Any economic system is based in slavery. If not de jure slavery it is
a de facto slavery. It is not different to any army. A army is made
of armed slaves, kept in line an aversive control system. The soldiers
are fed for the same reason ordinary slaves are fed. No any slave last
very long performing their task if you do not feed them.
People had to work, because it needs to eat; and all the food is under
the control of the dominant class. The same with the troops. They are
slaves of the state or the slaves of some rebel commander that is waging
a war on his own free enterprise. The troops cannot desert and abandon
the service but in very rare occasions. The troops like the people in
general is under constant observation by a net of spies. This is specially
critical in an army. You can send some spies to preach some sedition and
watch the results. The spy then inform his superior of the results of
his teasing to read the state of the morale. Are the soldiers happy enough
or are they in the verge of rebelling?
This control is very specially important in an army, where the troops could
easily rebel if the situation gets nasty. Then, the spies that exist among
the troops (some are voluntary informers) tell the officer of the state of
the moral among the troop, so they can in time blow the brain of anyone preaching a sedition.
>
> After World War II (mainly with Japan) the unrest in China continued
> and was more or less in hands of communists at 1949. The communist
> government first did "collectivize" the peasants gradually into
> cooperatives of 100-300 families by 1958. It was unpopular and
> resulted with famines. Then Mao started "Great Leap Forward" to
> reorganize everything even further until 1961. It resulted with
> real food deficit. Tens of millions starved to death. Mao was
> criticized by moderates and removed from real power.
There are several reasons for China to have periodic crisis of
food, like in Russia, for climatic reasons.
Another story told about the food shortages that cause 65 million people
starving in China it is explained by this you said about the Great Leap
forward of Mao. It cost me a lot to believe this fable, as the only
explanation for the notorious famine. I can accept that leaders can be
rather moron, even more moron than George W Bush, if this is possible.
But in general, only in rare cases a moron leader works alone in being
an idiot. There must exist a whole bunch of idiots around, like they
existed among the leaders of Germany and Austria, to start the WWI. But
a similar case occurred in Germany with the ascent of the Nazis to the
power and the start the WWII. I can accept that Hitler was a moron 100
times more moron the Bush, but the generals and political officers
around Hitler were not more intelligent either.
Then, I think that most part of the failure of the harvest during the
times of a Great Leap Forward were not caused by the mental retardation
of Mao and his assistants and officers. Perhaps, the Great Leap forward
contributed just a 30% to the food crisis. Many of the starving people
were the farmers, that were taken a lot of grain for the cities, and thus
they were condemned to die of starvation.
I can just imagine a similar case with the agribusiness in the US. If
a very severe change in weather cause a failure of 60% of the harvest,
because of some weather upsetting... the capitalist would not pay their
job to the workers of the machines, and could not pay the bankers, and
could not buy food for it is very expensive and have not money... and
they put a lawsuit against the agribusiness but there are so long delays
that the poor workers not only loose the machines to the bankers, but
also die of starvation as well for lack of money to buy food.
Then, we can accuse those capitalists of doing a Great Leap Forward as well.
The classic explanation from a "capitalist POV" is that the cooperatives
are not the best system to extract surpluses of food from the farmers.
This is what the cooperatives were for. To extract surpluses of food
from them. This is not different to a capitalist system of ownership.
Let me now consider the producers of corn in the US.
Most of the corn produced are the property of some capitalist companies
that used "rented workers with machines" to perform the labors
of sawing, harvesting, and even to spread insecticides, and herbicides.
Those people are not ordinary laborers of those companies, but laborers
called for those task and paid for them. Basically those "agribusiness",
have almost zero employers. They rent free workers for some concrete
tasks on each moment or season. Those workers are forced to accept those
jobs and they had been indebted to the banks to pay the machines they
are using. So, in general they are living also in a very tight budget.
They had not finished to pay a machine and they have to buy a new one
already, or some very expensive replacements.
This is the perfect business. A business that is done basically done by
machines and have almost zero employers. It is more or less like the
modern industry today. Most of the work is done by machines. They do not
even need to pay much for guards with all the cameras and diverse means
of alarm they put in place.
Those shitty revolutionaries, Bolsheviks or Maoists, had not much machinery
at their disposal, even they had scarcity of stores and trucks and
even tractors. For the perishable food they had not enough refrigerated
stores, etc. Most of the work had to be done by people that were badly paid, and had a minimal interest for the job.
The slaves always have a minimal interest for the job. And those workers
of the socialist system were the facto slaves, with the aggravating that
they were told they were living in a proletarian paradise. They had
added a rhetorical insult to their situation.
It can look ironic, but I do not think any of the Soviet workers ever
believed such bullshit of living in a workers paradise. I would had not
believe this if I were had been there.
> So at 1966 he started "Cultural Revolution". Killed all those
> moderates as "revisionists" who "try to restore capitalism",
> formed armed "Red Guard" groups and started real Stalin-style
> slavery and repressions and removal of any private properties
This is false. It do not existed any private properties, and
the planes of those that took out the power of Mao had not started
any changes yet. It was simply a mild civil war among communists.
Mild civil war for had not been many dead and it was not used the
army for this situation. It was mostly a case of harassment and
insulting those that had some social rank by some young people that
were subordinates or students. It seem there were not enough jobs
for so many young people living in cities. Young people anywhere
have not many bright prospects of jobs well paid. This is also true
or even worse in a Chinese society. The distance between the older
people and the young are rather great. It can look like an abyss.
> and witch hunt on carriers or supporters of whatever "bourgeois"
> ideologies. People were technically slaves of state. Fear and
> slavery. That lasted ten years until Mao's death. It sort of
> worked. In sum under rule of Mao 1949-1976 population of China
> did grow by 350 millions.
This had not changed now. There are some capitalists, but they are
not so free as one would think. Most entrepreneurs are indebted to
the bankers and with the prices paid by buyers that go there, they
barely can pay their debts. The last I read in a economic magazine
was telling those entrepreneurs had to take more credits to buy more
machines to make more profitable their business. This is a mere theory.
By the time they had paid almost 50 or 60% of their debts, the bankers
had lend money to other entrepreneurs that would compete with them.
In the end, all they would end indebted to the bankers and could not
earn a buck. By them, the international crisis would get much deeper than
now, and all they would own would be a mountain of debts with the bankers.
Eri