Author Topic: 3DHS on Torture  (Read 24804 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #60 on: October 25, 2007, 09:07:01 PM »
<<You have knoledge of someone more communist than Mao?

<<How did this person fare as a leader?>>

I don't think you understood the post you were responding to.  What I was asking for was details of the alleged famine that Mao supposedly caused.  It was sure as hell news to me.

Oh that;
T you often strike me as a well educated and well read person , that one of the biggest events of human suffering during the twentyeth century escaped your notice is unexpected.

Type a web search for Mao , China , starve and you get a few hundred thousand hits , of course this only proves that a lot of people are talking , but till now you have not heard of this?

http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Ghosts-Maos-Secret-Famine/dp/0805056688

http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/famine/chinese-famine-of-1958-1961/

Ironically, the Chinese Communists, led by Mao Tse-Tung, prevailed in the civil
war in part because they won the support of peasants by promising equitable
land redistribution and an end to famine. Instead, in 1958-61 the Communist
agricultural policies created the worst famine in human history.
To understand the cause of the Chinese famine, first the reader must look
back to the Soviet famine of 1931-3.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7225/1619

Forty years ago China was in the middle of the world's largest famine: between the spring of 1959 and the end of 1961 some 30 million Chinese starved to death and about the same number of births were lost or postponed. The famine had overwhelmingly ideological causes, rating alongside the two world wars as a prime example of what Richard Rhodes labelled public manmade death, perhaps the most overlooked cause of 20th century mortality.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/2322
In the late 50's as Chairman Mao Ze Dong solidified power in "Revolutionary China" he sought to increase the standing of China on the international scene. To do this, China had to sell it's primary domestic product; food. Of course in China most people producing food consumed the food they were producing. The communist party of China issued new orders and directives, every bit of food produced by the population would be 'given' to the government, who would then re-distribute it according to who needed it, or rather, according to what would benefit the oppressive rulers the most. Mao's ruling part of China began a campaign to become one of the world's largest agricultural exporters. Farmers were forced to hand over at gun point the food they were growing while they were starving. ...........In all, historians estimate, about 35 million Chinese peasants starved to death during this period in the absolute worst human famine to have ever occurred,.....

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm
Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm

Guinness Book of World Records:
Although nowadays they don't come right out and declare Mao to be the Top Dog in the Mass Killings category, earlier editions (such as 1978) did, and they cited sources which are similar, but not identical, to the Glaser & Possony sources:
On 7 Apr. 1969 the Soviet government radio reported that 26,300,000 people were killed in China, 1949-65.
In April 1971 the cabinet of the government of Taiwan reported 39,940,000 deaths for the years 1949-69.
The Walker Report (see below): between 32,2500,000 and 61,700,000.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47616
A noted expert in calculating the number of deaths caused by authoritarian regimes says the late Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung's policies and actions led to the deaths of nearly 77 million of his countrymen, surpassing those killed by Nazi Party founder Adolf Hitler and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin.

R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science and a Nobel Peace Prize finalist who has published dozens of books chronicling so-called "democide," or death by government, said the new Chinese figure ? nearly double his previous estimate of about 38 million ? was based on what he believes was Mao's duplicity in China's great famine of 1958 to 1961.

I believed that Mao's policies were responsible for the famine, but he was misled about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies," Rummel said. "Therefore, I argued, this was not a democide."

But after further review of available data, he said he agreed with other researchers who had counted the famine figures as part of the regime's mass murder figures.

"They were right and I was wrong," he said.

Rummel said he was influenced to revise his figures upward after reading a pair of books, "Wild Swans: Two Daughters of China," by Jung Chang; and "Mao: the Unknown Story," which Jung wrote with her husband, Jon Halliday.

"From the biography of Mao, which I trust ? I can now say that yes, Mao's policies caused the famine. He knew about it from the beginning," Rummel said, adding Mao even "tried to take more food from the people to pay for his lust for international power, but was overruled by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members."

"So, the famine was intentional. What was its human cost? I had estimated that 27 million Chinese starved to death or died from associated diseases. Others estimated the toll to be as high as 40 million. Chang and Halliday put it at 38 million and, given their sources, I will accept that," said Rummel. "I'm now convinced that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin."

