Great link and post
"Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending."
Also interesting that the Dali Lama became a CIA plant and made millions off that relationship.
"In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity."
Yea real Buddhist of them.
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
"Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet"
The details and images related to prerevolution Tibet are so NSFL that I would discourage people from looking into it.
Some of it is worse than Abu Ghraib.But since I cannot stop people from being curious, this article (NSFL with images but not so bad as what might be encountered by searching) covers most of it:
http://md.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zgxz/t554379.htm / https://archive.is/bGmu4
Oh dank that's my post!
https://www.reddit.com/r/DankLeft/comments/juh5s2/but_they_miss_their_slaves/
Don't have the energy to argue with people over there though
I get that Tibet was a bad place before China was in charge, but how does this meme not reek of "Take up the Han man's burden?"
I guess I still think there's value in the idea of self-determination -- that Tibetan communists should be in charge of Tibet.
Communist states should spread revolution and help establish new communist states elsewhere, but not rule over them.
The governor of the Tibetan Autonomous Region has been ethnically Tibetan since it was founded in 1965.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngapoi_Ngawang_Jigme Read this guys bio and tell me Tibet was overtaken by violent force against their will.
Um, the governor is essentially a figurehead position that is subordinate to the Party secretary. That is true in every autonomous region. A Tibetan has never been Party secretary. Indeed in comprehensive studies of the local Party personnel, historians have argued that basically most major Party positions have always been Han despite Tibetans making up a decent percentage of lower level cadres.
The point is not that Tibet's conditions pre revolution were terrible. But I might note that you all are basically saying that an area the size of Western Europe was entirely a hellhole. That shit is deeply ignorant. There were areas of Tibet with slavery, and likewise there were areas full of relatively progressive reformers. What the CCP initially wanted to do was prop up local reformers and you'll note to that end they worked very heavily with the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. What changed was that progressive reformers grew disenchanted with how little say they actually had following 1956 when policies took a harsher tone, thus the rebellion and the Dalai Lama fleeing, CIA involvement etc.
The point is this - the CCP admits itself that it took Xinjiang and Tibet to secure the rest of China. The risk of balkanization was too great. Hell I am inclined to agree with that. But the charge that they were there just to spread revolution and to enlighten the local populace is pretty much the same argument that the British made with India. It is dumb. I am sorry, if you believe in a straight up violation of all local autonomy and sovereignty for a vision of unilinear progress WITHOUT also accepting that there was a lot of cynicism involved, then you are blatantly misreading history.
Parenti is good but he is not a historian - there is a shit ton of work by both Western and Chinese historians on Tibet before and after the Revolution and the picture is significantly more complicated than you guys paint it to be.
Calling someone with a Ph.D in political science "not a historian" when referring to the political situation of Tibet/China is... interesting.
The rest of your argument may indeed be persuasive to someone who actually cares about maintaining the dreadful political situation inside of Tibet but that's not me. I dont care that in some rural village there wasnt slavery or whatever. I dont care that the weirdo psycho Lamas lost their power. Fuck all versions of aristocracy, but especially fuck ones that still allowed slavery in the 1950s. A world in which the Chinese dont liberate Tibet is a much worse world.
Does he a PhD in political science in China? I've a PhD in Chinese History. Should I be writing a book about the French Revolution as an expert? Again, Parenti's work isn't bad but it relies on the work other historians did. I say 'did', because the scholarship has evolved a lot since then.
So you basically reveal that you are pretty much a chauvinist - that a backward people should be made to be destroyed and progress regardless of the costs. You would've fit well amongst the progressives of the British Empire, begging to destroy the cruelties of the caste system in India.
sorry bud but slavery is bad.
calling me british (extremely rude) will not change this fact.
Yes, and again...all of Tibet didn't have slavery, and Tibetans themselves were fighting against it before the CCP entered the picture. The logic you are using, and I am sorry if it is rude, is pretty much the same logic of British reformers seeking to civilize the barbarian 'Hindoos'. I don't really see how one can deny that. Would you advocate that the US goes into Mauritania to liberate the pockets of slavery that exist there as well?
Would you advocate that the US goes into Mauritania to liberate the pockets of slavery that exist there as well?
no, I advocate that the american empire explode into a million pieces.
