War profiteering

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_profiteering 

"Uncle Sam with Empty Treasury" illustration following World War I

A war profiteer is any individual or organization that earns excessive or unethical profit from warfare or by selling weapons, supplies, or services to parties engaged in conflict. The term typically carries strong negative connotations and is often associated with exploitation during times of national crisis. More broadly profiteering, making a profit, criticized as excessive or unreasonable, also occurs in peacetime. An example of war profiteers were the shoddy millionaires of the American Civil War, who allegedly sold recycled wool and cardboard-soled shoes to soldiers, prioritizing profit over quality and safety.

Some have argued that major modern defense conglomerates including Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Boeing, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, and RTX Corporation fit the description in the post-9/11 era. This argument is based in the political influence of the defense industry, for example in 2010 the US defense industry spent $144 million on lobbying the US government and donated over $22.6 million to congressional candidates,^[4] as well as large profits for defense company shareholders in the post-9/11 period.

History

American Revolution

There were several food riots during the American Revolutionary War against profiteering merchants, more than thirty between 1776 and 1779. In 1777, a mob of Bostonian women beat the merchant Thomas Boylston and confiscated his stock of goods for hoarding coffee and sugar to drive up their prices. In East Hartford, Connecticut, a mob of twenty women and three men took 218 lbs of sugar from a merchant named Pitkin. In Beverly, Massachusetts, a mob of 60 women and some men forced local merchants to charge the same price for sugar in American paper money and gold coin.

Industrial Revolution

Main article: Interchangeable parts

Whitney's gun factory in 1827

In 1798, American inventor Eli Whitney received a government contract to manufacture 10,000 muskets in less than two years. After failing to produce a single musket, he was called to Washington to defend his expenditure of the treasury funds before a committee that included both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Believing to demonstrate the ingenuity of interchangeable parts, Whitney earned widespread support and has been incorrectly credited with inventing the idea of interchangeable parts. However Merritt Roe Smith concluded that this demonstration was staged by marking the parts beforehand, so they were not as interchangeable as he made them seem. Eventually Whitney was able to accomplish his goal of 10,000 muskets with interchangeable parts at a relatively low cost in the next eight years, and later produced more than 15,000 in the four years after that.

Military–industrial complex

Main article: Military–industrial complex

A prominent example of the impact arms-producing industries have over American policy is Lockheed Martin donating $75,000 to House Armed Services Committee chair Representative Mac Thornberry (R-TX). Representative Thornberry later passed a bill through the House of Representatives that benefitted Lockheed Martin. This decision was made as a direct result of the influence of Lockheed Martin. Politico has stated that Thornberry was the "highest overall recipient of contractor contributions among all of the 89 members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees."

Contemporary manufacturing

Main articles: List of modern armament manufacturers and List of defense contractors

Share of arms sales by country. Source is provided by SIPRI.

Currently, the United States is the world's largest weapons manufacturer and exporter, followed by Russia, France, Germany, China and the United Kingdom consecutively.

International arms dealers

Further information: Arms industry

Basil Zaharoff's Vickers Company sold weapons to all the parties involved in the Chaco War. Companies like Opel and IBM have been labeled war profiteers for their involvement with the Third Reich. In the case of IBM they developed technologies that were used to count, catalog, and select Jewish people whom could then be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, consolidation in ghettos, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation.

Commodity dealers

War usually leads to a shortage in the supply of commodities, which results in higher prices and higher revenues. Regarding supply and demand in terms of economics, profit is the most important end. During war time, "war-stuff" is in high demand, and demands must be met. Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, oil production was controlled by the Iraqi government and was off limits to Western companies. As of 2014, foreign owned private firms dominate Iraqi oil production.

Civilian contractors

Private military contractors, including civilian contractors, are businesses that supply weapons and training to the military, and also handle logistics and base management. While private military contractors may seem similar to mercenaries, the difference is that mercenaries operate illegally. More recently, companies involved with supplying the coalition forces in the Iraq War, such as Bechtel, KBR, Academi (formerly known as Blackwater) and Halliburton, have come under fire for allegedly overcharging for their services. The modern private military company is also offered as an example of sanctioned war profiteering. On the opposing side, companies like Huawei Technologies, which upgraded Saddam's air-defense system between the two Gulf Wars, face such accusations.

Black marketeers

A distinction can be made between war profiteers who gain by sapping military strength and those who gain by contributing to the war. For instance, during and after World War II, enormous profits were available by selling rationed goods like cigarettes, chocolate, coffee and butter on the black market. Dishonest military personnel given oversight over valuable property sometimes diverted rationed goods to the black market. The charge could also be laid against medical and legal professionals who accept money in exchange for helping young men and nascent politicians evade the draft.

The state

Anarchist protest against militarism with banner reading "fight the state not its wars," Boston

Though war initially had the objective of territorial expansion and resource gathering, the country may also profit politically and strategically, replacing governments that do not fulfill its interests by key allied governments. One example of this is the CIA supporting the Contras with weapons to carry out terror attacks against the Nicaraguan government between the late 1970s and early 1990s.

Politicians

Political figures taking bribes and favors from corporations involved with war production have been called war profiteers. Abraham Lincoln's first Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, was forced to resign in early 1862 after charges of corruption relating to war contracts. In 1947, Kentucky congressman Andrew J. May, Chairman of the powerful Committee on Military Affairs, was convicted for taking bribes in exchange for war contracts. In 1953, the United States began a covert mission to overthrow the Guatemalan government under Jacobo Arbenez. The process began with the United States labeling the government of Guatemala as a communist government. According to William Blum the reason for the United States’ intervention into Guatemala is that it was pushed by lobbyist from the United Fruit Company. The United Fruit Company had significant holdings within Guatemala and when the government decided to compete with the company this would not be accepted. Numerous officials such as President Eisenhower's Under-Secretary of State (and formerly director of the CIA) Walter Bedell Smith was a candidate for an executive position in the company while at the same time he was helping to plan the intervention. This coup was successful and the United Fruit Company was able to keep its holdings within Guatemala thus ensuring its profits were secure. This is typical of the sort of engagements that the U.S became involved in during the cold war that resulted in war profiteering.