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5055874/Mao-and-the-Australian-Maoists.html

Article Excerpt
IN DECEMBER 1993, to mark the centenary of the birth of Mao Tse-tung, the Melbourne Age commissioned an opinion piece from Albert Langer, who as a student activist in the 1960s had been the best-known public face of Maoism in Australia. Around the time Langer accepted the invitation, Western culture had been beset by a vogue for big, showpiece political apologies: Bill Clinton apologised for slaver, the Queen apologised for British imperialism, the Pope even apologised for the Crusades. But it never occurred to Langer to follow suit.

He wrote at a time when the populations of Eastern Europe had just revealed what they thought of their former communist rulers by throwing them all out of office, and when China was finally pulling itself out of poverty by developing a capitalist economy. Rather than the end of socialism, Langer portrayed this merely as its "low tide". It would inevitably be followed by another high tide like the one he enjoyed in his youth. The impasse into which the Left had fallen, he wrote, would not last forever. "As Mao points out," Langer declared, "there is an alternative--rebellion, straggle, the right for socialism ... Happy birthday Mao Tse-tung!"

When Mao's next major milestone, the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, arrived in 1999 Australian Book Review commissioned another 1960s Maoist, Humphrey McQueen, to write its annual La Trobe University Essay. By this time, McQueen was less of an enthusiast than Langer. He had now, he said, lost all sympathy with the regime. But he still claimed the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s was justified for attempting to bring backward rural China into the modern world, and he still considered Mao a great intellect. "Far from seeing Mao Tse-tung-Thought as sloganeering," McQueen wrote, "I knew how demanding his ideas could be."

When the review commissioned McQueen it could hardly have been unaware of the radical shift in Western opinion about the nature of Mao's regime. This was partly the result of Jung Chang's best-selling 1991 book Wild Swans." Three Daughters of China, which told the story of how her own once-dedicated Maoist family, and many others like it, had been humiliated, imprisoned and destroyed by the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution. When Jasper Becker's book Hungry Ghosts: China's Secret Famine revealed in 1995 that Mao had caused between 30 and 40 million people to starve to death during the so-called Great Leap Forward of 1958-61, the horror of the regime was there for all to see. But McQueen's reminiscences mentioned none of this.

It is unlikely that future Chinese anniversaries will be celebrated by anyone in the Australian media in the same way. Mao Tse-tung now stands revealed as the greatest mass murderer in human history. We now have plausible evidence that he was responsible for the deaths of more than 70 million people, a tally larger than that achieved by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin combined. In their new biography Mao: The Unknown Story (Jonathan Cape), Jung Chang and Jon Halliday attribute 38 million of these deaths to the great Chinese famine of 1958-61. Another 27 million were executed or worked to death between 1950 and 1976 in Mao's gulag of prisons and labour camps. During the initial nationwide campaign of terror to consolidate his regime from October 1950 to October 1951, Mao oversaw three million Chinese killed by execution, mob violence and suicide. A further three million suffered the same fate after 1966 at the hands of the Red Guards and other protagonists of the Cultural Revolution.

Although some of Mao's Australian sympathisers, such as Linda Jaivin writing in the Bulletin, have tried to nitpick Chang and Halliday's total of 70 million dead, their figure is, if anything, conservative. For instance, the 38 million death toll they attribute to the great famine is around the middle of the recorded range. Jasper Becker cited reliable Western demographers who argued at least 30 million died but he also quoted several Chinese estimates that each recorded a total of more than 40 million. One source was the senior Communist Party official Chen Yizi who in 1979 was appointed by Premier Zhao Ziyang to find out what really happened in 1958-61. Chen led a team of 200 officials who visited every province to examine internal party documents and records. His report put the total at between 43 and 46 million dead.

Moreover, Chang and Halliday reveal how much responsibility Mao had for this particular catastrophe. Becker had attributed the famine largely to the ideological folly of a failed experiment in collectivisation. Chang and Halliday produce new evidence to show it was more sinister than that. Mao's regime confiscated Chinese harvests during the Great Leap Forward so it could export food to communist-controlled Eastern Europe in exchange for armaments and political support. Food and money were also exported to support anti-colonial and communist movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the first year of famine, 1958-59, China exported seven million tons of grain, enough to feed 38 million people. In 1960, a year in which 22 million Chinese died of starvation, China was the biggest international aid donor in terms of proportion of GNP in the world. Thanks to Chinese agricultural exports, East Germany was able to lift food rationing in 1958, and Albania in 1961.

