railway rights in Manchuria to China and sell back their joint ownership of Chinese firms.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Even if you were right about that, is there some reason that wouldn't count, Blayne? Money given then used to purchase needed supplies?
Just to reiterate...
"FROM THEMSELVES!"
its like forcing you to buy the noose that I'm gonna hang you with!
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It was a lot less efficient before then, too. Forcing collective agriculture killed millions (granted, a lot of those were intentional, but plenty were starvation) and caused agricultural productivity to drop relative to what it had been before. Truly, declining productivity is a great sign of efficiency. Heck, it wasn't just a decline in productivity; the USSR managed to end up with millions fewer cows, sheep, and other animals by 1941 than they had when collectivization started. Negative production!
There's no doubt in the war buildup the USSR produced a lot of war supplies, but doing that killed another few million people (I suppose they were quite efficient at killing people), and put not a few million through forced labor camps. Prison labor could be termed efficient in one sense, too, perhaps.
Oh, and I mustn't forget to mention: Eastern Germany's growth was far less than Western Germany's in the over a decade before Brezhnev took over.
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Blayne: If you think the USSR did not use its leverage with the KMT to keep the CCP alive, you're ignoring basic accessible history. Their entire strategy was to keep the Japanese occupied in China, and hence supported Chiang, but at the same time their assistance was predicated on him forming a treaty with the CCP.
Furthermore, it's much easier to win a civil war, when you attack your opposition during WWII, and then lie to the peasants about how you did all the work and they did nothing.
I honestly would like to talk about Mao's accomplishments and follies during the 30's-60's with you, but I need you to accept that Mao was not some omnipotent monolith who plowed his way single handedly passed Old Chiang and saved his nation. There were so many other people involved in China's history, to give it all to Mao is to turn him into something more than human.
It's like saying Abraham Lincoln just by sheer force of will saved the union.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Blayne: If you think the USSR did not use its leverage with the KMT to keep the CCP alive, you're ignoring basic accessible history. Their entire strategy was to keep the Japanese occupied in China, and hence supported Chiang, but at the same time their assistance was predicated on him forming a treaty with the CCP.
Furthermore, it's much easier to win a civil war, when you attack your opposition during WWII, and then lie to the peasants about how you did all the work and they did nothing.
I honestly would like to talk about Mao's accomplishments and follies during the 30's-60's with you, but I need you to accept that Mao was not some omnipotent monolith who plowed his way single handedly passed Old Chiang and saved his nation. There were so many other people involved in China's history, to give it all to Mao is to turn him into something more than human.
It's like saying Abraham Lincoln just by sheer force of will saved the union.
Incorrect misinformation, there's very little evidence to support Stalin lifting a finger for the CCP at all at anytime before 1949.
quote:If you think the USSR did not use its leverage with the KMT to keep the CCP alive, you're ignoring basic accessible history.
Source that isn't "The Untold Story"
quote: Their entire strategy was to keep the Japanese occupied in China, and hence supported Chiang, but at the same time their assistance was predicated on him forming a treaty with the CCP.
Geopolitics is a complicated thing, but beyond Operation Zet the Soviets did little to help either the Nationalists or the Communists after it was apparent that the Japanese had no intention of attacking Siberia. Most Allied Assitance came from the Americans and the British through the Burma Road.
The Soviets at no point EVER attempting to force Chiang to reconcile with the Communists at any time. A divided China was better for longterm Soviet interests, your confusing Stalin for George C. Marshall.
quote:Furthermore, it's much easier to win a civil war, when you attack your opposition during WWII, and then lie to the peasants about how you did all the work and they did nothing.
There is absolutely 0, nadda, nill, zilch evidence to support this assertion that there was any ever official and premeditated operations by the Chinese Communist Red Army against the Nationalist Republican Army at anytime after the Japanese invasion of China, infact Stalin had forced Mao to have the Red Army act subordinate to the Nationalist Army and if I recall were even forced to wear Nationalist uniforms. During WWII the Communists aside from a few operational failures avoided major pitched battles and focused instead on geurilla warfare and recruiting members and party cadres behind Japanese lines as they lacked any of the heavy equipment to fight the Kwantung army head on.
from 1937 to 1945 the Chinese Red Army did not fight a single premediated battle against the Nationalists, I could grant you small raids I don't know precisely but its likely the Nationalists also did small raids too.
quote: I honestly would like to talk about Mao's accomplishments and follies during the 30's-60's with you, but I need you to accept that Mao was not some omnipotent monolith who plowed his way single handedly passed Old Chiang and saved his nation. There were so many other people involved in China's history, to give it all to Mao is to turn him into something more than human.
