#centralism

温铁军 Wen Tiejun, Chinese agricultural economist, Renmin University of China professor:

为什么秦汉大帝国建立起来以后，中国能够存在一千年？历史上唯一一个没有没网的古代文明，就剩中国。四大古代文明，三个都灭亡了，就剩中国一个，为什么他不灭亡？因为自秦汉以来，他就不再是封建制了。你们脑子里学的都是，啊，中国几千年封建制。错了。他自秦汉以来就是中央制，不再是封建制。

How did China survive for a thousand years after the Qin and Han empires were established? The only ancient civilization in history that has not perished is China. Three of the four ancient civilizations have perished, leaving only China. Why hasn’t China perished? Because since the Qin and Han Dynasties, China was no longer a feudal society. What all of you have absorbed into your minds is, ‘ah, the feudal system has existed in China for thousands of years.’ Incorrect. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties what we’ve had is the Centralized system, no longer the feudal system.

我刚才讲的德国1832年之前是一个几百个小邦，他不是国家。那是封建制。分散成小邦，那叫封建制。封你为一个小国的国王，山头上建一个小城堡，周围有几个村，你就是国王了。比中国，可能连个镇长都不是，那他是KING，哈哈。这套是在欧洲。

I mentioned just now how Germany existed as a few hundred small states before 1832, and not a single country. That's feudalism. Dispersed into many small states, that’s what’s called feudalism. I allow you to become the king of a small country, you build a little castle on the top of a hill, which would be surrounded by a few villages, and you are a king. Compared with China, maybe this king is not even equal to a village chief, but he is King, haha. This is what they have in Europe.

欧洲是成千上万个小邦，构成的这样一个所谓，欧洲的国家政治的分散板块。而在中国，只要没有一个大一统的国家，能够集中兵员，集中粮草，用直道，用这个所谓高速路送到北方边境，只要没有长城传递信号，那农耕民族所受到的摧残是非常惨痛的。所以为什么中国历朝历代，中国的古代文化都信仰大一统，是因为他弱小。

Europe is composed of thousands of small states, which form a so-called scattered patchwork of national politics in Europe. In China, as long as there is no unified country that can concentrate its troops, gather food and grain, and send these to the northern border via straight roads — the so-called high-speed roads, and as long as there is no Great Wall to transmit signals, the destruction inflicted upon the farming civilization would be devastating. So this is why every Chinese dynasty and all ancient Chinese cultures believed in Unification — it is because China is vulnerable.

而这套体系在西方是没有的。为什么我们说讲，你不能完全按照冷战意识形态，和后冷战意识形态思考问题？

Meanwhile, this system does not exist in the West. Why do we say, one must not view issues completely from the perspective of Cold War ideology and post-Cold War ideology?

是因为你们了解历史，你们就会知道冷战意识形态只是，二战之后才建了一套非常落后的，某种程度上甚至愚昧的，这套体系。这个话语体系至今，这么愚昧，还能控制人类。特别是控制我们这么聪明的中国人，被他们控制成这样。尤其是高校知识分子，甚至你要动一动他都跟你要动他爹娘一样的感觉，如丧考妣。这就非常糟糕。

One of the things I’ve noticed in fandom complaints about the ATLA comics-- namely, “The Promise”-- and subsequently, LOK’s worldbuilding, is the way the narrative handles colonization. 

I see a lot about how what the Earth Kingdom chose to do with the former colonies is “none of Zuko’s (or Aang’s) business.” (I also see people talking about how Katara would never support colonialism, in any shape or form, no matter the circumstances.) 

And I just.... don’t vibe with those ideas? At all? 

Like, I definitely have problems with the comics-- especially “The Promise,” where all the drama centers around Miscommunications of Epic Proportions and could have been resolved in Part One if all the characters just sat down and listened to each other (not to mention that Aang would never have agreed to make that promise, nor would Zuko have asked it of him (Sokka would be a more obvious choice, but that’s a different discussion))-- but I never had any issues with their worldbuilding. 

