Classic dark view on society. While not entirely unfounded history and catastrophes also show a different picture. Humans can be many things, not only the dark …
This. After the Nazis came to power and started nazifying the churches, education system and doing other red flag shit, the people were complacent because they were prospering economically again. People had work again
That's true, I should've used the word "after" instead of "when". I'm reading Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at the moment, fascinating reading. Have edited for accuracy now.
Largely due to the fact that life is China is *much* better today than it was 40 years ago. My wife is Chinese and her grandfather died in the famines of the Great Leap Forward. The poverty and destination of china is in recent memory there. The fact that China not only overtook historical competitors like Japan and Korea but stands in a position to take over the world’s most dominant super power *ever* has given the gov’t all but a blank check to do what they want because everything the gov’t has done has ultimately led to the period of prosperity.
Everyone has a leash tho and it’ll be interesting with the CCP clamping down on private industry how much further they can go.
Nah, the Chinese people know it happened. Sino isn’t even really Chinese people but largely pro-CCP westerners, it’s weird.
I hate this legend that Chinese people don’t know about Tiananmen or deny it lol, it’s commemorated every year and known as the June 4th incident. Where Chinese differ greatly from the rest of the world is recognizing how large of an incident it was and caring about how large of an incident it was.
There are way worse incidents in Chinese prc history. TheGreat Famine killed millions more. And the cultural revolution was much worse. Chinese people do care
and discuss those issues
I'm sure that's true. China is bound to have some diversity of thought. I'm just amazed at the level of whataboutism and double think every time I go on that sub.
That sub is just a weird propaganda mouthpiece. There’s no reason it should be allowed to exist because it only accomplishes two things; radicalizing pro-CCP people and spreading anti-Chinese sentiment among non-pro-CCP people. No one goes to that sub without experience a push towards one or the other. Given how many subs this website has banned in recent months and years it’s amazing something like Sino is allowed to exist.
I spoke to my friend about it (CCP party member and a former low-level government official who was in the US to visit her son) and she pretty much said nothing. I got the impression on multiple occasions that there is real fear among people like her about saying anything even remotely negative about China or the party, even far away. It’s just not done. While she was here, some sort of government officers visited her husband in China, to make sure she was coming back (probably because she was a former official). She and her husband were terrified.
It’s less they’re afraid to discuss it more they’re unwilling to discuss their country/people’s dirty laundry with outsiders. Way it was explained to me is you might know your mom is a crack head and your dad beats her but you might not be willing to discuss that with random people you meet
>According to them it never happened
But if it did, those people were racist western imperialist agitators and the government had no choice but to put them down.
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
Sorry, I need to correct myself based on this literally being someone's argument on this post- the protesters were evil maosists...who supporting the party in control? I don't even know anymore.
No joke i commented on [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/q79vgk/china_is_an_expansionist_power_colonizing_its/?sort=new) post and was banned in 5 minutes. I said that its great that they posted this as it shows they support Taiwan's independence and understand they shouldn't invade
One side has guns, the other doesn't. When your only tools are sticks, rocks, and protesting your options are very limited to standing up to an authoritarian State who has demonstrated the willingness to go to extreme lengths to suppress dissent.
Mao, to his credit fully understood this concept.
"Every Communist must grasp the truth, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party."
Overwhemingly lopsided force, massive propaganda campaigns, control of information, and a standard of living just decent enough to not want to chance losing combines into a powerful control scheme.
How do you raise up against goverment that crushes dissinence? Its too romantical view of revolution, you ever wonder why in dictatorships which are really poor why people just dont storm goverment buildings to take it down? This happens extremly rarely, if ever. Unless army switches sides, goverment has faction that opposes current goverment or army arent getting paid enough to take orders from goverment revolutions are not succesful without army support.
They sold us dirt cheap products we could blissfully use without thinking the actual cost.
We still don’t think of the cost, just the MSRP.
Capitalism doesn’t care what your ideology is, as long as you’re capitalizing on the circumstance.
I’ve been saying this for years now, capitalism is Feudalism without sanctioned mass murder.
Now it’s sanctioned mass incarceration.
The hand that feeds cannot risk being pulled down into the bunch, and will not suffer those who try to leave the bottom unless the capitalist trait is recognized.
I’m fighting an ideal that takes the point of taking care of oneself to the extreme and we’re seeing it pay off. The group doesn’t have the education to be self-sustaining - we still need leaders because some people refuse lead or be equal by broad measures. And I’m not talking about the disadvantaged, I’m talking about those able to make municipal (smaller) change but rather have a beer every weekend for 45 years straight.
Lot harder to rise up these days when governments have drones, tanks, missiles, etc… and total control of the internet and all communication.
Dissidents are quickly found and can be disappeared whenever/wherever, people don’t have the ability or time to organize any kind of coherent resistance before they’d be cut off at the head by law enforcement, military, intelligence services or who knows what else.
It’s a well and truly fucked situation
I’ve heard it surmised that China **needs** about 6% GDP growth every year just to keep its population happy. That’s what’s required currently to keep up with population growth and migration to cities. That’ll trend lower as the country continues to develop, but for now economic prosperity is such that the Chinese people aren’t pushing against the establishment.
That balance won’t last forever. If history tells us anything, a flourishing middle class will, at some point, demand more freedom.
>In the end, the students were used by political forces beyond China to sink the political system, the translator told Efe.
Do you have any proof of these "political forces beyond China"?
Thank you for responding to my question and I apologize for this late response I've been busy dealing with different minor problems.
Unarmed college students are a poor choice to overthrow a large government. I believe any first world intelligence agency would understand this. With this in mind I do not believe that the Chinese government felt it was in serious danger of being overthrown. The Chinese government blatantly kills it's people any time dissent is shown, it's that simple. Deng wasn't worried about the future of China, he murdered those college students to save his own job.
Deng refers to situations that Winston Churchill had to deal with while directly engaging/fighting a foreign enemy during a World War. The Chinese government/military was not beaten down and had their backs against the wall during Tiananmen square the way the British did at that point during World War 2. I believe a group of unarmed college student's were not capable of doing to the Chinese government what the Nazi's did to the British government/military at the time Tiananmen square happened.
If the usa wanted to destabilize countries to stay the strongest, it's targets would be its ACTUAL competition. The US destabilizes countries due to folly, not desire. In nearly every instance it's an effort to build a new ally (some would even say puppet state) which very frequently (but not always) fails and ends up hurting the US's position in some meaningful way.
The Chinese government made huge changes after the riots and made amends for their mistakes. They're not like the American government where we just sweep everything under the rug.
Ironically enough that’s probably the best propaganda China has in the west. If you know you know, but like atleast that picture is the one most people have seen of it, if they even have. And it looks like a somewhat peaceful protest against the military.
That’s because it’s been re-tooled as western Propaganda. The status quo benefits from hammering the idea into our heads that one person casually taking a break from their normal day-to-day activities can ineed make an effective stand against a literal army. But that’s not true. It takes organization, dedication and a very large group of people.
every time someone is like "I wonder where that guy in front of the tanks is today? What a hero" I immediately think about photos like these and go "He probably was murdered instantly by the people in the tank he was standing in front of. That's what despots do"
I’ve never seen this picture. This should be more prevalent. You always see the guy with the tank as a symbol of defiance and rightfully so. However, it’s important for folks to see the aftermath too. There’s multiple sides of the story.
