Communism in China Formation

http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/communismcomputing-china/china.html
The Communist Party of China was formed in 1921. It was under Mao
Zedong's control in 1927. Eventually, Mao led a revolution, and the
communist party obtained control in 1947. They followed the example
of the soviet model of development through heavy industry with
surpluses extracted from peasants. Consumer goods were left to
secondary importance. In the sino-soviet split of the 1950's, Mao split
from traditional Marxism-Leninism and developed Maoism, the Chinese
interpretation of communism. Mao was upset with the Soviet leader
Khrushchev's position of peacefulcoexistence between the communists
and capitalists. The Maoists started a strong communist tradition,
instituting the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The
Great Leap Forward was instituted to help transform China into a heavy
industrialized society. However, this was largely considered to be a
failure and many Chinese starved to death. In the cultural revolution,
Mao overthrew his enemies and millions of people were killed or
persecuted.
New Ideas
After Mao's death, the ideals of China shifted under Deng Xiaoping to a
form of "market socialism." He instituted changes in the economic
system where they developed what he considered to be socialism with
Chinese characteristics. He decided to use policies that had been
shown to be effective and followed less the ideologies of the earlier
leaders. He instituted the "Four Modernizations", describing agriculture,
industry, science and technology, and the military. Deng is commonly
credited as the person who turned China into the economic world
power that he is today. He opened up China to the outside world and
industrialized successfully.
In 1989 the death of reformer Hu Yaobang led to student protests for
individual freedoms. This led to the Tienanmen Square massacre,
where military force was used against civilians. The PRC government
was internationally condemned, and Deng officially resigned in 1989.
He made a tour of China to keep emphasis on his policies and inspire
the entrepreneurship that exists in China today.
Modern Communism in China
The current constitution was created in 1982 and been continually
revised since. The constitution includes many civil rights: free speech,
press, worship, the right to trial, and the right to own private property.
However, in practice this constitution has widely not been followed.

There has been very little done to ensure that new laws instituted
follow the constitution. The judicial system does not provide any
particular method for review of new laws.
Computer usage in China has exploded. Currently, there are over 210
million internet users and over 400 million mobile phone users. There
is a huge increase of the computer users in China, and ethics of
technology has become increasingly prominent over the years. In
particular, privacy, censorship, public ownership, and work ethic have
become series ethical issues.
Communism in Cuba
Castro and Communism in Cuba
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1963/america-inthe-modern-world/castro-and-communism-in-cuba.php
Meanwhile, an example of communist tactics was being unfolded in Cuba,
within 90 miles of the U.S. southeastern shoreline. Early in 1959, after
battling for several years,

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Fidel Castro succeeded in overthrowing the government of Cuban

dictator
Fulgencio Batista. Mindful of Batista's cruel record of repression, the
U.S. government and the American public in general welcomed Castro's
rise to power as a victory for democracy.

American sympathy rapidly evaporated, however, when Premier Castro

began to act and sound like a communist dictator. He failed to hold the
free elections he had promised the Cuban people. He put to death
hundreds of his former political enemies in hasty trials intended more
as propaganda than as judicial proceedings. Then he proceeded to fill
Cuba's jails once more with political critics, including many of Castro's
former comrades, anti-communist labor leaders, and other veteran
opponents of the Batista regime. The press was placed under strict
censorship. Foreign-owned property was expropriated arbitrarily without
fair compensation, and in many cases without any compensation at all.
Only the communists emerged unscathed from Castro's repressive and
vindictive actions.
As his internal dictatorship hardened, Castro began increasingly to
denounce the United States and to seek support from the communist bloc
nations. In the face of rising provocations, the Eisenhower administration
at first adopted a policy of patient waiting. During the summer of 1960,
however, American policy stiffened. The United States placed a temporary

embargo on the purchase of Cuban sugar and urged the 21-nation

Organization of American States (OAS) to condemn Cuba's actions. The
OAS, while it did not directly criticize the Castro regime on this occasion,
did condemn communist interference in the Western Hemisphere.
Another international gathering, held later in 1960, seemed to sum up the
hopeful and disturbing aspects of the world scene. Meeting in New York,
the U.N. General Assembly admitted 16 new nations, all but one from the
African continent, a reflection of the rapid postwar movement of formerly
colonial peoples to full independence and nationhood. In a speech to the
U.N. delegates, President Eisenhower asked other nations to join the
United States in providing increased aid to developing areas generally and
to the new African nations in particular. He also pledged that the United
States would continue to seek a workable program of world disarmament
based on an effective system of inspection and control.
Prior to the General Assembly session, world concern over the mounting
arms race had been heightened by man's conquest of space, a
development which in more tranquil times would have been a source only
of admiration and pride. The launching of the first Soviet space satellite in
October 1957, and the first American satellite in January 1958-followed
by many others-demonstrated that both countries now had rockets
powerful enough to hurl atomic and hydrogen bombs into the heart of an
enemy country thousands of miles away. In the absence of a foolproof
arms inspection system, there was always the danger that, accidentally or
otherwise, a push-button war might break out which could destroy
millions of lives in a single blinding instant. World opinion was therefore
shocked and disheartened when Premier Khrushchev told the U.N.
General Assembly in belligerent tones that the Soviet Union would not
accept inspection and control in the initial stages of a disarmament
agreement. Soviet leaders knew that disarmament without inspection was
unacceptable to the democratic nations, since it would give dangerous
advantage to a closed society like the Soviet Union which could violate its
disarmament pledges with little chance of being found out, whereas
violations within a democracy would have a high chance of being
discovered and publicized.

