Jonathan Lassen wrote:
When these kind of news stories - see below - appear (and we're only hearing about this one because one of the villagers was able to get to the internet), perhaps we should pause and look a bit closer at what's going on. The way that these Contradictions are either displaced, resolved, or sublated will have, IMO, a wide-reaching influence on how the 21st Century plays out, just as they did last century.
Jonathan
----------------- Villagers vow to fight on in face of police assault �Joint owners want to overturn the sale of 150 hectares worth 40 million yuan SCMP | 3 aug
Villagers in Henan province vowed to continue their fight for justice after police intervened at the weekend to quell their protest over land sales, leaving several people injured and four detained.
Is this particular story emblematic of the restoration of capitalism, though? Isn't it true that this kind of event took place in pre-reform China -- and not necessarily to benefit the working and toiling classes? We expect to see it in capitalist countries, of course. In a socialist country, however, where the working class is the dominant social strata, one might expect it not to happen.
My question is, to what extent is political repression in China the result of a one-party system that had/s(?) the tendency to disallow dissenting opinions and/or the insistence on a single path to socialism (if that kind of rhetoric is allowable), or a political culture (not meant in the anthropological sense) generated by a cultural-revolution-type atmosphere rather than a "restoration of capitalism"? I think some parallels are easily made with the Soviet Union and the "means to an end" mentality of some on the left in that one-party system, considering that it doesn't exist anymore.
Joel Wendland http://www.politicalaffairs.net
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