There is absolutely nothing inherently corrupt about Chinese or Russian civilization, only the material conditions that make them up. These of course include various folklore myths and fantasies that have no connection with the real world, which should be taken care of. As much as society acts upon us, we can also act upon it, so change is most certainly possible. In fact it’s inevitable, from the standpoint of our ideology.
I would argue the best way is to simply use dialectical materialism. For example, how would you eradicate religion in a future communist society? I’d start by investing into propaganda against the church. I’m sure there’s a lot of corrupt priests, pedophiles and so on, so you should use all these public scandals and make them as publicized as possible. Have culture and art that generally align against the existence of god. At the end, I’m sure the church as an institution is knee-deep in corruption, so after all that it wouldn’t be hard to convince the public to be passive while all their assets are seized.
But you cannot simply discredit your opponent, you also have to present your own case as to why your philosophy is the superior one, so reform the education system and start teaching children this stuff from day 1, whilst they’re still a tabula rasa. Develop a coherent, materialist framework where they can simply do the work themselves and come to a logical conclusion around the foundations of religious belief. Make them realize that the materialist reality of our world is the only thing that is actually tangible and what they should obviously focus their attention on, instead of some imaginary man in the sky who as some incredible spirit pulled matter out of his ass.
At the end of the day you probably know much more about the Cultural revolution that I do, but as far as I understand Mao and the revolutionaries were pretty idealistic, to the point of being pretty ultraleftist in some beliefs. But this is not uncommon, aside from the revolutionary republican movements in Europe even before socialism, the Bolsheviks were pretty idealistic as well. Proclaiming that the foreign ministry would soon becomes superflous and that it would soon be dissolved because of an international revolution, making soldiers elect their officers and so on. Nothing can be done overnight, and radical change must not only have a concrete strategy, but must inevitably be based in the material conditions of the times.
You are correct in that we are also changing society, but how are you going to weed out 2,000 years of deeply entrenched sociocultural norms? Is it going to take another thousand years? This was a problem that Mao had to face when taking the country to a completely new direction.
Chinese practices are very ancient, so ancient that Mao could not see any other way but through a Cultural Revolution.
I’ll just give you an example: the Imperial Court Examination began to emerge during the Northern Wei Dynasty and became a fully matured institution by the Tang Dynasty (5th to 8th century AD). It was an important institution that allowed the Emperor to form his own cliques and power base against the feudal aristocratic class that controlled much of the imperial court at the time, shifting the balance of power towards the monarchy.
The Imperial Court Examination allowed people from the lower classes to gain social mobility and ascend to the higher class, and back in the days (as well as today’s), a young man from a poor family who passed the examination and became a local official would allow his entire family and those related to him to leap to a different social class. 一人得道，鸡犬升天: “one person gets promoted, even his chickens and dogs get to ascend to the heaven.”
His examiner (the person who decided to promote him) and his teacher would become his second fathers. His entire life would now be indebted to the examiner and the teacher. At the court, you are expected to be the “attack dog” of your examiner’s political stance, to help attack his opponents int he court, defend him at any cost, and in some cases, even with your life. This is because he was the one who made you who you are today, who chose to promote you and not anyone else. You will be his “boy” for the rest of your career. Can you see how corruption can so easily emerge in such an institution?
This was a very important cultural element in the Chinese society - the so-called filial piety - where betraying the will of one’s father(s) would cause one to be ostracized by society and become an outcast. Of course, exceptions exist but they became very controversial.
One thousand and five hundred years later, literally the same cultural practices still exist in Chinese academia, and occurs at the highest and most prestigious level. Your “lineage” is very important in Chinese academia today, far more important than Western academic institutions. You are very much indebted to the person who “gifted” you your prestigious career.
Again, once you understand this, you can see why corruption is almost impossible to weed out even under the present socialist system.
This is just one of thousands of “hidden” rules that everyone expects to accept. It is deeply entrenched into the societal norms. You are not expected to break the rules imposed upon by the society. The institutions may have changed to a more modern one, heck, we have a socialist system, but these essence of these practices remain. We’re not going to see radical changes any time soon.
At the end of the day you probably know much more about the Cultural revolution that I do, but as far as I understand Mao and the revolutionaries were pretty idealistic, to the point of being pretty ultraleftist in some beliefs.
Idealistic, to a degree, yes, but Mao was also extremely pragmatic (Chen Duxiu’s faction, the Trotskyists, were the idealist ones). Mao took land reform seriously and worked on that for years, and the end result was that he could unleash the revolutionary potential of the masses even when completely outnumbered and outgunned by the KMT. In fact, there were mass defections among the KMT’s own ranks. This shows you how Mao was able to identify the fundamental contradictions of the Chinese society, and used that knowledge to plan and devise a successful strategy that would take years to materialize.
The problem with the Cultural Revolution was that Mao tried to fight a 2,000-year old institution. The ancient institution fought back and won. The landlord class that were purged in the 1950s have now fully integrated into the governmental ranks.