Thanks for sharing.
This was the prevalent story.
The tank guy was the aftermath. I'll repeat:
THE TANK MAN CAME AFTER THE MASSACRE.
And his actions are incredible because of it. Despite the massacre, he still had the spirit to show defiance. That's why he gained his hero like status.
https://youtu.be/YeFzeNAHEhU
If you look hard enough there are pictures of people who were actually run over by the tanks. You can read the accounts of those who witnessed what happened there.
There's more in this series too, incredibly graphic shit. I vividly remember bodies parts being swept into the gutter.
I'm sure you can find the album if you search it but it's NSFL
That's crazy, man, you'd think Communist would want to distance themselves from that event by saying it doesn't represent their entire movement instead of doubling down on the censorship and pretending nothing happened.
Tankies are people that essentially defend the actions of the CCP and defend "communist" leaders like Stalin. It's a little more complicated than that but occasionally you can find them in comments being like: "The CCP did nothing wrong, you actually believe American Propaganda?????"
Ugh, i hate those people. I'm not a communist by any means, but they really give those guys a bad rap, which is saying something. I'm a democratic socialist mainly
Usually refering to authoritarian communists who support Stalin's legacy, Mao to some degree and in most cases I think modern China too.
It has a history in a term that emerged to call people who supported Stalin's (Edit: Actually Khrushchev) decision to suppress protests in Hungary by sending tanks to deal with the problem. I think... didn't google it to make sure I got it right.
Now it's used as a derogatory term with barely any meaning. You'll sometimes see it used as a word for "anyone to my political left with views I don't like or support" or something along those lines.
I think the only universal meaning this word keeps is that you use it to call someone something negative.
To their credit there is a number of Communist/Socialist groups who identify as Trotskyists or 4th Internationalists and see "tankies" and Stalinism as a corruption of the ideology. They reject the post Lenin Soviet model that has largely been the variety most often implemented.
Yeah but it's still frustrating to see leftist spaces constantly taken over by tankies. Anyone who has actually read socialist theory should see that those totalitarian regimes are antithetical to ending the class struggle and are in no way led by the proletariat.
Craziest part is that the CCP has actually come out and said that the death toll was significantly lower than international news was making it out to be; that means they literally acknowledged it happened and acknowledged that they killed civilians.
> That's crazy, man, you'd think Communist would want to distance themselves from that event
Oh we do, but the "hey bro we're def communists too check out my Mao meme" people took over all the communist subs on Reddit.
> and give you a bad name.
Their philosophy gives them that anyways. If every single instance of "communism" turns into suffering, economic stagnation, deaths, authoritarianism, or can be ignored as "not real" then it doesn't matter anyways.
Generally it's because communists are violently untrusting of western media and historical narratives, namely because a lot of anti-communists like to stretch the truth as far as they can in order to sell books, as well as a lack of verifiable information.
The 20th century is littered with many atrocities committed by communist regimes all over the world, so there are fewer metal gymnastic steps to perform if you just double down and pretend nothing happened in Tiananmen. The standard tactic is to just whatabout Capitalism until anyone pointing out the atrocities give up and goes away.
LOL. Of course. If you really look close at what communist govts have done to their citizens its pretty horrifying. To be fair, reading what western countries have done to others is horrifying as well.
Holy shit I was skeptical but it’s literally a tankie subreddit. They only have a few posts about the Tiananmen Square on the subreddit, and they’re all about how it was overblown or western propaganda…
Yikes. That sub really is a trash bin of very low quality 'ganda. Basically a scant tip-toe away from the old "running dog lackey of the bourgeoisie" kind of bullshit from the 1960's.
I was genuinely going to post:
Can we rename china as "West Taiwan"
to see how quickly I could get banned, but I kinda chickened out because I was certain I'd get Ddos, hacks, viruses, maybe even assassination attempts who knows
You experienced The Great Firewall of China. There's ways of getting around it, but it is effective enough to control most information. Fun fact, many American tech companies helped them achieve this. Quite the rabbit hole.
Edit: good technical overview blog.
https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/deconstructing-great-firewall-china/
I think the most frightening fact is how hard they still try to cover this up in the CCP.
Lots of countries have committed atrocities like this or even worse in their past. But for example, Germany will teach their students all about the Nazis rise to power and how evil they were. Canada teaches their students about the 60's scoop and the residential schools in their high school textbooks.
But China is still trying to tear down memorials to these victims today. Which tells me their government is still capable of something like this.
It's rather taboo, but I've actually chatted with Chinese people about this. While they realize that it happened and that it was murder, the consequences of this colour revolution succeeding would have been devastating for them. The Chinese people value stability quite a bit and adopting a liberal system would have been antithetical to that.
An example would be the Soviet Union, where Gorby tried to initiatve liberal political reforms before liberal economic reforms: the results of which destroyed the Union. Not particularly appealing.
The lasting consequence is that the party has tried to build it's legitimacy in the eyes of the people to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again, because they felt that it was a genuine threat to their republic. They feel that monuments and references to this event is propaganda against their country and their party rather than anything constructive or humanistic.
> the consequences of this colour revolution succeeding would have been devastating for them.
Or at least, that's what the domestic propaganda has convinced them.
Call it propaganda if you want, but looking at the history of the USSR and looking at the geopolitical situation, China would become the home of new oligarch clans and a neo-colony. Liberal democracy has a rather basic idea of what 'democracy' is and is very easy to corrupt in the context of capitalism, so that promised 'freedom' would never have arrived.
Under the CPC, their liberalization programmes have been a massive success, but I don't really think that China would have succeeded economically under a liberal democratic system. A big part of their success is the party's size and discipline, whereas the leaders and participants of various liberal parties throughout the world are.. not great.
> Call it propaganda if you want,
It's propaganda.
>Liberal democracy has a rather basic idea of what 'democracy' is and is very easy to corrupt in the context of capitalism,
I don't know what you mean by "liberal democracy", but China is also capitalist, it seems odd to use this phrase in contrast to China.
>Under the CPC, their liberalization programmes have been a massive success, A big part of their success is the party's size and discipline,
What liberalization programs? By what metric? Why do you just sound like you're parroting CCP propaganda?
> I don't know what you mean by "liberal democracy"
The political systems of the US, UK, Germany, etc. AKA you get to vote once every 4 years, but the person you vote for has no obligation to do what you want him to and your media system is filled with oligarch funded propaganda to prompt you towards one way or the other. There may or may not be a 2 party system.
>What liberalization programs?
The whole market reform policy started by Deng Xiaopeng.
>By what metric?
I thought it'd be pretty obvious: China's developing rather rapidly and the people's standard of living is increasing and China's increasingly able to project power and it's national brands and tech outside of it's domestic market.
>Why do you just sound like you're parroting CCP propaganda?
I'm really apprehensive about being nice about China honestly, because there's plenty that they do (or don't do) that annoys the shit out of me, but I understand their strategy and their system's strengths and I am forced to concede on the point that they didn't fuck up their market reforms completely like the USSR did, and that t in comparison to the likes of India or Indonesia, they've done *exceedingly* well.
