Jiang Qing: Blood and Revenge in the Cultural Revolution
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- čas přidán 7. 06. 2024
- You know that saying about how there's a great woman behind most great men? Well, it turns out that the opposite might be true, too.
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Source/Further reading:
Britannica:www.britannica.com/biography/...
LA Times obituary: www.latimes.com/archives/la-x...
BBC Podcast, overview: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p025...
Jiang in Shanghai: supchina.com/2019/04/05/the-b...
BBC podcast, Jiang’s role in the Cultural Revolution: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03c...
Cultural Revolution timeline: apnews.com/dbf0fd79a3d14b1c91...
More on the Cultural Revolution: www.theguardian.com/world/201...
Further reading, Cultural Revolution - excellent book with great details: www.amazon.com/Cultural-Revol...
Gang of Four Trial: www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Great Leap Forward: www.theguardian.com/world/201...
Another brief overview: chineseposters.net/themes/jia...
Mao’s doctor: www.ft.com/content/df2eeb1a-6...
My grandpa was a middle school teacher during the cultural revolution. His 3 daughters, my mom included, were all honor students in school. They got news someone is out to get grandpa and label him a counter revolutionary (to be fair, he kind of was...), so the daughters preempted the attack by reporting grandpa themselves with a far less serious charge. And since it was a self-report, they received high praise from the school, the eldest daughter got a secretary position in the local red guard, and grandpa was put under house arrest, "guarded" by his own daughters. With the secretary position, the daughters made sure grandpa's case got so buried the school didn't even properly adjust his pay. Grandpa ended up getting a one year long paid vacation at home doing nothing.
This was genius.
This deserves a movie. Or at least a book.
That's actually brilliant.
Honour students, indeed. Very well thought out plan.
@DCBecause we did not lose the country, we handed it over. And so far most Chinese consider the deal still good enough.
My grandma worked as a bank teller during the Cultural Revolution and she has quite the story to tell.
It may sound like everyone was a devil, so eager to denounce the people they knew, but according to my grandma most people had their hands tied. Each state-owned agency (there were no private businesses back then so basically everything) were assigned quotas from higher ups - quotas on how many counter revolutionaries they must pick out. Crazy right, I know. When the quotas trickle down to the lowest levels, it's often only one or two out of a group of fifty.
So in the bank branch she work in, a meeting was called after they had their quota assigned - they had to submit the name of one "counterrevolutionary" out of about thirty employees. Nobody in the room was safe regardless of position. Everyone knew each other too so everyone was reluctant. Nobody dared to step out of line either, so the entire room sat in utter silence for an hour.
And then one person stood up and excused himself to go to the bathroom. After he left the other participants looked at each other and all knew what's up. When the unfortunate guy returned everyone else was pointing fingers and shouting "beat down the counterrevolutionary" at him. That was how their branch "elected" their "counterrevolutionary". They had to do it too - if anyone didn't jump on that one guy, then they would naturally become the next in line. My grandma was only 19 years old.
Thus is the madness of the Cultural Revolution.
Kind of like calling a woman a witch in Salem or a Russian spy in the cold war days.
@@kylewilliams4691 Or wacko US senators calling a fellow US senator a Putin apologist for daring to publicly say US tax payer money going to to Ukraine needs to be audited.
It's easy to blame the higher-ups. However each and everyone who persecuted others, are fully responsible for their actions and crimes against humanity. Just like Nazi war criminals cannot escape responsibility by blaming Hitler, after all the Nazi officers are only following orders. Until your grandma and everyone that didn't stand up against the regime took personal responsibilities, the same mistake would repeat.
There was a bank during Mao's era?! I am surprised.
@@chiensyang state owned and controlled
It's hard to exaggerate how crazy the Cultural Revolution was.
that's because it was so loony most fiction couldn't do it justice.
@JSENNER83 that is what we call insanity and reconstitution of reality.
@Aint Jack It's pretty clear you don't know what you are talking about.
@@bernardfinucane2061 From Seattle here,
It's hard to fathom it as well.
When Mao married Jiang the deal made with the CCP leadership was that Jiang cannot enter politics for 30 years. By 1966 which was 28 years later Mao figured it was close enough to the 30 years deal and had her enter into active politics
I don’t remember learning about this in school. The Cultural Revolution was even worse than I realized.
@Mac Ton which is why we have a rise of socialism and outright communism in the US.
looks like the cycle repeats huh?
I was told about communism as a child from family. Now i see they think they are doing the right thing, they always do.
