Imperialism Watch

China

China had started off so well. A large country, a potential and past superpower becoming Communist like Russia. The promise of a revolution to sweep the world, for workers to unite in a common front inspired by Mao Zedong… Yes it had all started so well, but then it went horribly wrong. After Mao’s botched reforms China rapidly followed Soviet Russia in the spiral towards dictatorship. These two countries perfected beurocratic totalitarianism to an extent rarely seen before. Perhaps it had been seen before under the imperial rule of China, before the arrival of the West. One of the oldest beurocracies on earth. Perhaps what China became was hardly a surprise. Perhaps the past of a nation can plague it forever.

In any case the fact is that the PLA invaded Tibet. The massive immovable Party rewrote Tibetan history. Since then the people of Tibet have not known freedom. The ballant imperialism of the Chinese government is often unnoticed and unheard of.1.6 million Tibetans have died since the invasion of Tibet the West ignored it all. Not since the mid-60s has the case of Tibet been taken to the UN and into international spotlight. Once again, fear of China’s implacable, ruthless and aggressive economic and foreign policies have pushed the money hungry bourgeois capitalists to ignore the plight of an entire people…

by RzBz

From Issue # 4 published April 5

******

Can communism succeed?

The previous issues of Rioter’s Block have already made it sufficiently clear that communism has never been implanted for enough time to be able to appreciate any consequences. How can one judge the functioning of a theory that has never been tested, but rather used as a catchword and a tool of totalitarian dictators to reach supreme power?

The fact that communism has not been put to practice does not mean that it cannot be in the future, in the same way as the fact that the telephone did not exist in the 18^th Century did not prevent its invention later on. The world is for us to change it. Moreover, the world is for us to improve it. We have the capacity and the means to do this. All we lack is consensus on the way to do so and the final determination to take that way.

To seek refuge in claims of the type “communism cannot work because people are selfish” is what we do not need or want. If we are to have such an oversimplified and cynical mentality, then we may as well arrive to conclusions such as “murder and crime will never cease to exist, because people are evil in nature”. Why punish crime then? What is the point of us humans inhabiting this planet if we’re not going to at least make an effort to improve our, and by “our” I mean everyone’s, standard of life?

I agree: at the moment, communism cannot possibly succeed. Under our present conditions, progress is virtually a utopia. Conformism, passivity and indifference, expressed at their height by the easy-to-say and narrow-minded “logic” that “humans cannot be communist because communism is too idealistic”, are the worst diseases that affect humankind nowadays.

This is why Rioter’s Block wants you to wake up, to look beyond the veil of egoistic interests and national boundaries and to contribute to purge the world of indifferent conformists who can sit back and enjoy life while others are forced to make this possible. The world can be changed. Because not everyone is selfish, and not everyone is evil. And not everyone has good dreams while millions of people are dying of hunger. Not everyone wants this world to remain as it is. But for a change to happen, for an improvement to be made, we must all become conscious that communism is the best, if not the only, path.

-A Zappatista

From ISsue #4 published April 5