Posted on 03/09/2006 6:05:56 AM PST by Dark Skies
Have they deported him yet? Has he had any visitations from the friendly neighborhood security services?
By 1921 thanks to W.W.I, civil war, and other turmoil Russia was in shambles.
This is from a book review of Russia's Last Capitalists: The Nepmen, 1921-1929 by Alan M. Ball (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
The reviewer is Richard M. Ebeling, August 1991.
"Russia was not ready for a full and immediate leap into either socialism or communism. What Russia needed, at least for a time, was a return to bourgeois capitalism. . .
"In the spring of 1921, Lenin announced the institution of a 'New Economic Policy.' . . . Agricultural land was returned to the ownership and control of the peasants . . . Retail businesses, small companies and medium-sized industries were permitted to be established. Only foreign trade and what the Bolsheviks called the 'commanding heights' of the economy heavy and large industry remained in state-owned and state-managed hands. [Sound familiar?]
"The economy boomed. Food supplies, while not particularly cheap, were available in plentiful supply in all the cities. Shops were filled with consumer goods, and service industries abounded. Freed from the dead hand of total and rigid central planning, the entrepreneurial spirit blossomed among the Russian people. The Russians showed themselves to be as industrious and productive as any of the peoples of the West, once they had the opportunity to earn profits on the market, and once they could own private property and feel a degree of security in its possession. . . .
"The party apparatus resented the reestablishment of a 'capitalist class.' . . .
"Russia's limited capitalism was hampered and straight-jacketed at every turn. But what the Nepmen demonstrated is that Russia could be wealthy and prosperous . . .
"[it all ended in 1929] With Stalin's rise to power in the Communist Party, total central planning was reinstituted. Private property was again nationalized. Then, in one of the worst crimes and tragedies of the 20th century, Stalin ordered the collectivization of all farming into state farms; and his plan was effected through planned famines, mass murders and deportations to slave labor camps in Siberia."
[End of excerpts. My emphasis and comment]
Red China is much more likely to follow this pattern. The difference is the Chi-com party cadre are many of the "Nepmen." The Chi-coms have killed off more citizens than Stalin. Their "great leaps" upon the backs of citizens killed tens of millions. A few tens of millions more won't matter.
This has been the Chi-com version of NEP. Deng and the Chi-coms studied NEP even before Mao died, I believe -- Deng even grilled Armand Hammer about his experiences in Russia at the time.
You're probably right. I know the Chinese government are control freaks. They can't stand anything getting out of their hands.
So China may go to central control of the strong sort and choke off incentive, at which time Chinese products will be junk again, like Russian manufactured goods.
What time period was he in China?
Agreed. Appeasement is a horribly dangerous game.
And those who think themselves wisest at the game usually lose the most . . . including their heads . . . in more ways than one.
I have never observed that
doom and gloom necessarily avoids alighting and resting where it's not 'needed.'
Sometimes it seems to be attracted most quickly to where the potential/probability for it is ignored unfittingly and unwisely.
I read somewhere that they invited him back to mainland to check things out, but this was couple years ago.
During much of the 1930s, many considered Hitler to be just this sort of eccentric and iconoclastic strong man. Today, the same sorts of folks play down the rise of the PRC and SCO.
Right out of the Neville Chamberlain playbook. We learned precisely nothing from WW2.
From my own experience, I don't think it was play out this way. Russians never owned anything and were serfs for hundreds of years. In China, a merchant class developed, probably because of China's location. They are the Jews of Asia.
Most of the up and coming "capitalist" younger princelings unanamously support the Beijing Party Line and relish becoming CCP bigwigs. Aparatchiks wearing Gucci ....
Impressive.
Did he learn Chinese?
I met some of the old China hands when I lived there. They were a special breed. Great folks. And well respected by the common Chinese people as well as by the scholars.
Very interesting article.
If it ends outsourcing...if it gives me an opportunity to sneer at free traitors everywhere and say, with my last breath of life, "I told you so." then it will be worth it.
I have no children - but many of the free traitors do. And those children will pay the price.
Just getting a little start on the "I told you so."
BTTT!
Interesting.
I can certainly understand enjoying staying in Asia. Love the people.
Reasonable considerations.
Though I believe that the puppet masters already have at least 3-4 DIFFERENT more or less free energy technologies held in reserve because they would destroy the controllers' centralized means of control through power and gasoline distribution.
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