Sha! meant Kill in Mandarin
I remember them teaching like it was all peaches and cream.
I have to say, I've watched countless Biographics videos, but this one had the greatest impact on me. I thought the movie 'The Purge' was fiction, but it turns out it had already happened in recent history as the cultural revolution
If there's been a dictator, odds are good that they've 'purged' in one way or another
You never heard of Stalin's purges?
if you liked this documentary so much you should Read her Biographies. Im reading " Becoming Madam Mao."
My grandpa told me, he had a roommate who hung a picture on the wall. He had used nail not knowing the nail punched thru the wall next door, right thru a portrait of chairman Mao. Poor guy was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Really? Just for a freaking accident of one out of hundreds of other portraits of the man.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 I believe this. My uncle was beaten to the edge of death, spent a year in the hospital and later trailed and sentenced to 5 years in prison because someone said he whistled a nationalistic tune.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 sometimes having a suspect background does that, like former nationalist soldier or old Kuomintang member. Or worst, a member of the communist party but not passionate enough
What happened was the nail came out exactly between mao's eye on the portrait. The poor guy was released 12 or 16 years later. Back in the day, red guard was just bunch young idiots kids. It was cool to join and they just go around look for any excuse to punish ppl. It was def the darkest time in modern china.
Bloody hell.
She's profiled in Adam Curtis's 2021 documentary series "Can't Get You Out Of My Head." She had a costar (and the costar's husband) arrested decades later because she lost the part of the lead to her and felt she was being upstaged. Their lives were destroyed and the husband killed himself.
She was truly evil.
Sublime documentary. She's clearly evil, yet I appreciated her revolutionary spirit. If she harnessed it for good, truly amazing things could've happened. She was China's last communist in spirit, in terms of seeing a potential alternative future and the utopianism it could've had back then.
Now China is this vanilla, state-capitalist autocracy.
A Turtle has approved this historical video.
I see you in every video lol
@@qaz3823 He's the next Ray Mak.
@@qaz3823 just a copy of justin y without doing an original comment
So do I.
@@AbrahamLincoln4 you are abe lincoln so thats cool. hes just a fucking turtle
lost some relatives in the countless purges，may this kind of horror not come ever again
It will under two stacks Biden. China owns the old corrupt pervert
@@chrisbennett1358 okay Qanon nut
@@EdaugEthanbYT get a life
@@chrisbennett1358 you’re the one who needs a life. You just sit around on Qanon message boards all day
@@EdaugEthanbYT sweetie, I have no freaking clue what those lunatics believe. You are a lemming. Again, get a life
1:20 - Chapter 1 - Shangai dreams
4:25 - Chapter 2 - Waking up
7:25 - Chapter 3 - The rise
10:50 - Chapter 4 - Monsters & Demons
14:00 - Chapter 5 - Chaos reigns
20:45 - Chapter 6 - Farewell , Beijing
If Mao was the “big brother”, Jiang was “the big sister” for all purposes.
Sweet home Alabama?
Today we just say Biden Harris.
@@POCLEE Sweet Home Beijing
@Vincent Salamatino You'd be delusional then
So Mao starved 40 Million plus people during his leap forward and his is still consider a god? Wow that's amazing.
History is written by the winners.
Just like the worship of Stalin. Right wing conservatives in no matter the country worships strong men and decries any criticism.
@@zeitgeistx5239 ...what are you babbling about?
50 hail Moas
I lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where a major boulevard is named after him.
Simon, I can't say I ever binge watched your presentations but I've definitely spent many continuous hours learning, refreshing, adding things that intrigued me to no end. Many British accents can be found on the internet that were like fingernails across the blackboard, some requiring closed captions but you I can listen to in length. No matter which of your channels, you choose the best topics and then distill them into their most pertinent facts without overdoing it or leaving anything important out. I don't know how you do it but you must be a workaholic (with a good staff I'm sure). Keep us informed and don't change your style. You've been a great help during this historical period.
This is by far the best episode I have seen, I have binge watched all of your channels. This was truly effing excellent!
This woman was nothing short of scary. I read somewhere that she used to call for death by a thousand cuts for some criminals, which is something I can't wrap my head around. It seems only fitting that the monster she helped to create would eventually turn on her.
That's what happens when you give a woman political power. Look at the mess Sweden is in with half its government comprised of crazy minded feminist women.
