4 ms·

Thing about it is, the USSR could have stayed in power if they had been willing to get bloody enough. If Stalin had been in power (or even Khrushchev) the USSR

Thing about it is, the USSR could have stayed in power if they had been willing to get bloody enough. If Stalin had been in power (or even Khrushchev) the USSR would not have collapsed. There may have been another holodomor. There may have been another terror. But the government would have survived. This is a lesson the CCP learned watching events unfold to the north, and they put it to work in 1989. The question is if they still are willing and able to do it. I suspect the answer is 'yes.'

Retric 9y ago
Dictators can't wave a wand and cause such things they need people and institutions to enforce their rule. More importantly they need accurate information information about what is and is not working. So, sure in 1960 in theory they could have changed things and kept the system running, but that's not nessisarily true of say 1985. And I my expectation is they did not really grasp how close to failure they where in 1960.
- throwawaycanada 9y ago
  It is very, very easy to get people to do terrible things. I'm sure you are familiar with the Milgram experiments.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Doing terrible things is not enough to keep governments operating at scale. The general trend is the opposite where the worst atrocities where commuted by governments that failed shortly afterword. EX: Cambodian genocide (adjusted for population) was far worse than any similar time period in recorded Chinese or Russian history and it did not help.
- pizza 9y ago
  (forgive me but this short comment gave me quite a bit to think about :P) It's definitely necessary to have accurate information to keep things running, but there are certain aspects of the notion of 'accurate information' when it serves an ideological purpose that are pretty unexpected. For instance, Stalin believed his doctors were part of a conspiracy to kill him, so he would have his doctors and those of all top officials arrested and tortured, to the point of forced confession. The crime was not simply planning to murder, but planning to kill sacred revolutionaries [0]. This example is typical of the Stalinist concept of "objective guilt": it does not matter there wasn't a shred of evidence to the conspiracy. The ideals were used falsely to prove lies as true - not because the ideals were meaningless or because they were there to justifying any whim. But because swifter and harsher punishment would go to the one articulating why it was obvious no one really actually believed the stated rules. That instead they all obeyed unspoken, subjective rules - externally praising Soviet ideals only to avoid causing themselves horrible punishment. That the system they called objective was actually extremely repressive because of its sheer intersubjectivity.. Though upon reflection, it provokes two questions: "Why could the same Stalin who either truly believed his subjective will was the actual manifestation of historical necessity, or merely dictated as if he did, hold office - during some of the 20th's century's more turbulent periods - for as long as 30 years? And why is it that the reimagined "visionary-yet-non-pathological" Soviet Party that followed Stalin - despite its repudiation of his cult of personality - was even less capable of 'making the right mistakes' towards securing its existence?" Although one may be forced to say a lie, one will hold no illusions as hubristic as 'having made the correct mistakes' in brutal dictatorships - things are shitty. But when you become self-congratulatory, you hold more illusions. If I lack awareness of my tendency to underestimate my (recursive) uncertainty of my uncertainty of my self-evaluations, I would frequently wonder: "Gee! As if by chance - and without any understanding or memory of what they had in common - all these remote events - which I have disastrously underprepared for - just seem to keep happening to me! And with remarkable consistency"! I'm not sure if or how China's approach will succeed or fail. But China doesn't have the same illusions as the USSR did about revisionism (and its antithesis). And, the Chinese government does have an external system it is both invested in and holds itself accountable to; one that is also a far less uncertain measure of success than any sort of internal affairs department - the entire world economy. [0] http://www.lacan.com/zizstalin.htm http://www.lacan.com/zizstalin.htm
  - addHocker 9y ago
    One of the reason the sowjet state collapsed is because they lapsed when it came to surveilance, as in they started to built massive public housing projects, allowing for family to move into theire own flats and thus escape surveilance. Another lesson seems to be, that historys smallest revolutionary cell can be bribed into neutrality by economic success.
    - oblio 9y ago
      > Another lesson seems to be, that historys smallest revolutionary cell can be bribed into neutrality by economic success. The counter for this is people getting used to the good life and wanting more. If a government is able to have sustained economic success even in the face of this irresistible force, maybe it deserves to continue ruling. We have yet to see if the Chinese government will be able to maintain itself as the average Chinese move higher on Maslow's pyramid.
alphaalpha101 9y ago
The Holodomor wasn't an attempt to enforce power, it was a genuine attempt to modernise agriculture by forcing the change to happen.
rdlecler1 9y ago
The idiom is: "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey."

