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When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. (Revelation 6:3-4) |
Red: The colour of the Communist flag. Communists are often referred to as reds.
Colour: Red
Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other: This rider is a troublemaker. Class struggle is the motor of history according to Karl Marx, and in the era of capitalism this pits the operators of the means of production (the class of the industrial workers or proletariat) against the owners (the class of the bourgeoisie). The "inevitable" course of human history makes the "proletarian revolution" a certainty in every advanced capitalist society. The proletariat's overthrow of the bourgeoisie, politically and economically, ushers in a socialist epoch where the political leadership is exclusively in the hands of that class, i.e. "the dictatorship of the proletariat." The dictatorship's ultimate endeavour is to develop efficient means of production through scientific and technological research, with lingering capitalist enterprise in a subservient role, to generate high enough harvest yields and volumes of industrial products which will permit a transition from socialism to communism. In communism everyone is assured a bountiful life and there is no exploitation because everyone is a member of the working class.
Vladimir Lenin explained what a "proletarian revolution" should do,
In order to win the majority of the population to its side, the proletariat must, in the first place, overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power; secondly, it must introduce Soviet power and completely smash the old state apparatus, whereby it immediately undermines the rule, prestige and influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the non-proletarian working people. Thirdly, it must entirely destroy the influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the majority of the non-proletarian masses by satisfying their economic needs in a revolutionary way at the expense of the exploiters.(V. I. Lenin: "The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Works, 30, pp. 265-266. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Year 1965)
and he also explained the essence of the "dictatorship of the proletariat,"
The dictatorship of the proletariat means a persistent struggle—bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative—against the forces and traditions of the old society. The force of habit of millions and tens of millions is a most terrible force. Without a party of iron tempered in the struggle, a party enjoying the confidence of all honest people in the class in question, a party capable of watching and influencing the mood of the masses, such a struggle cannot be waged successfully. It is a thousand times easier to vanquish the centralized big bourgeoisie than to "vanquish" the millions upon millions of petty proprietors. Through their ordinary, everyday, imperceptible, elusive and demoralizing activities they produce the very results which the bourgeoisie need and which tend to restore the bourgeoisie. Whoever brings about even the slightest weakening of the iron discipline of the party of the proletariat (especially during its dictatorship) is actually aiding the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.(V. I. Lenin: "'Left-Wing' Communism—An Infantile Disorder." Works, 31, pp. 44-45. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Year 1966)
Mao Tse-tung applied Marxism-Leninism to the specific circumstance of "a semi-feudal, semi-colonial and colonial" China to create the First Front Red Army at the onset of the Second Revolutionary Civil War in 1927, rebuild the Red Army after the Long March of 1934-35, harass Japanese troops with it during the War of Resistance (1937-45) and defeat Chiang Kai-shek in the Third Revolutionary Civil War (1946-49).
The People's Republic of China came into being on September 30, 1949, with the final declaration of the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Chairman Mao made a public proclamation in Tien An Men Square the following day. Six years later, on October 11, 1955, at the conclusion of the Enlarged Sixth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, he pronounced these words on the ultimate fate of capitalism,
The Agrarian Reform [in the Liberated Areas from 1927 to 1937] enabled us to form an alliance with the peasants on the basis of democracy and enabled them to obtain land. The procuring of land by the peasants was a bourgeois-democratic revolution in nature, for it destroyed feudal ownership only, not capitalist ownership or individual ownership. That alliance made the bourgeoisie feel isolated for the first time.At the Third Plenary Session [of the Seventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party] in 1950, I spoke against hitting out in all directions. The Agrarian Reform had not yet been carried out in vast areas of the country, nor had peasants entirely come over to our side. If we had opened fire on the bourgeoisie then, it would have been out of order. After the Agrarian Reform, when the peasants had entirely come over to our side, it was possible and necessary for us to start the movements against the "three evils" and the "five evils" [November 1951 to March 1952].
Agricultural co-operation will enable us to consolidate our alliance with the peasants on the basis of proletarian socialism and not of bourgeois democracy. That will isolate the bourgeoisie once and for all and facilitate the final elimination of capitalism. On this matter we are quite heartless! On this matter Marxism is indeed cruel and has little mercy, for it is determined to exterminate imperialism, feudalism, capitalism, and small production to boot. In this respect, it is better not to have much mercy. Some of our comrades are too kind, they are not tough enough, in other words, they are not so Marxist. It is a very good thing, and a significant one too, to exterminate the bourgeoisie and capitalism in China, a country with a population of 600 million. Our aim is to exterminate capitalism, obliterate it from the face of the earth and make it a thing of the past. What emerges in history is bound to die out. Everything in the world is a historical phenomenon; as there is life, so there must be death. As a historical phenomenon, capitalism must also die out, and it has a very nice place to go to, that is, underground, there to "sleep".
(Mao Tse-tung: "The Debate On the Co-Operative Transformation of Agriculture and the Current Class Struggle." Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, 5, p. 214. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. Year 1977)
To him was given a large sword: A large sword is reminiscent of Goliath the Philistine (1 Samuel 21:9) and is a symbol of great strength.
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