Zhou Enlai, born on this day in 1898, was a communist revolutionary, statesman, and military officer who served as the 1st Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. "All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means."
Zhou was educated in a missionary college in Tianjin before studying at a Japanese university. In Tianjin, he met his future wife, Deng Yingchao while participating in a radical political group known as the "Awakening Society". In 1920, Zhou moved to France, where he helped form the overseas branch of the Communist Party of China. He also lived in Britain and Germany before returning to China in 1924.
While working in the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy, Zhou was also made the secretary of the Communist Party of Guangdong-Guangxi, and served as the CPC representative with the rank of major-general.
After the Chinese Civil War broke out in 1927, Zhou served in the communist forces, helping establish and oversee a network of underground cells of communist resistance. Zhou played a leading role in the Long March of 1934-35, an arduous military retreat of communist forces over 8,000 miles.
Following the Zunyi Conference in 1935, Mao Zedong became Zhou's assistant. After the conclusion of the Long March, Mao officially took over Zhou Enlai's leading position in the CPC, while Zhou took a secondary position as vice-chairman. Both would hold their leadership positions until their deaths in 1976.
Zhou was a prominent participant in the 1955 AsianβAfrican Conference, held in Indonesia. The conference produced a declaration in strongly in favor of peace, the abolition of nuclear arms, general arms reduction, and the principle of universal representation at the United Nations. Zhou was critical of American imperial aggression and stated "the population of Asia will never forget that the first atom bomb was exploded on Asian soil."
Zhou passed away from bladder cancer on January 8th, 1976, just nine months before Mao Zedong's death in September that year.
"Today the first unification of the Chinese people has emerged. The people themselves have become the masters of Chinese soil, and the rule of the reactionaries in China has been irrevocably overthrown."
Zhou Enlai, from "Chinese People Will not Tolerate Aggression" (October 1950)
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Question for Star Wars people:
There's a person I see at work who has their car decked out in Sith stuff. Vanity license plate says Sith, pro-Sith stickers, the empire butthole logo where the vehicles manufacturer logo would go, etc.
Aren't the Sith unredeemable evil? I haven't watched any Star wars besides Andor, so maybe I'm missing some lore where the Sith are rehabilitated or something.
It's so weird to me to make loving the baddies of a film a big part your identity. Wondering if this is the red flag it seems to be.
Yes. The sith are literally mustache twirling villains in almost every representation. KOTOR and a few other Star Wars things have tried to do something semi interesting with them by making them into "conflict makes us stronger" fascists, but that's about the only way to give them more depth and it still results in cloud cookoolander idiots with names like "Darth Dethbringer" who kill their most competent lieutenants at the drop of a hat. The best thing anybody has ever done with the Sith in the Star Wars lore is in KOTOR 2 when you find an audio log of a technician who took a job with the Sith because he was desperate for money and is like "these guys are psychotic murderers I need to get off this rock before they kill me next" which is a funny bit.
I guess I never really engaged with it too much. The sith ideology is fascist? That stuff about "there is no peace, only passion and passion is... le freedom!" mantra is ideologically defunct? Can you speak on that more, please?
My interpretation of the Sith Code is that it's an extreme endpoint of individualism. It makes sense in a duality kind of way, because the Jedi are supposed to be about surrendering their ego and desires to serve The Force, so the Sith are the exact opposite of that, embracing their ego and desires to a self destructive extreme.
Yuthura gives it the best run down in the series. A lot of what she says is basically just social darwinism with an added mystical element, and she argues that getting pissed is good, that victory is pointless unless everyone gets a good look at how big your force hog is, and that being an asshole and ignoring society's rules is true freedom.
In KOTOR it makes sense in context why people would embrace such an ideology, because the galaxy was in crisis and the Jedi weren't doing anything. Kinda like if a neoliberal government isn't meaningfully fixing the problems its causing and people start turning to fascism, the parallels are strong in this interpretation of the Sith. For Yuthura, a big motivator for her to join the Sith is the Jedi's inaction on galactic slavery - and something that helps turn her away from them later is realizing that the Sith also aren't doing anything about slavery.
