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by 1945 you could get your communism in lots of different flavors [ice cream parlor]

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way more than 31 then there was democratic socialism which tasted like

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cherries and socialist policies gradually introduced by elected [ice cream cones]

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officials in a multi-party state there was an narco communism which had a hint

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of vanilla and workers communes with no central government like you know anarchy

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there was Trotskyism which tasted like defeat and a central government

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controlled by workers communes and a single party and there was Stalinism

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which had an overwhelming flavor of crazy and centralized government that

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controlled workers communes through a single party with just a hint of

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pistachio and then tribe people all right well the chinese communists looked

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upon this election and decided that it was weak sauce they needed an ideology [Chinese look at all ice cream flavors]

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that could work around a country full of peasants and completely lacking in dense

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urban areas resources and stability so mao zedong the leader of the Chinese

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Communist Party invented maoism a clever name we might have gone with bad idea [Maoism flavored ice cream cone]

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isn't but that's just us well maoism was all about building up a military

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developing the countryside and keeping the fire of class warfare

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burning bright and a lot of people bought into what mao was selling after

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all his competition was chiang kai-shek who as we've discussed previously was [military man offers candy]

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when the kind of a jerk by 1949 Mao had convinced so many Chinese to follow him

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that Chiang finally gave up on the Chinese Civil War and hightailed it to

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Taiwan while Cheng and his nationalist forces might have lost the war the world [map of China and Taiwan]

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at large continued to act like he was the true leader of China while Mao and

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millions of Chinese beg to disagree this went on until 1971

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when the United Nations finally passed a resolution that said the People's

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Republic of China on the Chinese mainland was the one and only [Chaing meets Mao in UN corridor]

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representative of China to the UN Chiang in the millions of Chinese on Taiwan beg

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to disagree and the two sides have been sniping at each other ever since well

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back on the mainland Maoism was failing oh sure it worked great when there was a

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war to fight but this particular ideology did not do economics

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well the Great Leap Forward which was mouths attempt to in

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realized the Chinese countryside as quickly as possible ran from 1958 [people throw themselves into The Grand Canyon]

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through 1961 and it was an unmitigated disaster tens of millions of people died

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in the resulting famine and violence oh and China's economy actually shrank like

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it's hard to do that in here seriously is it too late to rebranded a bad idea

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isn't that sounds kind of good no no well there were a lot of people throwing

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shade at Mao after 1961 unfortunately for them all the cracks about China's

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not so great leader led to the Cultural Revolution of 1966 for ten years a group

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of people loyal to Mao weeded out the party's bureaucrats and intellectuals

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the goal was to restore Mao to absolute power

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but then Mao died in 1976 and the Gang of Four who'd been killing people in his

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name got kicked out of power because they'd done such a great job of screwing

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up China well in the meantime the relationship between the Soviets and the [map of China and Kazakhstan]

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Chinese got put on ice because people living in northwest China had taken to

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escaping into the Soviet republics there was food in tiers expand after often no [people moving to find food]

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Cultural Revolution and fewer bullets he's aimed at the people Mao thought the

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Soviet Union was trying to take over northwestern China and so he sent troops [China goes nuts and sends tanks across map]

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to the region well the sino-soviet border conflict of

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1969 and the resulting chill between the Soviets and the Chinese gave the

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Americans an opportunity they've been looking for see in the wake of the

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Chinese Civil War the US had been team chiang kai-shek they made banners and [Uncle Sam with Chiang banners]

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everything in singsong because sure he might have been a loser but at least he

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wasn't a communist but then Communist China became something of a powerhouse

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in the world or at least lots of countries that mattered stopped [Mao with muscles in the gym]

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recognizing Chang's government and started recognizing mouths well the u.s.

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had to get with the times not to mention that the Americans had way more negative

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feelings about the Soviets than they did about the Chinese but what a waste of

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perfectly good banners anyway it was time to make nice so President Richard

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Nixon took advantage of behind the scenes groundwork laid by his national

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security advisor Henry Kissinger and he went to China in 1972 well trade deals [pictures of US president traveling]

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between China and the US followed during the 1980s the Chinese began to

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experience more economic and cultural freedom entrepreneurship became a thing

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that wouldn't get you thrown into prison fewer people were starving to death and [Chinese entrepreneurs making money]

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you could actually attend a Catholic Mass in China although Chinese [Catholic church in China]

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Catholicism wasn't really in line with Catholicism in other parts of the world

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but longer story there but politically Communist China was the same as it

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always had been massive student demonstrations took place around the

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country and were put down any bid for democracy ended in 1989 when protesters [people protesting]

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in Beijing's Tiananmen Square were killed by government troops China at the

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end of the 20th century might have been repressive it might have been corrupt

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but after decades of ridiculous violence you could at least say it was stable

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maybe the US should have put that on a new banner do you think

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