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I Lost My Past (2017)

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Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#41

Post by xwolfi »

I live in China and I feel the same. I can understand the high level corruption, and media uselessness reporting nothing of substance, sure, but that's very far from how life in China seems to be perceived abroad.

I guess like the author it depends also where exactly in China/Yougoslavia you live(d), as Im sure a migrant miner in the north doesnt have the same experience as an electronics trader in the south.

But, I dont think it's that much worse than life in the U.S. even if it's certainly not far better. People who have no stake and a lot of comfort will care a lot about abstractions like freedom of speech on twitter reaching millions with aggressive opinions, but that's not so important: you can already discuss everything you want in private and the trend is sloooowly towards realizing we'll need public feedback in politics.

Just the way the communists reacted to the HK elections is interesting: they watered down the challenge, certainly, but then they sang and sang the praises of elections... well then, does that mean as long as the candidates proclaim their communist purity on the mainland, we could also vote there for the executive or legislative powers?

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#42

Post by [deleted] »

emteycz wrote: post #20
stareblinkstare wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children who quietly got to go to foreign universities, while their parents talked about the need for the lower classes to sacrifice their children for the revolution. Those same children who now run very successful businesses thanks to their family connections. You just described the situation everywhere, Communist or Capitalist or Whateverist system.

Hard disagree. Here in Czechia there is no longer such thing since the revolution. Nobody says someone should sacrifice their children today, and no such thing happens in practice. Children from Czech schools are plenty successful.

[deleted]

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#43

Post by Findeton »

sofixa wrote: post #37
Findeton wrote: post #34

Well the Soviet Union was imperialism, wasn't it?

It was, in the end, even if it started as direct opposition of imperialism ( to an extent; export of revolution was one of the tenets of Lenin and early Bolshevism, and that might be considered a type of imperialism). However i think the author is talking more about the smaller Eastern European communist countries in general ( Yugoslavia, East Germany are mentioned), not the Soviet Union.

I mention it because at the end of his blogpost he says: "there will be no wars in Europe in my lifetime, and imperialism has been defeated. "

I'll also point out that:

- The imperialistic part of the USA is the socialist part of USA (which does exist and gets larger every day).

- Empires are not economically profitable as a whole, only a few people profit.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#44

Post by elurg »

kstenerud wrote: post #27
ARandomerDude wrote: post #13

> the liberation of Saigon That was a jarring phrase that helped underscore the great divide between East and West.

In this particular case, the North was in the right. As far as they were concerned, the Americans were just one more occupier in a long line of Western occupiers. And even though the Americans didn't intend to become occupiers, that's ultimately what happened (a theme that's repeated itself many times). The Americans and the Vietnamese were fighting different wars with each other. So the North pushed out the occupier…

Defending a communist regime purely on nationalist grounds ignores the whole point of communism.

Today Vietnam and China having mostly-capitalist economies so what was really the purpose of their revolutions?

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#45

Post by thaumasiotes »

elurg wrote: post #44
kstenerud wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this particular case, the North was in the right. As far as they were concerned, the Americans were just one more occupier in a long line of Western occupiers. And even though the Americans didn't intend to become occupiers, that's ultimately what happened (a theme that's repeated itself many times). The Americans and the Vietnamese were fighting different wars with each other. So the North pushed out the occupier…

Defending a communist regime purely on nationalist grounds ignores the whole point of communism. Today Vietnam and China having mostly-capitalist economies so what was really the purpose of their revolutions?

Self rule, just like you'd think.

The CCP's primary claim to legitimacy is that they kicked out the Japanese. They were a little late to get to kick out the Manchus.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#46

Post by refurb »

kstenerud wrote: post #27
ARandomerDude wrote: post #13

> the liberation of Saigon That was a jarring phrase that helped underscore the great divide between East and West.