While KOTOR 1 focused on developing the Sith ideology, KOTOR 2 was more interested in the Sith's relationship to the Jedi, ultimately concluding that they were two sides of the same coin. After all, pretty much every Sith was a Jedi first. If you're running with the liberal/capitalist -> fascist analogy then it fits really well that the Sith are what the Jedi become when they take the mask off, the only thing that's missing is the class analysis because the Sith are self destructive in a general way rather than arising from a need for The Republic to crush socialist movements.
that's undermined a bit by the jedi having a monopoly on interplanetary force education. there were some other factions but they were never major players and usually in hiding on single planets. Idk how many stories there are about sith recruiting from those instead of protagonist jedi meeting them, or if any pre-mouse comics got into how jedi became the ascendant faction.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
The core belief of the Sith is using the force to further your own power and destroy your enemies. They don't have any ideology or beliefs beyond might makes right.
I give it like a 10% chance it indicates he's a fascist, 90% chance he's just a nerd who thinks they look cool. Most of the evil the sith do is like cartoon villain evil shit that doesn't really map to real world evil, so it's possible to just think it's fun.
No they are basically evil. But they are also "cool". Force Choke, Force Lightning, the Jedi don't do that stuff. They have Darth Maul who might as well just be a demon visually.
I can't tell you why people are into it. How old is this person? Might tell you more then anything else.
feels to me like finding a car covered in WoW horde stuff, pretty high chance of "it just looked cool"
It really depends on the story for whether or not Sith are cartoon villains or kinda have a point.
Left Hand vs Right Hand and all that.
To me it's slightly better than Empire stuff, maybe they're a big nerd that got into a Sith character in Knights of the Old Republic or something, they are kind of cool in that edgy teen way, and I feel like the style in general isn't necessarily "evil" but dark and violent, like maybe they are just a sci-fi goth. Sith life has some kind of ideology, I don't remember how evil it explicitly is but I doubt this person is a true believer in the way of the Sith.
I never played SWOTOR so if they went into more detail there or changed it IDK, but iirc it was a sorta fash adjacent "strong dominate weak" sorta thing if the academy on Korriban is anything to go by.
Oh yeah that's pretty fascist lol, I guess one could argue whether or not that's 'evil'.
There are much more Star Wars people than me but:
I thought Kylo Ren was cool the way he'd beat on his chest when he was injured. I think Darth Vader is portrayed as an imposing presence in games and movies masterfully. I would say that my black shoes with red outline were my "vaders". Hell, I'll even joke like "pray I do not alter it further" sometimes. When I was into running and had to wait at a stop sign I'd pretend I was Darth Maul and the laser gate was in my way. It's fun to say unlimited pouwahhhh with as much mustard as you can put on it. Lightning from the fingertips is iconic. How many Anakin memes are there?
Do I remember how they were written? Not really. Have I actually played the games? No I watched cutscenes/boss battles on youtube. Do I think the sith were portrayed well? Yes. It's 1000x easier to quote Darth Vader than it is Jake Sully and Jake had a lot more screen time.
Maybe I'm at a dunning-kruger cliff, but I guess I could see being a little more into Star Wars and thinking the sith have a really cool aesthetic.
Yeah youβre right but honestly I feel like thatβs still better than decking your car out in Empire stuff. And also red lightsabers are cool
identifying strongly with no critical engagement to media is a red flag to me. It is important to engage in your hobby of media consumption with a critical mindset, so that you can work through all the themes within. Makima from CSM is an irrideemable loser and groomer, the manga has flaws, and the industry is full of right wingers, yet that doesnt stop people from appreciating that she's a well written villain. And then there are the people who worship her and engage with her aesthetics only.
Some leftists I have seen like Kylo Ren. But then there are other people who just whole heartedly believe that Jedi are 100 percent a force of good in the world and identify with them π€
The take I saw on reddit that most people agreed with was "the Jedi are the balance in the force and the Sith are the imbalance" and I was like "did you even watch the movies?"
This is probably a person who would have put a punisher logo and a thin blue flag line on their car but they realize that the social optics of that are too obvious so they coat it in disney adult aesthetics.
Also a bunch of western media has the pervasive issue of "cool fascism" where fascists are coded with oozing masculinity and so boys are conditioned to latch onto that.
That specifically seems like a lot. Darth Vader and Storm Troopers or something is probably just a guy who likes stsr wars but going that specific is weird.