I would advocate the Chinese do it though. Same with Vietnamese or Cubans.
This "communists cannot do bad things" mentality is starting to seem a bit cultish to me.
Communists can surely do bad things. Unsure how that even remotely relates to what I said though. My example would very explicitly be communists doing a "good thing" (liberating slaves).
The reason I support a communist doing it rather than an imperialist capitalist empire should be pretty self-evident on a leftist board.
I'm against the idea that communists cannot do imperialism. The Lenininst definition that basically excludes communists from doing imperialism is dumb to me.
If overthrowing a monarchist slave state and then investing into it to combat poverty is imperialism then line me up against the wall baby I'm an imperialist.
...And so you wouldn't advocate that the Mauritanians have any say in how it goes? Or that they should do it? Or that, maybe at best, China, Vietnam etc. should just encourage those reformers to do their own work? Why is it that in your mind slavery can only be abolished by an outside progressive force?
If the reformers have not succeeded in abolishing slavery in 2020 then yes absolutely 100% I support someone else (that isnt doing it to steal their oil) doing it for them. I'm sorry if you think this is a controversial take but once again - slavery = bad.
So, should China invade Iran and Saudi Arabia to stop punishing adultery, homosexuality, etc? What is the farthest extent of this logic that you are willing to pursue? Any social change is worth squashing local sovereignty by an outside force?
But not the caste system? What about sweatshops? Persecution of minorities? Slavery in an informal sense existed in China up until 1949; in fact, Japan cited it as one of the reasons China needed to be civilized. Is that okay?
This may also be a controversial take here but the Soviets helping Mao take over China was also good.
Those other things are bad too but legalized slavery is worse, imo. (hot take!)
Well, the Soviets actually were in favor of supporting the GMD up until the last years of the civil war, but yes, Mao taking over China was good. But again, the Japanese wanted to modernize the country. Also good? Casteism essentially promotes a slavery system of itself. Should the British have abolished it?
The Empire of Japan wanted to modernize China! Yep, for sure.
The soviets were in favour of supporting anti-empire of japan forces (another good thing) and then when the empire of Japan was defeated, they switched their support to the communists in order to liberate the mainland (also a good thing).
Caste systems are bad yes, an empire is much more likely to leave a caste system in place however as the isolation of the people from one another is actually a bonus to oppressive regimes. What did the brits do again?
Although the varnas and jatis have pre-modern origins, the caste system as it exists today is the result of developments during the post-Mughal period and the British colonial period, which made caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.
o yea lol
The Soviets did not switch their support to the CCP. Initially, in fact, Stalin told the CCP to stand down, and he signed a trade agreement with Chiang Kai-Shek, and "Even as late as 1949, Stalin advised the CCP leaders to avoid provoking US intervention and stop disseminating forces at the Yangtze River, to reach an agreement with the GMD, and perhaps even to accept a partition of the country through a coalition government". Cool story.
Also, yes, obviously the British made caste worst. But they also proclaimed that they were in India to destroy the excesses of the system (for example, attempting to outlaw the practice of Untouchability, destroy the practice of sati) etc. I am not saying that the British were somehow a progressive force. The point is they certainly believed they were, that they were there to civilize.
Also, in regards to Japan and China, AGAIN the point was using the EXCUSE OF MODERNIZATION to invade a fucking country. Again, China got rid of slavery in Tibet. Yes. But slavery was not as widespread as people claim, and they did not invade TIbet TO get rid of slavery. There were geopolitical, cynical interests. Whether you want to condemn those is entirely up to you, but to ignore them is just idiocy.
The Soviets did not switch their support to the CCP. Initially, in fact, Stalin told the CCP to stand down, and he signed a trade agreement with Chiang Kai-Shek, and “Even as late as 1949, Stalin advised the CCP leaders to avoid provoking US intervention and stop disseminating forces at the Yangtze River, to reach an agreement with the GMD, and perhaps even to accept a partition of the country through a coalition government”. Cool story.
Wow weird that the soviets would give all the guns they got in Manchuria from the disarmed Japanese army to the communists then. And that they propped up the Second East Turkestan Republic to specifically target the KMT. And refused KMT forces entrance into occupied Manchuria (having to be air lifted in by the united states lmao) in violation of the surrender terms. Then proceeded to arm Mao with both the guns from the Japanese as well a substantial amount of soviet arms.
