Based on my understanding (which isn’t much, please mention any additional things I missed) Marx believed that the “proletariat” (the workers) were being abused by the “bourgeois” (the owners) in the capitalist system, and that the proletariat should seize control of the state and the means of production (“dictatorship of the proletariat”), and that the end goal was a stateless, classless society where everyone was equal, and that the state would “wither away”.
As we all know, a perfect communist society was never achieved, and that the state never ended up withering away for any of them.
How would Marx react to the Soviet Union under Stalin and his purges, Khrushchev to his denouncing of Stalinism and brutal crushings of protests in the Warsaw Pact states, to Gorbachev and his “glasnost and perestroika” reforms?
How would Marx react to the communist states that took power in Latin America, Africa, and Asia? Would he be happy that a communist state was able to compete with the capitalist U.S. in terms of global dominance, twice (Soviet Union during the Cold War, PRC in the modern day)?
Note: I am neither procommunist or anticommunist. I think that some if Marx’s ideas were quite good (everyone should be equal, classless society, etc.) but others not so much (history tells us what happens when there is a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, the state never withers away like Marx imagines it would, as power corrupts all)
Because the “communist is about to invade us” gave the Kuomingtang pretext to impose martial law and dictatorial rule. If China was united under one nation, under ROC, perhaps public pressure would’ve make it liberalize sooner. Like maybe a 1989-style protest, but there are faction within the ROC government that don’t want to do a crackdown. Or maybe they do a massacre, and then, maybe with western pressure, the government topples and they start doing elections…
Around 2000 to 2010. Taishan. I’m not naming the exact names of villages (dad and mom are from different villages btw)
As far as I know, there were no John Deree machineary stuff, its all manual. My maternal grandmother talked about some worm thing that would bite you and suck your blood. (eww farming must be rough) I mean this is probably why everyone wants to go to the cities. Nobody liked farming. Don’t think anyone got any farming subsidies like American farmers do.
Yea…
Well, sort of.
I remember they have a telephone thing. Fun fact, if you have two receivers, you can like use the other one to listen in and spy on phone calls.
I don’t remember if there was a tv in the villages. Maybe maybe not. But by 2025, I think they probably do. Now, everyone has a phone with wechat. But before 2010, nah.
They do have a sort of mass printing thing. My dad’s village managed to give every family at least one copy of the geneology book (族谱). Copyright like 2008 I think. They have photography and stuff, all using film and not digital.
Ah yes very strange.
The distance between a dilapidated city slum and a modern-looking shopping mall is like 20 minutes away. Like. You walk 20 minutes, and its like you time travelled. So bizzare when I recall the memories.
Near the malls, are McDonald’s, KFC, a Pizzahut. Like its very modern and westernized
and yet… when you go home and its…
it’s a fucking mess. So dirty. I mean it makes sense, anything better and nobody would be able to afford it, so these quickly built slums is all that anyone could afford.
I remember a landline at home. I also remember messing with my dad’s motorola phone, and download some random games. And yea that costed money and dad didn’t like it lol. But not my fault, my older brother tricked me to press the download button. I remember there being a TV at home.
So like… it wasn’t that bad, but… no internet…
We didn’t even know what internet was, no concept of it. Some relative gave us an old XP computer and it was used to play music you obtain from stores or like to view and copy photos to thumb drives or SD cards. There are digital cameras by that time, I think we probably have one in like close to 2008-2010. But no internet.
But yes, you go into the city and suddenly its feels so advanced. Trains stations… I remember it being sort of clean. Zero graffiti. very modern-looking. Platform screen doors.
Knowledge of the world was very limited. No public library to just find whatever you want. You have to buy books.
I remember that children’s book titled 十万个为什么 and it was space themed. That was my first time learning about stars and stuff. But I didn’t even know if the info was accurate.
Some books have like mythology stuff, so my knowledge of the world was a mix of truth and mythology. Like 盘古 created the world or some shit. And his body became the earth, blood became rivers… whatever… so weird lol… every country got their own creation story. I don’t even think kid-me believe those things, reality is like maze, you don’t know what is real and what isn’t. I just knew like… well this world exist… no idea where its from…
No internet. No library. Sitting at home watching stuff like 喜羊羊与灰太狼.
I think that’s why I got very obsessed with space the moment I got access to the internet in the US. I’d constantly wanna look stuff up. Went from almost zero info to an overwhelming infinity of info.
I remember still holding on to the 十万个为什么 book in the US, I remember bring it to school… I remember having it my bookbag, its like… kinda… sentinmental…
But it was like poorly binded and pages just fell apart… oh well… we have internet now… whatever… lol
Here’s a Baidu Streetview of the neighborhood I used to live in. (I think this is safe to share, i mean, its a whole different country, not like any can is gonna track me down by knowing my old place)
https://map.baidu.com/mapscenes/static/h5-project/pano-share/pano-share.html?pid=01004800001402241329111895O&uid=&heading=819.86566&pitch=-0.23572394&panoType=street
Screenshot:
Probably not my alley, but its one like it. Its close enough to where I lived.
This is like one of the many alleyways you go in and then you find your building, and you go in, you walk up a few flights of stairs, no elevators.
I think I shared this story before. Basically on the “in-between” of the stairs like you know… the platform between ground 1st floor and 2nd floor, there is the platform, then stairs turn around and you finish climbing to the next floor. Know what I mean? Well on that “in-between” platform, you look could see outside of the building, you can see into the alleyway, and you could accidentally jump over the concrete barrier and fall and land right outside where the main building door is… Probably not up to code in the US.
Maybe that’s why I have fear of heights? Like I remember having intrusive thoughts like… 如果我下去会怎 then fear kicks in… lol
Why is the stairs partially exposed to the outside lol. Like put some glass windows or something.
Also, I remember there was like separate thing you use to heat up water for a warm bath. Like not a centalized water heater, but a separate add on. You hook up the water to it, boil the water, then pour it on a sort of plastic bathtub thing. Or you can use the 花洒 thing. And I think all the water just gets poured down the same hole you use for the squat toilet thing. Maybe that’s why they don’t make western toilets? Idk…
I remember being afraid of falling in there lol.
Anyways I think I rambled too much, thinking too much starts to put strain on my brain.
Is that a landline? We have that in the UK, I used to do that on my mum. Got in trouble quickly when she heard me laughing over the line 🤣
20 minutes? I saw some that were right next to each other. I came out of a metro station and was in a pomegranate farm, across the road were newly built apartments.
What I found odd is that their TV provider was their ISP. The TV must have been IPTV and they were allowed to use the internet, by plugging a router into the TV box which had a modem. In the UK it’s generally the other way around, your ISP is your TV provider also.
Where I stayed had a crapper toilet. I don’t think that was the norm, though.
9 minute walk actually. From my apartment area to the main road where there are malls with KFC, Mcdonalds, etc…
But yea… having no phones and your mind is bored and wandering and thinking and so you look at things around you… that tends to slow your perception of time, it felt like a half hour walk lol. Memories are fuzzy.
Btw, we lived right next to a mountain, so like I remember just taking walks there with my dad.
Oh yea… that explains all the fucking mosquitos… like… imagine being right next to a mountain… its moist af… lol