China is a dictatorship of the proleariat, shouldnt the dictators be armed?
on a more serious note, Marx and many theorists after him talked about how the proletariat being armed is a necessity, why does China has such gun laws?
China is a dictatorship of the proleariat, shouldnt the dictators be armed?
on a more serious note, Marx and many theorists after him talked about how the proletariat being armed is a necessity, why does China has such gun laws?
The proletariat is armed through the PLA. In a post-revolution setting such as the PRC, there are no immediate threats to defend from that would require the general population to own and operate firearms.
As for why specifically China chose to restrict firearms, I can’t say myself. China is a pretty safe country though and not even the police is armed in normal times.
But let’s say tomorrow the US invades China, I totally believe the PLA could stop them, but a militia of hundreds of millions of angry people sure is something the US should consider before invading, but that’s not possible if guns are hard to own.
Also in a dictatorship of capital who gets armed guards are the capitalists, why can’t the proletarian be their own guards in an eventual heightened class struggle against the capitalists? I believe China won’t allow it and will stop the capitalists, after all they’re a dictatorship of the masses, but if the US does a color revolution, a mass of armed communists should be useful in stopping em, the rebels would get arms form the US either way.
A proletarian dictatorship means the working class can be enlisted by an armed communist or anti-imperialist party, along military lines. This is how every successful communist revolution was acheived: via an organized revolutionary army, not individual gun ownership.
And of course, in settler colonies, gun ownership serves reactionary causes like clearing its land of indigenous peoples, and encouraging reactionary terrorism. A “citizen’s militia” in settler colonies really just means a strong settler garrison.
There is zero reason for China to introduce general gun ownership, given it’s dangers. If it ever needed to, the PLA would do a mass recruitment drive.
Edit: Another mistake that the PRC conciously avoids, and was one of the primary mistakes of the USSR, was the de-politicization of the military, and having the military not controlled by the party. The PLA will always remain under the complete control of the CPC, to ensure that a color revolution can never win the support of the military.
Your last point is extremely crucial. Too many countries that attempted to implement socialism neglected this and the result was almost always disastrous. Venezuela had to learn the hard way after a coup almost managed to depose Hugo Chavez. After that they reorganized and reconstituted the army. Chile unfortunately was not so lucky. Bolivia only just managed to reverse the reactionary coup but they are still in a precarious situation because they have not subordinated the military to the ruling socialist party.
We all know the famous Mao quote about political power growing out of the barrel of a gun, but the second part of that quote is possibly even more important:
“Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.”
Spot on comrade. I really hope South American countries do take those lessons to heart, given the many tragedies they’ve had with right wing military leaders in the pockets of the US, being able to take over the country, as in Chile and Brazil.
First of all, if the PLA is unable to defeat an invading army it is unlikely that civilians with rifles and pistols can. Secondly, if more people are needed to fight they can always be drafted into territorial defense militias and placed under the command of the PLA. Lastly, if all you are interested in is everyone having a gun when the enemy invades you can do what Zelensky did at the start of Russia’s SMO and just open the armories and start handing out AKs to every random guy on the street. But we have seen how bad of an idea that is, without discipline all you get is chaos, violence, a bunch of accidental deaths, and armed criminal gangs. You certainly don’t get any kind of combat effective force.
The idea of popular guerilla resistance gets romanticized a lot but in reality guerillas need to be highly organized and disciplined. On this topic you can read Che Guevara’s guide to guerilla warfare. You will see it is a lot more complex than your average gun toting American who fantasizes about taking on the government or an invading army like Rambo.
n i get that, but for example, in the middle ages, every guy that counted a bit was part of the lord’s militia, everyone owned their pikes and shields, and they were on call in case of an invasion, that system would be cool
How do you suppose they would get arms?
Why do you think the US considers landing foot soldiers in China a possibility?
bcs every US war hawk continues repeating that, i dont believe they’ll succeed but a population of 1.4 billion armed communists should be enough of an extra deterrent