cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/7802418
Don't forget about the Irish unification of 2024!
this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Risa
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Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
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Is that someone I should know?
Mao Zedong; his quote was "Political power flows out of the barrel of a gun."
The quote is not a moral statement or a call to action, but a scientific analysis of Historical Materialism: the Chinese civil war was not fought with ballots or debates, it was fought with guns, on both sides.
Ultimately, the people with the guns hold all political power in society.
That's wrong in the context of the Chinese civil war though. Mao and the CPC didn't win because they had more guns or a more powerful army. In fact, the KMT almost wiped them out several times.
According to their own lore, they were more inspirational to the local people, who supported them in return. Mao specifically said "The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea."
You can read it in Mao's own words: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113625.On_Guerrilla_Warfare
But this has been known from the days of Napoleon. A gun doesn't win a war, the idea wins the war. That's where ballots and debates come in.
When the CPC was losing to the KMT, they did not have more political power. I feel you're misunderstanding the quote, which is a colorful way of saying that force is the ultimate basis of all political power—which should be obvious from a cursory examination of international politics.