- Thoughts on Your Article
(Some clumsy opinions, please forgive any omissions)
Regarding that incident, the official term is "the political turmoil of the spring and summer of 1989," simply summarized as /Western forces deliberately inciting/ /a small number of domestic elements being exploited/ /errors in decision-making within the party/ /the party collective's resolute actions/ /that set of rhetoric.
The Taiwan Strait crisis in the 1990s may have been the best opportunity for unification. It was the last glory of the "unification faction" in Taiwan (whether blue or red unification, at least they insisted on "one China, different interpretations"). After that, the so-called new generation of "local factions" continued to develop and even became the main body. Talking about liberation then would have too much momentum and resistance; now it can be considered "talking past each other."
The operations of the French Socialist government are quite normal; the Western left always likes to place "ideology" above "national interests." This is true from arms sales to Taiwan to the current immigration policies. When the economy is good, they can afford it, but in the current environment, just look at the rise of Trump and the European right.
(Of course, this cannot be generalized; the Communist International's foreign aid also falls into this category. The "political correctness" of the white left is sometimes not entirely a bad thing.
Instructors have said that dealing with Western right-wingers is more comfortable (although your market size is larger, how can a "red authoritarian" regime compare to our "free world" allies?)
The U.S. does not need a reason to go to war; it's already good enough if they can say a few nice words. Under its size, whatever it does will have "great scholars" to justify it. This may be the only country in the world today that can treat domestic propaganda as foreign propaganda; they have that capital.
The rigidity of the Soviet Union was not built in a day. Perhaps the initial intention was indeed good, as the people's wisdom was not yet open, and the "political training" in thought was to avoid the entry of some truly "erroneous thoughts," leading to the development of a normal, locally inherited "new culture." This shortcut is not unfeasible, just like prioritizing heavy industry in the "five-year plan" in industrial development; it's simple and crude but effective.
However, this wartime-oriented model cannot and should not become the norm. After "political training," there should be real "constitutional governance." Truth is not merely self-evident; it is also increasingly clarified through debate! What kind of truth is something that the people cannot dispute! By the end, the Soviet people's thinking had nearly closed in on itself. If the economic foundation had not undergone significant changes and there was no obvious technological or cultural lag, at least the Soviet people's hearts would have remained stable into the next century.
However, the Soviet leadership could not hold on. In the later years of Brezhnev, it was not visible, but they could see that the Soviet economic system needed reform to adapt to the continuously developing productive forces. But they were too hasty; they could also see the continuous technological and cultural lead of the West, but they were too hasty. A serious illness requires strong medicine, but medicine can also be toxic.
China's reform and opening up and ideological liberation have also caused a tremendous impact on our ideology, but that was under the premise of always having "mandatory" guidance. China pulled through and was reborn from the ashes.
But the Soviet Union did not: "Thus learning from the West, there was some success. Self-composed a good prescription, took it, and died."
The best opportunity for the Soviet Union's reform and opening was during the early Cold War after World War II when the Soviet Union attacked the U.S., but the indecisive (Lenin's words) Stalin did not seize it. Next was Brezhnev's 1970s oil boom period, but when the economy is good, any problem seems minor.
The Soviet people generally still believed in the Soviet system, but the Soviet leadership did not; they believed in the Western system. At this time, another tragedy of the Soviet system became evident: the highly centralized political decision-making, where the people could only choose the Communist Party and then could only choose liberalization.
Just like a tightly stretched line that has a small break, the building collapses suddenly.
August 19 can be seen as the last song of the last batch of "conservatives" in the upper echelons.
Therefore, the collapse of the Soviet economic system and the collapse of its ideology are complementary, a relationship of determination and reaction.
For us, to put it more formally, we should not walk the old path of closed rigidity, nor the evil path of changing flags and banners. We should not forget our origins, absorb the foreign, and face the future.