Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

“That comes to about one hundred million people in India alone from 1947 to 1980. But we don’t call that a crime of democratic capitalism. If we were to carry out that calculation throughout the worldâ€� I wont even talk about it. But Sen is correct; they’re not intended, just like the Chinese famine wasn’t intended. But they are ideological and institutional crimes, and capitalist democracy and its advocates are responsible for them, in whatever sense supporters of so-called Communism are responsible for the Chinese famine. We don’t have the entire responsibility, but certainly a large part of it”
― Noam Chomsky, Power and Terror: Post-9/11 Talks and Interviews

“The cunning villains used our innocence, naivety and honesty; they incited and steered our virtue, purity and fervent temperaments. When we realized the actual absurdity of the situation and began to demand our democratic rights, we were subjected to unprecedented persecution and suppression. Our youth, passion, learning, idealism and joy were all sacrificed to the terrible rule of this wicked tyranny. How can this not be blood?”
― Lin Zhao

“But after living in Communist China for the past seventeen years, I knew that such a society was only a dream because those who seized power would invariably become the new ruling class. They would have the power to control the people’s lives and bend the people’s will. Because they controlled the production and distribution of goods and services in the name of the state, they would also enjoy material luxuries beyond the reach of the common people. In Communist China, details of the private lives of the leaders were guarded as state secrets. But every Chinese knew that the Party leaders lived in spacious mansions with many servants, obtained their provisions from special shops where luxury goods were made available to their household at nominal prices, and send their children in chauffeur-driven cars to exclusive schools to be taught by specially selected teachers. Even though every Chinese knew how these leaders lived, no one dared to talk about it. If we had to pass by a special shop for the military or high officials, we carefully looked the other way to avoid giving the impression we knew it was there.”
― Nien Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai

“Art was the first casualty of the Socialist and Communist revolutions of the 20th Century. Socialists killed the independent thinkers first.”
― A.E. Samaan

“I led my schoolmates in collecting pennies. We wanted to donate the pennies to the starving children in America.”
― Anchee Min, Red Azalea: A Memoir

“As I silently rub the drops of blood on the wall, I can only find the right words when I think of that merciful and just God who is so far away, and yet so close.”
― Lin Zhao

“At a time when the ideological prestige of Soviet Russia had collapsed, utopian longings fixed themselves on the exotic East, the more easily because of the general ignorance of Chinese affairs.”
― Leszek KoÅ‚akowski, Main Currents Of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown

“In the morning I inspected my traveling companions and found a youth and a handsome old man with a wisp of gray beard sitting opposite me, sipping bitter tea. Presently the youth spoke to me, in formalities at first, and then inevitably of politics. I discovered that his wife’s uncle was a railway official and that he was traveling with a pass. He was on his way back to Szechuan, his native province, which he had left seven years before. But he was not sure that he would be able to visit his home town after all. Bandits were reported to be operating near there.

“You mean Reds?�

“Oh, no, not Reds, although there are Reds in Szechuan, too. No, I mean bandits.�

“But aren’t the Reds also bandits?� I asked out of curiosity.

“The newspapers always call them Red bandits or Communist bandits.�

“Ah, but you must know that the editors must call them bandits because they are ordered to do so by Nanking,� he explained. “If they called them Communists or revolutionaries that would prove they were Communists themselves.�

“But in Szechuan don’t people fear the Reds as much as the bandits?�

“Well, that depends. The rich men fear them, and the landlords, and the officials and tax collectors, yes. But the peasants do not fear them. Sometimes they welcome them.� Then he glanced apprehensively at the old man, who sat listening intently, and yet seeming not to listen. “You see,� he continued, “the peasants are too ignorant to understand that the Reds only want to use them. They think the Reds really mean what they say.�

“But they don’t mean it?�

“My father wrote to me that they did abolish usury and opium in the Sungpan [Szechuan], and that they redistributed the land there. So you see they are not exactly bandits. They have principles, all right. But they are wicked men. They kill too many people.�

Then surprisingly the graybeard lifted his gentle face and with perfect composure made an astonishing remark. “Sha pu kou!� he said. “They don’t kill enough!� We both looked at him flabbergasted.

Unfortunately the train was nearing Chengchow, where I had to transfer to the Lunghai line, and I was obliged to break off the discussion. But I have ever since wondered with what deadly evidence this Confucian-looking old gentleman would have supported his startling contention. I wondered about it all the next day of travel, as we climbed slowly through the weird levels of loess hills in Honan and Shensi, and until my train—this one still new and very comfortable—rolled up to the new and handsome railway station at Sianfu.”
― Edgar Snow

“In absolute numbers of people killed, the quarter century of tyranny (1929â€�53) of Joseph Stalin (1878â€�1953) over the Soviet Union ranks as the second deadliest regime in history, after that of his disciple Mao Zedong (1893â€�1976), who was responsible for even more deaths in Communist China between 1949 and 1976.”
― Kees Boterbloem, Life in Stalin's Soviet Union