• Family house robbed by student militants during the Cultural Revolution
  • Mother forced to denounce father as an enemy of the revolution in front of a crowd
  • Father imprisoned
  • Arrested and sent to a labor camp for deserting the post he was assigned as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement
  • Rejected for Party membership 10 times

To me it also demonstrates a big difference between capitalism and socialism. Compare Xi’s post-prison trajectory to capitalist countries, where a criminal record basically makes you a part of a lifelong unemployable underclass (unless you’re a millionaire, of course).

  • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    33·
    5 days ago

    Yeah what I’ve read so far here and there is really interesting.

    I had a similar thought when I read about his father being imprisoned and then after his release being busted down to the lowly station of… factory manager. Still a major fall from grace, but again purged from the party and imprisoned. But not ruined. Not destroyed. (not that Xi’s father or the family would agree with this I think? heh)

    Compared to what we consider normal/acceptable (and compared to the lies about China) it seems almost utopian.

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      34·
      5 days ago

      tracks with how the two branches of my ancestors were treated:

      • the capitalists, to my jewish grandmother from a poor background: not allowed to go to university, beaten up by fascist thugs in the street leading to major medical complications, being hunted by nazis and nazi collaborators, having to live under a false identity to survive. her parents got holocausted.
      • the communists, to my landowning nobility great-grandfather, an absolute class enemy of theirs: he eventually got put in charge of a huge state-run agricultural concern. got to use his university education (agrarian engineer). retained 2 houses, got a nice pension, lived to a peaceful old age. yeah yeah they took his land. compare this with the previous.
  • Tabitha ☢️[she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    5 days ago

    This is likely the origin of his greatest flaw. His deeply rooted desire for stability and trade maxing makes perfect sense in this context. This is the only man in the universe that can look at the nuclear launch codes and feel nothing.