Communism In North Korea

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/life-north-korea-last-home-communists1480419

Democratic People's Republic of Korea better known as simply

North Korea hit the headlines again this week, after it was linked
to a major cybersecurity breach of Sony Pictures.
North Korea is possible the only truly Communist regime left in
the world. Since the Cold War ended the people of most
communist states turned away from the controlling regimes to
embrace democracy. Even China and Cuba are adapting the
socialist revolutionary philosophies they were based on, and are
embracing capitalism and free market economies.
In North Korea, this is not the case. The State owns everything,
and controls everything: including the hearts and minds of its
citizens.
A secretive regime, its nearly impossible for journalists to venture
outside Pyongyang the capital city which acts as a showcase for
North Korea and it's regime, designed to convince the world that
the DPRK is a successful and thriving state. But the country's
economy is seen as virtually lifeless, due to decades of
mismanagement, isolationist policies by the Kim dynasty, and
international sanctions aimed at foiling its nuclear ambitions.
But those who manage to get out of the few cities, or escape the
country, report widespread poverty, disease and starvation. In
March 2011, the World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that 6
million North Koreans a quarter of its population needed food
aid and a third of children were chronically malnourished or
stunted.
Communism is Opressive
http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/communism
-computing-china/censorship.html
Censorship and Freedom of Speech
Capatilist vs. Communist Theory on Speech and Press Freedoms
Freedom of information, speech and the press is firmly rooted in the
structures of modern western democratic thought. With limited

restrictions, every capitalist democracy has legal provisions protecting

these rights. Even the UN Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by
the general assembly in 1948 declares "Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold
opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers"
(although as Article 19, it comes after the right to hold property, be
married and hold a nationality, among others). As such, western ethics
heavily favor the nearly unfettered rights to speech, press and
information. Such rights might be tailored to protect state security
from a Lockesian social contract perspective, but a Kantian categorical
outlook surely provides for a society in which everyone can speak
freely is better to one in which no one can speak freely.
Communism, as a primarily economic system, is much quieter on the
issue of individual human rights. Two conflicting positions on these
freedoms arise with analysis of communist theory. The first is an
argument against individual freedoms. In a communist society, the
individual's best interests are indistinguishable from the society's best
interest. Thus, the idea of an individual freedom is incompatible with a
communist ideology. The only reason to hold individual speech and
information rights would be to better the society, a condition which
would likely be met only in certain instances rather than across time,
making the default a lack of freedom.
On the other hand, the idea of perfect equality in communism argues
for a right of expression and press. Since each individual is equally
important, each should have an equally valid point of view. Indeed,
Marx defended the right to a freedom of the press, arguing in
1842 that restrictions, like censorship were instituted by the bourgeois
elite. He claimed censorship is a tool of the powerful to oppress the
powerless.
Indeed, many implementations of communism favored a constitutional
democracy, albeit usually with only one party. Before and at the
creation of many communist countries, a desire for freedom from the
oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeois translated into strongly
voiced support for individual freedoms for speech, dissent and
information. Chairman Mao, in encouraging his countrymen to prepare
for WWII more than a decade before he came to
power, proclaimed "[the people] should subject ... the party in power,
to severe criticism, and press and impel it to give up its one-party, oneclass dictatorship and act according to the opinions of the people....The
second matter concerns freedom of speech, assembly and association
for the people. Without such freedom, it will be impossible to carry out
the democratic reconstruction of the political system." In 1945, closer