In March 1946, despite repeated requests from Chiang, the Soviet Red Army under the command of Marshal Rodion Malinovsky continued to delay pulling out of Manchuria, while Malinovsky secretly told the CPC forces to move in behind them, which led to full-scale war for the control of the Northeast. These favorable conditions also facilitated many changes inside the Communist leadership: the more radical hard-line faction who wanted full military bloodshed and warfare to take-over China finally gained the upper hand and defeated the careful opportunists.[43] Prior to giving control to Communist leaders, on March 27 Soviet diplomats requested a joint venture of industrial development with the Nationalist Party in Manchuria.[44]
:thinkin-lenin: :thinkin-lenin: :thinkin-lenin:
The Soviets forced the GMD to make concessions in 45 with their friendship treaty, particularly in Manchuria. They gave weapons to the CCP but then ordered them to retreat because they didn't want rail lines to warm water ports in the region to be damaged.
Again, as I've already quoted, the Soviets discouraged conflict with the GMD, wanted a united front government, and didn't believe Mao could win. The archival evidence is all there.
Regarding the ETR, the Soviets had already been holding sway in Xinjiang before via Sheng Shicai. The ETR was an attempt to perhaps encourage the province to have close relations with Soviet Central Asia. The ccp denounced the ETR and in fact essentially dismantled it. And then designed their whole policy around discouraging any Soviet influence in the region.
GMD and CCP are usually much more common. KMT is generally almost only exclusively used to refer to the party as it exists in Taiwan at the moment, though this is a somewhat recent change. I've actually never read a historian that uses CPC instead of CCP, poli sci people are somewhat different however.
CPC is a relatively more modern standardization as far as I know. My suspicion is CCP is used because it is a more literal translation of the original Chinese. I wouldn't attribute much else to that choice.
So, should China invade Iran and Saudi Arabia to stop punishing adultery, homosexuality, etc?
Yes :yes-chad:
Are you coming out against vanguardism here?
Do you think that communists need to somehow hold a referendum before starting a revolution or do you think there's something inherently better about people from the same "nation state" unilaterally making decisions for other people of that nation state than if people from a different nation state did it?
Do you think the Red Army should have pulled all the way back to the borders of the Russian Empire the moment Berlin fell?
Interesting that you say this as Mao argued that vanguardism was somewhat faulty in the sense that it encourages the Party to become separate from the people, thus his railing against bureaucratism in the 60s. The mass line is necessary, and the mass lines also means understanding local sensibilities and needs. The PRC attempting to take former imperial holdings and make them part of a single polity I think was a policy based not on the mass line but a belief that minority regions could not be lost.
I do not necessarily thing the CCP was wrong to take the path it did so but yes I do believe that revolution could have been encouraged in a more grassroots fashion, and that doing so would have meant that separatism would have never really emerged as an actual problem.
For sure, to be clear I don't think Mao was a flawless god made flesh or that the PRC never did anything wrong ever ever.
I think looking back on history you can always see ways things could have gone better, not just with your knowledge of the outcomes of people's actions but with your different definition of "better" than historical actors, even historical actors you think did good things or you agree with more than other historical actors in the same time period.
The OG Maoists did seem to have some nationalist/"natural borders"/manifest destiny style brainworms and the PRC still uses some uncomfortably reactionary nationalist rhetoric to justify things today. I don't agree that Tibetan seperatism/anti-communism was never going to be a problem if the PRC took a more grassroots approach,. I think it would have came from different places but the CIA wasn't going to not agitate and any of the Tibetan ruling class that survived or escaped weren't going to not be mad about losing their slaves. I also think the CPC would have to be comprised of quite different people to value Tibetan national self determination over spreading communism to a feudal theocracy/restoring Chinese pride and well and truly ending the century of humiliation.