In my home country Denmark, there were in the 1960s and well into the 1970s, among the intellectuals many supporters of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. they had great power in universities and other higher education institutions, but fortunately no support among the workers, or in the political parties, besides a small marginal group.
They are so intellect that they became stupid. LMAO.
Sure.
Karsten Poulsen
I had a high-school friend in Canada at the time, who declared himself a marxist-leninist-maoist. While fancying myself a bit of a leftist too, I thought he was absolutely crazy. I also had a close friend whose family visited China not long before Mao's death, when uniformity in dress was still the norm.
Nowadays, dealing with many Chinese clients at work, I find their attitude toward life quintessentially 'bourgeois'. Getting ahead and enjoying the 'good life' are their main preoccupations. An adult student of mine from China admitted to having learned absolutely nothing about marxian theory in school.
Whatever the economic system being advocated, we must beware the illusion that human happiness arises exclusively from satisfaction of material desires.
As Jesus said:
(Luke 12:15) '..Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.'
Most communists at that time all over the world admired both China and Russia, it was before the release of The Gulag Archipelago in Denmark. Noone knew of the atrocities that had happend in either place - there are still staunch socialists in Denmark though, i personally attended a socialist boarding school from 2009-2010 (Arbejderbevægelsens efterskole Holmstrup) fortunately we do not in any way have a culture for undue respect for authority, and that year alone gave me a healthy disdain for the mechanics within socialism, like collective punishment, just so dumb.
@@omega1231
During the same period, the anticommunist Left remained fairly robust in English-speaking countries. Certainly Solzhenitsyn was a sensation when his works arrived in this side of the Atlantic. But I had read some Orwell already, and I can't say that Soviet crimes were unknown to me, just not the visceral details. China was still a very closed society, but word seeped out about a form of regimentation which made the Soviets appear sane by comparison.
Ultimately I see those totalitarian regimes as hypertrophic contemporary versions of the 'emperor-god' cults which used to plague the ancient world.
On the other hand, if the members of a community, acting independently of State institutions, decide to share material goods out of practical necessity and brotherly love, who should object?
(Acts 4:32) 'And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them.'
There is no need to 'sacralize' any sort of economic arrangement. But that one in particular was an expression of the highest ethical purpose, antithetical to the 'communism' we know!
The great lesson here is to note how quickly mobs can be worked up to serve the purposes of those in power and to remember how people can justify the evil they're willing to commit on their fellow humans. We're watching this start to kindle here in the west and it's not by accident.
No see it’s different because the people *our* angry adolescent/college mobs attack and destroy are bad people! Not like China at all!
@@ricdimarco1499 no, your a bad person.
It is easy to point at someone with different ideas and declare them as bad. The fact you essentially just did that proves how easy it is to justify violence and attacks on other you disagree with. To perpetrate that it is OK because they bad according to you shows just how vile you truly are.
@@richardthiede6876 oh okay
@@richardthiede6876
I think he was joking
they missed the point, clearly.
It's funny to realise that this was all going on at the same time as counter-culture was hitting it's stride in the US and I was happily unaware of any of it as a child in the UK of the 60s and 70s (Wilson vs Heath, 3 day week etc etc). Thank you for doing such a good precis of a completely horrible time. No wonder the Chinese embraced Deng's reforms and didn't want to look back.
Chinese Proverb:
"Behind every wicked king is an equally wicked queen".
how fitting...
@@bernardosantos8020 i m a chinese pretty sure thats not a thing lol
the closest i can relate to is "hong yan huo shui", direct translate is red colored face is like water that brings bad omen, basically saying thot is bad for u.
the common thing i don't like about the fake proverb and this show is that they both spread inaccurate info about staff that they don't actually have a deep understanding.
pretty sure you meant by 每个成功男人的后面都有个辛勤付出的女人 meaning every successful men has a women devoted herself to him; there is no such proverb as you have mentioned in the modern Chinese language tho
If you guys want to know more about the Cultural Revolution, the book “Red Scarf Girl” is a great book from a young girls perspective.
Yes! I was thinking about this the whole time, especially with the stories of people being forced into labor on farms.
I read Wild Swans when I was younger.
My wife's grandfather was a university lecturer during that period and was sent to the countryside to work on a farm he was lucky to survive.
Qiru Walder. Wrote the book “dragon elegy” it’s a warning that this could happen again. She was 16 when Mao came to power.
Great video. Clarified so much for me. As usual: succinct, accurate , informative, excellant research and writing. Thank you.