You'ld also need to stop putting words into my mouth, I never once said he was a god or didn't make drastic errors in judgement, he's possibly on of the greatest leaders of the 20th century but I do grant he has done some terrible things, but I'm of the opinion that the ends justifies the means.
But no, we were discussing Mao so I was discussing Mao, I know very well that without the CCP and the loyal and resiliant Red Army Mao alone could not win the war, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaopeng and Peng Dehui and many others were instrumental what separates Mao and the CCP's success story in China from the failures in other nations is the sheer density of competent if not brilliant colleagues Mao surrounded himself with.
The facts are very simple and is largely the consensus that the Soviet Union did little to help the Chinese Communists and in fact the movement faced failure almost daily from Stalin's complete and utter out of touch with the situation in China, and later by his desire to have a divided China on the north/south lines as he felt a united Red China would be too scary.
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Blayne Bradley
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Your probably confusing the "leverage" matter witht he Xian incident where one of Chiang Kai Shek's generals, the son of a Manchurian Warlord (or maybe the warlord himself? I forgets) was pissed with Chiang focusing on the "cancer of the heart" rather then on fighting the damned Japanese so kidnapped and arrested Chiang.
Chiang's wife and nephew or some other family members I don't quite remember eventually negotiated his release ah screw it, wikipedia to the rescue!
quote: The Xi'an Incident of December 1936 (traditional Chinese: 西安事變; simplified Chinese: 西安事变; pinyin: Xī'ān Shìbìan) is an important episode of Chinese modern history, taking place in the city of Xi'an during the Chinese Civil War between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the rebel Chinese Communist Party and just before the Second Sino-Japanese War. On 12 December 1936, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the KMT was suddenly arrested and kidnapped by Marshal Zhang Xueliang, a former warlord of Manchuria, then Japan-occupied Manchukuo. The incident led the Nationalists and the Communists to make peace so that the two could form a united front against the increasing threat posed by Japan. Some facts about the incident still remain unclear as most of the parties involved died without revealing in detail what happened during those chaotic few weeks. Thus, there are controversies over the causes, events and effects of this incident.
yeah rather then the Soviet Union forcing the Nationalists to make peace, they forced the CCP to NOT execute Chiang when they had the chance.
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While in a certain sense a derailment, I ran across an interesting article in Science concerning China's present and future that a few of you ought to get a kick out of.
quote:...as long as there is a steady supply of rare earths. These elements are already essential constituents of everything from iPods to Patriot missiles. "Rare earths are playing a vital role in the development of high technology," says BRIRE President Zhao Zengqi.
China was late to join the race to develop novel rare earth materials...But Western observers agree that China is catching up fast in areas such as fuel cells and magnetic refrigeration...Today, about three-quarters of the world's neodymium magnets are made in China. Domestic industrial demand is rising: Last year, China consumed 60% of all processed rare earths.
That unnerves some industry analysts and U.S. legislators, who have expressed concern about China's dominance of the rare earth supply. Last year, China satisfied 95% of global demand—now about 125,000 tons per year—and holds more than half of all proven reserves. In the 1990s, China's cheap production costs sent prices plummeting, driving many non-Chinese rare earth mines out of business. Prices started creeping up in 2005, however, when China began to limit production and slap export tariffs on some rare earths. In a policy paper last month, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology floated the idea of prohibiting export of three scarcer rare earths—europium, terbium, and dysprosium—the last named, ironically, after the Greek word dysprositos, or "hard to get." If the Chinese government were to implement such a policy, that "would be a big problem for other countries," says Judith Chegwidden, managing director of Roskill Information Services Ltd., a mining analysis company in London. China has a "natural monopoly" over heavier rare earths, she says, simply because few mines elsewhere have ample reserves.
But then this thread was quickly derailed from the original topic of Japan's "recovery" from the recession, which ain't quite whatcha appear to think it is. Hence another reason for bumping this particular thread up from the backpages: to remind myself to post on that topic.
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