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The moral "high ground" of Capitalism
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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The famine during the great leap forward wasn't due to communism though? It was due to China being a backward country thanks to the century of humiliation (caused by capitalism) leading to lacking the necessary technical knowledge (there's a reason it was the last famine China ever had).
It was a rapid industrialization attempt by the CPC
Ah I didn't realise industrialising was a communist policy or that industrialising caused famine.
The actual reasons for the famine in reality were natural causes mixed with agricultural plans made with poor agronomic knowledge due to the backwardness of the country coming from the century of humiliation and a degree of poor reporting tradition held over from the feudal and landlord years.
None of these are "communist policy".
I had a professor who explained this (as well as I can remember so long after) that the people over-reported yields because they wanted to please Mao (not out of fear of punishment, but out of gratitude). Is that what you mean by poor reporting, or was this professor off-base?
To say 0 of this happened would definitely be untrue but I would say that coming from a time of sadistic landlord/warlord rule and the Aristocracy before that who could and would torture and murder you and possibly your family if your reports displeased them was a larger contributing factor as habits and traditions built up around saving you from this fate would be incredibly hard to shake in such a short time. A beaten dog in a new loving home still flinches at sudden movements. But also if you think of the wider culture such necessity would foster, of reporting accurate information being entirely secondary to pleasing the one being reported (generally at threat of terrible painful torture and or death). This culture of pleasing the one being reported to being more important than the actual information feeds back into both points anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Red_Banners
This was directly linked to the great leap forward
Please actually read what I'm saying. I'm not denying famine happened but the actual causes were not issues with communism or even related to communism but a mix of natural issues and hold over problems from the preceding years that left the country lacking agronomic knowledge and with a tradition of poor reporting to please feudal lords and landlords due to risk of retribution rather than convey accurate information.
Also you should avoid linking NATOpedia it only serves to demean yourself.
The century of humiliation did play a part in it, but it was also a direct reaction to Soviet development polices and of the single party state. Also wikipedia is reliable and it doesn't worship N.A.T.O as you believe
I have seen them cite Radio Free Asia on multiple occasions. Alongside Epstein island visiting Ghislaine Maxwell best friend Sebag Montefiore also famous for lying about viewing soviet archives. If that's what you take to be reliable then honestly wow I have no words...
Word salad. The industrialisation was but again industrialisation doesn't cause famine generally.
The 3 core factors were natural events, lack of knowledge due to backwardness, and poor reporting traditions.
And again none of these 3 things are communist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
They pushed for the creation of people's communes during the great leap forward. Which directly contributed to the famine.
"The early 1950s saw the establishment of agricultural cooperatives, yet these changes brought mixed outcomes. However, the push towards rapid industrialization and the establishment of people's communes in rural areas were central to the Great Leap Forward, reflecting the government's belief that collectivization and large-scale projects would boost agricultural and industrial outputs. The communes were meant to centralize farming and labor, supposedly leading to increased efficiency and output; still, in reality, and practice, these measures often disrupted traditional farming practices and led to decreased productivity. Dali Yang stated, "The initial stages of collectivization brought chaos and inefficiency, with agricultural productivity often declining"."
And since communes were meant to be a form of collectivization. The communes were infact communist
The fact you link Wikipedia to talk about how Wikipedia is reliable is genuinely amazing. "The CIA is so trustworthy they even told me themselves how they only use the best sources"/s. Entirely unserious person.
Again the communes were not the issue communal farming works as shown by it working post famine the issue was the implementation of new farming techniques while lacking the necessary agronomic knowledge to effectively do so. This failing was then worsened by natural disaster and poor reporting tradition as the actual material driving factors of famine. Have you considered actually thinking before posting?
Again what they say about themselves is irrelevant. The fact is they constantly cite RFA, scumbag frauds like Montefiore and other entirely unreliable or dare I say dogshit sources. The fact they say they really don't doesn't change that.
What do you think lacking agronomic knowledge means? Are you a complete fucking idiot or have you not been reading what I've been saying?
And still this is meaningless words salad that says nothing about what actually caused the famine. Which was again lacking agronomic knowledge, natural disaster and poor reporting traditions.
What do you think leads people to promoting anti intellectual policy? Maybe the fact they lacked the knowledge to promote effective policy at the time due to the country being mostly made up of illiterate peasants? How are you this much of an idiot? Do you not think anything through before you post?
So inefficient it brought the USSR from backwater to superpower in under 50 years and did the same for China. Ronald Reagan is that you?
And again we're back to lacking agronomic knowledge etc etc. 🤦♂️ 😮💨
I understand you have an ideological conviction and years of western chauvinism that are forcing you to try twist this but genuinely the levels of idiocy you are going to is amazing.
Can it be called anti intellectual by not having the necessary knowledge?
The sparrow thing was a fiasco but was based on something no? They had a hypothesis and test it.
Honestly I don't think the semantics of it are overly important is it technically anti intellectual if you simply don't know better probably not but was the wide roll out without real testing anti intellectual possibly, but in the end it all comes down to the 3 core factors which were the natural disasters, immense lack of agronomic knowledge, and poor reporting traditions what exactly you call them is not as important I think.
What's funny is that capitalism conditioned @Egriaga@lemmy.ml to be anti-intellecutal as they keep repeating the same thing and not understanding what you have to say
Regardless of what Wikipedia says about itself, it favors imperial core perspectives, firstly because English-language Wikipedia is dominated by editors of the Five Eyes states, but also because of its funders and leadership.
Meet Wikipedia’s Ayn Rand-loving founder and Wikimedia Foundation’s regime-change operative CEO
Does your vague snark have an actual point?