Retric 9y ago

Dictators can't wave a wand and cause such things they need people and institutions to enforce their rule. More importantly they need accurate information information about what is and is not working. So, sure in 1960 in theory they could have changed things and kept the system running, but that's not nessisarily true of say 1985. And I my expectation is they did not really grasp how close to failure they where in 1960.

throwawaycanada 9y ago
It is very, very easy to get people to do terrible things. I'm sure you are familiar with the Milgram experiments.
- Retric 9y ago
  Doing terrible things is not enough to keep governments operating at scale. The general trend is the opposite where the worst atrocities where commuted by governments that failed shortly afterword. EX: Cambodian genocide (adjusted for population) was far worse than any similar time period in recorded Chinese or Russian history and it did not help.
pizza 9y ago
(forgive me but this short comment gave me quite a bit to think about :P) It's definitely necessary to have accurate information to keep things running, but there are certain aspects of the notion of 'accurate information' when it serves an ideological purpose that are pretty unexpected. For instance, Stalin believed his doctors were part of a conspiracy to kill him, so he would have his doctors and those of all top officials arrested and tortured, to the point of forced confession. The crime was not simply planning to murder, but planning to kill sacred revolutionaries [0]. This example is typical of the Stalinist concept of "objective guilt": it does not matter there wasn't a shred of evidence to the conspiracy. The ideals were used falsely to prove lies as true - not because the ideals were meaningless or because they were there to justifying any whim. But because swifter and harsher punishment would go to the one articulating why it was obvious no one really actually believed the stated rules. That instead they all obeyed unspoken, subjective rules - externally praising Soviet ideals only to avoid causing themselves horrible punishment. That the system they called objective was actually extremely repressive because of its sheer intersubjectivity.. Though upon reflection, it provokes two questions: "Why could the same Stalin who either truly believed his subjective will was the actual manifestation of historical necessity, or merely dictated as if he did, hold office - during some of the 20th's century's more turbulent periods - for as long as 30 years? And why is it that the reimagined "visionary-yet-non-pathological" Soviet Party that followed Stalin - despite its repudiation of his cult of personality - was even less capable of 'making the right mistakes' towards securing its existence?" Although one may be forced to say a lie, one will hold no illusions as hubristic as 'having made the correct mistakes' in brutal dictatorships - things are shitty. But when you become self-congratulatory, you hold more illusions. If I lack awareness of my tendency to underestimate my (recursive) uncertainty of my uncertainty of my self-evaluations, I would frequently wonder: "Gee! As if by chance - and without any understanding or memory of what they had in common - all these remote events - which I have disastrously underprepared for - just seem to keep happening to me! And with remarkable consistency"! I'm not sure if or how China's approach will succeed or fail. But China doesn't have the same illusions as the USSR did about revisionism (and its antithesis). And, the Chinese government does have an external system it is both invested in and holds itself accountable to; one that is also a far less uncertain measure of success than any sort of internal affairs department - the entire world economy. [0] http://www.lacan.com/zizstalin.htm http://www.lacan.com/zizstalin.htm
- addHocker 9y ago
  One of the reason the sowjet state collapsed is because they lapsed when it came to surveilance, as in they started to built massive public housing projects, allowing for family to move into theire own flats and thus escape surveilance. Another lesson seems to be, that historys smallest revolutionary cell can be bribed into neutrality by economic success.
  - oblio 9y ago
    > Another lesson seems to be, that historys smallest revolutionary cell can be bribed into neutrality by economic success. The counter for this is people getting used to the good life and wanting more. If a government is able to have sustained economic success even in the face of this irresistible force, maybe it deserves to continue ruling. We have yet to see if the Chinese government will be able to maintain itself as the average Chinese move higher on Maslow's pyramid.

alphaalpha101 9y ago

The Holodomor wasn't an attempt to enforce power, it was a genuine attempt to modernise agriculture by forcing the change to happen.

rdlecler1 9y ago

The idiom is: "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey."