The Left must have an enemy, somebody to fight, some entity to excoriate, some group that they must convince the masses are trying to destroy their lives, a group that must be obliterated in order to save the “revolution,” the country, the world. In America, enemy number one is Donald Trump, the most hated man on the planet. But, in communist China, in the years after “liberation” (1950-52), who were Mao Zedong’s enemies? Who had to be annihilated? Well, pretty much anybody who didn’t agree with him or that he didn’t like:
“‘Our general policy, Mao [said], ‘is to eliminate the remnant Nationalist forces, the secret agents and the bandits, overthrow the landlord class, liberate Taiwan and Tibet and fight imperialism to the end.’” (Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation, Chapter 5, “The Great Terror”; All subsequent quotes are from the same source.)
Mao had been at war with Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists, so it could be expected that he would consider them his “enemy.” Though most Nationalists had fled to Taiwan, some remained in mainland China, especially in the south. But who were the “secret agents” and “bandits' '? How was the “landlord class” to be defined? With the desire to conquer Tibet and Taiwan, how could he, unhypocritical, “fight imperialism to the end”?
Besides Nationalists, Mao’s enemies were anybody he didn’t like, anybody who might oppose him as a dictator, and any piece of land that didn’t belong to him that he wanted.
How to gain these victories? By debate, persuasion, and reason? No. By propaganda, lies, and force. It is the only way Leftists can ever gain control of the masses because most people want absolutely nothing to do with their horrid policies. So, terror and mass murder became the—literal—order of the day:
“Mao handed down a killing quota as a rough guide for action. The norm, he felt, was one per thousand, a ratio he was willing to adjust to the particular circumstances of each region. His subordinates kept track of local killing rates like bean counters, occasionally negotiating for a higher quota. In May 1951 Guangxi province, for instance, was told to kill more, even though a rate of 1.63 per thousand had already been achieved.
A quota. “Kill this many, innocent or not.” And as we saw in earlier columns, innocence or guilt—or age—didn’t matter to his subordinates. They had to kill or be killed:
“Villages, counties, and provinces emulated each other, preferring to kill too many rather than too few – and risk being purged as ‘rightists’... Thousands were silently executed in order to fulfill and surpass the quota.”
The dreaded “rightist” label...the worst crime of all. Better to kill too many than not enough and “risk being purged” one’s self.
This is Leftism in all its glory, folks. No standards except what those in power determine. And what those in power always determine is total obedience—or death.
Mao Zedong: “‘In a province of 30 million, that [32,000] is a good number.’...more might have to be killed. ‘In provinces where few have been killed, a large batch should be killed; the killings can absolutely not be allowed to stop too early.’”
“Don’t stop killing people too soon; you might miss somebody I don’t like.”
“By April 1951, three out of every five provinces had reached or surpassed the target of one per thousand. In Guizhou, three per thousand had been eliminated...Luo (Ruiqing) expressed regret for the kindness shown to enemies of the regime and announced that ‘we must kill and resolutely eliminate the remnant forces of counter-revolution.’”
“Counter-revolution” is a nebulous term, of course, defined by Leftists. And again, anybody they don’t like can be (and was) labeled a “counter-revolutionary.” “The party had long developed a habit of blaming every setback on real or imagined enemies. Behind every poisoned well or granary that went up in flames lurked a spy or landlord.” Behind every mass murder in America is a white supremacist Trump supporter. “The party archives are full of cases of blatant abuse driven by cadres eager to show their determination to stamp out counter-revolution.” CNN and MSNBC, anyone?
If you even looked suspicious, then you were in trouble:
“Merely looking suspicious could determine a person’s fate. ‘If they look like bandits, and they look like spies, we call them bandit spies.’”
If you look like a “racist,” you probably are one, and doubtlessly so if you voted for Donald Trump.
“As cadres rushed to achieve their killing quota, false arrests were common. They reached over 50 percent in parts of Guizhou...In Chang’an village, Xie Chaoxiang aroused suspicion by merely knocking on the door of a landlord. He was locked up and beaten till he denounced forty-eight other farmers, most of them poor. Eight of these were arrested and beaten unconscious, doused with water, revived, and beaten again. Six committed suicide. In another case, a man killed himself after he was accused of having murdered eight people in 1929 – when he was a baby aged one.”
Enough for this article. This could go on almost endlessly. As I suggested in previous articles in this series, read Frank Dikötter’s trilogy on Mao to see the incredible horrors of Leftism, what humans are capable of when they have no strong moral honor, and what, no doubt, Leftists in America will do if they ever gain the power they crave, and paranoia sweeps over them. If they don’t, they will be the only Leftists in history who never did. Excuse me if I don’t trust them.
No one will be safe—not even their supporters. The next article in this series will be on the purge. The Left always eats its own. Not those who are not ideologically pure enough, but those who are TOO ideologically pure and actually believe the unmitigated rot the Left spews out. “The Purge” always follows, and it will follow this current article in a few days.
Many more articles, as well as audio and video podcasts, are on my substack: mklewis929.substack.com. Free signup. Read my Western novels, Whitewater, River Bend, Return to River Bend, and Allie’s Dilemma, all available on Amazon. You can follow me on Twitter: @thailandmkl. And rumble: lewandcou
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