In this particular case, the North was in the right. As far as they were concerned, the Americans were just one more occupier in a long line of Western occupiers. And even though the Americans didn't intend to become occupiers, that's ultimately what happened (a theme that's repeated itself many times). The Americans and the Vietnamese were fighting different wars with each other. So the North pushed out the occupier…

This is the story that is told, but one can’t avoid the similarity between the South’s alliance with the US, AUS, NZ, Korea and the North’s with the USSR and China (which had many soldier stationed there). Without material support the USSR and China provided, the North never could have won the war.

There was no “rightful” liberation. It was a civil war in its essence with two opposing groups of Vietnamese fighting for control of a fractured post-colonial state, with plenty of foreign interference/assistance during the whole thing.

In the end the North did a better job (through both smart politics, good PR and internal support/oppression of opposition).

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#47

Post by anovikov »

sofixa wrote: post #39
anovikov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived under this regime and i absolutely remember it as evil. Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form.

> Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form. Russia form? Russia already existed, as the Russian socialist federal republic, a part of the Soviet Union. What would have been the alternative to letting Russia inherit the Soviet Union by being the last one remaining?

No post body was provided.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#48

Post by jeroenhd »

luckylion wrote: post #33
vidarh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but he's not denying the other things happened, but pointing out pretty much exactly what you say: there's no singular canonical experience. But often we are presented a narrative of such a singular experience.

Do we though? We generally consider Iraq under Saddam not to be a good place to have lived in. A terrible place if you're a Kurd and your village gets attacked with nerve gas. And a bad place if you're an ordinary citizen that isn't specifically targeted because of his ethnicity, but there's always the risk of Uday Hussein driving by and just fancying murdering you for no particular reason. And yet, of course, the up…

By extension of this way of telling a narrative, all Americans should fear for their lives the second a police officer stops their car because of the countless innocent black people murdered by the police. Stories of excessive police violence still make it to the news almost every week.

However, most Americans don't need to fear for their lives by the police, and most Iraqis aren't Kurds. Most Iraqis weren't gassed or tortured either.

You can't twist the narrative to pretend that the situation of the abused minorities are what the majority of the population experienced. Yes, they were living under their dictator's regime and no they were probably none too happy about the atrocities occurring, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a normal life outside that.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#49

Post by sofixa »

anovikov wrote: post #47
sofixa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form. Russia form? Russia already existed, as the Russian socialist federal republic, a part of the Soviet Union. What would have been the alternative to letting Russia inherit the Soviet Union by being the last one remaining?

Quoted post unavailable.

Distribution of people, industry, resources, agriculture is very uneven in Russia, so i don't see many potential subdivisions working well. Furthermore:

* self-determination of the people - i didn't hear any part of Russia wanted to be separate

* Russians in other countries (there since before the fall of the Soviet Union) are often destabilising and problematic - see Transnistria and Ukraine for good examples

* as we've seen, new Russia doesn't mind getting dirty to claim back land. A ballkanised Russia would be even worse, with frequent wars between the different entities.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#50

Post by anovikov »

thebradbain wrote: post #21
anovikov wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Saying "Communism is evil" is no different than saying "Capitalism is evil" with nothing to back it up. Contrary to maybe-current opinion, Communism and Democracy are not diametrically opposed: the former is an economic policy, the latter a system of government. You can have both, one or the other, or neither all at once. Sure, maybe the governments that tried to implement communism failed on the world stage. Some to…

>Communism and Democracy are not diametrically opposed: the former is an economic policy, the latter a system of government. You can have both, one or the other, or neither all at once.

There are examples of market economy without democracy (Russia, Saudi Arabia, and to a degree, China too) but i can't think of any, present-day, example of democracy without a market economy. I don't think these can exist, because on one hand, once people have a real say in how they are governed, they will want to enrich themselves and it requires market economy and the rule of law (without rule of law, you can have profit, but can't have capitalisation because ownership is volatile), and on the other hand, people will not want to have a say in how they are governed before they are more or less well-off, because more primary needs will dominate their minds - and without popular pressure, democracy can't form. And without market economy, people are destined to remain poor.

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