In China at the same time a major food source for the urban population became the "food substitute" chlorella, a disgusting substance that grew in urine and contained a little protein. In the countryside, starving Chinese peasants were reduced to eating bark and compost and, in Anhui and Gansu provinces, to cannibalism. In Chinese cities in 1960, the maximum daily intake was 1200 calories, compared to the 1300-1700 calories a day fed to the inmates of Auschwitz.

The huge size of the Chinese population, around 600 million in 1960, gave Mao many more potential victims than were available to either Hitler or Stalin. What made Mao the greater monster was not just the sheer quantity of his killings. It was because so many of his victims came not only from his real and imagined enemies but from his own supporters. Chang and Halliday show that Mao built his political power out of a lifelong strategy that easily outdid even Stalin in waging murder and terror among his own Communist Party comrades.

MAO WAS NEVER the agrarian reformer his Western supporters claimed. He redistributed no land and liberated no peasants. His initial "red base" at Ruijin in Jiangxi province, southern China, had been achieved not by a revolutionary uprising of the masses but through military conquest by the Red Army, armed and funded by Moscow. His rule was identical to that of an occupying army, surviving by plundering the local population and killing anyone who resisted.

The system of control established at Ruijin from 1931-34 was introduced by Chou...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #61 on: October 25, 2007, 09:58:18 PM »
Sorry, plane, but I've checked out some of your references, and for now I'm just not buying into any of it.  This seems to be part of some right-wing academic hoax on the order of the so-called "Ukrainian Famine" BS, which was made to order specifically to rehabilitate the Ukrainian Nationalist movement, which had tried to ally itself with Hitler (with mixed success) but was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews during WWII.  In fact, some of the "authorities" cited in the "Communist Chinese Famine" story were closely associated with the "Ukrainian Famine" hoax.

I checked out three of your sources.  None of them were impressive.  Vaclav Smil is a professor at University of Manitoba specializing in world energy issues, he is not a historian and thus has little reputation to lose if he writes bullshit outside of his field.  From his name, I would guess that he too is a Ukrainian, probably a post-WWII refugee, part of the Great Fascist Migration, and with good reason has adopted the "Ukrainian Famine" hoax.  R.J. Rummel is often cited by hardline anti-communists as the source of all kinds of BS related to the "Ukrainian Famine" hoax - - he's a historian alright, Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, nothing of any note in his resume, certainly never associated with any of the great universities.  He's tried to self-promote himself as a "Nobel Prize nominee," which is patently ridiculous as the nominees are never named publicly and he later had to withdraw the claim.  Really not very impressive or distinguished.  The other source that I checked (sorry I've already forgotten the name) was equally unimpressive.

If time permits, I'll check out the other sources you quoted.

What you have really is a collection of third-rate academics with a real axe to grind, who have found a good thing in wildly outrageous anti-communist "history" that they can claim to have discovered - - in contradiction to the great historians of the age, all of whom somehow "missed" these momentous events.  Then these third-raters have a new "historical" subject they can all write about, pat each other on the back about and create a warm and cozy little sub-culture, supported financially by those wealthy donors interested in anti-communism, anti-semitism and fascism.  If they look in the right places, they can even find some Jewish neocons whose practical "anti-communism" (read Zionism) will lead them into holding their noses and jumping into bed with these guys to lend them anti-fascist credibility.  David Horowitz would seem to be a prize catch for these guys, but I'm not sure that even he would be low enough to lend his name to their efforts.

My theory is:  if it looks like bullshit, smells like bullshit and tastes like bullshit, then in all probability, it IS bullshit.

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #62 on: October 25, 2007, 10:09:44 PM »
      MT you should never tell me that the holocaust actually happened or that the Jews of Europe ever had a hard time , I know where I can go and find General Eisenhower and Eli Weishenthal rebutted and called quacks . What is proven thereby?


I accept it as a fact that one of the worst famines of all man kinds history was purposefully undertaken to further the cause of Communism.


Why shouldn't I?

I believe that Hitler was bad for much the same reasons , I actually believe and do not deny that he organized a huge spree of bloody murder , but I am not emotionally invested in Fascism so accepting such an idea does not break my heart.


Still ,why should I treat you differently than I should a Holocaust denier?


Whatsort of sorce would you trust ? I get the feeling that anyone who was not a pro communist would be off your list , you may as well look for an accurate accounting of the Holocaust from a facist.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2007, 10:19:56 PM by Plane »

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #63 on: October 25, 2007, 10:22:20 PM »
http://www.ciolek.com/SPEC/rummel-on-democide-2005.html

Rudy J. Rummel (rummel--at--hawaii.edu)
Professor Emeritus of Political Science
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI, US

Hi,

Many scholars and commentators have referenced my total of 174,000,000 for the democide (genocide and mass murder) of the last century.

I'm now trying to get word out that I've had to make a major revision in my total due to two books. One is Wild Swans: Two Daughters of China [hyperlinks are added to the plain text email by Prof Rummel - ed.] by Jung Chang, and the other is Mao: the Unknown Story that she wrote with her husband, Jon Halliday. I'm now convinced that that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin.

From the time I wrote my book on China's Bloody Century, I have held to these democide totals for Mao:

Civil War-Sino-Japanese War 1923-1949 = 3,466,000 murdered
Rule over China (PRC) 1949-1987 = 35,236,000 murdered
However, some other scholars and researchers had put the PRC total as from 60,000,000 to a high 70,000,000. Asked why my total is so low by comparison, I've responded that I did not include the China's Great Famine 1958-1961. From my study of what was written on this in English, I believed that:

(1) the famine was due to the Great Leap Forward when Mao tried to catch up with the West in producing iron and steel;
(2) the factorization of agriculture, forcing virtually all peasants to give up their land, livestock, tools, and homes to live in regimented communes;
(3) the exuberant over reporting of agricultural production by commune and district managers for fear of the consequences of not meeting their quotas;
(4) the consequent belief of high communist officials that excess food was being produced and could be exported without starving the peasants;
(5) but, reports from traveling high officials indicated that peasants might be starving in certain localities;
(6) an investigative team was sent out from Beijing, and reported back that there was mass starvation;
(7) and then the CCP stopped exporting food and began to imports what was needed to stop the famine.
Thus, I believed that Mao's policies were responsible for the famine, but he was mislead about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies. Therefore, I argued, this was not a democide. Others, however, have so counted it, but I thought this was a sloppy application of the concepts of mass murder, genocide, or politicide (virtually no one used the concept of democide). They were right and I was wrong.

From the biography of Mao, which I trust (for those who might question it, look at the hundreds of interviews Chang and Halliday conducted with communist cadre and former high officials, and the extensive bibliography) I can now say that yes, Mao's policies caused the famine. He knew about it from the beginning. He didn't care! Literally. And he tried to take more food from the people to pay for his lust for international power, but was overruled by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members.

So, the famine was intentional. What was its human cost? I had estimated that 27,000,000 Chinese starved to death or died from associated diseases. Others estimated the toll to be as high as 40,000,000. Chang and Halliday put it at 38,000,000, and given their sources, I will accept that.

Now, I have to change all the world democide totals that populate my websites, blogs, and publications. The total for the communist democide before and after Mao took over the mainland is thus 3,446,000 + 35,226,000 + 38,000,000 = 76,692,000, or to round off, 77,000,000 murdered. This is now in line with the 65 million toll estimated for China in the Black Book of Communism, and Chang and Halliday's estimate of "well over 70 million."

This exceeds the 61,911,000 murdered by the Soviet Union 1917-1987, with Hitler far behind at 20,946,000 wiped out 1933-1945.

For perspective on Mao's most bloody rule, all wars 1900-1987 cost in combat dead 34,021,000 -- including WWI and II, Vietnam, Korea, and the Mexican and Russian Revolutions. Mao alone murdered over twice as many as were killed in combat in all these wars.

Now, my overall totals for world democide 1900-1999 must also be changed. I have estimated it to be 174,000,000 murdered, of which communist regimes murdered about 148,000,000. Also, compare this to combat dead. Communists overall have murdered four times those killed in combat, while globally the democide toll was over six times that number.

Let freedom ring.