“There cannot be peaceful coexistence in the ideological realm. Peaceful coexistence corrupts”
Jiang Qing
That's just a rehash of Stalinist thinking of blaming counter-revolutionaries for failures of the revolution.
Great info
This guy makes great!
@@garretthompson8677 to bad didn't mention Hua Guo Feng
@@garretthompson8677 he makes a living reading off the wiki of topics, and makes a killing by doing so
Hey long time fan. Thank you for all the hard work and research it takes for these videos.
Very in-depth and accurate account of Jiang Qing!
Study Chinese history in Hong Kong...and I could only remember my teacher shows his anger towards those who murder his uncle's family back then...
Went back home and ask my mother, my granduncle run around the country, trying to live through the chaos...yet, the textbooks still didn't talk much about it, heavily censored...
So learning this again by myself with unrestricted document and the knowledge of both sides...It is a complete tragedy that the families of countless Chinese still suffers the aftermath of it...
They might have never know that this is will be one of the major gap between HK and mainland...one of many others...back in 1966...
I think someone has been trying to close that gap in a grotesque fashion using fear and intimidation.
Last 15 years education in HK was a failure, and it still is🤷♀️
@@kikyaaakun you talk like a wumao
Imo, UK should never give back Hong Kong to China.
My Modern Chinese History prof at university was in Hong Kong during the mid-60s. He said that every morning, a hundred bodies would be pulled out of Kowloon Bay from what was happening on the other side of the border.
Damn lol
they were killed by the conservativists in Guangzhou, and they were "红旗派"， who were the real revolutionary communists
Wow. I've been studying the Cultural Revolution on my own. As a scholar of Asian Studies it seems study in school ended about the end of the Civil War in 1949 regarding China and thankfully I had many classes on the Vietnam War which were popular at the time. The Biography channel helps me to isolate and study individuals in the over~all context of the historical time in question. I continue to delve into these atrocities saddened but hopefully enlightened as a Scholar.
We need a BIO on General Leslie Groves. Anyone who could build the Pentagon and run the Manhattan Project deserves a video.
This was really good! Thank You!
There is a lesson here about societies not dealing with domestic abuse properly. If a child who is being brutalized by a family member is taught that's just what happens, get over it, don't be surprised if they treat others with the same principle. It was the same with Hitler and Stalin. Children learn what they live and it affects them into adulthood. I'm not justifying them behaving that way as an adult but undealt with abuse contributes a lot to problems all over the world.
Thanks for covering this topic. I fear we haven't learned from this part of history enough and are repeating parts of it again and I hope it does not seriously devolve. I'd be super interested in more bios of Chinese figures from this period of time.
autobio: wild swans, 3 daughters of china.
100% agree
Last time I was this early the Gang of Four was still in power.
Fantastic overview!! Love this type of educational content
Currently reading dikotter for a research paper. You summarized his work well
"Russian mental asylum" That has to be the scariest thing ever dude
Actually, she was released pretty quickly and attended Moscow East University before returning to China in 1947. She was bullied and harassed by Jiang and never got to see the daughter she'd had with Mao. She lived to see Jiang's fall, but died alone in 1984.
Wu Zetian was controversial, Cixi was bad, and Jiang Qing was full-blown horrific.
*Note to self* , don't give power to Chinese women!
:D :D full-blown horrific, i liked the description. Are you a Chinese? How do you know all these female figures?
@@enqrbitEh, Wu was ruthless when it came to maintaining power, but she was an efficient ruler who chose her ministers based on merit rather than wealth... which is something her Confucian critics threw a tantrum about.
Brilliant presentation, thanks a lot!
Great stuff! Thanks!
Bravo, more people need to know about the origin of cancel culture/struggle sessions.
Just Boden hahaha 😂 you think cancel culture in the West comes from communist China? Good lord 🤦♂️
@@Saber23 it does
@@niggasaurusrex3952 no it really doesn’t pal it comes from SJW culture and businesses that don’t want people to damage their image
@@Saber23 it clearly and obviously does. Denying reality doesn’t make it any less real.
You think people being bullied on twitter is the same as the cultural revolution? God, people are so whiny these days.
6 ad breaks in 25 minutes?! CZcams is an ass.
You're worth it though Simon. Keep on growing and taking over the platform.
Would love to see a biographic of Deng Xiaoping. How he survived the revolution. And pulled China out of the worst internal strife and poverty in (probably) all human history is astonishing.
He was no saint, and acomplishments you list here were achieved by enforcement of other atrocities.
