History: Cambodia and Polpot

[Shadow Kira01]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Guy, are you sure you aren't mistaking communism and marxist with socialism?

Communism is not the same thing as marxism/socialism, even though many people tend to group them together as one. At the same time, the two different political groups tend to side with each other in most cases which justifies people's claim. However, I personally believe it is not the same thing, but I would not disagree if people group them as the same political ideal.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

This is what I call "propaganda". France had always been a marxist nation only until very recently. It is also well-known that the French and British colonization rivalry had existed prior to the world wars. France has 52 colonies and Britain had 51. During WWII, the alliance did bomb France due to the fact that France was already taken over by German soldiers and was considered as occupied. The rivalry between France and Britain had gone a few centuries into the past, while the disagreement between France and the US occurred after WWII. Do you even know which nation helped Communist China succeed in terms of their nuclear bombing abilities? China originally failed in their nuclear tests, but succeeded after receiving aid from a female French scientist. More over, France was one of the first nations that featured a communist regime. Although, this is all now in the past. France is now a democratic society that sides with NATO. Previous allied bombings and its marxist revolution should be left behind.

Give me the exact date when the Nation of France was ruled by a communist regime.

...that's right, none. Nada. Nil. France was never -ever- a Marxist nation. The closest possible interpretation of this thoroughly strange idea that I can come up with is when it became socialist in brief moments of revolutions (say, the Paris Commune after the fall of the Second Empire, before being swiftly crushed by anti-socialist forces) I'm not sure where you found this information, but your source's dead wrong. France was always a nation of ideologies -- strong, ambitious ideologies that frequently clashed for supremacy -- and though the Left Wing in general was strong, albeit so are reactionary and bourgeois forces, communism never achieved any sort of domination in the extremely diverse French Left, arguably the most diverse anywhere in the world.

Moreover, French and British colonial rivalry during the later nineteenth century and after never took the form of any kind of large scale military conflicts. They preferred treaties, exchanges, and competition to take "unclaimed" lands. Britain was very active during the nineteenth century in intervening politically and diplomatically against other nations' colonial ambitions, and only rarely did that backfired into war (which like, say, the Crimean War, Britain ended up winning anyway): they always preferred negotiations, give-and-take, and all sorts of diplomatic hullaboo. After the meteoric rise of Germany, the British and French, while still rivals in the Scramble for Africa, became, though unofficial, allies. That's why they fought World War 1 together. And wouldn't you agree shedding millions of lives side by side ought to thaw a lot of the remaining ice?

The history of the Interregnum period between the Wars is complex, and Britain and France didn't always see eye to eye (British diplomacy had a long history of obsession with the "Balance of Power" concept, no matter how unworkable it proved to be, while the French, well, they believed their destiny was to dominate the Continent), but that's a far cry from outright opposition or anything remotely that ridiculous.

And what more, I've never heard of any sort of large scale bombing targeting French assets and French population centers conducted by the Allies so big as to cause controversy in the conduct of that war. You've got to source me on that one, or I'll have to take it for gobbledygook.

Like I said, Cold War French diplomacy was guided not by some sort of grudge from World War 2 but influence from -- hey, google it -- Gaullism. Post-WW2 France has a history of selling weapons and technologies to all sorts of states with all sorts of ideologies, not just Communist China and certainly not for any sympathy to the Hammer-and-Sickle flag.

Communism is not the same thing as marxism/socialism, even though many people tend to group them together as one. At the same time, the two different political groups tend to side with each other in most cases which justifies people's claim. However, I personally believe it is not the same thing, but I would not disagree if people group them as the same political ideal.

Put it simply, you are wrong. It goes this way:

Socialism as the big umbrella economic/social ideology term in opposition to capitalism, the discussion itself takes, erm, libraries, to clarify >>>> Communism as a specific set of extremist ideologies in the tent of socialism* >>>> Marxism as a particular subset of communism as created by Marx and his followers, in particular Lenin >>>> Stalinism/Maoism/Trotskyism as specific interpretations and policy implementations of Marxism.

*the historical success of communism tends to make people separate it from its parent, so you will tend to hear them talk of the triangular capitalism-socialism-communism thing, which isn't really it.



But shall we not return to the tragedy of the Khmer Rouge which is the real topic of this thread?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

This is what I call "propaganda". France had always been a marxist nation only until very recently... More over, France was one of the first nations that featured a communist regime. Although, this is all now in the past.

Given your over-the-top claims in the East Asian thread, I'd say that the above nonsense is par on course for you. I strongly suggest you spend more time reading history books, written by peer-reviewed historians, rather than browsing conspiracy theories online.