Rudy Rummel
Professor Emeritus
« Last Edit: October 25, 2007, 10:31:17 PM by Plane »

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #64 on: October 25, 2007, 10:28:04 PM »
<<MT you should never tell me that the holocaust actuallyhappened or that the Jews of Europe ever had a hard time , I know where I can go and find General Eisenhour and Eli Weishenthal rebutted and called quacks .>>

Hey that's no trick, plane, I too know where I can go and find those same works.  I just don't happen to believe them.  I know too much about the subject.  I have spoken to dozens and maybe hundreds of Holocaust survivors, members of my own family included.  My wife worked for JIAS (Jewish Immigrant Aid Society) and her job was dealing with them every fucking day, listening to their stories, trying to integrate them into Canadian society.  It was heartbreaking work and she burned out in a couple of years at it.  Many times she came home crying.

<<I accept it as a fact that one of the worst famines of all man kinds history was purposefully undertakn to further the cause of Communism.>>

Sure you do.  IMHO it's because you know very little about the detailed history of the Holocaust, and the role of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement in it.  You know almost nothing of what is called the Great Fascist Migration (the escape of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators from the justice that awaited them in the U.S.S.R. after V-E Day,) and the need to explain their pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic actions during the war.  There are books (Ratlines, Blowback, Old Wounds, and probably dozens more) which explain these matters in detail, but I know that you will never read them.  Nevertheless, it is your ignorance - - of the books and the facts set out in them - - that enables you to believe the BS of the authors and sources you quoted.  In the battle for the heart and mind of plane, the Nazi collaborators were successful and I have clearly failed.  miserably.  That's OK, though, it IS really "just history," water under the bridge, and the Jews and Ukrainians here in Canada have settled into an uneasy kind of peaceful relationship that can only grow better with the passage of time.


<<Why shouldn't I? [accept it as a fact that one of the worst famines of all man kinds history was purposefully undertakn to further the cause of Communism]>>

Well, in a nutshell, because it just is not true.

<<I beleive that Hitler was bad for much the same reasons , I actually beleive and do not deny that he oranised a huge spree of blody murder , but I am not emtionally invested in Facism so acceting such an idea does not break my heart.>>

Well, I guess I should be thankful for small mercies.  At least you also believe in the Holocaust.  Good, plane, that's a start.

<<Still ,why should I treat you diffrently than I should a Holocaust denyer?>>

If you believe that both the Holocaust and the "Ukrainian Famine" stories are true, then you SHOULDN'T treat me any differently than you would treat a Holocaust denier. 

Believe me, plane, if there HAD been a Ukrainian famine, (there was, but the hoax is that it was deliberately caused by the communists) then I would denounce it just as strongly as I denounce the Holocaust.  Both would be crimes against humanity.  The horror of the Holocaust is not that all those things happened to the Jews, but that any human beings could do what they did to other human beings.  The Holocaust would have been just as horrifying if the victims had all been Hungarians or Mexicans.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2007, 10:33:38 PM by Michael Tee »

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #65 on: October 25, 2007, 10:38:59 PM »
<<Still ,why should I treat you diffrently than I should a Holocaust denyer?>>
Quote
If you believe that both the Holocaust and the "Ukrainian Famine" stories are true, then you SHOULDN'T treat me any differently than you would treat a Holocaust denier. 


Then I shall treat you with pity , because you have blinded yourself.


Here you will like this one , it blames Chinas huge famines {which were only huge because China is huge} on the US.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FD01Ad04.html
Quote
There would have been no deaths in the 1961-62 famines if not for the US embargo.

At least you can see from this that there were large famines , which you didn't know before.

The bad weather and US embargo that can be blamed for the deaths reaching levels greater than during the war with Japan seem implausable to me , but I am not emotionally invested in Mao.

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #66 on: October 25, 2007, 10:43:29 PM »
<<At least you can see from this that there were large famines , which you didn't know before.>>

You are wrong again.  Because of its huge population, famines were a regular feature of Chinese history.  In 1944, 4 million Chinese died of famine.  As a matter of fact, it was only with the advent of Communism that famine was abolished forever in China.

Amianthus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7574
  • Bring on the flames...
    • View Profile
    • Mario's Home Page
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #67 on: October 25, 2007, 10:44:17 PM »
Sorry, plane, but I've checked out some of your references, and for now I'm just not buying into any of it.

Lots more references here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Chinese_Famine
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #68 on: October 25, 2007, 10:46:45 PM »
Quote
As a matter of fact, it was only with the advent of Communism that famine was abolished forever in China.