Modern-day war profiteering among politicians has increased with the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to an article by USA Today in 2011 the top 100 largest contractors sold 410 billion dollars’ worth of arms and services. Within this massive expense of services has evolved what is called the revolving door. This revolving door has not differentiated between the two political parties. An example of this revolving door is the case of William J. Lynn III. In 2010 he was confirmed to serve as the number two man in the Pentagon after he worked as a lobbyist for Raytheon. This example shows the process of a person joining the government, then being hired as a lobbyist, and back to government. In the UK there are some restrictions on the jobs ex-politicians can take, and similar rules, although less extensive, apply to senior civil servants.

Scientific research

War provides demand for military technology modernization. Technologies originally designed for the military frequently also have non-military use. Both the state and corporations have gains from scientific research. One famous example is Siri, the artificially intelligent "personal assistant" programmed into Apple devices since October 4, 2011. Siri was a spin-off of CALO, a project funded by the government military development group, DARPA. CALO is an acronym that stands for "Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes".

In the United States

See also: Military–industrial complex

The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 intended to create criminal penalties for war profiteers and others who exploited taxpayer-funded efforts in Iraq and elsewhere around the world. This act was introduced first on April 25, 2007, but was never enacted into law. War profiteering cases are often brought under the Civil False Claims Act, which was enacted in 1863 to combat war profiteering during the Civil War.

Major General Smedley Butler, United States Marine Corps, criticized war profiteering of US companies during World War I in War Is a Racket. He wrote that some companies and corporations increased their earnings and profits by up to 1,700 percent and how many companies willingly sold equipment and supplies to the US that had no relevant use in the war effort. In the book, Butler stated that "It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits."

In the American Civil War, concerns about war profiteering were not limited to the activities of a few "shoddy" millionaires in the North. In the Confederacy, where supplies were severely limited, and hardships common, the mere suggestion of profiteering was considered a scurrilous charge. Georgia Quartermaster General Ira Roe Foster attempted to increase the supply of material to the troops by urging the women of his state to knit 50,000 pairs of socks. Foster's sock campaign stimulated the supply of the much needed item, but it also met with a certain amount of suspicion and backlash. Either the result of a Union disinformation campaign, or the work of suspicious minds, rumors, which Foster denied as a "malicious falsehood!", began to spread that Foster and others were profiteering from the socks. It was alleged that the socks contributed were being sold, rather than given to the troops. The charge was not without precedent. The historian Jeanie Attie notes that in 1861, an "especially damaging rumor" (later found to be true) circulated in the North, alleging that the Union Army purchased 5,000 pairs of socks which had been donated, and intended for the troops, from a private relief agency, the United States Sanitary Commission. As the Sanitary Commission had done in the North, Foster undertook a propaganda campaign in Georgia newspapers to combat the damaging rumors and to encourage the continued contribution of socks. He offered $1,000.00 to any "citizen or soldier who will come forward and prove that he ever bought a sock from this Department that was either knit by the ladies or purchased for issue to said troops."

Iraq War profiteers

Companies such as Halliburton have been criticized in the context of the Iraq War for their perceived war profiteering.

Steven Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, has accused former CIA Director James Woolsey of both profiting from and promoting the Iraq War.

The Center for Public Integrity has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, and her husband, Richard Blum, are making millions of dollars from Iraq and Afghanistan contracts through his company, Tutor Perini Corporation. Financial disclosure forms indicate that as of January 2020 51 members of Congress and their partners own between $2.3 and $5.8 million of stock in the top 30 corporations that sell goods and services to the US military.

Indicted defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes was reported to be ecstatic when hearing that the United States was going to go to war with Iraq. "He and some of his top executives were really gung-ho about the war," said a former employee. "Brent said this would create new opportunities for the company. He was really excited about doing business in the Middle East." One of the top profiteers from the Iraq War was oil field services corporation, Halliburton. Halliburton gained $39.5 billion in "federal contracts related to the Iraq war". Many individuals have asserted that there were profit motives for the Bush-Cheney administration to invade Iraq in 2003. Dick Cheney served as Halliburton's CEO from 1995 until 2000. Cheney claimed he had cut ties with the corporation although, according to a CNN report, "Cheney was still receiving about $150,000 a year in deferred payments." Cheney vowed to not engage in a conflict of interest. However, the Congressional Research Office discovered Cheney held 433,000 Halliburton stock options while serving as Vice President of the United States. 2016 Presidential Candidate, Rand Paul referenced Cheney's interview with the American Enterprise Institute in which Cheney said invading Iraq "would be a disaster, it would be vastly expensive, it would be civil war, we'd have no exit strategy...it would be a bad idea". Rand continues by concluding "that's why the first Bush didn't go into Baghdad. Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton. Makes hundreds of millions of dollars- their CEO. Next thing you know, he's back in government, it's a good idea to go into Iraq." Another prominent critic is Huffington Post co-founder, Arianna Huffington. Huffington has said, "We have the poster child of Bush-Cheney crony capitalism, Halliburton, involved in this. They, after all, were responsible for cementing the well."

Afghanistan War

During the Afghanistan War, defense sector stocks outperformed the average of the stock market by 58%. Commentators put into question whether the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan could be considered a failure for the United States. Jon Schwarz of The Intercept wrote that "These numbers suggest that it is incorrect to conclude [that the] Afghanistan War was a failure. On the contrary, from the perspective of some of the most powerful people in the U.S., it may have been an extraordinary success. Notably, the boards of directors of all [top] five defense contractors include retired top-level military officers."

From 2007, there were regularly more contractors than U.S. forces in Afghanistan. By 2016, private contractors outnumbered US state personnel three to one. In 2016, the Harris Corporation was awarded a $1.7 billion contract to supply communications equipment to Afghan security forces.

Russian invasion of Ukraine

The major oil and gas companies, including Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Phillips 66, BP and Sinopec, and the major weapon manufacturers, such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems, reported sharp rises in interim revenues and profits. BP however also lost over $20 billion by abandoning its investments in Russia.

The term "ABCD" refers to the four companies – ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus – that dominate world agricultural commodity trading. The ABCD commodity-trading companies have seen large profits as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rising food prices.

In March 2022, Bloomberg reported that China was reselling its US LNG shipments to a desperate Europe at a "hefty profit". India was buying discounted oil from Russia. Saudi Arabia also increased imports of discounted Russian oil.^[64] In September 2022, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck accused the United States and other "friendly" gas supplier nations that they were profiting from the Ukraine war with "astronomical prices". He called for more solidarity by the US to assist energy-pressed allies in Europe.

In April 2022, Russia supplied 45% of EU's gas imports, earning $900 million a day. In the first two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia earned $66.5 billion from fossil fuel exports, and the EU accounted for 71% of that trade.

