James Donald wrote...

Bullshit. Everyone knew that which the regime decided they must know. And if true, which I very much doubt, you are not only arguing that Qin's legalism was a different thing than communism/nazism,

This is where the "Simplistic Grid" comes in. The momentum of Chinese culture will oalways outlive any short-term despotism, and the Chinese on many levels know this. When it comes to China, even some of the Han-dominated areas are incredibly difficult to get to, and when you start talking about Southern parts of Yunnan, most parts of Tibet, and places like Qinhai and Xinjiang, the idea of a lightening-fast and efficient despotism starts to sound dubious. Indeed, these areas are only barely under Beijing control today. It's also a main reason why Burma and the Golden triangle find it very easy to ship heroin overland through China to Hong Kong rather than go at it via a more direct route.

When, during the great leap forward, Peking commanded unreasonable grain requisitions from the provinces, *all* provinces contributed, and *all* provinces suffered starvation.

Anhui and central China suffered far more than other parts of China. I'd guess that 70% of the deaths due to starvation during 58 to about 64 occurred in that part of Central China. The obvious reasons were: 1) Proximity and easy communicatuion with Beijing, and 2) Large tracts of previously arable land (ie, you don't bother exerting despotism over an area that can't do much anyway).

you are also arguing that Mao's communism was a different thing than Stalin's communism.

No, I am arguing that Chinese communism was a different thing from Soviet commusim, for the precise reason that the weight of Chinese history would be fairly quick to erase Chinese commusim. Any China hand could have predicted exactly that, and indeed that's precisely what happened. Our decision to back the far-more corrupt Chiang regime all the way to 1973 or whenever, was a major blunder, if for no other reason then to accelerate the isolation of the Soviets. Mao would have been very hip to the manuever, and I bet would have welcomed it (The Soviets were never very useful to the Chinese communists). In other words, even a smart rabid anti-communist should have recognized that backing Mao's "Bandits" was at some point obvious, but most were far too blinded by their ideology to see that. The same thing's happening with Iraq and Iran. Iran's making overtures that we consistently ignore because were too darned dumb and power-oriented to see the opportunity. -TD

Both used ruthless terror to establish extraordinary control over a far flung empire that had formerly been ruled by relatively light hand, and then used that extraordinary control to extort extraordinary resources from the peasantry. The difference between Stalin's frequent references to the poor peasants (who were supposedly carrying out the liquidation of the kulaks in revolutionary zeal) and Mao's similar references is merely that Mao was more thorough in creating the simulation of a mass movement.

--digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG xGYJrVMJ5Hx9Dgyly/Lt7Vk6TKJAugVqAcp3+7mq 4rvMXJ51mdk2UqHkU40M50T9s5aAMzX99JW0hQGT/