PETER MAN—On Failed Revolution

Editor's Note: Through the good offices of my friend and comrade (and TGP's senior associate editor) Jeff Brown, who participates actively in a China-themed "writers group," I came to notice and appreciate the mind and work of Peter Man, who has now graciously accepted our invitation to join TGP's stable of affiliated writers. It is with him in mind that we created this new section, PUNTO FINAL—Revolutionary Insight.  The aim of this section is to accommodate mature tactical and strategic thought and free-flowing reflections on a variety of topics of great interest to those engaged in social change, along with pertinent historical backgrounders.  We all know that fate has put us at a unique juncture in time when systemic change is not just an optional task for humanity but an urgent imperative, if this long suffering world is to make it to a happier shore or to make it at all. I presume most essays and quotes will not be long, benefiting from Baltasar Gracián's famous dictum about concision being the natural ally of clarity: "the good, if brief, is twice as good."  —PG

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he problem of failed revolution is a lesson that must be learned by people who want real change, not the Obama change. You can't always blame your enemy for doing everything they can to destroy you. That's what enemies do. If you have been in power for so many years and you still can be put in jail on a trumped up charge, or kicked out of the country by the military, or have some impostor declare to be the president, or have a whole city paralyzed by Molotov cocktail parties, you'll have to ask yourself do you deserve to fail. Know that your enemy is out to get you, and he has many weapons. Revolution is not a garden party. Never take a knife to a gunfight. Your revolution will fail. Dying is easy; revolution is hard.

I believe one of the biggest reasons for so many failures is despite their initial successes, the revolutionaries continue to survive under the thumb of the US Dollar hegemony and the false narrative of democracy. Very small and "poor" countries have survived the many attacks by the hegemon for 70 years, so we know it's possible. Since they're small, they cannot defeat their enemy, but when the Dollar hegemony goes down, and it will, these countries will be fine. These countries are not Western democracies and do not depend on the USD. In order to survive longer than the hegemony, they must however manage the succession issue properly.

The Western capitalist elites who hold most of the capital based on the USD do not want to lose their hegemony. This capital is what gives them the means to terrorize the world with death dealing weapons, hire the cruelest killers and attack dogs, and enslave the rest of humanity with mainstream media bullshit, spreading lies and fear to every nook and cranny. This capital is itself mostly an illusion. It's just bullshit built upon bullshit. It is what I call the Big Lie. Capitalism itself is the Big Lie. If we think in US dollars, and talk about social issues in US dollars, or solve economic problems with US dollars, you will never get a concrete answer, because the whole damn infrastructure is built on a cesspool of bullshit. Everyone that swims in the cesspool is helping to keep the house of cards afloat for a little bit longer, but it will come tumbling down eventually. China and Russia are actively trying to extricate themselves from the cesspool. There'll be two fewer players to keep the house afloat. Thanks to America's trade wars and sanctions. Others can see the writing on the wall and will try to leave the pool as well. The house collapses slowly at first; and then all at once.

Apart from the Dollar hegemony and overwhelming military dominance, the enemy of the revolution has many other weapons of extermination. They can destabilize you, they can cause you to suffer financial ruin, they can put you under siege, they can incite rebellions, they can arm and train terrorists, they can create 5th columns, they can corrupt your government and political systems, they can bribe your military, they can set attack dogs on you, they can smear you with their mainstream media, they can use the false narratives on you, they can disrupt the normal running of your whole society, etc. Their means are inexhaustible and they never rest. This is not a game for the faint of heart. The revolution is subject to all these attacks as long as it survives in the Dollar hegemony and the democracy false narrative. If you try to be independent, your enemy will suffocate you with an all encompassing embargo. Dying is easy; revolution is hard. 

The CIA corruption of the news media is not new. Google ... no, DuckDuckGo (that's the secure search engine I use) "Operation Mockingbird" and learn about the cesspool. When CIA director/USA president George HW Bush said no more corrupting the media, we know exactly the opposite is happening, probably redoubling the effort. This is like having a habitual liar start a sentence saying "this is no lie." It's almost guaranteed to be a lie.

I have been reading [the] Saker for a long time as well. I find him to be very well informed on all things Russian. I like that part about Liberast and Shitocracy. I love word play. I'm going to put them in my sequels somewhere. I'm going to comment a bit on his response. 

Succession is a big problem for perpetuating a good government. Chinese dynasties always started with a few good emperors, and then it goes downhill from the third or fourth generation on. Fuckups are guaranteed. Humans must one day acknowledge that we are flawed. We need to evolve smarter progeny to perpetuate good governance. Actually, we do have such a progeny, which is vastly smarter than us, and they don't have any human weaknesses--self-learning Artificial Intelligence. I have seen a self-learning chess player AlphaZero make a move that I would never make in a million years. No amount of analysis would prompt me to make that move, and yet it's a winning move. Astounding. It also developed a positional play that took masters over a hundred years to come up with, and it took AlphaZero just one day playing with itself. At some point humans will have to ask ourselves, do we want utopia on earth or do we want humans to run governments?

As for the China-Russia-US relationship, China has a very good strategy to go by. It is from the book that Chairman Mao knew very well and probably used for many situations. It's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which tells of the three-way relationship between Wei in the north, Wu in the south, and Shu in the west. The strongest kingdom was Wei in the north. The most famous strategist at the time was Zhuge Liang of Shu in the west. It's very simple. Everyone is suppose to follow it. "Ally with Wu to oppose Wei." Sounds simple but it's hard to keep. Eventually, the king of Shu went to war with Wu over a disputed province, and caused the demise of Shu and Wu to the delight of Wei. 

As for talk of China getting involved in Russian politics, I doubt that China will want to do that. They already have a tried and true method, which is to sign long term contracts that tie together the countries' benefits. They have probably learned by now how to insert some poison pill clauses in the contracts that will make it hard for future governments to swallow if they cancel projects. We can see how Malaysia and Sri Lanka change governments but continue doing business. Saker is probably right about symbiosis. China also wants to have peace, especially with a big neighbor such as Russia. Historically, Chinese people have ambivalent feelings towards Russia. Russia was one of the colonial powers that took advantage of a weak Qing dynasty. Some Chinese people still call Vladivostok by its Chinese name, Haishenwei, which was the romping grounds of the Jurchen tribe, the ancestor of the Manchurian. Mao also did not want to follow every order from Stalin and the Comintern. When he set up the successful soviet at Jinggangshan, he was ousted by the clique of the 28 Bolsheviks (students from the USSR and favored by the Comintern), who advocated fighting the Nationalists by conventional warfare. It was a disaster and culminated in the Long March. After the Second World War, Stalin signed a treaty with Chiang Kai-shek, forcing the PLA to vacate Manchurian cities that they had occupied. When the PLA took Nanjing, capital of the Nationalists, Chiang Kai-shek moved his government to Guangzhou in the south. Even the American embassy didn't follow Chiang because they knew it was all over for him, but the Soviets went. On the other hand, Mao had sent secret messages to the Americans seeking to establish relations. USSR was still an ally of America. It's hard to believe that Stalin would not have known. Finally, in 1950, the USSR could've vetoed the American's UN vote to intervene in Korea, but they boycotted UN for not recognizing the PRC, forcing China into the Korean War, creating real bad blood with the US, and suffering thirty years of western embargo. All these are past, but I'm sure not forgotten. 

  Aside from the trading of natural resources and manufactured goods, cultural exchange between the China and Russia are very strong. With American universities openly discriminating against students from China and calling everyone spies, more students are going to Russia. Every Russian university has a sister institute in China. Russians can enter Chinese border cities such as Manzhouli visa free. Russians with scholarships are studying in China. They are working in China as well, where the salaries are three to four times higher. China already has set up auto manufacturers in Russia. Goodbye to GM. The two countries have a JV to build a wide body commercial airplane. Tough luck for Boeing. Both countries are also working on an Arctic Silk road. Chinese companies are building Russian infrastructure under BRI. Many Chinese investors and businessmen are visiting Russia wanting to do business. Maybe Russia should get China involved in laying pipelines. China can easily build bigger vessels than Allseas and do it much faster and cheaper. Build Nordstream 3 and Turkstream 2 at half the time and half the price. Say goodbye to American sanctions. Let the Euro vassals get their scraps from their master. In all, things look very positive for the China-Russia strategic relationship.

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It is interesting that China has a very strong relationship with Ukraine. Maybe one day China can act as a mutual friend and get the brothers talking again. I seem to remember that Kiev was the center of Russia before the center of power moved to Moscow.

As I said before, nuclear powers are not going to get into hot war unless it is an existential struggle. Even without the Dollar hegemony, America will still be a great country with a lot of wealth. Pressing the button means everything will be gone in a flash. No one will be so stupid, especially not people with the wealth. America is a paper tiger. They already had a taste of Chinese peasants in the Korean War. Despite having half a million GIs in Vietnam and enjoying uncontested air superiority, they lost the war to tiny North Vietnam. They can't even get a clear win against the goat-herders of Afghanistan after 19 years of making bugsplats out of wedding celebrants. They suddenly want to go mano-a-mano against China? Haven't they learned a lesson starting the trade war with China? In terms of deterrent, China never declares how many nuclear warheads it has. That's a good policy. China has a lot of solid fuel quick turnaround mobile missiles which they can fit with all kinds of warheads. Don't think anyone want to fuck with that. In terms of defending itself in conventional war, I'm fairly certain that in a Taiwan Strait conflict, if American carrier groups show up with hostile intent, they will be rendered toothless. It's a cat and mouse game and real capabilities are not discussed or shown. Taiwan should start talking seriously with Beijing, not hoping their master thousands of miles away would or could protect them. 

So what to do for revolutions to succeed? We need new thinking, new paradigm, new methodology, not old ideology, certainly not dogma. We need to stop using the language of the Big Lie. We also need to control the narrative, so that people will not be confused by the bullshit and try to understand what they're supporting, what they're fighting for. And then like Saker says, the people will have to do it themselves. Or as I say, "to walk out of the mountains on our own." That's what Mao and his Chinese Communist Party did. This Chinese revolution is the last one standing, and it is still going strong. Maybe there's a lesson to learn here. Dying is easy; revolution is hard.

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