In popular culture

The term 'war profiteer' evokes two stereotypes in popular culture: the rich businessman who sells weapons to governments, and the semi-criminal black marketeer who sells goods to ordinary citizens. In English-speaking countries this is particularly associated with Britain during World War II. The image of the 'businessman profiteer' carries the implication of influence and power used to actively cause wars for personal gain, rather than merely passively profit from them. In the aftermath of World War I, such profiteers were widely asserted to have existed by both the Left, and the Right.

Fictional character Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder in the novel Catch-22 has been called "perhaps the best known of all fictional profiteers" in American literature.

The Adventures of Tintin comic The Broken Ear features an arms dealer called Basil Bazarov who sells arms to both sides in a war. He is a recognisable example of this "type" and is specifically based on Basil Zaharoff.

Bertolt Brecht wrote the play Mother Courage and Her Children as a didactic indictment of war profiteering.

Daddy Warbucks was a war profiteer.

In the 1985 film Clue, Colonel Mustard was a war profiteer who sold stolen radio components on the black market.

The film The Third Man features a war profiteer named Harry Lime, who steals penicillin from military hospitals and sells it on the black market.

The film Lord of War is a fictional story based on the war profiteer named Viktor Bout, who illegally sold post-Soviet arms to Liberia and other nations in conflict.

The Suicide Machines released their 2005 album, entitled War Profiteering Is Killing Us All.

In the 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Professor Moriarty acquires shares in many military supply companies and plots to instigate a world war and make a fortune.

In Book 2 of The Legend of Korra, the character Varrick attempted to incite and encourage a civil war among the water tribes to make profit from selling weapons.

The song "Masters of War" by Bob Dylan is about war profiteering and the military–industrial complex.

In the film Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Finn, Rose Tico and BB-8 travel to Canto Bight, a coastal city catering to the galaxy's rich and elite. Finn is initially mesmerized by the city's glitz and glamour until Rose informs him that most of the city's inhabitants are war profiteers, having made their fortunes selling weapons and ships to the First Order and the Resistance. Also, the character of DJ shows Finn that the owner of the ship they're on made his profit selling weapons to the good guys (the Resistance) and the bad (the First Order). DJ then tells Finn that "it's all a machine" and that he should "Live free, don't join."

Fanaticism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanaticism

The Fanatics of Tangier by Eugène Delacroix, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal or an obsessive enthusiasm. The political theorist Zachary R. Goldsmith provides a "cluster account" of the concept of fanaticism, identifying ten main attributes that, in various combinations, constitute it: messianism, inappropriate relationship to reason (irrationality), an embrace of abstraction, a desire for novelty, the pursuit of perfection, an opposition to limits, the embrace of violence, absolute certitude, excessive passion, and an attractiveness to intellectuals.

Definitions

Etienne-Pierre-Adrien Gois, Voltaire defending Innocence against Fanaticism, circa 1791.

Philosopher George Santayana defines fanaticism as "redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim". The fanatic displays very strict standards and little tolerance for contrary ideas or opinions. Tõnu Lehtsaar has defined the term fanaticism as the pursuit or defence of something in an extreme and passionate way that goes beyond normality. Religious fanaticism is defined by blind faith, the persecution of dissidents and the absence of reality.

Causes

Japanese holdouts persisted on various islands in the Pacific Theatre until at least 1974. Hiroo Onoda offering his military sword on the day of his surrender.

Fanaticism is a result from multiple cultures interacting with one another. Fanaticism occurs most frequently when a leader makes minor variations on already existing beliefs, which then drives the followers into a frenzy. In this case, fanaticism is used as an adjective describing the nature of certain behaviors that people recognize as cult-like. Margaret Mead referred to the style of defense used when the followers are approached. The most consistent thing presented is the priming, or preexisting, conditions and mind state needed to induce fanatical behavior. Each behavior is obvious once it is pointed out; a closed mind, no interest in debating the subject of worship, and over reaction to people who do not believe.

In his book Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk, Neil Postman states that "the key to all fanatical beliefs is that they are self-confirming....(some beliefs are) fanatical not because they are 'false', but because they are expressed in such a way that they can never be shown to be false."

Similar behaviors

The behavior of a fan with overwhelming enthusiasm for a given subject is differentiated from the behavior of a fanatic by the fanatic's violation of prevailing social norms. Though the fan's behavior may be judged as odd or eccentric, it does not violate such norms. A fanatic differs from a crank, in that a crank is defined as a person who holds a position or opinion which is so far from the norm as to appear ludicrous and/or probably wrong, such as a belief in a Flat Earth. In contrast, the subject of the fanatic's obsession may be "normal", such as an interest in religion or politics, except that the scale of the person's involvement, devotion, or obsession with the activity or cause is abnormal or disproportionate to the average.

Types

• Consumer fanaticism – the level of involvement or interest one has in the liking of a particular person, group, trend, artwork or idea
• Emotional fanaticism
• Ethnic or racial supremacist fanaticism
• Leisure fanaticism – high levels of intensity, enthusiasm, commitment and zeal shown for a particular leisure activity
• Nationalistic or patriotic fanaticism
• Political, ideological fanaticism.
• Religious fanaticism – considered by some to be the most extreme form of religious fundamentalism. Entail promoting religious point of views
• Sports fanaticism – high levels of intensity surrounding sporting events. This is either done based on the belief that extreme fanaticism can alter games for one's favorite team (Ex: Knight Krew), or because the person uses sports activities as an ultra-masculine "proving ground" for brawls, as in the case of football hooliganism.

The White Man's Burden

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

The editorial cartoon "'The White Man's Burden' (Apologies to Rudyard Kipling)" shows John Bull (U.K.) and Uncle Sam (U.S.) delivering the world's people of colour to civilization (Victor Gillam, Judge magazine, 1 April 1899). The people in the basket carried by Uncle Sam are labelled Cuba, Hawaii, Samoa, "Porto Rico", and the Philippines, while the people in the basket carried by John Bull are labelled Zulu, China, India, "Soudan", and Egypt.

"The White Man's Burden" (1899), by Rudyard Kipling, is a poem about the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) that exhorts the United States to assume colonial control of the Filipino people and their country.