These people were all monsters, and monsters are still in power there and in other places in the World :(
Monsters and demons
Deng is an underated hero. He done so much to China, he just don't want Chinese people get divided any longer. He also praise his friends and the sacrifice of many Chinese to liberated China. That's why he embraced both western and communist and mixing it, his ideology is the main reason that shaping China becomes number two economic power and number three military power now.
@@70_Bheta He is responsible for leading China to open up to western countries such as the USA. He also lead the country to acknowledge and praise the contributions of scholars and others previously denounced, jailed or murdered as "Rightists" (Cultural Revolution 1966-1976). He also ordered the military to use whatever force necessary to clear the students and other protestors from Tiananmen Square (June 1989). They had been protesting for a few months and he lost his patience and temper. Therefore, like most people, he was neither a saint nor a demon. But compared to Mao, he was a saint!
“Against all the wickedness that mankind can produce”
"We will send unto them only you."
If anyone wants a good book of a first hand account of this time, I highly recommend Jung Changs 'Wild Swans'. She grew up during the great famine and cultural revolution and witnessed it tear her family apart. It's quite terrifying how the events and actions of the students are mirrored in the actions of the protestors earlier this year with statues torn down, people being compelled to chant slogans under threats of violence and even to denounce their neighbours.
Yeah good book
Those protestors are all stirred up and funded by china so no surprise.
A great book indeed. Also a book named The New Emperors by the late Harrison E Salisbury.
The Left unleashed chaos in 2020 and China got what they wanted - a new president of the United States. This new president is bought and paid for because his son's equity firm got financing from Chinese banks and want it kept secret.
Books on Jiang Qing: white boned demon & comrade Chiang Ching
Elena Ceausescu saw her as a role model, and Jiang was all too happy to take Elena under her wing, urging her to not just be a side character. Elena turned out to be even worse, being not only vicious and vain, but also incredibly stupid.
Good video 👍
Wow - highly educational - thank you
Anyone remember the students at Evergreen College that attacked teachers and held the dean of the college hostage in a forced confession infront of students. Doesn't this all sound familiar across schools around the western world right now?
Not really, no. That's just your ongoing fever dream.
Exactly correct..
Well during the cultural revolution the “students” will throw you in concentration camps for merely being educated, Evergreen is just a little Larpping event.
Except when the commies get too ballsy, they will quickly be “fixed” in the US. Patience for left wing radicals are wearing extremely thin at the moment.
I blame the communist teachers in colleges.. Good job stalin your plan is still working 70 years after your death.
i can hear the clicking of 50 cent army keyboards from here
Except she was defeated by Deng Xiaoping, one of modern China’s greatest and most popular heroes.
The gang of four is not upheld in china. Neither is the cultural revolution.
Good video as always :)
They always think they are doing the right thing is the scary part. Burn it down in the name of equality. Its always a socialist revolution. I think Marx might have been one of the most dangerous writers ever. Worse then mein kamp.
sad part is, even he wouldn't agree with all of this doctrine.
Marx's writings make very good points when it comes to why capitalism sucks. However, he was very wrong about socialism being a better system.
The problem isn't socialism, it's giving a cult of personality and too much power to too few people without checks and balances, especially someone eager to disregard experts, hold grudges and take revenge over the smallest slights.
@@Sorcerers_Apprentice The Soviet Union didn't collapse because of authoritarianism. It fell apart, because people were miserably poor due to an economic system that produces inefficiencies and discourages innovation. Why do you think China kept the one party system while getting away from their socialist roots?
@@badluck5647 the economic conditions in the SU were so bad because of that authoritarianism. if you hadn't had papa Stalin breathing down everyone's necks 24/7, the system would have worked perfectly well
Fun fact: many of the 1989 Tiananmen protesters were actually supporters of the Gang of Four. They protested the growing economic inequality and closing of factories, along with the corruption of Party bureaucrats, who could make a lot of money, as all foreign investment had to pass through them.
Okay even if that's true did they like the things that was happening under Mao Zedong? At least under ping the people were making money for themselves and their families.
@@attiepollard7847 Yes, quite a lot of people idealized the Mao years, and this happens even today e.g. Xi Jinping is very popular for "taking down" rich billionaires and corrupt Party bosses. Basically, in China it's all about who you know, or who your family knows. Although almost everubody got wealthier in the 80s and 90s, those with good Party connections were the ones who really took advantage. And for hundreds of millions of people, the economic reforms made everyday life much more challenging.