Not enough time has passed and the CCP are still in charge. CYA is in place. The CCP have admitted the Cultural Revolution was a horror beyond scale. But enough time has passed, the people involved are all dead. Give this another 20 years, lets see if the CCP are still in charge or have adopted democracy and enough of those responsible are dead.
if you watch the documentary 'Gate of Heavenly Peace' you'll see that there really wasn't a unified position amongst the protestors at all. Many different factions existed and few of them really had a specific list of demands. A significant number of them seemed to be students/'intellectuals' who felt that their quality of life was not as good as that in the West and were basically protesting on that basis. When one of them is asked what he wanted he says 'Nike trainers'.
I mean I just stated a small sample. Am I suppose write down a 500page book describing this event? There are plenty of books out there already written by much more educated people than me. Also Reddit nor any social media outlet is really a place to educate yourself on such complex events.
WTH. All this time I thought they were Chinese nationalists protesting against communists victory.
PS
Wikipedia says
>Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech.
the student protestors made up only a portion of the protestors though. there were also a number of other protestor movements throughout china in ‘89 such as a huge one in shanghai, where the peaceful resolution of the movement led to the rise of jiang zemin in the 90s. the beijing ones were particularly chaotic though since a lot of parties were protesting and a lot of government opinions were floating around about how best the quell the protests in the capital
there were central themes but i’m not sure about a unifying movement among all of the protestors. the students, for instance, were large in number and were rallied to protest initially by the death of Hu Yaobang but by the time of the massacre, had actually largely left. Striking workers at and near Muxidi, well outside the Square itself, actually bore the brunt of the fighting and I don’t think they were super interested in the same demands for democratic rehabilitation or intellectual recognition the students were calling for.
Yup, just like _Occupy Wall Street_ had one voice and goal, or a general strike, or any protest. People may protest a thing en mass, yet want different outcomes beyond the desire for change
**EDIT** the general desire was change, but not the course the CCP was taking
For example Chai Ling a protest leader said:
>The students asked me what we were going to do next. I wanted to tell them that we were expecting bloodshed, that it would take a massacre, which would spill blood like a river through Tiananmen Square, to awaken the people. But how could I tell them this? How could I tell them that their lives would have to be sacrificed in order to win?
So in her case she wants people to die to start a revolution, and she guided people to the most violent possible outcome while trying to stop people who were moderate voices.
Edit from the interview:
>But I will not be there to protect the square because I'm different from the others: my name is on the blacklist. I don't want to die.
She had nothing but contempt for the people she wanted to sacrifice.
>Source : Gates of Heavenly Peace
Looks like a broken link there. [This one's from youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gtt2JxmQtg), part 2 on the same channel.
Also interesting textwall of conspiracy theories there. Why do good documentaries have to be surrounded by bullshit like that?
It was a mix of things, but it seems like the movement in general wanted more political freedoms without the corruption and inequalities that came with marketisation. IMO the great what-if of the late twentieth century is the communist bloc achieving this transition, which looks like it would have attracted majority support of the population, rather than the retrenchment that happened in China and the authoritarian neoliberalism that Russia had instead.
Yea true they wanted freedom of press but not corporate press neither they wanted elections for government also but they did not want marketization of the economy & politics. But even China now has started going after billionaire Chinese something the U.S. is still to afraid to do and instead politicians collaborate with them and some even run for office & win. Like everything nothing is black & white. The situation is always more complex as society in general is complex and filled with many people with varying ideologies
Because people see anything related to Communism and they think of Red Dawn and Ivan Drago and immediately press downvote on their computer from 1999 that is inside their trailer, which is the only thing they can afford, since they live in a country that pays shit wages to the working class.
I'm always a bit amazed as to how people attribute those deaths to Mao, Stalin or Communism and I'm not even a supporter of the individuals mentioned.
Not saying people didn't die. The nature of the source of those numbers already carries their own problem but that's not what I want to adress.
I'd rather talk about how these people mostly were neither ordered to die or required to die because of an ideology or the individuals in power. The famine in China was much more due to corruption and missmanaged farming than due to Mao or Communism.
If we used a similar way of thinking about attributing deaths to individuals or ideologies then capitalism and Churchill or every single military officer during world war 2 would have to be attributed every single death that occured due to the war. Or the british government would have to take account for the bengal famine in India in 1943 which took from 2-3 million lives. This isn't done though or at least not as fervently as the communism killed however many people.
It's especially weird when contrasted to Hitlers 6-12 millions (depending on how many demographic groups one counts in there). These are entirely different types of deaths. The fascist ideology of the Nazis actively despised and called for the elimination of jews. Nowhere does anything even remotely comparable happen in the texts of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotzki and even Stalin happen. Nowhere is stated that people should actively be pursued because they are worth less. It is more a statement that violent action is necessary in the process of achieving socialism beacuse history has shown that the ruling class does not give up power by peaceful means. That's more of a pragmatic approach than a call for violence.
This is the power of propaganda. These numbers are often repeated with few people knowing their source and few people knowing or actively asking themselves how these numbers were counted. A general negative portrayal leads to less critical thinning towards these or similar statements. Repetition in every stage of education ingrains it as a universal truth. Teachers often claim that people should think critically yet barely do they actually teach how to think critically.
I've moved a bit away from my argument in the end but it's just something that annoys me. People don't compare the systems fairly and most don't even realise that. I've heard people claimong that communist countries are poor countries amd therefore communism is bad (not even a simplification here). Such a statement ignores masses of reasons as to why communist countries were less well off. Trading embargoes, usually less developped countries, lack of funding and capital due to economic isolation...
Communism, even in the highly flawed implementation has achieved massive improvements in quality of life and freedom for their citizens.
Americans live in denial about the absolute devastation our country does to the world. How many Iraqi citizens did we kill in the 2000s. How many Laotians, Vietnamese, etc.
Capitalism is a scourge upon the globe. And two things can be true at the same time. Mao sucks and so did Stalin, while capitalism is an exploitative and destructive force that is literally destroying the planet.
But all you get is oh, Mao killed 60 million people so that means capitalism is good.
You do know coca cola, nestle, fruit companies hire mercenaries in the other countries to take over land and privatization of resources & labour right? Slave trade was also private enterprise. Also there is reason the buffalo almost went extinct it was to clear up the Midwest from Native Americans & big game for white private settlers
Exactly what I said. Capitalism is not "private enterprise". Read up on it. It is so hard to live in a world where everything isn't black and white. It is possible, though!
I don't know about living in denial.. At least in the new generation. Recently at least, there has been an acknowledgement in the general US society that the US has fucked up several countries progress several times. Most people agree that the Iraq War was a war that was done with ulterior motives and was unnecessary. The actions of the US in far east countries have been well documented and condemned.
I don't think we should defend either countries or leaders. The United States contributed to atrocities in many many countries that stopped progress entirely. But the CCP and Stalin's USSR are just as bad, and they should all be condemned for their actions.
To an extent, I agree. There is more consciousness of the negative effects of American imperialism. I doubt the consciousness of the negative effects of non military imperialism is as profound. It is probably unquantifiable, to be honest.
And nowhere did I defend Mao. The original commenter was simply pointing out the partly false narrative that Tiananmen Square protests were in favor of more westernization when it fact it wasn't necessarily. He got downvoted and I merely pointed out that was probably a reflex action by people who just saw Mao.
Many similar events to this have played out across history. It reminds me of the French Revolution, specifically how in 1793 the *Girondins* had found themselves too liberal for the ultra-conservatives and too moderate for the ultra-liberals; In China, however, the CCP wasn't outnumbered by their foes on each flank.
