You post covers too many topics. Lets talk about land reform first.
Your quote and comments reflect a typical propagandist mentality as it
only reveals some truth but conceals the more complete one.
Land reforms (also agrarian reform, though that can have a broader meaning) is an often-controversial alteration in the societal arrangements whereby government administers possession and use of land. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed real estate property redistribution, generally of agricultural land, or be part of an even more revolutionary program that may include forcible removal of an existing government that is seen to oppose such reforms.
Land reform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
No...I reveal the most important truth that as far as communism goes, even your wiki source has it...
This definition is somewhat complicated by the issue of state-owned collective farms. In various times and places, land reform has encompassed the transfer of land from ownership even peasant ownership in smallholdings to government-owned collective farms; it has also, in other times and places, referred to the exact opposite: division of government-owned collective farms into smallholdings. The common characteristic of all land reforms is modification or replacement of existing institutional arrangements governing possession and use of land.
The issue here is not land reform at large but
WHO is doing the deed, and for now the 'who' are China and Viet Nam. The results of land reform followed by mass application of collective farming policies managed by incompetents are hunger and famine. That is not propaganda but the truth.
For China case:
· China has been through a series of land reforms:
o In the 1940s, the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, funded with American money, with the support of the national government, carried out land reform and community action programs in several provinces.
o The thorough land reform launched by the Communist Party of China in 1946, three years before the foundation of the People's Republic of China (PRC), won the party millions of supporters among the poor and middle peasantry. The land and other property of landlords were expropriated and redistributed so that each household in a rural village would have a comparable holding. This agrarian revolution was made famous in the West by William Hinton's book Fanshen. By the time land reform was completed, at least a million landlords and members of their families had been publicly executed or beaten to death by enraged peasants.[20][21]
o In the mid-1950s, a second land reform during the Great Leap Forward compelled individual farmers to join collectives, which, in turn, were grouped into People's Communes with centrally controlled property rights and an egalitarian principle of distribution. This policy was generally a failure in terms of production. [2] The PRC reversed this policy in 1962 through the proclamation of the Sixty Articles. As a result, the ownership of the basic means of production was divided over three levels with collective land ownership vested in the production team (see also Ho [2001]).
o A third land reform beginning in the late 1970s re-introduced family-based contract system called the Household Responsibility System, which had enormous initial success, followed by a period of relative stagnation. Chen, Wang, and Davis [1998] suggest that the later stagnation was due, in part, to a system of periodic redistribution that encouraged over-exploitation rather than capital investment in future productivity. [3]. However, although land use rights were returned to individual farmers, collective land ownership was left undefined after the disbandment of the People's Communes.
o Since 1998 China is in the midst of drafting the new Property Law which is the first piece of national legislation that will define the land ownership structure in China for years to come. The Property Law forms the basis for China's future land policy of establishing a system of freehold, rather than of private ownership (see also Ho, [2005]).
Did every Chinese peasant received a plot of land? I hope you are not so foolish to believe and reply 'Yes'. For every productive farmer, there are scores of non-farmers who relied on the farmer for their lives. Now take those who are experts at farming, lump them into the 'brutal landlords' category and throw them into prisons and give their lands to those who either barely know what to do or does not know at all. The result is that millions ended up starving on fertile but non-productive lands and some ended up boiling their youngest child to feed the family. That is the legacy of the Chinese communist land reform program.
No doubt that there were failures, but they are corrected. The land reform has had a positive impact on China in general as hailed by East and West. Talking about a million landlords and members of their families had been publicly executed or beaten to death by enraged peasants in todays view, it is a result of a mixture of lawlessness, feudal hatred, peasants reaction to landlord earlier brutality, etc. That is a reflection of ground reality in old China with vast poor and uneducated folks.
The reason that a typical 'armchair communist' like yourself can so easily dismiss the horrific results of communism is that you are living under the corrective actions of non-communist beliefs. You wear the label or espouse beliefs or defend communist atrocities more out of seeing communism as a fashion statement than as a core belief.
For Vietnam case:
· Vietnam: In the years after World War II, even before the formal division of Vietnam, land reform was initiated in North Vietnam. This land reform (1953-1956) redistributed land to more than 2 million poor peasants, but at a cost of from tens[24] to hundreds of thousands of lives[25] and was one of the main reason for the mass exodus of 1 million people from the North to the South in 1954. The probable democide for this four year period then totals 283,000 North Vietnamese.[26] South Vietnam made several further attempts in the post-Diem years, the most ambitious being the Land to the Tiller program instituted in 1970 by President Nguyen Van Thieu. This limited individuals to 15 hectares, compensated the owners of expropriated tracts, and extended legal title to peasants who in areas under control of the South Vietnamese government to whom had land had previously been distributed by the Viet Cong. Mark Moyar [1996] asserts that while it was effectively implemented only in some parts of the country, "In the Mekong Delta and the provinces around Saigon, the program worked extremely well... It reduced the percentage of total cropland cultivated by tenants from sixty percent to ten percent in three years." [4]
My note was
particularly for land reform in SV: Bad SV landlords under the deceptive,
, which seems to be a success.