@@giannb5145 these people need to understand every system of government may have its little corruption but it's about the people. The one thing I like about ding jinping was he said "communist is not dogma" we can still become communist dictators but still make some money for the people. Why does everything have to be so pure in ideology?
@@attiepollard7847 It's not really about ideology, but more about injustices in everyday life. For example, two people might be going after the same job, and they will hire the uneducated nephew of a Communist Party official, even though the other guy might have a university degree. In China unfortunately that's how things work. Xi Jinping earns points by going after people who made money that way (taking advantage of their access to the Party).
@@giannb5145 when it comes to XI Jinping I think he's a hypocrite. he says that he's fighting corruption but they're still news coming out of his group being corrupt I do not understand why the Communist party in China made him president for life. Doesn't that go against the Communist party ideas?
Simon: extremely well done. While I’m a pastor now, I have two degrees in history and classes on China in both undergrad & grad school. Sadly, the cultural revolution was just a footnote to the overall instruction. I’ve been watching you for a few years now (the beard is very good!) and I find myself laughing out loud as well as being thoroughly impressed with their detail & preparation. Extremely good, ruthlessly funny and always informative. Bravo!
Simon, one of your best Ever
You are the beast my friend keep it up please
This lecture by (the fellow still unnamed) is quite informatve as well as entertaining. As a guy who has read a few snippets of 20th Century Chinese history, particular Deng Xiao Ping's biography and his own struggle (yes, the furture Premier of China, head of the Chinese Communist Party, and once retired defacto Supreme Ruler, even Deng Xiao Ping himself had been sent to the forced-labor, so-called re-education camps), I give an unconditional two thumbs up to this particular snippet.
6:29 "A Russian mental hospital"
you mean a gulag?
No, these were separate. Russia reserved mental hospitals for political opponents. It discredited ideas better than gulag.
Gulag, naa... to this guy hardly anyone was sent to a Gulag. After all, the Mao Zedong partisans killed 2 million people, An understatement of all time. What a joke this channel is calling itself "biographics"
@@NachRussland2 Exactly. The Soviet government could have a dissident locked up in a psychiatric hospital by just saying the person had what Moscow called "Sluggish Schizophrenia" which was not a legitimate condition but The Kremlin didn't care because they didn't want to be told that Communism is a total failure.
this was very good
Thank you .
This video was very helpful and educational, but what an eye opener! I always knew that Chairman Mao and his cronies were very evil, but I never understood how much etc. Thank you, Simon for this video!
Excellent summary chronology of the events as they unfolded around Jiang Qing. The Cultural Revolution also resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Chinese economy, as political commissars were given more power than managers in State-run factories and agricultural co-ops. Deng returned to power discreetly after Mao’s death and resumed the role he had taken in rebuilding the economy after the failed Great Leap Forward and before being purged again early in the Cultural Revolution. It could be said that Deng’s smothering of the Tian An Men student movement in the early 1990s was probably the conclusions he had arrived to having lived the exactions perpetrated by the young students-turned-Red-Guards between 66 and 75: better nip this into the bud before it gets out of control... again.
This is a perspective that had not occurred to me.
Please PLEASE do an episode on Nicolae Ceausescu and/or Elena Ceausescu and the Romanian revolution! Very interesting stuff
Have you already done a 'Biographics' on Nicolae Ceaușescu? His story is fascinating, yet filled with tragedy and horror. IDK, but this is the first time I've ever recommended a topic and thought it would be a good fit. Love your content. Keep it up!
Each time a photo of an aged Jiang Qing was shown I kept thinking, "Wow, she looks a lot like a Chinese Ruth Bader Ginsburg!"
:\
I apologize if this offends anyone.
Both are equally evil.
@@cameronberra8838
Leave discernment of the exact degree of evil to God Himself, OK?
Both were evil without any doubt, but I wouldn't equate the one with the other anymore than I would equate secular liberalism with atheistic communism.
Tell me: would you sooner live in communist China, or in the West as we now know it? I would have no difficulty answering. Nobody here tells me what I may or may not believe. No one forbids me to practise my faith. I'm not saying however that this couldn't change.
Brace yourselves the West is changing rapidly probably becoming just like Communist China and the likelyhood of having a cultural revolution of its own!
@@ziyeren5509
Interesting theory. Some in the West fear exactly that. I am not one of them, but I certainly agree that change is occurring, and former times can never be recalled.
