this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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That the massacres happened in side streets, largely military vs. local non-student supporters, doesn't mean that the students weren't threatened with "move now or there's going to be blood", or that those massacres would not be connected to what went down on the square, even if not directly on it. As such your semantic quibbles are meaningless. After the hardliners in the CCP won out when it comes to how to handle the protest the whole party turned away from Deng's reforms for what about ten years or so, hardliners apparently fearing that if they reformed anything, people would want even more reforms, as evidenced by the Tiananmen protests.
The whole thing is just perfect proof how stuffy, crusty, and calcified the CCP is in general, and how out of touch with what people actually want.
Given the reports from Western journalists, this is closest to the truth (though we don't know if there was an actual threat or if the gunshots around the area were enough threat on its own). China basically treats 6/4 like the Israeli hospital bombing "it wasn't us, but if it was then we didn't actually cause it, and if we did then people didn't actually die, and if people died it was only a few people."
This is, of course, in the context of growing corruption in government and increasing influence of American intelligence in the Chinese mainland. We know that some of the pro-democracy activists were funded and supported by American interests and that, at least according to American propaganda, that American psyops divisions were operating in China to orchestrate and escalate the event. 6/4 is a failed coup. American interests wanted to see further Chinese liberalization and tried to apply the same playbook that they had applied before in South America and the Middle East (and later in Ukraine, Pakistan) to China.
Further economic liberalization was not in the best interests of the people. While Deng's economic reforms had helped to grow China's economy in the globalizing economy at the end of the Cold War, it also created a new bourgeois and petite-bourgeois class that China is still grappling with today.
Is there something in the facts assessment part of my post that you disagree with? I certainly didn't see you addressing any of it, all you did was quote my editorial opinion and call it bullshit.
Gaaaaah. "Racism is when criticism of the party". It's getting boring.Talk to a Chinese person who's not a party member FFS. How do you even fucking know I'm not Chinese, please tell me.
I mentioned, for example, the location of the massacres: The side streets. And the people massacred weren't students. I said that the protest was dissolved by threat of violence, not violence. I didn't really get into the struggle inside the party of how to deal with the protest but I did mention the outcome.
Are those things correct, yes or no? Is it some "soylent koolaid BS I have been fed"? It may not please your tankie sensibilities but it's definitely not the "Army rolled over students" line that became a urban myth in the west. This here sums up the press failure quite well, but it would also be mistaken to call it a deliberate propaganda move -- those things just happen. It's carelessness, and China being the authoritarian state it is and constantly denying anything even remotely untowards happened that day in Peking isn't exactly helping correcting the record.
Fuck no I'm not a historian. But, again: You actually have to tell me what I supposedly got wrong before I could remedy that issue. Are you here to talk to me and possibly educate, or to shout?
I'm trying to figure out what difference it even makes who was killed and where. It's not like the Tank Man footage was faked. And everyone clearly accepts that the Chinese government massacred its own people to stop an uprising.
Man, I am reminded of how much I hate humanity. Governments like theirs is the default everywhere.
It makes a difference when there are people actively trying to deny anyone died, period.
No one is doing that though, at least not here in the thread. Unless a new tankie popped in somewhere and I didn't see.
The army gunned down mostly workers, Peking locals, who tried to stop them from advancing to the square by blockading the streets. More or less the same people who had previously handed out noodles to the troops to have an opportunity to tell them that those are Dengist students wanting some more reform, their sons and daughters, not violent reactionaries, to make sure that what the party hardliners told the army wasn't the only thing the soldiers knew. Which was a good thing because if the soldiers hadn't known they probably would not have reacted with as much restraint -- but they still followed orders and advanced to the square, leaving corpses in their wake.
The official party line is still, more or less, "If we hadn't cracked down there would have been murder and rampage" -- nope. The violence happened because significant parts of the party wanted to backstab Deng's reforms and definitely didn't want to set precedent that some students could just show up and protest and get party members to talk to them and negotiate -- which very much happened on the part of the reformist faction.
But I wouldn't be surprised that it's kinda inconceivable in the first place for a tankie that the Chinese party had, or has, factions. Their performance has been rather spotty when it comes to centralism, but it was certainly increased after Tiananmen, and also after the collapse of the USSR. Mostly though it's politics as usual.
How, exactly, is any of this "pro-CIA"? Are you just throwing out random accusations? And yes I'm an Anarchist. I always was, and always will be, anti-tankie. Deal with it. But I also know just a tad bit more about Tiananmen than your ordinary westerner or, for that matter, your ordinary tankie.
Black flag. You're the red flag. Get your vexillology straight.
I oppose fascism of any kind. Kahanites, Hamas, Putin, doesn't matter, same shit with a different coat of paint.
Man hold that fucking L and shut up
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