yet to his assumption of power, Mao proclaimed, "Two principles must

be observed: (1) say all you know and say it without reserve; (2) Don't
blame the speaker but take his words as a warning. Unless the
principle of 'Don't blame the speaker" is observed genuinely and not
falsely, the result will not be 'Say all you know and say it without
reserve." More striking still is the fact that this latter quote is recorded
in "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung," more commonly known
as the Little Red Book, a veritable bible of Chinese communism
considered infallible during Mao's lifetime.
Thus, on the balance, it seems communist theory is compatible with
freedoms of speech, information and protest, but it is far from a
fundamental right such as it is under democracy and individualcentered ethics systems like that of Kant and Locke. Freedom of
information should only be granted when communist society as a
whole is likely to benefit. In this light, it makes much more sense that
communist leaders, while still a persecuted opposition philosophy,
would strongly support speech rights and later reject them when
communism becomes the ruling system. At that point, access to
oppositional speech and information is no longer beneficial to the
communist state, and thus no longer needed in communist philosophy.
China in Practice
Modern day China, more than almost any other country in the world,
severely restricts its citizens freedom of speech and expression. Oddly
enough, Article 35 of the current Chinese constitution, written in 1982,
stipulates "Citizens of the PRC have freedom of speech, publication,
assembly, association, procession and demonstration." Up to the
advent of the internet, the Chinese government had been able to
successfully curtail this freedom in nearly all its physical
manifestations. China has a tightly controlled traditional media, China
forces all published information to be from official sources and to be
vetted through the state. Ironically, the communist state founded on
the backbone of Marx's words stipulates a minimum personal income
of $35,000 dollars to be able to publish print media, an income level
which could easily be considered bourgeois by Chinese standards.
China also has strong restrictions against assembly and worship,
demonstrated over the last few days with a crackdown on Tibetan
protesters. Many assumed the government's ability to crack down on
dissent would be destroyed by the increased prominence of a dynamic
and nearly infinite internet space. However, China has adapted it's
censorship policies to the internet, and by many standards managed to
stay ahead of the curve in restricting free speech in the digital realm.
Internet use in China is blossoming. As of 2004 over 94 million users
were online and in 2007 the China Internet Network Information
Center, considered the premier source for measuring Chinese internet

use, pegged the number of Chinese users at 210 million. This number
will only grow in the foreseeable future, with the booming mobile
market, more and more a popular portal to the internet, estimated to
hit 600 million by 2010.
China Presents: The Internet (This realm has been modified from it's
original version. It has been formatted to fit The Party's view of the
world.)
This internet usage boom presents a variety of new challenges to a
government adept at censoring traditional media types. The internet is
much more vast than the physical realm controlled by China. It is not
susceptible to the traditional local control structure relying on
dedicated neighborhood party leaders to enforce edicts from the
centralized government. Furthermore, the barriers to traditional
information distribution of geography, money, and access to printing
machinery, are no longer an issue in a digital realm where a cell phone
or a few cents can buy time on the internet and allow anyone to blog
their opinions.
China has responded with a vast centralized censorship program. One
study by a group at Harvard in 2002, "found blocking of almost every
kind of content. If it exists, China blocks at least some of it." The
blocking has traditionally been centered on political and opinion based
sites. Some of the most likely to be blocked are related to
independence movements in Taiwan and Tibet, protest groups like the
Falun-Gong, political parties opposed to the state, and sites on
democracy. For the majority of Chinese web-users, these controversial
topic-specific sites are not part of their daily internet routine, which
focuses mostly on sports, entertainment and gaming sites. These
users may have only the vaguest notion of the filtering being
conducted by the government. Recently, however, the Great Firewall of
China has evoked increased backblash as it has begun to block more
popular websites like the photo-sharing site, Flickr and selected
MySpace pages .
China's filtering and censorship program is regarded as the most
sophisticated and effective in the world. It includes some 30,000
censors as well as technology, often provided by foreign companies
like google and yahoo who are required to censor their results or be
censored themselves. The filtering effort is in conjunction with a strict
criminal prosecution system working with laws that forbid the
publication of anything "(i) Denying the guiding status of Marxism, Mao
Zedong Thought, or Deng Xiaoping Theory; (ii) Violating the Party line,
guiding principles, or policies; (vii) Anything else that violates Party
propaganda discipline or violates national publishing administration
regulations." These laws are enforced with the aid of laws requiring all

ISPs and internet cafes to record and store information about all users
and their internet use.
Conclusions
It appears that the modern Chinese government has no interest in
conforming to the platitudes of free speech, press and dissent
espoused by Marx, Mao and it's own active constitution. While dissent
may seem compatible within the framework of theoretical communism,
it appears to be at odds with the communism practiced in China. In
revoking its founders statements, the government's position may seem
to oppose the spirit of communism; yet, the choices make perfect
sense when considered in the framework of making decisions not on a
priori ethical assumptions like democracies aspire to do, but rather on
the basis of what is best for the communist society at the moment.
While the world wide web may yet be too much for the well-oiled
Chinese censorship machine to handle, the government has done
remarkably well so far in providing a slimmer, more China-friendly
version of the internet to its citizens.