It is good to bear in mind this Biblical precept:
(Ecclesiastes 7:10) 'Do not say, "Why is it that the former days were better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.'
Even evil times are part of a necessary progression toward the culmination of history, when Jesus Christ will return in power to establish His rule in the sight of everyone.
(Mark 13:20) 'Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days.'
@@jesusislordsavior6343
God doesn’t exist.
Free Hong Kong
As you say, the United States is an autocratic dictatorship with two rulers alternating.(*´◐∀◐`*)智障
@@user-nk4bh6ek2u Ah there's the chinese bot!
A poor abused lower class girl growing up to be a famous chinese socialite, her socialite lifestyle being ripped away from her upon the invasion of China by Japanese forces.
Eventually fleeing to Communist China, she met the leader of the CCP- Mao and became his lover and later wife.
She became obsessed with his cult like personality, but was even more so obsessed with the idea of power her entire life.
Mirroring her life as a socialite, she leveraged her relationship with Mao to become more powerful.
Mao kept her around because she was loyal, and she became a staunch Maoist politician.
She helped Mao get rid of rivals, his enemies, and even allies who had the possibility of turning against Mao in the future.
Founding the gang of four and with the coming cultural revolution, she was integral in bringing a period of destructive chaos to China in order to secure Mao's power.
A loyal dog, she died barking in Mao's name.
If interested , a good book to read is "Wild Swans:three daughters of China" by Jung Chang which gives her own personal account of living through the Cultural Revolution.
You should do a video about rafael trujillo he was the sort of us backed dictator of dominican republic and is not talked about nearly enough.
Love the show keep up the good work. I have a recommendation on a bio graphic machiavelli is what I think his name is. But he is a renaissance political philosopher
They made one already. You are in luck
My deepest appreciation
Thank you for the great documentary. Unfortunately most of these documentaries are narrated so fast that one has to rewind a few times and still not getting it.
I would like to see an episode on Enver Hoxha or Ceausescu next
I was thinking the same thing!
Ceausescu tried to have Romania emulate North Korea. And his wife was much like Jiang Qing; a talentless fraud who got people to sing her praises and targeted anyone who crossed her or was better looking than her.
@@Michael-590 Yeah, I knew Ceausescu loved North Korea, but I didn’t know that about his wife! 😟
@@theparadigm8149 Ceausescu’s wife received an honorary doctorate from England thanks to her husband’s relationship with the country. And she had choir children sing her praises for something she had no ability for.
@@Michael-590 WOW 😳....
Hey Simon, you should do a Biographics of Claire Chennault. He was the leader of the Flying Tigers that assisted China during WW2.
Inspirational
LOL epic burn with the “supporting role” line 🤣
While on the subject. it would be interesting to do one on Winnie Mandela
Though I wouldn't dare compare Mao with Madiba. Madiba is a super hero (imo)
I am glad you did this lesson Simon. I have lived in Beijing for one year and I can tell you what you like to know.
I have a Chinese girlfriend and she tells me that most people in now a days don't care about Mao or the government these days because they simply have no rights and only care about money and family. Chairman Mao is only seen as the man who created modern China and nothing else more. But China is now becoming like what it did with Chairman Moa with the current leadership now a days. That is what concerns me.
Cheers mate. Love the videos
Please do a video on Rod Stirling and Buster Keaton
Ouch... The first sentence... No punches pulled Simon...
I was just watching business blaze... I'm gonna finish that. I'll be back in a sec
I'm back.
@@theCidisIn how was it?
@@lam7499 worth it.
I like how at the end he's all like "yea she was a psychopath who killed millions but she never would have done it of not for her husband" yea she still evil tho
I think the issue is that in China they use Jiang as an excuse not to blame Mao for all these deaths. She was evil, but the idea she was the "real" tyrant leading the poor old chairman astray is just fantasy
@@markdturnock Mao basically used her as a scapegoat for all the atrocities he had done to save his own reputation.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 She was still evil in her own right and tried to stay on top by killing all her rivals even those whose influence didnt compare to her own, but might one day. Jus like stalin, hitler, an Mao power corrupts it's such an old ass saying but is true, an in her case she was at least AS corrupt as Mao
I suspect had the revolution not happened she would have killed some people. Tortured or destroyed people. Might have been caught or not. But that psychopathy and blood lust was always there.
@@markdturnock Exactly, the point in the video was not to somehow excuse anyone, but that she was a very convinient scapegoat so the regime could distance themselves from the madness of Maos and his allies action while still claim future legitmacy for the partys absolute power.
