Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:27 pm
Let's stop the train right now. I think people are missing what is true communism and socialism. The USSR was never communist in the operational sense, good and services were not distributed fairly and a small clique of party intellectuals and strongmen made all the choices in a very centralised system. Communism at it's heart is an attack on centralization of industry, government and religion and the Soviet Union was one of the most centralized nations on earth. Even the Red Army High Command during WWII couldn't make choices without poltical officers okaying them.
With that out of the way... onto China.
China is once again, not communist. It's an oligarchy dominated by the Politbuero memebers. Ever since the 1980s the offical slogan has been "To be rich is to be glorious" or something to that effect and the government has allowed basically a captalist system to take hold on the basis that it brings in more jobs and money. The regime is only repressive when it enounters threats to it's continuance in power, i.e. democratic reformers and the like. It doesn't care if you make a lot of money and opress the innocents, as long as you pay your "taxes" and be loyal communists they could careless.
We can't say a communist regime wouldn't work since a true Marxist state has never exsisted on the face of the earth.
With that out of the way... onto China.
China is once again, not communist. It's an oligarchy dominated by the Politbuero memebers. Ever since the 1980s the offical slogan has been "To be rich is to be glorious" or something to that effect and the government has allowed basically a captalist system to take hold on the basis that it brings in more jobs and money. The regime is only repressive when it enounters threats to it's continuance in power, i.e. democratic reformers and the like. It doesn't care if you make a lot of money and opress the innocents, as long as you pay your "taxes" and be loyal communists they could careless.
We can't say a communist regime wouldn't work since a true Marxist state has never exsisted on the face of the earth.