If there were famines in China between 1959 and 1961, the above statement can not be true.


Universe Prince

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3660
  • Of course liberty isn't safe; but it is good.
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #69 on: October 25, 2007, 10:50:03 PM »

As a matter of fact, it was only with the advent of Communism that famine was abolished forever in China.


Famine abolished forever? I am more than a little skeptical.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #70 on: October 25, 2007, 10:55:02 PM »
<<At least you can see from this that there were large famines , which you didn't know before.>>

You are wrong again.  Because of its huge population, famines were a regular feature of Chinese history.  In 1944, 4 million Chinese died of famine.  As a matter of fact, it was only with the advent of Communism that famine was abolished forever in China.


Advent , or abandonment?

How do we know that famines are over for China now? It is only a short time since the last one , therehave been at least three in liveing memory , i they have the courage to abandon the mistakes of Communism perhaps they will have fewer , but even a died in the wool capitolist would not dare say that his system would make anoher famine impossible.

In 1944 the Japanese were very likely interfering with Chinas grain production .

In 1959 the famine was much worse , but why?

According to Asia Times online (they like Mao) it was not worse , the 30 million missing were an error in the census and there were not so many deaths , or the weather was bad or the US wouldn't sell them grain. So they didn't die and it wasn't Mao's fault that they died.

 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FD01Ad04.html

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #71 on: October 25, 2007, 10:55:30 PM »
<<If there were famines in China between 1959 and 1961, the above statement can not be true.>>

Sorry, I expressed myself poorly.  I think China now is free of famine, and I meant to say that with the advent of Communism the tide turned, in the sense that there were no more famines as severe as the 1944 famine, and ultimately at some point, total victory over famine was achieved, i.e. they passed a point of no return, from which there would be no more famines - - unfortunately, the way I put it sounds like, as soon as the Communists took power, that was the end of famine in China.  Obviously untrue. 

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #72 on: October 25, 2007, 10:58:09 PM »
"Believe me, plane, if there HAD been a Ukrainian famine, (there was, but the hoax is that it was deliberately caused by the communists) then I would denounce it just as strongly as I denounce the Holocaust.  Both would be crimes against humanity.  The horror of the Holocaust is not that all those things happened to the Jews, but that any human beings could do what they did to other human beings.  The Holocaust would have been just as horrifying if the victims had all been Hungarians or Mexicans."


How can I beleive you?


You will refuse to beleive any sorce not vetted by Communists , it is exactly equivelent to beleiveing nothing about Hitler not vetted by Hess.

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #73 on: October 25, 2007, 11:00:34 PM »
<<If there were famines in China between 1959 and 1961, the above statement can not be true.>>

Sorry, I expressed myself poorly.  I think China now is free of famine, and I meant to say that with the advent of Communism the tide turned, in the sense that there were no more famines as severe as the 1944 famine, and ultimately at some point, total victory over famine was achieved, i.e. they passed a point of no return, from which there would be no more famines - - unfortunately, the way I put it sounds like, as soon as the Communists took power, that was the end of famine in China.  Obviously untrue. 


So he 59-61 famine was not 30-60 million? How large was it?

Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: 3DHS on Torture
« Reply #74 on: October 25, 2007, 11:06:55 PM »
Thanks, Ami, for the references.  I am going to have to plead ignorance here, specifically because I don't know jack-shit about Chinese history and politics, so I'm not able to evaluate the Chinese sources.  Obviously some have an axe to grind, some may not.  Some may be Pentagon or Foggy Bottom pets, others may actually be honest and objective.  From what I read of the article, it seems to be reasonable to assume mixed causes of mismanagement and natural disasters.  Mismanagement does not IMHO equate to a deliberate genocidal killing policy.

I guess in China I'm way out of my depth.  I found it easy enough to discredit the "Ukrainian Famine" hoax because of my own knowledge of Ukrainian, Jewish and Nazi history in the Ukraine before and during WWII and afterwards.  With no such comparable knowledge of China, I'm going to have to reconsider my original characterization of events there, and say that communist mismanagement - - but not deliberate, malicious, murderous intent - - may have played a substantial role in a famine, but I'm still not convinced that the famine was anywhere near as severe as the 1944 famine.