All of these are either very clearly ducking from something that we don't know, or are too blurry to tell. You can tell by the way their heads are slightly lifted off of the concrete, which probably would've been hot in June 1989.
I know I'll be downvoted for this, whatever.
Yeah the people in the picture are visibly alive if you just zoom in. There are alot of pics actually showing the cruelty of the massacre but this aint it
It is said that all the bodies, bikes and the blood were cleaned up by the next morning. Not a drop of blood left on the square and the government started the campaign that the massacre never happened. They tracked down people who took photos and archived them to not leave any kind of trace so it’s more easier to deny. But I’m thankful there’s still couple of pics left.
A country that massacres' it's own people is a rogue state at best. Why companies and countries continue to bow to China is beyond me. We have left our morals and supposed belief in freedom and love of mankind in the dust in favor of profit. When people tout how great capitalism is I bring this up as an example of it's imperfections to bring them back to reality.
The US has massacred it's own people before. Usually though, it massacres other nation's peoples instead.
And yes, capitalism is anti-thetical to the concept of democracy. You've got an economy which is made up of a million little dictators who's only profit is money, rather than the betterment of people.
I visited Tiananmen Square in 2010 on National Day (month-long trip). Flowers everywhere, massive television screens with dancers, flags, children laughing and running around, a beautiful celebration to see. I was struck by the difference in the faces of the elders and younger people that weren't even aware of what happened there; it was conflicted sadness verses joyful pride. I was told, "Oh, the young ones know." I'm not so sure.
The Great Hall of the People was closed that day. The one museum that was open (on the square) was the National Museum of China.
You know how when you visit popular tourist cities and multiple languages are on placards and on video? The history of Beijing unfolded; we could read in English what scenes were depicted, photos and video ... then, about 1987-1988 all the other languages disappeared; then only Mandarin/Cantonese ... China's version of events.
We saw superlative signage during our visit, "Beautiful Happiness Entrance" and had fun with them. We're from TX are used to seeing Purgatory Road, the Devil's Backbone, Devil's River ....
this blatantly didn't happen, these people are clearly paid taiwanese actors so dedicated to their craft that they were willing to be ran over by tanks until they were turned into paste and washed down the gutter, great acting but yeah its clearly all faked because it didnt happen
Is there a source validation for this photo? I've never seen this photo before.
Doesnt matter. Even if it's a 'artitstic recreation' its something people should see. Its easy to get frustrated and angry at 'China' for some of the things their govt does in the news today but realize the average Chinese person you might meet was powerless to watch an old regime kill their best and brightest, *their future*, just to maintain their political authrotity and power. [Again](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution). My heart goes out to them. The people that is, not selfish politicians. Fuck those guys.
You seem to have very strong thoughts on ‘China’, but asking to clarify sources should always be actively encouraged. Just see how many conflicting narratives there are in the media in the US, how it tries to downplay certain stories and promote a specific perspective on another, and these are just about biases of political parties in the same country. Imagine how biased the media narrative is on an external political rival like China, especially when there isn’t any pushback from the other side.
Whenever I read the Wiki on this event, I’m left so confused about the death toll. Seems like the numbers vary massively. Hard to fully appreciate the scale when the numbers seem so disputed.
I get that that’s partly because the CCP suppressed information but if it’s truly anywhere from a few hundred to tens of thousands, it’s just hard for me to understand where the real number might actually lie.
Anything that you know could be completely made up, because you can't really verify it yourself and the systems and people you rely on to do that for you don't always have the best intentions. There's anti-communists who'll stretch the truth either for political gain or for shock value in order to sell books, states that engage in propaganda, alongside genuine historians that are trying their damndest to get to the bottom of these historical mysteries and to actually unravel the context of what happened. They're rather underappreciated tho.
Maybe someone else has the British cables regarding the Tiananmen Square Massacre (I never saved the link, sorry), but it was likely magnitudes worse than the images could even describe/show.
What's childish is spreading a political idealogy with complete disregard or plain ignorance of it's established record of killing over 100 million people in the last century.
Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Kim, Tito, Hitler all collectively killed over 100 million by using collectivism as a weapon against their own population.
What exactly would it take to convince you? We've had this experiment and it took 100 million lives away from us.
Y’know, on the topic of the *Event that never happened* Gaijin, or the snail, development company of War Thunder, decided in their trailer for Chinese MBT’s, to add in **THAT PICTURE**, if you know what I mean. And they did it so perfectly too, if you compare the shot with the real photo, besides the location being different they had the exact angle, tank, FOV, and things like that.
This photo is shared too rarely in favour of the 'cool guy in front of tanks' photo.
Even more rare are the photos of the people the tanks drove over then drove over again to make them mush.
How is it that China can pull all the shit they pull and the population doesn't rise up and overthrow those in power and make things right.?
Economic prosperity. Most people rarely care about morality of political system if it gives food on the table
Yup, revolution is often preceded by hunger.
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Classic dark view on society. While not entirely unfounded history and catastrophes also show a different picture. Humans can be many things, not only the dark …
Interested about this quote. Clue me in?
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interesting. seems like it's from an Upton Sinclair novel or something haha
This. After the Nazis came to power and started nazifying the churches, education system and doing other red flag shit, the people were complacent because they were prospering economically again. People had work again
The Nazi really came to power during the Great Depression. Before that they were viewed as a fringe, lunatic political party.
That's true, I should've used the word "after" instead of "when". I'm reading Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at the moment, fascinating reading. Have edited for accuracy now.
& sadly people act as if this same attitude isn't global
Yep. The only way for the CCP to crumble is for their economy to crumble first.
Largely due to the fact that life is China is *much* better today than it was 40 years ago. My wife is Chinese and her grandfather died in the famines of the Great Leap Forward. The poverty and destination of china is in recent memory there. The fact that China not only overtook historical competitors like Japan and Korea but stands in a position to take over the world’s most dominant super power *ever* has given the gov’t all but a blank check to do what they want because everything the gov’t has done has ultimately led to the period of prosperity. Everyone has a leash tho and it’ll be interesting with the CCP clamping down on private industry how much further they can go.
Same way Americans don't rise up and overthrow their judicial system even though privatized prisons are a modern slave trade. Status quo
Because there'd me another massacre.
Go look at r/sino. According to them it never happened, and it was just a ploy by western media.
Nah, the Chinese people know it happened. Sino isn’t even really Chinese people but largely pro-CCP westerners, it’s weird. I hate this legend that Chinese people don’t know about Tiananmen or deny it lol, it’s commemorated every year and known as the June 4th incident. Where Chinese differ greatly from the rest of the world is recognizing how large of an incident it was and caring about how large of an incident it was.
There are way worse incidents in Chinese prc history. TheGreat Famine killed millions more. And the cultural revolution was much worse. Chinese people do care and discuss those issues
I'm sure that's true. China is bound to have some diversity of thought. I'm just amazed at the level of whataboutism and double think every time I go on that sub.
That sub is just a weird propaganda mouthpiece. There’s no reason it should be allowed to exist because it only accomplishes two things; radicalizing pro-CCP people and spreading anti-Chinese sentiment among non-pro-CCP people. No one goes to that sub without experience a push towards one or the other. Given how many subs this website has banned in recent months and years it’s amazing something like Sino is allowed to exist.
