58 years ago today, socialism was once again brutally ended. The "New Order" only ended with Suharto's death in 1998. Sukarno's daughter served as the 5th president from 2001 to 2004.
58 years ago today, socialism was once again brutally ended. The "New Order" only ended with Suharto's death in 1998. Sukarno's daughter served as the 5th president from 2001 to 2004.
(edit : my bad, the first post was deleted by mistake so i rewrote the title from memory, it was Suharto's resignation* in 1998, not death, following riots killing an estimated 1000 people. He died ten years later, in 2008.)
It is also the 74th anniversary of the founding of China's People's Republic today, not a coincidence(, just as, e.g., Russia's war in Ukraine happening on the same "anniversary" as the western-backed 2014 coup).
China was only allowed to exist in 1978 once they welcomed capitalism. Their overwhelming success wasn't expected however.
the day my country went downhill....
Every CIA terrorist should be tortured to death. It's only fair.
I don't think I want them in my mind for as long as possible. Just make them force the cross and shoot them dead there, or just shoot them in the fields and bury them as fertilizer...
Waste of time. Summary, clean execution is enough. Leaves us more time to devote to building socialism which is what really matters.
I think being forced to watch others partake in socialism while being locked in a labor camp should be enough
The coup overthrowing Sukarno was bad because he was a communist.
The coup overthrowing Suharto was good because he was an anti-communist.
The coup overthrowing Yanukovich was bad because it put anti-russians and pro-europeans in place.
The so-called "attempted coup" in the Capitol was bad because Trump sucks.
The attempted coups against Belarus or China in Hong Kong were bad because it was an attempt against our side.
And some recent coups in Africa are good as long as they join our side.
Etc.How to avoid hypocrisy/'double standards' ? If we shouldn't, then what's the point of denouncing them ?
There is no double standard. We are for whatever aids the cause of the working class, whatever advances the cause of decolonization and anti-imperialism. We oppose those actions which harm the interests of the working class and which advance the imperialist agenda, and we support those which do the opposite.
You have to look not at the form (the superficial appearance) of events but at their essence. You have to analyze their class character and their function in the framework of the global class struggle. This is not hypocrisy, we are clear in where our allegiances and our agenda lies. A coup is just a tool that can be used to achieve either good or bad ends.
Liberals cannot understand this because to them form is everything. For the liberal all that matters is how something is done - as long as the method is deemed acceptable the outcome doesn't matter. But Marxists must always ask in whose interest something being is done, who does it benefit and what is the impact on the long term project of working class liberation.
I had three very good replies below my comment, thanks.
This is indeed what the west does : they shut up about authoritarians who are on our side(, i'm thinking about the political parties recently banned in Tunisia or Senegal while the west stays silent, but the examples are clearly legion, N.Chomsky famously proved that our medias exclusively focused on Cambodia while totally ignoring East Timor, because the Khmer were communists while Suharto was on our side, the difference in our media coverage was something like 1:1000 or more).
We(sterners) may claim that we believe in our universal values but we're not(, or at least there are priorities, and it's not as if these values of Justice/.. weren't shared by communists as well).
So, you're saying that having double standards is logical, and that pointing out western hypocrisy only serves to mark the difference between our speech and our actions ? Perhaps.I'd still feel hypocritical if i criticised one of the horrors we did while supporting(, or even closing my eyes on,) our side if they did the exact same thing.
There's probably a middle-ground between both options, i'm biased until a certain point, the pro-capitalists probably are as well, at least the communist side doesn't need to lie in order to win the debate...
The difference is that communists don't pretend to be impartial or apply universal rules to all groups. We stand firmly on the side of the working class. Liberals pretend to be impartial and apply the same rules to everyone, but they obviously don't, and that's when they get called out.
Coups for national self-determination are good. It is quite obvious when coups are made by the US because they instantly sell off their countries to western companies.
The coup overthrowing Sukarno was bad because it led to a million man mass genocide and ethnic cleansing. What are you on?
Sure, but do not pretend like you would be ok if there was a coup without a bloody massacre afterwards, it's that socialism was taken from them that primarily[1] annoy us, not that coups are bad in themselves since we support some of them as long as they're on our side.
The problem is that the pro-capitalists think like that and end up considering that the end justify the means, not in words but manifestedly in actions. I could criticise their double standards but it made me think about my own biases as well.
On the other end, the most active side in the XXth century has been the west, so it's easier to criticise our double standard since there're more examples.
I also had/have in mind some way to be united in diversity, including some kind of tribunal preventing covert actions but allowing changes to spread as long as it's natural(, and authorized by the local government). Some kind of rules which would be free from double standards, if, e.g., coups are proscribed for pro-capitalists, then they ought to be proscribed for pro-communists as well, needless to say that we're not there( yet?).[1] : edit: it was a bad choice of word, i meant to speak about the root of the argument, something generalizable to all possible examples. 🤷♂️
it's only a double-standard to idealists who insist there's no difference between good and bad things
Sukarno coup was also bad, he was geniunely struggling for indonesia national self determination. Also he wasn't that anti-communist, it was the US-trained military that was very anti-communist.