In "The White Man's Burden", Kipling encouraged the American annexation and colonisation of the Philippine Islands, a Pacific Ocean archipelago purchased in the three-month Spanish–American War (1898). As an imperialist poet, Kipling exhorts the American reader and listener to take up the enterprise of empire yet warns about the personal costs faced, endured, and paid in building an empire; nonetheless, American imperialists understood the phrase "the white man's burden" to justify imperial conquest as a civilising mission that is ideologically related to the continental expansion philosophy of manifest destiny of the early 19th century. With a central motif of the poem being the superiority of white men, it has long been criticised as a racist poem.

History

"The White Man's Burden" illustration (Detroit Journal, 1898)

"The White Man's Burden" published in McClure's Magazine, February 1899

"The White Man's Burden" was first published in The New York Sun on 1 February 1899 and in The Times (London) on 4 February 1899. On 7 February 1899, during a senatorial debate to decide if the US should retain control of the Philippine Islands and the ten million Filipinos conquered from the Spanish Empire, Senator Benjamin Tillman read aloud the first, the fourth, and the fifth stanzas of Kipling's seven-stanza poem as arguments against ratification of the Treaty of Paris, and that the US should formally renounce claim of authority over the Philippine Islands. To that effect, Senator Tillman addressed the matter to President William McKinley:

As though coming at the most opportune time possible, you might say just before the treaty reached the Senate, or about the time it was sent to us, there appeared in one of our magazines a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the greatest poet of England at this time. This poem, unique, and in some places too deep for me, is a prophecy. I do not imagine that in the history of human events any poet has ever felt inspired so clearly to portray our danger and our duty. It is called "The White Man’s Burden." With the permission of Senators I will read a stanza, and I beg Senators to listen to it, for it is well worth their attention. This man has lived in the Indies. In fact, he is a citizen of the world, and has been all over it, and knows whereof he speaks.

He quotes, inter alia, stanzas 1, 4, and 5 of "The White Man's Burden", noting:

Those [Filipino] peoples are not suited to our institutions. They are not ready for liberty as we understand it. They do not want it. Why are we bent on forcing upon them a civilization not suited to them and which only means in their view degradation and a loss of self-respect, which is worse than the loss of life itself?

Senator Tillman was unpersuasive, and the US Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris on 11 February 1899, formally ending the Spanish–American War. After paying a post-war indemnification of twenty million dollars to the Kingdom of Spain, on 11 April 1899, the US established geopolitical hegemony upon islands and peoples in two oceans and in two hemispheres: the Philippine Islands and Guam in the Pacific Ocean, and Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Atlantic Ocean.

Text

Rudyard Kipling in Calcutta, India (1892)

"The White (?) Man's Burden" shows the colonial exploitation of labour by various Western nations. (William Henry Walker, Life magazine, 16 March 1899)

"The White Man's Burden" in The Call newspaper (San Francisco, 5 February 1899)

Take up the White Man's burden—
    Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
    To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
    On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
    Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden—
    In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
    And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
    An hundred times made plain.
To seek another's profit,
    And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden—
    The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine
    And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
    The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
    Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden—
    No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper—
    The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
    The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
    And mark them with your dead!

Take up the White Man's burden—
    And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
    The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
    (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
    Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden—
    Ye dare not stoop to less
Nor call too loud on Freedom
    To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
    By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
    Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden—
    Have done with childish days—
The lightly proffered laurel,
    The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
    Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
    The judgment of your peers!

Interpretation

American writer Mark Twain replied to the imperialism Kipling espoused in "The White Man's Burden" with the satirical essay "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" (1901), about the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion (1899) in China.

The imperialist interpretation of "The White Man's Burden" proposes that the white race is morally obliged to civilise the non-white peoples of planet Earth, and to encourage their progress (economic, social, and cultural) through colonialism:

The implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit — economic or strategic or otherwise — of Britain, itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self-government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized (and Christianized).

Kipling positively represents imperialism as the moral burden of the white race, who are divinely destined to "civilise" the brutish, non-white Other who inhabits the barbarous parts of the world; to wit, the seventh and eighth lines of the first stanza represent the Filipinos as "new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child." Despite the chauvinistic nationalism that supported Western imperialism in the 19th century, public moral opposition to Kipling's racialist misrepresentation of the colonial exploitation of labour in "The White Man's Burden" produced the satirical essay "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" (1901), by Mark Twain, which catalogues the Western military atrocities of revenge committed against the Chinese people for their anti-colonial Boxer Rebellion against abusive Western businessmen and Christian missionaries.

Kipling politically proffered the poem to New York governor Theodore Roosevelt (in office 1899–1900) to help him persuade anti-imperialist Americans to accept the territorial annexation of the Philippine Islands to the United States. In September 1898, Kipling's literary reputation in the U.S. allowed his promotion of American empire to Governor Roosevelt:

Now, go in and put all the weight of your influence into hanging on, permanently, to the whole Philippines. America has gone and stuck a pick-axe into the foundations of a rotten house, and she is morally bound to build the house over, again, from the foundations, or have it fall about her ears.

As Victorian imperial poetry, "The White Man's Burden" thematically corresponded to Kipling's belief that the British Empire was the Englishman's "Divine Burden to reign God's Empire on Earth"; and celebrates British colonialism as a mission of civilisation that eventually would benefit the colonised natives. Roosevelt sent the poem to U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge for his opinion and they agreed that it made "good sense from the expansion standpoint" for the American empire.

Responses

To the white man's burden, the civilising mission of colonialism includes teaching colonized people about soap, water, and personal hygiene. (1890s advert)

Shortly after the poem's publication, it was embraced but also harshly rejected. Rejections included Satan Absolved by Wilfred Scawen Blunt, a contemporary English poet.

Their poets who write big of the “White Burden.” Trash!

The White Man’s Burden, Lord, is the burden of his cash.

— Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Satan Absolved, page 44

In the early 20th century, in addition to To the Person Sitting in Darkness (1901), Mark Twain's factual satire of the civilising mission that is proposed, justified, and defended in "The White Man's Burden", contemporary opposition to Kipling's jingoism provoked poetic parodies that expressed anti-imperialist moral outrage, by critically addressing the particulars of white supremacist racism in colonial empires. Said responses include "The Brown Man's Burden" (February 1899), by British politician Henry Labouchère; "The Black Man's Burden: A Response to Kipling" (April 1899), by clergyman H. T. Johnson; and the poem Take Up the Black Man's Burden, by educator J. Dallas Bowser.