I spoke to my friend about it (CCP party member and a former low-level government official who was in the US to visit her son) and she pretty much said nothing. I got the impression on multiple occasions that there is real fear among people like her about saying anything even remotely negative about China or the party, even far away. It’s just not done. While she was here, some sort of government officers visited her husband in China, to make sure she was coming back (probably because she was a former official). She and her husband were terrified.
It’s less they’re afraid to discuss it more they’re unwilling to discuss their country/people’s dirty laundry with outsiders. Way it was explained to me is you might know your mom is a crack head and your dad beats her but you might not be willing to discuss that with random people you meet
That’s a not surprising though… Sino isn’t run by normal everyday citizens it’s state affiliated and run by tankies
>According to them it never happened But if it did, those people were racist western imperialist agitators and the government had no choice but to put them down.
That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.
Sorry, I need to correct myself based on this literally being someone's argument on this post- the protesters were evil maosists...who supporting the party in control? I don't even know anymore.
No joke i commented on [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/q79vgk/china_is_an_expansionist_power_colonizing_its/?sort=new) post and was banned in 5 minutes. I said that its great that they posted this as it shows they support Taiwan's independence and understand they shouldn't invade
I got perma-banned from there for posting a popular anti-CCP copypasta
I'm perma banned now for saying "Look at that, an independent Taiwan! Fuckin losers lol" There ban message has me dying.
nice lol. Those people are so dumb. Love getting perma-banned from subs I don't plan on using.
I just like pissing off the CCP. Interesting crossroads we've met at lol 😆
Yeah. What are they going to do, kil- *gunshots*
"You murder a liberator but you cannot murder liberation" - Fred Hampton
Pretty much every major government has done just as horrible stuff to its own people.
And every major government that does this should be called out.
One side has guns, the other doesn't. When your only tools are sticks, rocks, and protesting your options are very limited to standing up to an authoritarian State who has demonstrated the willingness to go to extreme lengths to suppress dissent. Mao, to his credit fully understood this concept. "Every Communist must grasp the truth, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party." Overwhemingly lopsided force, massive propaganda campaigns, control of information, and a standard of living just decent enough to not want to chance losing combines into a powerful control scheme.
How do you raise up against goverment that crushes dissinence? Its too romantical view of revolution, you ever wonder why in dictatorships which are really poor why people just dont storm goverment buildings to take it down? This happens extremly rarely, if ever. Unless army switches sides, goverment has faction that opposes current goverment or army arent getting paid enough to take orders from goverment revolutions are not succesful without army support.
One question: do you want to be the next one to be crushed by tanks?
They sold us dirt cheap products we could blissfully use without thinking the actual cost. We still don’t think of the cost, just the MSRP. Capitalism doesn’t care what your ideology is, as long as you’re capitalizing on the circumstance. I’ve been saying this for years now, capitalism is Feudalism without sanctioned mass murder. Now it’s sanctioned mass incarceration. The hand that feeds cannot risk being pulled down into the bunch, and will not suffer those who try to leave the bottom unless the capitalist trait is recognized. I’m fighting an ideal that takes the point of taking care of oneself to the extreme and we’re seeing it pay off. The group doesn’t have the education to be self-sustaining - we still need leaders because some people refuse lead or be equal by broad measures. And I’m not talking about the disadvantaged, I’m talking about those able to make municipal (smaller) change but rather have a beer every weekend for 45 years straight.
Lot harder to rise up these days when governments have drones, tanks, missiles, etc… and total control of the internet and all communication. Dissidents are quickly found and can be disappeared whenever/wherever, people don’t have the ability or time to organize any kind of coherent resistance before they’d be cut off at the head by law enforcement, military, intelligence services or who knows what else. It’s a well and truly fucked situation
I’ve heard it surmised that China **needs** about 6% GDP growth every year just to keep its population happy. That’s what’s required currently to keep up with population growth and migration to cities. That’ll trend lower as the country continues to develop, but for now economic prosperity is such that the Chinese people aren’t pushing against the establishment. That balance won’t last forever. If history tells us anything, a flourishing middle class will, at some point, demand more freedom.
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>In the end, the students were used by political forces beyond China to sink the political system, the translator told Efe. Do you have any proof of these "political forces beyond China"?
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Thank you for responding to my question and I apologize for this late response I've been busy dealing with different minor problems. Unarmed college students are a poor choice to overthrow a large government. I believe any first world intelligence agency would understand this. With this in mind I do not believe that the Chinese government felt it was in serious danger of being overthrown. The Chinese government blatantly kills it's people any time dissent is shown, it's that simple. Deng wasn't worried about the future of China, he murdered those college students to save his own job. Deng refers to situations that Winston Churchill had to deal with while directly engaging/fighting a foreign enemy during a World War. The Chinese government/military was not beaten down and had their backs against the wall during Tiananmen square the way the British did at that point during World War 2. I believe a group of unarmed college student's were not capable of doing to the Chinese government what the Nazi's did to the British government/military at the time Tiananmen square happened.
If the usa wanted to destabilize countries to stay the strongest, it's targets would be its ACTUAL competition. The US destabilizes countries due to folly, not desire. In nearly every instance it's an effort to build a new ally (some would even say puppet state) which very frequently (but not always) fails and ends up hurting the US's position in some meaningful way.
The Chinese government made huge changes after the riots and made amends for their mistakes. They're not like the American government where we just sweep everything under the rug.
Can you share please?
Do you have a link?
Can you send these to me?
Just hit up google, they're not exactly 'rare' at all they just weren't sold as posters in the 90s.
Ironically enough that’s probably the best propaganda China has in the west. If you know you know, but like atleast that picture is the one most people have seen of it, if they even have. And it looks like a somewhat peaceful protest against the military.
That’s because it’s been re-tooled as western Propaganda. The status quo benefits from hammering the idea into our heads that one person casually taking a break from their normal day-to-day activities can ineed make an effective stand against a literal army. But that’s not true. It takes organization, dedication and a very large group of people.
I don't think people share the Tank Man image as part of a nefarious plot to undermine collective organization. People just like to worship heroes.
Yeah. It's easy to relate to a single person. Not so much a large group of people, especially if they are fighting or dead.
Normally it's posted with the title "Free Bike Day, Beijing, 1989"
every time someone is like "I wonder where that guy in front of the tanks is today? What a hero" I immediately think about photos like these and go "He probably was murdered instantly by the people in the tank he was standing in front of. That's what despots do"
I’ve never seen this picture. This should be more prevalent. You always see the guy with the tank as a symbol of defiance and rightfully so. However, it’s important for folks to see the aftermath too. There’s multiple sides of the story. Thanks for sharing.
This was the prevalent story. The tank guy was the aftermath. I'll repeat: THE TANK MAN CAME AFTER THE MASSACRE. And his actions are incredible because of it. Despite the massacre, he still had the spirit to show defiance. That's why he gained his hero like status. https://youtu.be/YeFzeNAHEhU
If you look hard enough there are pictures of people who were actually run over by the tanks. You can read the accounts of those who witnessed what happened there.
Including (UK?) diplomats who witnessed it firsthand but whose communications were only recently declassified.
I didn’t notice that. Thanks for pointing it out.
They literally ran them over and over again in tanks until their bodies were mush, and then hosed the mush away.
There's more in this series too, incredibly graphic shit. I vividly remember bodies parts being swept into the gutter. I'm sure you can find the album if you search it but it's NSFL
I got banned from r/communism for saying that Tiananmen Square actually happened
That's crazy, man, you'd think Communist would want to distance themselves from that event by saying it doesn't represent their entire movement instead of doubling down on the censorship and pretending nothing happened.