There is absolutely nothing inherently corrupt about Chinese or Russian civilization, only the material conditions that make them up. These of course include various folklore myths and fantasies that have no connection with the real world, which should be taken care of. As much as society acts upon us, we can also act upon it, so change is most certainly possible. In fact it’s inevitable, from the standpoint of our ideology.
I would argue the best way is to simply use dialectical materialism. For example, how would you eradicate religion in a future communist society? I’d start by investing into propaganda against the church. I’m sure there’s a lot of corrupt priests, pedophiles and so on, so you should use all these public scandals and make them as publicized as possible. Have culture and art that generally align against the existence of god. At the end, I’m sure the church as an institution is knee-deep in corruption, so after all that it wouldn’t be hard to convince the public to be passive while all their assets are seized.
But you cannot simply discredit your opponent, you also have to present your own case as to why your philosophy is the superior one, so reform the education system and start teaching children this stuff from day 1, whilst they’re still a tabula rasa. Develop a coherent, materialist framework where they can simply do the work themselves and come to a logical conclusion around the foundations of religious belief. Make them realize that the materialist reality of our world is the only thing that is actually tangible and what they should obviously focus their attention on, instead of some imaginary man in the sky who as some incredible spirit pulled matter out of his ass.
At the end of the day you probably know much more about the Cultural revolution that I do, but as far as I understand Mao and the revolutionaries were pretty idealistic, to the point of being pretty ultraleftist in some beliefs. But this is not uncommon, aside from the revolutionary republican movements in Europe even before socialism, the Bolsheviks were pretty idealistic as well. Proclaiming that the foreign ministry would soon becomes superflous and that it would soon be dissolved because of an international revolution, making soldiers elect their officers and so on. Nothing can be done overnight, and radical change must not only have a concrete strategy, but must inevitably be based in the material conditions of the times.
You are correct in that we are also changing society, but how are you going to weed out 2,000 years of deeply entrenched sociocultural norms? Is it going to take another thousand years? This was a problem that Mao had to face when taking the country to a completely new direction.
Chinese practices are very ancient, so ancient that Mao could not see any other way but through a Cultural Revolution.
I’ll just give you an example: the Imperial Court Examination began to emerge during the Northern Wei Dynasty and became a fully matured institution by the Tang Dynasty (5th to 8th century AD). It was an important institution that allowed the Emperor to form his own cliques and power base against the feudal aristocratic class that controlled much of the imperial court at the time, shifting the balance of power towards the monarchy.
The Imperial Court Examination allowed people from the lower classes to gain social mobility and ascend to the higher class, and back in the days (as well as today’s), a young man from a poor family who passed the examination and became a local official would allow his entire family and those related to him to leap to a different social class. 一人得道，鸡犬升天: “one person gets promoted, even his chickens and dogs get to ascend to the heaven.”
His examiner (the person who decided to promote him) and his teacher would become his second fathers. His entire life would now be indebted to the examiner and the teacher. At the court, you are expected to be the “attack dog” of your examiner’s political stance, to help attack his opponents int he court, defend him at any cost, and in some cases, even with your life. This is because he was the one who made you who you are today, who chose to promote you and not anyone else. You will be his “boy” for the rest of your career. Can you see how corruption can so easily emerge in such an institution?
This was a very important cultural element in the Chinese society - the so-called filial piety - where betraying the will of one’s father(s) would cause one to be ostracized by society and become an outcast. Of course, exceptions exist but they became very controversial.
One thousand and five hundred years later, literally the same cultural practices still exist in Chinese academia, and occurs at the highest and most prestigious level. Your “lineage” is very important in Chinese academia today, far more important than Western academic institutions. You are very much indebted to the person who “gifted” you your prestigious career.
Again, once you understand this, you can see why corruption is almost impossible to weed out even under the present socialist system.
This is just one of thousands of “hidden” rules that everyone expects to accept. It is deeply entrenched into the societal norms. You are not expected to break the rules imposed upon by the society. The institutions may have changed to a more modern one, heck, we have a socialist system, but these essence of these practices remain. We’re not going to see radical changes any time soon.
Idealistic, to a degree, yes, but Mao was also extremely pragmatic (Chen Duxiu’s faction, the Trotskyists, were the idealist ones). Mao took land reform seriously and worked on that for years, and the end result was that he could unleash the revolutionary potential of the masses even when completely outnumbered and outgunned by the KMT. In fact, there were mass defections among the KMT’s own ranks. This shows you how Mao was able to identify the fundamental contradictions of the Chinese society, and used that knowledge to plan and devise a successful strategy that would take years to materialize.
The problem with the Cultural Revolution was that Mao tried to fight a 2,000-year old institution. The ancient institution fought back and won. The landlord class that were purged in the 1950s have now fully integrated into the governmental ranks.