In the U.S., a Black Man's Burden Association demonstrated to Americans how the colonial mistreatment of Filipino brown people in their Philippine homeland was a cultural extension of the institutional racism of the Jim Crow laws for the legal mistreatment of black Americans in their US homeland. The popular response against Kipling's jingoism for an American Empire to annex the Philippine Islands as a colony impelled the establishment in June 1899 of the American Anti-Imperialist League in their political opposition to making colonial subjects of the Filipinos.

In The Poor Man's Burden (1899), Dr. Howard S. Taylor addressed the negative psycho-social effects of the imperialist ethos upon the working-class people in an empire. In the social perspective of "The Real 'White Man's Burden'" (1902), the reformer Ernest Crosby addresses the moral degradation (coarsening of affect) consequent to the practice of imperialism; and in The Black Man's Burden (1903), the British journalist E. D. Morel reported the Belgian imperial atrocities in the Congo Free State (1885–1908), which was an African personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium.

British writer Charles Beadle's novel, The Whiteman's Burden [sic] (London, 1912), set in 1905 Uganda during the sleeping sickness crisis, explores colonizer attitudes toward their responsibilities and native views of their presence.

In The Black Man's Burden, Morel identifies, describes, and explains that the metropole–colony power relations are established through cultural hegemony, which determines the weight of the black man's burden and the weight of the white man's burden in building a colonial empire "The Black Man's Burden (A Reply to Rudyard Kipling)" (1920), by social critic Hubert Harrison, described the moral degradation inflicted upon the colonised black people and the colonist white people.

In the decolonisation of the developing world, the phrase the white man's burden is synonymous with colonial domination, to illustrate the falsity of the good intentions of Western neo-colonialism toward the non-white peoples of the world. In 1974, President Idi Amin of Uganda sat atop a throne while forcing four white British businessmen to carry him through the streets of Kampala; as the businessmen groaned under the weight of Amin, he joked that this was "the new white man's burden".

Revolutionary committee (China)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_committee_(China) 

Inaugural meeting of the Beijing Revolutionary Committee, 1967.

Revolutionary committees (Chinese: 革命委员会; pinyin: Gémìng wěiyuánhuì) were tripartite bodies established during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in the People's Republic of China to facilitate government by the three mass organizations in China – the people, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They were originally established in the power-seizure movement as a replacement to the government of China. Some have argued that it quickly became subordinate to it, whereas others have argued that it effectively supplanted the old apparatus, replacing it with an accountable system elected annually by the people through mass organizations, for the duration of the Cultural Revolution.

Background

As the spirit of the Cultural Revolution spread across China in the latter half of 1966, it soon became clear to the Maoist leadership in Beijing that the ability of local party organizations and officials to resist the attempts by the Red Guards to remove them from power was greater than had been thought. As a result, Mao Zedong proposed dramatic seizures of power by the various Red Guard and workers' groups and the establishment of new local governments based on Karl Marx's Paris Commune model. The first of these planned power seizures was to come with the founding of the Shanghai Commune in February 1967.

However, in January and February 1967, in Shanxi province and in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, two other power seizures of power had occurred, with People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers assisting workers and the Red Guards in overthrowing the old CCP authorities – the Harbin revolutionary committee (established on 1 February) was to be the first to be endorsed by Beijing. In both cases, the victors had established 'triple alliances' of the rebel people's organisations, the army and CCP cadres. These alliances were soon to be known as revolutionary committees.^[4] The leadership including Mao Zedong, who had originally advocated the commune system of government, was attracted to this new type of government, and by the end of February it had publicly stated that revolutionary committees were the only acceptable way of reorganizing government.

Role during the Cultural Revolution

With the decision of the leadership to support the concept of revolutionary committees, from February 1967 onwards mass organizations were encouraged to ally with cadres and the army to establish this new type of government. However, by the end of April 1967, only six of China's twenty-seven provinces (Beijing, Shanghai, Heilongjiang, Shanxi, Guizhou and Shandong)^[7] had established revolutionary committees with official approval, due to the continued resistance by old CCP organizations and the lack of agreement amongst mass organizations and the PLA over which party cadres were appropriate choices for the committees. By the end of 1967, only two more revolutionary committees (in Inner Mongolia and in the city of Tianjin) had been formed, despite a call from Mao in September for the forging of these alliances.

Following the founding of nine more revolutionary committees (including in Fujian and Jiangxi provinces) by March, in the summer of 1968, as the Red Guard movement was virtually extinguished by PLA suppression, in an effort to restore some unity to the Cultural Revolution there was another drive by the leadership to establish provincial level revolutionary committees. As a result, by the end of September 1968, all of China's provinces and autonomous regions had provincial-level organisations in place (with the last revolutionary committee being formed in Xinjiang province), and these groups were given the task of facilitating the establishment of similarly structured committees at a district, county and municipal level.

Some have alleged that the majority of revolutionary committees created rapidly came to be dominated by the PLA, because the army had military force at its disposal to enforce its will. For example, in the leadership of the revolutionary committee in Shanghai, seven out of the thirteen members were army officers. Twenty out of twenty-nine provincial revolutionary committees were chaired PLA officers, and in several provinces PLA soldiers chaired up to 98% of revolutionary committees above the county level. More often than not, in the interests of stability and order, the PLA allied with cadres on the revolutionary committees against the more radical organisations of the masses. Therefore, at the end of September 1968, only revolutionary committees in Shaanxi and Hubei provinces were chaired by civilians. Furthermore, the majority of those that sat on the revolutionary committees as representatives of the people were those who had had a stake in the pre-Cultural Revolution order of things rather than radicals from the movement itself.

Some have also argued that by 1969, it was also the case that both urban and rural revolutionary committees at all levels quickly became subordinate to existing or revived Party committees. The leadership of both organisations was often almost identical, and revolutionary committees became little more than instruments of the Party committees' bidding. This was particularly evident with the factory revolutionary committees – heralded as one of the great achievements of the Cultural Revolution, they were often little more than bureaucratic extensions of Party power.

However some, such as Dongping Han, have argued that, at the local level at least, the Revolutionary Committees were an important tool of popular power, accountable and representative of the people throughout the Cultural Revolution.

Role after the Cultural Revolution

With the winding down of the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution in 1969 and 1970, the revolutionary committees became increasingly bureaucratic and an organizational and ideological formality. Although originally tasked with the representation of the Cultural Revolution's mass organizations (the Red Guards and the worker's groups), the dispersal of these mass groups made the revolutionary committees increasingly defunct, especially as the Party had regained administrative control of China. However, they were maintained for their increasingly effective bureaucratic role (they were more efficient than the conventional Party apparatus of government) and as the leadership did not want to undermine the ideological success of the Cultural Revolution.