I'm not much one for going deeply into alternate histories. I don't think it was ever really possible for the CPC to have a different approach to Tibet (after all, they didn't have a different approach to Tibet, they had the one they had). I'm a little interested in examining why they had the approach they had and how it worked out, I think that can teach us things, but I don't think there's any way of really knowing, or even of productively discussing, if things would have been better or worse if they'd taken a more "grassroots" approach to fostering communism in Tibet. I'm tempted to say it would have at least been slower and less likely to succeed, but I have no real way to back that up and it's neither here nor there.
What I am very interested in are more abstract questions of morality (should we value the consent of the governed over spreading communism) and what may or may not work in our current situations.
The things in this I'm very much down to talk about (or as the case may be massive walls of text on a 10000 member commie shitposting forum about 😜) are if wars of communist states against other non-communist states are a thing that's desirable or effective and if revolutionaries have a right/imperative to try to implement communism without the initial (explicit?) consent of the majority of the people they're trying to do a communism for/with and whether nation states and national sovereignty should be respected or if they're just reactionary garbage.
I'm currently of the opinion that wars are good if winnable, explicit consent is impractical but consent of the governed is important, not sure how important compared to the suffering that can be stopped without, and nation states/ national sovereignty are entirely reactionary garbage except in that the consent of the governed is important.
Happy to elaborate/open to being informed persuaded on any of those :)
My view of history as someone who practices and cares deeply about it is that history is meaningless without also thinking about the potential paths that were lost. The CCP actively debated, molded, and changed its minority policy. They themselves admit it was not inevitable and was a conscious decision that they took. Just studying other comparative revolutions tells us that yes, other policies could have been taken and that yes we can and should be able to make judgement calls.
National sovereignty is reactionary, but it is also the only route that polities have in the face of imperialism. This is why national liberation movements often had a combination of socialist and progressive nationalist forces. Similarly in Tibet following the end of the Qing, there were struggles between different factions of 'nationalists' but also a reluctant acceptance that China is big enough tha Tibet would also be tied to it somehow. The 'somehow' in that story is important. China made the call ultimately not to pursue Soviet autonomous policies (which, to be fair, very rarely actually produced real meaningful autonomy ie look at Soviet Kazakhstan) because they considered Tibet too important due to its water resources and its sheer size. Without its minority areas, China would be 40% smaller. So national defense made annexations necessary, and perhaps I don't even disagree but it does mean we have to reckon with the fact that this was not really about spreading communism. The early CCP said as much - revolution was the thing that the Han would do, and if necessary they would do it to others. And as Zhou Enlai himself noted, much of that chauvinism had its roots in Soviet and British ethnic studies. I wouldn't call it imperialist, yes, but there was a certain imperious attitude to it that we do have to have a little introspection about. Similarly, peasants would complain about this all the time - that Party cadres would never try to understand them. This is something that the mass line corrects, imo, and without it I am very unsure as to what revolution would really look like in the long term.
Furthermore, if you spread revolution without any sort of mass support in the country you invade, you will defang any potential for local progressive forces and empower the reactionaries, thus you get Afghanistan. In the fight against reactionary tendencies, conflict itself will never be enough and I frankly do not think interventionism will ever beget lasting change. America certainly has proven that and even if you believe a communist country would act differently (though we must note that it has been rare for existing communist parties to take over an entirely different country and actually create a lasting new regime), I think we must genuinely try and understand what we want revolution to be. Does revolution mean one vision of progress that is imposed on all? Or does it mean creating novel paths for people depending on their socioeconomic and cultural structures? To me the answer is clear.
"Wars are good"
Well that's not a very civil thing to say at all.
Don't let my shit posting ruin a good dialogue though - I was learning a lot, thanks to all involved.
If you would be open to it an AMA regarding your thoughts and knowledge on Chinese history, especially post communist revolution, would be super interesting.
I took one history course during my B.A Chinese poetry studies but it was long ago.
I would be open to it, but tbh I sometimes find talking about it here a little exhausting. It is not that I think people have bad intentions, but there is often just a lot of bad faith interpretations of China from both demsoc AND tankie positions that navigating all the fraught politics of all and arguing with everyone becomes really tiring. But I'll think about it!
Yea for sure you gotta prioritize your emotional/mental energy, I just like learning and appretiate your perspective.
I would love to read a historians account and the pre and post China intervention analysis if you have a link.