Thanks.
I get an eerie feeling when I see the the picture at 9:45. Her eyes are completely devoid of life.
Sad how you hear about this sort of mindless following of a particular ideology and then think "Thank goodness we are past that sort of lemming behaviour in the West" . And then you see Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Congress .....
The main problem with all of this crime is parents aren't engaged with their kids anymore. I live in a small town of about 4,000. There's never been anything for kids outside of school but the boy/girl scouts and the public pool. We don't have rampant crime and probably never will.
Why? Parents are around. Or at the very least a guardian who cares about the child's well-being. If children have a decent adult around they won't feel the need to seek out troubled teens.
I'm not saying there aren't other issues, but to me that's the biggest. Spare me the mental health crap. If someone has severe mental illness and refuses to take their meds and can be a risk to others they need to be in an institution. You can't blame the cops for shooting someone who is armed with a sword.
I didn't want to say it because I like to keep politics as separate as possible, buuuut yeah basically what you said
Nah, I just look at the Trumpies attempting a coup.
@@GoTfan-eb8tk because that's what happened in the cultural revolution
Individualism has its own horrors. All the lemmings are running amok yet we still have strings and are all dancing to a very odd tune.
If one wasn't alive during this time period, it's difficult to understand the impression that the Cultural Revolution and the activity of the Soviet Union made on the West. We watched a 1/4 of worlds population literally go mad and chant death to America. The Soviets were constantly probing Western weaknesses and while no longer an ally of China, tried to exploit the distraction that China offered. The cold war was no joke and combined with Vietnam, it's a wonder things didn't spiral completely out of control. The world looked to the U.S. as a backstop to the events in China and a counterweight to Soviet ambitions. Thank god we never had to share a border with either of those countries.
Ummm... you did and do share a boarder with Russia
@@JC-ks3yk We dont share a border with Russia, unless you're attempting to count the arctic ice cap which isn't considered a border....not "boarder"
@@weirdshibainu Sorry for the typo but China does share a border with Russia. You can look at a map if you don't believe me. The border is also quite far from the arctic circle. Again: map.
@@JC-ks3yk Your first clumsy remark seemed to imply the u.s. shares a border with either Russia or China. I wrote I'm glad we never did. Yes. .everyone knows that China and Russia shares one of the worlds longest borders and has been the site of many low level clashes that could have easily escalated
Well said. People have forgotten about the cold war days. The attitudes. How real the threat was. Is.
Personally, I don't think getting to have access to Starbucks, Hollywood, and Western commercialism changed the underlying hatred those places had for the US for generations.
Simon you are good!
nice
How about a Biography on British general Bernard Montgomery?
How about Deng Xiaoping's biography? :D
After he said "gang of four" the memories in my 58 year old head began to explode! i am unable to quantify the number of connections this information has given me.
ALL > i
Damn ! This is f@cked up 1 Im definately shared this !!!
Great video. If you're doing more Chinese people under communist rule, you gotta do Zhou Enlai
Deng Xiaoping definitely deserves a video as well.
Would be interesting if you did something on Deng Xiaoping or Zhou Enlai - or both. Especially since Deng *was* at least partly responsible for the 1989 Tienanmen Square massacre.
Simon you really should do a Speaking Engagement for your fans or Speaking Engagements for kids at high schools and middle schools on the east coast of the America. I’m from New Jersey & most definitely would attend. I know you’re from over the Pond lol but do you live in America now?
Please do Ross Perot or William Dudley Pelley.
Great video and biography on someone I barely knew. I heard the name, but wow was she pretty insane. She used the power to settle scores and of course in the end she got greedy. Those with power are afraid to lose it. It’s an inherent thing in humanity apparently. A costar getting a better review that you acted with and you torture her family? Jesus, the scary part is there’s plenty of people in positions of power who do heinous acts/crimes just because they feel “disrespected” or something rather
I bought a few books on her, and she was always volatile, strong willed, outspoken and looking to get ahead and be recognized as an actress...and then just to get ahead. She embellished some stories of herself. She was fascinating in a way, and when she helped orchestrate the Cultural Revolution, she was vicious and calculating.
Could you please do a video about the Regent and Admiral who steered us, Hungarians trougth the 1920s-'30s: Horthy Miklós?
My broth in laws grandmother still has her red book. She worked as a translator for Russia/ China. She ( in her 80's) is so superstitious. She now lives in a care home in BC Canada