The future role of the revolutionary committees was to be formalised at the Fourth National People's Congress held in January 1975. This congress ratified a new version of the constitution of the People's Republic of China, in which the revolutionary committees were established as permanent fixtures of the country's administration, but they were not given any role in the formulation of policy. In addition, the three members of the 'triple alliance' principle on which the revolutionary committees were founded were redefined as 'the old, the middle aged and the young'.

However, in 1978, after an eleven-year history, revolutionary committees were abolished by the post-Mao government.

Merchants of death

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_death

1935 lithograph titled Merchants of Death by socialist printmaker Mabel Dwight

Merchants of death is a pejorative directed at the arms industry and also often at international bankers. It originated in the Great Depression. This theory claimed that an international munitions industry conspired to control the fate of nations via improper influence over government officials. The purpose of this supposed conspiracy was to extract profits from human death. During peacetime, the conspirators would stir up antagonism and war between nations so that they could then arm the combatants and line their pockets with the proceeds. The phrase is a forerunner of the military-industrial complex concept that became popular during the Vietnam War.

Usage

Merchants of death is considered a derogatory term by scholars. Anti-war activists who use the phrase likewise describe it as a pejorative. It has been described as ugly in spirit and slanderous. In addition to its use as a derogatory term, merchants of death refers to a conspiracy theory claiming that war is caused by artificial conflicts stirred up by arms makers and bankers for their own profit. The first use of the term occurred during the Great Depression and it quickly achieved popularity during the lead-up to WWII.

A very comforting myth has evolved through the years to account for mankind's penchant for self-destruction. War can be blamed squarely on two elements of society that are limited in number, highly visible, and unloved—the munitions makers and their associates, the international bankers. These devils have come to be known collectively as "merchants of death," although the term is quite often applied to the munitions makers alone.

— Anne Trotter

Although a few cases of unethical behavior on the part of arms makers around the year 1900 influenced the later birth of the term, the allegations of conspiracy that were widely alleged under the moniker merchants of death were found to be baseless by the Nye Committee and subsequent investigations.

The term became popular once again during the Vietnam War at the same time that the similar phrase military-industrial complex first achieved common usage. Military-industrial complex is likewise almost always pejorative and carries sinister overtones.

History of the theory

Popular anxiety that a ruler may lead a nation into war for his own self-interests has a long history dating to the dawn of society. However, criticism of arms makers is a modern phenomenon originating in the Industrial Revolution. Armorers were well-to-do artisans in Ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages in European towns known for arms making such as Toledo, Milan, Nuremberg, and Liège. But ancient armorers remained firmly in the class of respectable artisans rather than rising to become wealthy businessmen.

Animosity towards the arms industry became a matter of public debate at the start of the 20th century. Socialists began blaming war on capitalists at the Second International where they took up the cause of antimilitarism and J. A. Hobson claimed in 1902 that wars are started by businessmen feigning national antagonisms which have no basis in reality. A fictional arms manufacturer was portrayed negatively in the 1905 play Major Barbara with lines like You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it doesn’t. The international peace movement first focused attention on large European arms makers such as Schneider-Creusot, Krupp, Vickers, Armstrong Whitworth, and Škoda around the time of the Second Hague Conference in 1907.

Following the Anglo-German Naval Race of 1909, public criticism of munitions makers increased in England. The War Traders by George Perris influenced intellectuals and socialists to begin discussing nationalization of munitions makers to put them under public control. The attacks on the arms industry just prior to WWI had all the elements of the merchants of death theory that erupted 20 years later. These included charges of war scares fomented by industry, international arms cartels, manipulation of the news media, and conflicts of interest in government procurement. These claims were promoted by pamphlets such as National Labour Press’s The War Trust Exposed, Union of Democratic Control’s The International Industry of War, National Peace Council’s The War Traders, and World Peace Foundation’s Syndicates for War and Dreadnoughts and Dividends.

there is a powerful group of capitalists, closely allied to the fighting services, firmly entrenched in society, and well served by politicians and journalists, whose business it is to exploit the rivalries and jealousies of nations.

— H.N. Brailsford 1914

Conflict between the peace movement and the Navy League of the United States broke out in the lead-up to WWI when Clyde H. Tavenner accused the League of being a front for the vested interests of its officers and arms makers. Tavenner called for nationalization of the arms industries in a speech in the United States House of Representatives. Progressives in America began targeting arms makers as a subset of their more general enemies of big business and bankers. An early victory in this fight was a prohibition on loans to the belligerents by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, though that was reversed the following year by his successor. When Woodrow Wilson began preparing the nation for war, Progressives in Congress reacted by enacting a special tax on munitions makers and a war excess-profits tax.

Criticism of armaments cooled in Europe with the outbreak of war in 1914, and in America when it entered the war in 1917, though a minority in America including George W. Norris continued to claim that arms makers and financiers were pushing the country into the war.

The industrialized weapons of WWI ushered in the era of industrialized warfare that efficiently killed men without any of the chivalry of ancient battle. The general public came to consider large wartime profits as compelling evidence of profiteering without considering the complexities of what constitutes a fair profit or that munitions makers are necessary during wartime. An additional aspect of moral outrage was a general feeling that producing equipment for the purpose of destroying human life was wrong, but that the farmer who grows cotton for explosives or the miner who digs ore that is forged into guns was above reproach. Rather than considering the moral dimensions of each citizen's participation, a simple stereotype developed that assigned all moral opprobrium to owners of the munitions industry, or merchants of death, as they came to be known. When DuPont emerged from the war having made a large profit on sales of explosives, they were branded as greedy profiteers despite having lowered prices during the war.

Outrage cooled following the Armistice with the League of Nations's attempts at international arms control receiving little popular support in America. However, things flared up again in 1926 with the publication of Genesis of War by controversial historian Harry Elmer Barnes who claimed Germany was blameless and that Wilson and his warmongering assistants were at fault instead.

Arms control was debated by the United States Congress in the late 1920s including the Burton Resolution of 1928 and the Capper and Porter resolutions of 1929 which proposed to prohibit exports of arms to any nation engaged in war. In August of 1929, three large American shipbuilding companies were revealed to have employed William Shearer to sabotage the Geneva Naval Conference of 1927. An investigation by the United States Senate resulted in considerable press coverage, but no concrete action. War itself was renounced with the signing of the Kellogg–Briand Pact.