From the parenti article it seems as if the early efforts were focused on infrastructure development whilst attempting to respect the Tibetean people & culture and what shifted it into a more violent liberation was: "The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.27 Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet"
I realize this is all from a single referenced source but am open to other sources and point of view on this matter. As it stands now I am of the opinion that the liberation of Tibet was a net positive.
Sure. So in regards to te CIA unprising - it should be noted that the CIA approached the Dalai Lama in 1950, offering to give him supplies to fight the PLA. He refused, for one because he saw what was happening in Korea and didn't believe that Tibet would win any outright war, but also because he genuinely believed the CCP would be a force for good. The CIA then took to other elements, mostly the regressive elites as well as certain dissents in Kham, trained a few and then airlifted them to try and mount a guerrilla war. That was only in Kham and Amdo, however. The real issue that changed things, and caused the Dalai Lama to flee etc was 1959, when those sporadic rebellions spread to Lhasa as well. Fascinatingly enough, historian Chen Jian notes (I can get you a PDF if you want) that the PLA was actually pretty eager to put these down - mostly as a show of force, but also it would be good martial practice. Take that for what you will.
However, to argue that the CCP had been only respectful up until this point is not entirely fair, I think. VIncent Goossaert and David A. Palmer discuss this in regards to religious institutions, from 1956 onwards (noting again that widespread rebellion had not yet really started outside a few rural areas in Kham), the CCP basically to disregard the 17 point agreement through a bit of a loop hole by arguing that Tibetans in Kham and Amdo, some of which were in Sichuan and not formally 'Tibet', would be subjected to land collectivization, including confiscation from monasteries, temples, and traditional land grants. Many landlords and tyrants very thankfully lost their holdings, but a very sizable percentage of the male population were invested in the monastery system. This caused a lot of resentment. Again, even if you can agree that ultimately religious institutions had to be liquidated, this was seen as a breach of trust as from the 1930s onwards when the CCP relied on minorities to keep them safe from the GMD during the Long March, the CCP had promised that the revolutionary measures it would pursue in the mainland and for Han people would not be applied entirely to minority people out of respect for autonomy. That ceased to be the case.
In Tibet itself, as historian Tsering Shakya notes that there was a lot of resentment in places like Lhasa because of the impression that China was 'taking' over the country. Shakya even argues that actually the CCP did a lot of good. Pre-revolution Tibet wasn't all sunshine and roses, and even the Dalai Lama again pretty much agrees that a lot of the early reforms against feudalism etc was necessarsy. But things were a little shakier than the Chinese narrative of thigns also. You had a desire amongst Tibetans to have their own standing army, to be able to conduct its own foreign policy, and also to cap the limit of Chinese settlers and cadres allowed to stay in the territory. A lot of progressive forces wanted the CCP to actually take a harsher stance and to empower them to do the reforms that woudl be necessary. But, Mao was also very cautious about how to go about changing structures in Tibet and other minority areas at this point - he didn't want to rock the boat, somewhat sensibly. To try and get rid of anti-Chinese sentiments in Lhasa and the Tibetan government, though, the Chinese authorities did want to force the coutnry's dual Prime Ministers to be dismissed, and so they were. That sort of unilateral action unfortunately also pissed off the people who were hoping that the CCP would empower progressive elements - there was a simmering feeling that ultimately Chinese cadres were on one hand unwilling to take action but also that when they did so they did without the input of Tibetan officials or activists.