I love the idea of Yu Dao, and the fact that the narrative acknowledges that a new kind of world has new kinds of problems. It makes sense to me that we can’t always just “give back the land we took.” And I found the idea of the end solution being  “give the people who live there their own country” really cool and empowering. 

So I want to talk about why I feel this way. About what kind of real-world parallels can be made here. About some little-known bits of world-history that compare. 

(Please note that for this meta I am only going to be discussing the relationship between Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. As far as I am aware-- and I could be wrong-- there is no real-world genocide quite comparible to what Sozin did to the Air Nomads, and most of the people alive in ATLA were not actually around for or involved in that. And the relationship the Fire Nation has with the Water Tribes-- and that the North and South have with each other-- is worth a whole separate analysis, and doesn’t deserve to just be shoved into this one.)

(Disclaimer: While this is in response to some of the interpretations I’ve seen on this site, it is not meant to discount or invalidate those fans’ views-- I’m just trying to show my take on it. I am a firm believer in the power of active discourse, and the value of looking at the same scenes through different lenses, rather than just getting one opinion and accepting it as Absolute Truth.) 

The main thing I notice in general ATLA discourse-- and not just on this topic, but in any sort of meta about the Fire Nation, colonization, and global impact-- is that the fandom mostly compares the war and its after-affects to real-world Imperialism, the Age of Imperialism, New Imperialism, and Colonization. 

And I understand why that is. In the grand scheme of world history, that era is still fairly recent, and we are still dealing with the afteraffects from it. It has shaped the Western World’s worldview on every level. (Not to mention that the Euro-centric way we’re taught history means that this piece of world history is the one we’re most exposed to, and so have the most understanding of and room to analyze/criticize.) 

However, there are a few issues with sticking only to this perspective. 

When you depend heavily upon a large population agreeing to follow a specific cadre (vanguard) of individuals, a strong incentive forms to uphold the illusion that the central committee is infallible. Acknowledging abusers or bigotry within their ranks threatens to shatter the support and scatter the followers on the breeze. 

Decentralization offers us an opportunity to diversify the options of who to support in such a way that toxic groups may be abandoned without dissolving an entire movement. 

While there will always be interpersonal power dynamics in human society, we can reduce their potential for harm in political groups by minimizing the importance of singular individuals within mass movements. 

https://www.podbean.com/ea/dir-c3gwq-6cf0b3f

Of all the experiments in the early years of the October Revolution, from Anarchist communities, to tenuous DSA style attempts to have reconciliation with Bourgeois reactionary forces, only the Bolsheviks Democratic Centralism proved strong enough and flexible enough to survive the Civil War and establish Soviet Democracy forming the Soviet Union.

Did the Bolsheviks do everything perfect? No, of course not. But considering everything they were up against, despite the Reactionary forces of Imperialism that united against the Bolsheviks, it's a testament to the strength and dynamism of Marxism-Leninism that the Bolsheviks won the war and United the vast Soviet Union under one Socialist banner.

I don't care what your tendency is, the accomplishments of the Bolsheviks in the early years after the October Revolution is astounding, and could not have been accomplished without the backing of the vast masses of the Soviet peoples. This was NOT a Revolution from Above. This was true Proletarian unity in an alliance with the peasants who'd endured the worst of the Tsrist years. The Bolsheviks could not have won through totalitarianism as the Bourgeoisie would like you to believe. Only millions of people rising up in glorious revolt could ever have given the Bolsheviks the strength and numbers they needed to win the Civil War and come out on top to form the CCCP.

Owens Jones talks of the Labour split and The Independent Group.

Owen critiques what they claimant to be the “centre ground.”

The Independent Group’s MPs need to consider by-elections...

The State & Revolution: Centralism or federalism?

V.I. Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik party, wrote ‘The State and Revolution’ after being forced underground to avoid arrest in August-September 1917. Although the pamphlet was not published until 1918, its conceptions were key to the Great October Socialist Revolution of October 25, 1917 [November 7 on the modern calendar], which was then only weeks away. Because ‘The State and Revolution’ retains…