The Great Depression

As the world descended into the Great Depression and European nations defaulted on their debts, disenchanted Americans became certain that “someone” in big business must be responsible for the mess they found themselves in. Public fear of war built during the Depression as the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the Chaco War, and Adolf Hitler's rise to power made clear the possibility of another world war.

Congress investigated ways to “remove profits from war” with the War Policies Commission established in 1930. The commission featured Bernard Baruch as its star witness, who published Taking the Profit out of War around the same time.

British arms dealer Basil Zaharoff

The term Merchants of Death was introduced to the public in 1932 as the title of an article in Le Crapouillot by French journalist Xavier de Hauteclocque [fr] about a British arms dealer named Basil Zaharoff, originally called in French "Sir Basil Zaharoff, le magnat de la mort subite" and translated as "Zaharoff, Merchant of Death." Hautcloque referred to Zaharoff as "marchand de mort subite," which had many idiomatic meanings in French but wasn't used to refer to arms dealers.

The American delegation to the World Disarmament Conference of 1932 enjoyed broad public support for establishing international control over arms makers. The international arms industry was then accused of sabotaging this conference first in British and French press, and then in the The Literary Digest and The Nation through 1933. The most important American publications of this period were a series of three articles by Progressive historian Charles A. Beard in The New Republic that focused specifically on alleged abuses by American arms makers.

Public outrage was further stoked in 1934 by the book-length exposés Merchants of Death by H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen, Zaharoff, High Priest of War by Guiles Davenport, Iron, Blood and Profits by George Seldes and an article in Fortune which was popularized further by a reprinting in Reader's Digest.

American politician Gerald Nye who rose to fame by investigating "merchants of death"

Things came to a head with formation of the Nye Committee which generated headlines for the next two years. Gerald Nye rose to fame by launching a series of congressional hearings aiming to prove the theory that munitions makers and bankers were responsible for American entry into WWI, and for war in general. Ninety-three hearings were held, over 200 witnesses were called, and little hard evidence of a conspiracy was found. The Nye Committee came to an end when Chairman Nye accused President Woodrow Wilson of withholding information from Congress when he chose to enter World War I. The Nye Committee failed to substantiate the theory, but succeeded in convincing the public by way of sensationalist rhetoric. When the hearings were finished and a final report made, the committee members were almost unanimous in their view that the evidence failed to support the merchants of death theory. However, Nye did uncover rampant conflicts of interest and questionable practices among members of the War Industries Board. President Truman later called the Nye Committee “…pure demagoguery in the guise of a Congressional Investigating Committee.”

Similar allegations in Great Britain resulted in a government inquiry in 1935–1936.

The outrage whipped up by the Nye Committee resulted in a series of isolationist Neutrality Acts that prohibited private loans and sales of war materials whenever a state of war existed anywhere on the globe. These laws are now generally regarded as having aided the rise of Nazi Germany and were repealed in 1941.

Influential scandals

Anglo-French naval panics

The Royal Navy was known to be in superb shape in 1884, but a series of editorials in the Pall Mall Gazette claimed that England was in imminent danger of invasion by a secret French navy. The rumor spread to newspapers around the country and was aided by voices of businessmen who were concerned about the high unemployment rate at the time. The panic caused the Admiralty to ask for emergency funds to reinforce its fleet, despite believing such a tax increase to be unnecessary.

Carnegie Steel

In 1894, allegations of fraud were made against the Carnegie Steel Company in connection with armor plate that it was manufacturing for the government. The company’s president, Charles M. Schwab, was called to testify before Congress. However, despite the bluster of some congressmen who pushed for a federal armor factory, the furor passed after it became clear that the government gained more from the relationship than it lost. The incident brought to light the problem of a revolving door where naval officers on temporary leave worked for these steel companies and even received royalties on patents.

Anglo-German Naval Race of 1909

British naval officers and industrialists agreed to interpret German naval expansion as a threat to British security in order to secure dramatically increased naval spending from the British people. This collusion fueled the arms race.

The arms race was fomented by H.H. Mulliner, director of the Coventry Ordnance Works who wished to increase his firm’s government orders. He went about this by sharing what he claimed was secret intelligence that the Germans were about to overtake England in shipbuilding. Krupp, a German firm with a fearsome reputation, was implicated in this false rumor. After attempting to directly influence the Admiralty with his story it was leaked to the press which had the desired effect of inflaming public sentiment to the point that protesters began demanding an increase in English shipbuilding to counter the fictitious German threat. Denials by Krupp and Berlin only made matters worse. Parliament responded by allocating money for four new ships, which prompted Germany to increase its own spending.

Mulliner’s scheme was revealed three years after he started spreading the rumors when his firm received only a small share of the anticipated work, prompting him to write a series of letters to the The Times explaining his role in fabricating the scare, while defending himself has having acted out of a sense of patriotism. Mulliner was fired by Coventry Ordnance Works and the firm was blocked from government contracts for 3 years.

Shearer affair

In August 1929, three large American shipbuilding companies were revealed to have employed William Shearer to sabotage the Geneva Naval Conference of 1927. An investigation by the United States Senate resulted in considerable press coverage, but no concrete action.

Violent Struggle

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Struggle

The Cultural Revolution Cemetery in Chongqing, China. At least 1,700 people were killed during the violent faction clash in Chongqing, with 400–500 of them buried in this cemetery.

The Violent Struggle (simplified Chinese: 武斗; traditional Chinese: 武鬥; pinyin: wǔdòu), also known as Wudou or Factional Conflicts, refers to the violent conflicts between different factions (mostly of Red Guards and "rebel groups" composed mostly of students and workers) during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The factional conflicts started in Shanghai and Chongqing in December 1966, and then spread to other areas of China in 1967 which brought the country to the state of civil war. Most violent struggles took place after the power seizure of rebel groups, and gradually grew out of control in 1968, forcing the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party as well as the Chinese government to take multiple interventions in the summer of 1968.

During much of the fighting weapons were either acquired by the rebel groups through raids on arms depots or direct support from local military establishments. Weapons used in armed conflicts included some 18.77 million guns (some say 1.877 million), 2.72 million grenades, 14,828 cannons, millions of other ammunitions and even armored cars and tanks. Researchers have pointed out that the death toll in violent struggles ranged from 300 thousand to 500 thousand, while certain documents from the Chinese Communist Party have revealed that 237,000 people were killed and another 7,030,000 were injured or permanently disabled. Notable violent struggles include the battles in Chongqing, in Sichuan, and in Xuzhou.