What changed the picture was that when China signed a trade agreement with India in 1953, the Tibetan elites were suddenly a lot more in favor of the Chinese government. Dalai Lama himself was wowed by Zhou Enlai's diplomacy. infrastructure development and roads etc vastly improved. People were given good jobs, Tibet's international standing grew etc. The ruling elite were very happy; ordinary people were somewhat more mixed, due to again growing resentment at the fact that they had very little input before the revolution and continued to have very little after. In 1955, they moved to create the Preparatory Committee for the establishment of the Autonomous Region of Tibet (PCART). This was seen as somewhat of a compromise - Mao had wanted to actually place the region under Beijing's direct administration, buit thought the PCART would be a good way to start transitioning Tibet to a socialistic system of governance. Here is where things get a loittle tricky - the PCART would divde Tibet into three separate groups, and one of these (Chamdo) would begin moving to socialism quicker, under the supervision of the PLA. The Dalai Lama accepted this, but there was a lot of frustration here - PCART was designed essentaily to keep two separate Tibetan actors against each other (the Tibetan Government and the Panchen Lama) and to have another section (Chamdo) effectively operate under Chinese control with nominal Tibetan input. China thought this would all be a great success, but this basically just created a lot of disunity in Tibeta and a lot of anxiety about what China really wanted. Trust broke down, and then the uprising in Kham and Amdo start (again noting those regions were legally under Chinese jurisdiction, not 'Tibet'). Lhasa denounced them entirely, did not want to support the Khampas whatsoever, but all the fighting also craeted a refugee crisis. The root of the fighting, again, was the belief of Tibetans in those areas that Buddhism itself was under attack, and that now a large body of men (monks, many of whom lived quite poorly, particularly the lower level ones) suddenly had no income. This created anxiety in Tibet that the same situation was inevitable there as well.
For what it is worth, Mao himself was not partiularly worried by these anxieties or even the initial rebellions, believing that basically it was a consequence of economic hardship and that Tibetans would cease to resent the Chinese presence eventually. Also aggravating the situation was that PCART was bringing in many more Han cadres, who were alleged of being significantly more callous towards local customs and religion. Chinese officials had to backpedal on some of their initial reforms, tried to placate people, and also outlined that Han Chauvinism was causing resentment throughout Tibet and other autonomous regions. In 1957, after the hundred Flowers speech, Tibetans started voicing a lot more of these anxieties out in the open, and in the context of growing discontent in Kham, Chinese officials were growign a lot more cautious. The whole situation was deteriorating, and local Chinese offiicials in Tibet proper were growing a lot more dismissive of Tibetan complains, basically saying that they believed Tibet belonged in the 'bosom of the motherland'. And so, Han Chauvinism stopped being the enemy - local nationalism became the greater problem. The Khampa rebellion grew larger, affecting eastern Tibet too, and then with the CIA getting involved, the whole situation basically got set on fire.
The lessons here are sort of mixed. Tibetan elites, including many feudal ones, liked the CCP's early policies because essentially it helped them grow their own capital and 'develop' the region. But a lot of regular peasants were more resentful of what they saw as a sort of cultural elitism amongst the TIbetan elites (including the Dalai Lama) as well as the Chinese cadres. Chinese cadres often barely spoke the language, were not particularly sensitive to local needs, and the shifts in Sichuan in Kham and Amdo made people even more afraid. Couple this with PCART's disastrous policies and shifting elite sentiments, and stuff went out of control. Again, imo, the solution to this would have just been to set up a Tibetan Communist Party, supply them with funds and training, and have let Tibet develop its own unique course to revolution. It really is ultimately a sad thing that shit went the way it did. To say nothing, obviously, of the famine and some of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution that followed.
Awesome response thank you, from first reading it seems as if the approach taken did balkanized the region and as a result enflamed the tensions already there, I can see what you mean about empowering a Tibetean Communist Party would be the best option albeit hindsight 20/20, and yes the subsequent famine as a result of grain collectivization did harken back to some aspects of feudal Tibet. Something that I'm sure was a great impact was the KMT and Taiwan, which surely weakened Mao's trust of any organization outside of the CCP. Clearly a very nuanced and complex topic and while I agree there were issues stemming from how CCP handled Tibet but the western containment of the time probably forced Maos hand on top of other things.
I'm far from an expert so I'm glad you took the time to add to this, thanks.
Yea, I'm struggling to see the counter argument. I think it essentially boils down to "things there today are not very good, and China is to blame."
And I'm not sure the extent of truth even that has. I don't know much about Tibet, I admit.
Yea me either which is why I appretiate this discussion. Yeah clearly there are issues with corruption in the CCP, but western nations track record with intervention is quite a bit worse than China's...
But then who gets to decide what 'China' is in this context? The CCP did a lot of good but how can we accept that they essentially took the Qing Empire's borders and made it a singular nation? Even under the Qing, Tibet etc were not regarded as the same as the 'neidi' (mainland, internal provinces of China). Imo surely the Party could have just propped up local figures and let Tibet conduct its own revolution ie the Soviet model. Do we excuse India for squashing separatism in the name of unity against imperialism either? That was certainly the excuse for Indian troops smashing down militias in Hyderabad and the northeast. This idea that you need a singular polity no matter the cost is a foolish notion.