Unlike the communists who engaged in crass class warfare and encouraged people to act upon their baser instincts, Thieu's land reform program was limited in scope, forbid existing landlords from further abuse of their positions, froze rents and used government lands. Thieu restrained the army from further involvement with the landlords once the program was executed as corrupt elements inside the army have done in the past. In short, Thieu's land reform program was far more fair and non-destructive than what China and North Viet Nam experienced. Further proof that no communist should ever be allowed to touch an abacus, let alone an electronic calculator, lest he deluded himself into believing he knows anything about economics.
In North, Mr. Ho perhaps was not wise enough to learn from their Chinese master what should/shouldn't be done.
Good joke...But it was worse than ignorance for Ho. He knew what happened in China but was cowed by both Mao and Stalin into accepting a smaller version of China's Great Leap Forward.
Again, dont be blinded with hatred. Were talking about facts. Peevishness won't help.
The fact is either in SV or China, the land reform has problems, but in general they are good for the vast oppressed poor, and, of course, very bad for the landlords.
BTW, a simple wiki is far better than your one sided quote.
BTW again, which land reform has no element of enforcement?
Me 'peevish'? Your arguments felled apart one by one and by facts that you cannot deny, only whitewashed as 'some mistake'.
This is about human rights and Mr. King and whether he is allowed to voice his objections to the War.
Of course he was so entitled. But how does being entitled make one's opinion valid? It does not.
It's so simple: supporting an anti-human regime and invade other country is a violation of human rights, which China didnt do that, nor did Soviet Union. Can you tell me why great democratic Nixon yielded and paid homage to atrocious communist China to barging for ending the war if the war is that glorious?
And communism is not an anti-human regime? Who erected the Berlin Wall? I once toured East Berlin when it existed. The difference between the two Berlins was like night and day with East Berlin being the lesser. No propaganda here, just facts. Chinese troops were in North Viet Nam, as far back as the mid-50s when the Viet Minh was fighting the French. Nixon? He did what he felt necessary to somehow withdraw the US from Viet Nam. But in way does that nullify the truth that the communists in Viet Nam were far worse in terms of inhumanity.
Vietnam war is indeed having its historical background. In essence, it is nevertheless nothing but a piece on grand chessboard of cold war manipulated by great players.
Vietnam war is arguably the biggest violation of human rights in this world under the pretext of preventing Communism domino effect, which itself is fake and imaginary!
Wrong...Communism
IS the greatest violation of human rights seen within the last one hundred years. The communist 'domino effect' did not occurred because after Viet Nam, even the communists realized that while the US withdrew, the costs for them in supporting the Vietnamese communists, in the country and in the UN, was too great. But communist Viet Nam then invaded Cambodia and Laos, so what make you think that such a 'domino theory' was not possible? And guess what happened in Cambodia? Does the phrase 'The Killing Fields' ring any bell? That was
AFTER the Vietnam War ended. But hey...That was not any violation of human rights but merely part of 'some mistake'. Every communist regime was a monster and in 1979, Viet Nam realized that its fellow communist monster, the Khmer Rouge, had to be destroyed so Viet Nam invaded Cambodia to install another communist monster regime. Neither the Soviets nor China did much to stop the petty fighting between the Asian communists. For the Soviets, the bigger prize to maintain and defend was Europe. You see the US and Canada did much fighting?
We have plenty field pictures to testify the brutality of the war and violation of human rights from both sides. I dont think you want or will be able to deny. I personally chatted with a Vietnam War veteran whose one foot was blown off by a mine. I may know less than you in some aspect, but I perhaps know more in other aspects.
You think that trotting out a conversation with a Vietnam War vet, dubious at best, is a valid justification for your support of communism? How about a conversation with an anti-communist Viet -- Me -- for a change? But of course, since I do not share your love for what is proven to be an evil ideology, my arguments can only categorize as 'propaganda' while what you spout as the truth.
Excerpt:
In 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75 700 000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24 000 km2) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam's land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicide was sprayed over food crops. Another purpose of herbicide use was to drive civilian populations into RVN-controlled areas.[212]
As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.[213]
The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, type II diabetes, Hodgkins disease, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Although there has been much discussion over whether the use of these defoliants constituted a violation of the laws of war, the defoliants were not considered weapons, since exposure to them did not lead to immediate death or incapacitation.