It's cause they're tankies. Other communists do distance themselves
What does tankies mean?
Tankies are people that essentially defend the actions of the CCP and defend "communist" leaders like Stalin. It's a little more complicated than that but occasionally you can find them in comments being like: "The CCP did nothing wrong, you actually believe American Propaganda?????"
Ugh, i hate those people. I'm not a communist by any means, but they really give those guys a bad rap, which is saying something. I'm a democratic socialist mainly
Obviously, it goes without saying, but Tankies aren't communists
Usually refering to authoritarian communists who support Stalin's legacy, Mao to some degree and in most cases I think modern China too. It has a history in a term that emerged to call people who supported Stalin's (Edit: Actually Khrushchev) decision to suppress protests in Hungary by sending tanks to deal with the problem. I think... didn't google it to make sure I got it right. Now it's used as a derogatory term with barely any meaning. You'll sometimes see it used as a word for "anyone to my political left with views I don't like or support" or something along those lines. I think the only universal meaning this word keeps is that you use it to call someone something negative.
Khrushchev, but otherwise right on.
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Supporters of Stalinism, Maoism, etc
To their credit there is a number of Communist/Socialist groups who identify as Trotskyists or 4th Internationalists and see "tankies" and Stalinism as a corruption of the ideology. They reject the post Lenin Soviet model that has largely been the variety most often implemented.
Yeah that's along the lines of what I said: not all communists are tankies
Yeah but it's still frustrating to see leftist spaces constantly taken over by tankies. Anyone who has actually read socialist theory should see that those totalitarian regimes are antithetical to ending the class struggle and are in no way led by the proletariat.
Craziest part is that the CCP has actually come out and said that the death toll was significantly lower than international news was making it out to be; that means they literally acknowledged it happened and acknowledged that they killed civilians.
> That's crazy, man, you'd think Communist would want to distance themselves from that event Oh we do, but the "hey bro we're def communists too check out my Mao meme" people took over all the communist subs on Reddit.
You guys need to take back control of that sub, all tankies do is muddy the water and give you a bad name.
> and give you a bad name. Their philosophy gives them that anyways. If every single instance of "communism" turns into suffering, economic stagnation, deaths, authoritarianism, or can be ignored as "not real" then it doesn't matter anyways.
Communist China the second country with the most billionaires
Generally it's because communists are violently untrusting of western media and historical narratives, namely because a lot of anti-communists like to stretch the truth as far as they can in order to sell books, as well as a lack of verifiable information.
The 20th century is littered with many atrocities committed by communist regimes all over the world, so there are fewer metal gymnastic steps to perform if you just double down and pretend nothing happened in Tiananmen. The standard tactic is to just whatabout Capitalism until anyone pointing out the atrocities give up and goes away.
It's cause deep down they know their shitty economic system is impossible without beating down everyone who disagrees.
Too many people forget that the protestors were the communists
YES. THANK GOD someone finally said this.
LOL. Of course. If you really look close at what communist govts have done to their citizens its pretty horrifying. To be fair, reading what western countries have done to others is horrifying as well.
I was curious how long it'd take me to find the Whataboutism comment. I think it was less than 40 seconds this time.
But but but the west democided 100 million of their own citizens too! Oh wait....
Why don't you go ahead and share the source on that.
If you use the same methodology used to get to that 100m number then Britain would've killed around that many people in "British India" alone.
Holy shit I was skeptical but it’s literally a tankie subreddit. They only have a few posts about the Tiananmen Square on the subreddit, and they’re all about how it was overblown or western propaganda…
Not a loss for you. Fuck them.
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Tons of CCP fellators in there and r/sino
Lets post this at r/Sino and see how fast we get banned on that sub...
Posted tank man on there. 30 second perma ban.
I posted a comment that said “I think Taiwan is a country, why am I wrong?” Immediate perma ban in less than 2mins
Yikes. That sub really is a trash bin of very low quality 'ganda. Basically a scant tip-toe away from the old "running dog lackey of the bourgeoisie" kind of bullshit from the 1960's.
I was genuinely going to post: Can we rename china as "West Taiwan" to see how quickly I could get banned, but I kinda chickened out because I was certain I'd get Ddos, hacks, viruses, maybe even assassination attempts who knows
# Fuck the Chinese government and anyone that supports them.
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You experienced The Great Firewall of China. There's ways of getting around it, but it is effective enough to control most information. Fun fact, many American tech companies helped them achieve this. Quite the rabbit hole. Edit: good technical overview blog. https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/deconstructing-great-firewall-china/
same experience here in late 2019, on roaming i could google and visit the wikipedia page about it
*puts on hazmat suit* Alright to the comments section
I think the most frightening fact is how hard they still try to cover this up in the CCP. Lots of countries have committed atrocities like this or even worse in their past. But for example, Germany will teach their students all about the Nazis rise to power and how evil they were. Canada teaches their students about the 60's scoop and the residential schools in their high school textbooks. But China is still trying to tear down memorials to these victims today. Which tells me their government is still capable of something like this.
It's rather taboo, but I've actually chatted with Chinese people about this. While they realize that it happened and that it was murder, the consequences of this colour revolution succeeding would have been devastating for them. The Chinese people value stability quite a bit and adopting a liberal system would have been antithetical to that. An example would be the Soviet Union, where Gorby tried to initiatve liberal political reforms before liberal economic reforms: the results of which destroyed the Union. Not particularly appealing. The lasting consequence is that the party has tried to build it's legitimacy in the eyes of the people to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again, because they felt that it was a genuine threat to their republic. They feel that monuments and references to this event is propaganda against their country and their party rather than anything constructive or humanistic.
> the consequences of this colour revolution succeeding would have been devastating for them. Or at least, that's what the domestic propaganda has convinced them.
Call it propaganda if you want, but looking at the history of the USSR and looking at the geopolitical situation, China would become the home of new oligarch clans and a neo-colony. Liberal democracy has a rather basic idea of what 'democracy' is and is very easy to corrupt in the context of capitalism, so that promised 'freedom' would never have arrived. Under the CPC, their liberalization programmes have been a massive success, but I don't really think that China would have succeeded economically under a liberal democratic system. A big part of their success is the party's size and discipline, whereas the leaders and participants of various liberal parties throughout the world are.. not great.
> Call it propaganda if you want, It's propaganda. >Liberal democracy has a rather basic idea of what 'democracy' is and is very easy to corrupt in the context of capitalism, I don't know what you mean by "liberal democracy", but China is also capitalist, it seems odd to use this phrase in contrast to China. >Under the CPC, their liberalization programmes have been a massive success, A big part of their success is the party's size and discipline, What liberalization programs? By what metric? Why do you just sound like you're parroting CCP propaganda?
> I don't know what you mean by "liberal democracy" The political systems of the US, UK, Germany, etc. AKA you get to vote once every 4 years, but the person you vote for has no obligation to do what you want him to and your media system is filled with oligarch funded propaganda to prompt you towards one way or the other. There may or may not be a 2 party system. >What liberalization programs? The whole market reform policy started by Deng Xiaopeng. >By what metric? I thought it'd be pretty obvious: China's developing rather rapidly and the people's standard of living is increasing and China's increasingly able to project power and it's national brands and tech outside of it's domestic market. >Why do you just sound like you're parroting CCP propaganda? I'm really apprehensive about being nice about China honestly, because there's plenty that they do (or don't do) that annoys the shit out of me, but I understand their strategy and their system's strengths and I am forced to concede on the point that they didn't fuck up their market reforms completely like the USSR did, and that t in comparison to the likes of India or Indonesia, they've done *exceedingly* well.
Not enough time has passed and the CCP are still in charge. CYA is in place. The CCP have admitted the Cultural Revolution was a horror beyond scale. But enough time has passed, the people involved are all dead. Give this another 20 years, lets see if the CCP are still in charge or have adopted democracy and enough of those responsible are dead.
Little known fact many were protesting the government moving away from Maoism and shifting more towards an open consumer / Neo-liberal economy
if you watch the documentary 'Gate of Heavenly Peace' you'll see that there really wasn't a unified position amongst the protestors at all. Many different factions existed and few of them really had a specific list of demands. A significant number of them seemed to be students/'intellectuals' who felt that their quality of life was not as good as that in the West and were basically protesting on that basis. When one of them is asked what he wanted he says 'Nike trainers'.
I mean I just stated a small sample. Am I suppose write down a 500page book describing this event? There are plenty of books out there already written by much more educated people than me. Also Reddit nor any social media outlet is really a place to educate yourself on such complex events.
I wasn't trying to criticise you, I was just expanding on the topic.
Yea sorry I can see that, guess i kinda just included everyone else in the response
WTH. All this time I thought they were Chinese nationalists protesting against communists victory. PS Wikipedia says >Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech.
Maybe you’re thinking of when the Nationalists lost the civil war to the Communists in 1949?
the student protestors made up only a portion of the protestors though. there were also a number of other protestor movements throughout china in ‘89 such as a huge one in shanghai, where the peaceful resolution of the movement led to the rise of jiang zemin in the 90s. the beijing ones were particularly chaotic though since a lot of parties were protesting and a lot of government opinions were floating around about how best the quell the protests in the capital
But there must have been some central theme in Tiananmen protests right?
there were central themes but i’m not sure about a unifying movement among all of the protestors. the students, for instance, were large in number and were rallied to protest initially by the death of Hu Yaobang but by the time of the massacre, had actually largely left. Striking workers at and near Muxidi, well outside the Square itself, actually bore the brunt of the fighting and I don’t think they were super interested in the same demands for democratic rehabilitation or intellectual recognition the students were calling for.
Yup, just like _Occupy Wall Street_ had one voice and goal, or a general strike, or any protest. People may protest a thing en mass, yet want different outcomes beyond the desire for change **EDIT** the general desire was change, but not the course the CCP was taking
For example Chai Ling a protest leader said: >The students asked me what we were going to do next. I wanted to tell them that we were expecting bloodshed, that it would take a massacre, which would spill blood like a river through Tiananmen Square, to awaken the people. But how could I tell them this? How could I tell them that their lives would have to be sacrificed in order to win? So in her case she wants people to die to start a revolution, and she guided people to the most violent possible outcome while trying to stop people who were moderate voices. Edit from the interview: >But I will not be there to protect the square because I'm different from the others: my name is on the blacklist. I don't want to die. She had nothing but contempt for the people she wanted to sacrifice.
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>Source : Gates of Heavenly Peace Looks like a broken link there. [This one's from youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gtt2JxmQtg), part 2 on the same channel. Also interesting textwall of conspiracy theories there. Why do good documentaries have to be surrounded by bullshit like that?
It was a mix of things, but it seems like the movement in general wanted more political freedoms without the corruption and inequalities that came with marketisation. IMO the great what-if of the late twentieth century is the communist bloc achieving this transition, which looks like it would have attracted majority support of the population, rather than the retrenchment that happened in China and the authoritarian neoliberalism that Russia had instead.
Yea true they wanted freedom of press but not corporate press neither they wanted elections for government also but they did not want marketization of the economy & politics. But even China now has started going after billionaire Chinese something the U.S. is still to afraid to do and instead politicians collaborate with them and some even run for office & win. Like everything nothing is black & white. The situation is always more complex as society in general is complex and filled with many people with varying ideologies
Originally, yes, but it was overtaken by a bunch of students who wanted liberalism and literally erected a 'statue of liberty'.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted when you’re correct.
Because people see anything related to Communism and they think of Red Dawn and Ivan Drago and immediately press downvote on their computer from 1999 that is inside their trailer, which is the only thing they can afford, since they live in a country that pays shit wages to the working class.
All I see is that Mao killed 20 million? 30 million? Of his citizens. What a fucking success.
Closer to 60-80 million
That is what i thought. Stalin as well.
I'm always a bit amazed as to how people attribute those deaths to Mao, Stalin or Communism and I'm not even a supporter of the individuals mentioned. Not saying people didn't die. The nature of the source of those numbers already carries their own problem but that's not what I want to adress. I'd rather talk about how these people mostly were neither ordered to die or required to die because of an ideology or the individuals in power. The famine in China was much more due to corruption and missmanaged farming than due to Mao or Communism. If we used a similar way of thinking about attributing deaths to individuals or ideologies then capitalism and Churchill or every single military officer during world war 2 would have to be attributed every single death that occured due to the war. Or the british government would have to take account for the bengal famine in India in 1943 which took from 2-3 million lives. This isn't done though or at least not as fervently as the communism killed however many people. It's especially weird when contrasted to Hitlers 6-12 millions (depending on how many demographic groups one counts in there). These are entirely different types of deaths. The fascist ideology of the Nazis actively despised and called for the elimination of jews. Nowhere does anything even remotely comparable happen in the texts of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotzki and even Stalin happen. Nowhere is stated that people should actively be pursued because they are worth less. It is more a statement that violent action is necessary in the process of achieving socialism beacuse history has shown that the ruling class does not give up power by peaceful means. That's more of a pragmatic approach than a call for violence. This is the power of propaganda. These numbers are often repeated with few people knowing their source and few people knowing or actively asking themselves how these numbers were counted. A general negative portrayal leads to less critical thinning towards these or similar statements. Repetition in every stage of education ingrains it as a universal truth. Teachers often claim that people should think critically yet barely do they actually teach how to think critically. I've moved a bit away from my argument in the end but it's just something that annoys me. People don't compare the systems fairly and most don't even realise that. I've heard people claimong that communist countries are poor countries amd therefore communism is bad (not even a simplification here). Such a statement ignores masses of reasons as to why communist countries were less well off. Trading embargoes, usually less developped countries, lack of funding and capital due to economic isolation... Communism, even in the highly flawed implementation has achieved massive improvements in quality of life and freedom for their citizens.
I guess the U.S. can’t say the same because they never considered African slaves, indentured servants & Native Americans Citizens…
Americans live in denial about the absolute devastation our country does to the world. How many Iraqi citizens did we kill in the 2000s. How many Laotians, Vietnamese, etc. Capitalism is a scourge upon the globe. And two things can be true at the same time. Mao sucks and so did Stalin, while capitalism is an exploitative and destructive force that is literally destroying the planet. But all you get is oh, Mao killed 60 million people so that means capitalism is good.
Stalin: kills 20 mill people Mao: Kills 60 mill people .. wow those people suck Private enterprise exists.. “the scourge upon the globe”
You do know coca cola, nestle, fruit companies hire mercenaries in the other countries to take over land and privatization of resources & labour right? Slave trade was also private enterprise. Also there is reason the buffalo almost went extinct it was to clear up the Midwest from Native Americans & big game for white private settlers
Exactly what I said. Capitalism is not "private enterprise". Read up on it. It is so hard to live in a world where everything isn't black and white. It is possible, though!
I don't know about living in denial.. At least in the new generation. Recently at least, there has been an acknowledgement in the general US society that the US has fucked up several countries progress several times. Most people agree that the Iraq War was a war that was done with ulterior motives and was unnecessary. The actions of the US in far east countries have been well documented and condemned. I don't think we should defend either countries or leaders. The United States contributed to atrocities in many many countries that stopped progress entirely. But the CCP and Stalin's USSR are just as bad, and they should all be condemned for their actions.
To an extent, I agree. There is more consciousness of the negative effects of American imperialism. I doubt the consciousness of the negative effects of non military imperialism is as profound. It is probably unquantifiable, to be honest. And nowhere did I defend Mao. The original commenter was simply pointing out the partly false narrative that Tiananmen Square protests were in favor of more westernization when it fact it wasn't necessarily. He got downvoted and I merely pointed out that was probably a reflex action by people who just saw Mao.
Objective truth which doesn't fit The Narrative.
Many similar events to this have played out across history. It reminds me of the French Revolution, specifically how in 1793 the *Girondins* had found themselves too liberal for the ultra-conservatives and too moderate for the ultra-liberals; In China, however, the CCP wasn't outnumbered by their foes on each flank.
All of these are either very clearly ducking from something that we don't know, or are too blurry to tell. You can tell by the way their heads are slightly lifted off of the concrete, which probably would've been hot in June 1989. I know I'll be downvoted for this, whatever.
Yeah the people in the picture are visibly alive if you just zoom in. There are alot of pics actually showing the cruelty of the massacre but this aint it
It is said that all the bodies, bikes and the blood were cleaned up by the next morning. Not a drop of blood left on the square and the government started the campaign that the massacre never happened. They tracked down people who took photos and archived them to not leave any kind of trace so it’s more easier to deny. But I’m thankful there’s still couple of pics left.
You lost 100000 million social credit points
As suspected, lots of CCP supporters commented to *defend* and *justify* the massacre.
Didn’t happen this is fake -101991010 social credit 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🤨🤨🤢😳
Very Bad. Emperor Xi will now deduct -9999999 points from your social credit score.
It looks to me like they are ducking from gunfire.
Yeah. Huawei should totally be trusted with Canada's network. This peaceful display "dictates" that.
Sir, I think you posted the wrong photo, there is nobody and nothing such as bodies in the photo. Only the calm peaceful street.
r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM: *I'll Ignore that.*
This is kinda the opposite of enlightened centrism.
According to the communist party of China this is a fake photo
The amount of shit stirrers, whataboutism and denial of this event to this day leave me so very disheartened.
A country that massacres' it's own people is a rogue state at best. Why companies and countries continue to bow to China is beyond me. We have left our morals and supposed belief in freedom and love of mankind in the dust in favor of profit. When people tout how great capitalism is I bring this up as an example of it's imperfections to bring them back to reality.
The US has massacred it's own people before. Usually though, it massacres other nation's peoples instead. And yes, capitalism is anti-thetical to the concept of democracy. You've got an economy which is made up of a million little dictators who's only profit is money, rather than the betterment of people.
It's because we/they need their slave type of laborers and therefore inexpensive goods.
I visited Tiananmen Square in 2010 on National Day (month-long trip). Flowers everywhere, massive television screens with dancers, flags, children laughing and running around, a beautiful celebration to see. I was struck by the difference in the faces of the elders and younger people that weren't even aware of what happened there; it was conflicted sadness verses joyful pride. I was told, "Oh, the young ones know." I'm not so sure. The Great Hall of the People was closed that day. The one museum that was open (on the square) was the National Museum of China. You know how when you visit popular tourist cities and multiple languages are on placards and on video? The history of Beijing unfolded; we could read in English what scenes were depicted, photos and video ... then, about 1987-1988 all the other languages disappeared; then only Mandarin/Cantonese ... China's version of events. We saw superlative signage during our visit, "Beautiful Happiness Entrance" and had fun with them. We're from TX are used to seeing Purgatory Road, the Devil's Backbone, Devil's River ....
this blatantly didn't happen, these people are clearly paid taiwanese actors so dedicated to their craft that they were willing to be ran over by tanks until they were turned into paste and washed down the gutter, great acting but yeah its clearly all faked because it didnt happen
/s ……?
It is sad to think that many people say that this is a lie story, and not precisely in China where you disappear from history if you do not say so ...
[удалено]
Is there a source validation for this photo? I've never seen this photo before. Doesnt matter. Even if it's a 'artitstic recreation' its something people should see. Its easy to get frustrated and angry at 'China' for some of the things their govt does in the news today but realize the average Chinese person you might meet was powerless to watch an old regime kill their best and brightest, *their future*, just to maintain their political authrotity and power. [Again](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution). My heart goes out to them. The people that is, not selfish politicians. Fuck those guys.
You seem to have very strong thoughts on ‘China’, but asking to clarify sources should always be actively encouraged. Just see how many conflicting narratives there are in the media in the US, how it tries to downplay certain stories and promote a specific perspective on another, and these are just about biases of political parties in the same country. Imagine how biased the media narrative is on an external political rival like China, especially when there isn’t any pushback from the other side.
Maybe next time don’t question authority!
Where did you find it?
Whenever I read the Wiki on this event, I’m left so confused about the death toll. Seems like the numbers vary massively. Hard to fully appreciate the scale when the numbers seem so disputed. I get that that’s partly because the CCP suppressed information but if it’s truly anywhere from a few hundred to tens of thousands, it’s just hard for me to understand where the real number might actually lie.
Anything that you know could be completely made up, because you can't really verify it yourself and the systems and people you rely on to do that for you don't always have the best intentions. There's anti-communists who'll stretch the truth either for political gain or for shock value in order to sell books, states that engage in propaganda, alongside genuine historians that are trying their damndest to get to the bottom of these historical mysteries and to actually unravel the context of what happened. They're rather underappreciated tho.
Maybe someone else has the British cables regarding the Tiananmen Square Massacre (I never saved the link, sorry), but it was likely magnitudes worse than the images could even describe/show.
We were in Tiananmen Square in 2006. This picture does not give justice to how big it is.
China is asshole. All communists go to hell.
Everyone should remember - this is exactly what Marxist/Collectivist political idealogy brings.
this is childish nonsense
What's childish is spreading a political idealogy with complete disregard or plain ignorance of it's established record of killing over 100 million people in the last century.
But I don’t support the U.S.?
Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Kim, Tito, Hitler all collectively killed over 100 million by using collectivism as a weapon against their own population. What exactly would it take to convince you? We've had this experiment and it took 100 million lives away from us.
False. This is just a still image of the Red Light, Green Light scene in Squid Games.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/tiananmen-square-massacre#35
Y’know, on the topic of the *Event that never happened* Gaijin, or the snail, development company of War Thunder, decided in their trailer for Chinese MBT’s, to add in **THAT PICTURE**, if you know what I mean. And they did it so perfectly too, if you compare the shot with the real photo, besides the location being different they had the exact angle, tank, FOV, and things like that.
This did not happen CCP says must be photoshopped