That was certainly the excuse for Indian troops smashing down militias in Hyderaba
What's not there to support military action in Hyderabad (South India)? Don't confuse this with Kashmir.. in Hyderabad only the ruler didn't want to join in india, majority of population actively rebelled against the Nizam rule and had no reservations joining india. In Kashmir it's reverse, ruler accepted to join but majority population didn't which is why its considered imperialism
Ah I am not referring to take out the Nizam, rather I am referring to the Indian troops massacring the communist and peasant rebels that made up the Telangana movement under the pretenses that they wanted an independent Hyderabad state.
"Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. 12 Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” 13 In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. 14 The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers."
I think that the immediate liberation via Mao was quite important but I think you have a good point for a goal of the sustained revolution there.
That sounds like nationalist brainworms.
There's nothing inherently good and a whole lot that's very much not good about people being politically organised into ethno-cultural nation states that control the resources those ethnocultural groups have managed to seize. The idea that they should be is a) kinda fashy ("ethnocultural" is often one hell of a dog whistle) b) not great from an individual or human rights standpoint, why should the location of your birth determine what laws you live under or what resources you have a right to? and c) if followed would lead to an unjust and uncommunist world even if each of those nation states were internally communist because among nation states resources would still be distributed arbitrarily and unequally, instead of on a from-each to each basis.
I never used the world "ethno-cultural," and I never would. I agree, that term is pretty fashy.
Like someone else in this thread said, no one likes missionaries with guns. Do you not think it's a fairly natural human impulse to not want to be ruled by a group of people who live far away, speak a different language, know little to nothing about you or your community, and make ruling decisions without listening to you? This is less of an issue with resource management and central planning of the economy, because I think you're very correct that access to resources should not depend on geography of birth, but in practice, socialist states have influenced more than just production and distribution through their policies.
In China, for example, same-sex marriage is still illegal and same-sex couples cannot adopt children, although there are limited civil unions. Would you want to be made to live under these laws in your own country? Answering "no" is not nationalism.
Glad we're on the same page with nation states. Sorry for assuming.
Agree that consent of the governed is important but strong disagree that what people can and can't do should be divided along geographic/"cultural" lines.
I think saying that non cis/straight people born in, or despite not being born in having gone through a great amount of effort to live in China shouldn't be allowed to adopt or get married but people born in/having gone to a great amount of effort to live in not China should be allowed to adopt or get married is definitely nationalism.
I'm a little opposed to the idea that different communities of people should enforce by violence different sets of laws (why should any same-sex couples not be allowed to adopt?) and very opposed to the idea that membership in those communities should be arbitrarily geographically distributed.
Do you think differently?
I'm definitely NOT trying to say that non-cishet people in China *shouldn't* be allowed to adopt or get married and should have a different standard than people elsewhere. People should be allowed to marry and adopt regardless of where they live, period.
Ideally these kinds of laws shouldn't be determined by geography, we agree on that. However, it's an unfortunate reality that change of attitudes does not happen uniformly across geographic or "cultural" lines. If an important social change (like accepting LGBT people and challenging cisheteronormativity) starts taking hold in a region with no power over its own laws governing the issue, this is an impediment to pushing change forward. Especially when the power to enforce these social standards is highly concentrated, it can be hard for a movement to get off the ground and make gains before getting stomped out from above.
Not supporting the confederates’ right to national self-determination in 2020 🙄
The real argument against it is what Robespierre said: "No one likes armed missionaries".
edit: found the full quote: "The most extravagant idea that can take root in the head of a politician is to believe that it is enough for one people to invade a foreign people to make it adopt its laws and constitution. No one likes armed missionaries; and the first advice given by nature and prudence is to repel them as enemies."
that doesn't change the fundamental dynamic at play here. Being set free against your will tends to not sit well with people. If it doesn't come from within, the legitimacy of a project is forever damaged.
MAnI wish I had been a Marxist in high school. It would of been so fun owning free Tibet college students when I was illegally in a bar