Vietnam War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In addition, anybody is entitled to and should be allowed to question human rights violation regardless how deep or shallow he/she understand the war, how old or young he/she is.
Of course you so entitled. But in no way does that mean your opinions are any more valid than mine, especially when your knowledge about the Vietnam War have proven to be, in your words, 'abysmally appalling'.
Tell us why you are not interested in asking civil right abuse of an invader? Have you ever asked anything about human rights abuse against those heroic students of Kent State University, Ohio, who perished under the gun simply because they voiced their view against the war? Have you questioned the usage of Agent Orange that devastated your homeland and made your brothers offspring defective and deformed? Where is your voice for human rights?
Please dont tell us you dont know My Lai Massacre. Please don't tell us you never heard of this:
Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I know more about the My Lai Massacre than you do and I am willing to bet that you did not know that it was an American officer that stopped the killings.
American tactics and conducts in Viet Nam may not have been kind or productive and even atrocious at times. But in no way was the US in Viet Nam out of hatred for the Vietnamese.
Whereas with the communists, we have plenty of atrocities committed that escaped media attention. One of them is this...
Hue Massacre
Read it and learn something new.
Your advocacy of democracy is obviously fake, feudal and laughable to the least.
How in the world is my belief in democracy is 'fake' and 'feudal'. I am beginning to think you do not know what these words really mean.
Back to the Vietnam War.
Why the communist eventually win the war? Because common Vietnamese do not want foreigners to be on their land, preferring to being oppressed by communists with various atrocious cruelty, if you will. It is not that US is not militarily powerful enough, rather the will of great Vietnamese is stronger and the whole war is a non-sense to many common Americans, perhaps except you.
This is indeed another sign of your knowledge about the Vietnam War that, in your own words, 'abysmally appalling'.
Why did the communists won? Not because of this obvious regurgitation of pure unadulterated propaganda from you --
the will of great Vietnamese is stronger. The truth -- The communists won because the US ceased material support for the South Vietnamese.
Here is where I further expose your gross ignorance and keep in mind that this is a publicly available forum...
Under the policy called 'Vietnamization' of the war, and you can look it up easily enough, the US largely withdrew its ground combat troops by the early 1970s with only the USAF the remaining active major US combatant. In 1972, the NVA conducted what is called 'The Easter Offensive' and was defeated by South Vietnamese forces, supported by US air power. The 1968 Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the NVA and the 1972 Easter Offensive was different in the respect that the NVA was defeated by ARVN forces.
If you charge the US to be an 'invader' in Viet Nam, you must explain to the readers as to which Viet Nam did the US 'invaded' and why. There are two distinct political entities in Viet Nam -- North and South. Each had its own currency, government, economic system and foreing policies. So which Viet Nam did the US invaded and for what reasons? Oil? Colonialism? Or how about mere rhetorics from 'armchair communists' like yourself.
South Viet Nam held on from 1972 to 1975. Three years of successful resistance against communism until the US abandoned its ally. So it can be argued that the South Vietnamese had a 'great will' to resist communism? Your argument that the Vietnamese
PREFERRED to be oppressed by communismm and suffered inhuman atrocities is insulting to anyone with any degree of human decency given the bloody records of communism. As you said this --
Because common Vietnamese do not want foreigners to be on their land -- then why did the Viet Minh allowed the Chinese to run North Viet Nam's land reform program to the deaths of tens of thousands of Vietnamese peasants? Even Ho was afraid of the Chinese as recalled by Colonel Bui Tin, the NVA's chief propagandist in his memoir...
Amazon.com: Following Ho Chi Minh: The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel: Bui Tin: Books
Go back to page five and read what I excerpted from the book again and see how ridiculous your argument really is.
The greatness of democracy or any good system is not denial of fact, but rather to have voices of difference heard, to have wrong-doings corrected.
That is correct. Too bad communism does not fall into this category of great beliefs for mankind.
But as interesting and as fun as it is to expose as ignorant another pop Vietnam War 'expert' like yourself, the point of this debate is whether or not China can still rightly be called a 'communist' state. The answer is 'Yes', that China is still a communist state regardless of the fact that China's economy have many capitalist functions. China still has a one-party rule political system and has a
PLANNED market system, not a free market one. The subtle difference is often masked by those capitalist functions and results and even the name -- Five Year Plan -- should be the obvious clue as to the true nature and source of China's economic foundation. Each 'Five Year Plan' would make adjustments, macro and micro, on the particular industry, be it agriculture or construction, based upon the results from the previous 'Five Year Plan'. Under a truly free market economy, the market dictate wages, prices and profits. With China, the government can with absolute impunity, exert total controls over those three most important elements of capitalism.