History

Origins

Establishment of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee, 1967

The violent faction clashes in Shanghai and Chongqing in December 1966 were regarded as the first large-scale violent struggles in mainland China. In January 1967, factions in Shanghai started the "January Storm" during which Shanghai People's Commune was established. After receiving the support from Mao Zedong himself, the "Shanghai model" spread to other regions of China where factions began to grab power from the local governments, establishing the revolutionary committees. These seizures of power were successful in the provinces of Shanxi, Heilongjiang, Shandong and Guizhou with PLA support, but succeeded nowhere else. The violent struggles across China escalated significantly in the summer of 1967 after Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong, promoted the idea of "Wen Gong Wu Wei (文攻武卫)", meaning "attack with reason, defend with force". During this time, a dizzying array of political groups and factions rose and fell throughout China - a situation which often led to bloody conflict between groups.

Motivations and ideology

The Cultural Revolution brought to the forefront numerous power struggles both within the Communist Party, and against it from the left. Factional conflict between Red Guard and rebel organizations happened for a wide range of reasons: some purely for the seizure and dominance of political power, others were fought over pre-existing class resentments, while still more struggled to stay afloat in the turmoil of changing alliances. One of the primary reasons for the emerging factionalism was about social discontent and access to privileges. In Guangdong, for instance, fighting between student-based Red Guards was often predicated on the ability to apply to join the Communist Youth League and perceived prospects for upward advancement. Andrew Walder writes that the political orientation of Red Guard factions could often reflect the social group of its members, with deep-seated economic and social motivations being a driver for conflict. One of the decisive factors pushing students to conservative or radical factions was their relation to the Maoist system of ranking people by their "class background." Many of those lacking a 'good class background', and its associated privileges, were more likely to engage in left factions. Students in families with cadre associations skewed conservative, and were more likely to defend existing political authorities or otherwise pursue much more moderate actions. These 'conservative' factions tended to characterize the radicals as full of 'petty-bourgeois revolutionary spirit' and acting against proper revolutionary authorities. Factions existed not just among students and workers, but also within the People's Liberation Army. Wading into a complicated web of shifting alliances and political positions, local army units often had to contend with the dual tasks of interpreting contradictory orders from above, and then actually carrying them out within the constraints of chaotic regional conditions. For example, from 1967 to 1969, military units in Xuzhou became embroiled in civilian factional politics and sharply divided into 'Kick' (tipai 踢派) and 'Support' (zhipai 支派) factions based on whether they wished to support the left or kick it out. These splits were driven by ideological beliefs, personal rivalries and ambitions, as well as pragmatic attempts to make sense of orders from the central government.

Splits between factions were not solely a question of broader social issues though. Questions of strategy and tactics were also a factor. In these debates, the question of whether a faction was 'radical' or 'conservative' could become increasingly muddy. As a rule, the clean division between 'conservative' and 'radical' became harder to sustain as 1967 progressed, and sub-groupings would drive conflict even within existing factions. An illustrative example is the situation in Guangzhou, where a group of 'radicals' collapsed into two distinct factions over the question of whether power should be seized immediately (and thus minimizing both public participation and shakeup of party officials) or later on with a broader political base to draw from. These sub-factions, in different localities, sometimes collapsed into even further infighting over minute ideological points, which were driven forward by changing circumstances on the national stage. Often in these cases, there was no such distinct social class that these factions represented. The fighting increasingly became an attempt to dominate the political scene and ensure the continued control of one's own faction at the expense of others. Events going on at the elite level of politics had a significant influence on the movement as well, and a crucial part of Violent Struggle was the constant attempt not to end up on the wrong side of the political battle being waged in the bureaucracy and in the halls of power. Attempts to win elite favor could lead competing factions to engage in a spiral of increasingly radical acts that were detached from the core ideological beliefs of its members, as happened with escalating violent confrontations at Tsinghua University throughout 1967 and 1968. Sometimes, support received from the center could be arbitrary or based on misperceptions about the relative conformity that one faction had versus their rivals. Nevertheless, at varying points the passion and political convictions of factions participants were equally important determiners and should not dismissed in favor of wholly cynical and pragmatic motivations.

Escalation and height

Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong at the time, talking with Red Guards (August 1967)

Much of the early phase of faction clashes involved street brawls, brick throwing, and low level violence. However, after the Wuhan incident on July 20, 1967, Jiang Qing thought that counter-revolutionaries appeared in the military and thus publicly proposed the idea of "Wen Gong Wu Wei (文攻武卫)", or "attack with reason, defend with force". Jiang's idea was published by Wenhui Bao on July 23. At the same time, Chairman Mao called for a "nationwide arming of the left", which emboldened radicals and swayed some PLA formations onto the side of the rebels. Faction clashes subsequently entered into a new phase of violence which rocked the nation. Weapons such as guns, grenades, cannons and even tanks were used in battles. According to some documents, different factions received weapons from supporting army branches, while some factions even raided local armories or created their own guns. The total number of guns used in the violent struggles was approximately 18.77 million (some say 1.877 million). These developments brought many regions of the country into a state of virtual civil war.

End

In the summer of 1968, the violent struggles had grown out of control in a number of places, Ultimately, the PLA was the only organization which was capable of restoring order to the country, and so the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was forced to issue several announcements to stop the battles. As a result, the factions gradually turned in their weapons and dissolved their armed teams, or were crushed by the force of the PLA. Factional violence on a local level declined precipitously after this point, and the purges carried out during the Cleansing the Class Ranks campaign would herald the end of this portion of the Cultural Revolution.

Death toll

Chinese researchers have pointed out that the death toll in violent struggles ranged from 300,000 to 500,000. Serious cases of violent struggles included the battles in Luzhou, Xuzhou and Chongqing, each of which saw deaths of at least thousands of people.

An official document (建国以来历史政治运动事实) from the Chinese Communist Party in 1996 claims that 237,000 people died due to the violent struggles, and another 7,030,000 were injured or permanently disabled.

Andrew G. Walder argues, however, that the death toll caused by the violent struggles committed at the hand of insurgent Red Guards or rebel groups is only a fraction of the deaths caused by the violent purges at the hands of state forces, for example during the Cleansing the Class Ranks campaign. Walder put the deaths at the hand of insurgent organizations from 1966 to 1971 at 37,046. In comparison, Walder put the deaths at the hand of state forces during the same period at 130,378.