Original: Tianya Supplement Source: WeChat official account: Tianya current events have been reprinted with authorization
I believe that many people often see “multipolarity” and “Community of Common Destiny” in the news, but what do they mean?
For a long time, we have been writing about the inevitable shift towards multipolarity in the world.
However, some people say: “Multi polarization” is not an expanded version of “polarization”? Polarization is the struggle for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union, which is the “Cold War”. Isn’t the multipolarity you advocate for equivalent to advocating for the “Cold War”? Your thought is contrary to the idea of a Community of Common Destiny
I believe there are definitely people who have similar ideas.
So, what is the difference between what we call a “multipolar world” and the “cold war”? Can the “multipolar world” and the “Community of Common Destiny” be unified?
In fact, if you pay close attention to the news, you will know that there is no inevitable relationship between “multi polarization” and “cold war”. Instead, “multi polarization” and “Community of Common Destiny” are harmonious and unified.
This sentence must have overturned many people’s understanding.
Why?
Because when it comes to “multipolarity”, everyone thinks of the “bipolar pattern” during the US Soviet hegemony period, which is the so-called “Cold War”.
In the era of the “bipolar pattern”, the United States and the Soviet Union were incompatible with each other, each with a group of younger brothers who wished to kill each other.
The Korean War, the Vietnam War, the India Pakistan War, the five Arab–Israeli War, and the Kosovo War are all essentially the products of the Cold War. On the military level, in order to avoid another world-class war, the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union do not directly fight, but fight through “agents”, that is, the so-called “Cold War”.
When there is a bipolar situation, the world is locked in a stalemate. Doesn’t a multipolar world mean the world is becoming even more chaotic?
So, it is understandable that some people associate “multipolarity” with “cold war”.
Does the fact mean that?
No!
Why?
Because times have changed, the definition of “multipolarity” has also changed!
To deeply understand these issues, we must understand what the “cold war”, “multipolar world” and “Community of Common Destiny” are? What are the differences between them? What connection is there?
Let’s first talk about what is called the ‘Cold War’? How was it born?
This question is quite lengthy and requires everyone to patiently read and think, because after understanding this question, you will learn a lot.
When it comes to the Cold War, we cannot avoid the two systems of socialism and capitalism, because the Cold War is essentially a struggle between the two ideologies of socialism and capitalism. Both sides believe that their own systems are the best, and both sides believe that the other’s systems suppress the development of humanity and the progress of civilization.
So, both sides engaged in a fierce struggle from the perspective of “all humanity”: the United States wanted all countries to embark on the path of capitalism, and the Soviet Union wanted all countries to embark on the path of socialism, which was the fundamental reason for the occurrence of the Cold War.
So, why do both sides believe that their own system is the best?
Because both parties did not see the other’s strengths, they saw only their weaknesses, and both believed that their weaknesses were far more serious than their own.
This is how socialism was born.
Western countries believe in Christianity. In feudal society, Western rulers used religion to constantly oppress, exploit, and bully the people in order to maintain their rule, and constantly launched wars against the outside world – this chaos lasted from the 5th century to the 15th century for thousands of years, which was also known as the “Dark Middle Ages of Europe”.
The prolonged war has raised a question among the people: Is there really a God in this world? If there is God, why doesn’t he come to save us?
When everyone begins to doubt the existence of God, they encounter a difficult problem: how can we prove that God exists or does not exist?
So, a discipline opposite to “theology” emerged, which is what we are familiar with today – science.
In ancient Europe, Aristotle and Ptolemy advocated the “Geocentric model theory” that the earth was stationary and other stars revolved around the earth, the center of the universe.
This theory coincides with the Christian Bible’s statements about heaven, earth, and hell.
As a result, the ruling Holy See made every effort to support the geocentric theory, integrating the “Geocentric model theory” with God’s creation of the world.
It is precisely this “Geocentric model theory” that has shaken the foundation of theology and the rule of religion.
If we can prove that “the earth is not the center of the universe”, then we can break the “theology” and prove that God does not exist, so that the Ruling class can no longer use the name of God to oppress people.
At this time, a very famous person named Copernicus was born!
I believe everyone has learned in textbooks: he put forward the “Heliocentrism”.
He concluded through long-term observation of astronomy and mathematical calculations that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and the Sun is the center of the universe. All celestial bodies revolve around the Sun. Shortly before his death, he published a great work called “On the Motion of Celestial Bodies”.
If Copernicus’ “Heliocentrism” increased people’s suspicion of God, it was another person who really shook the religious rule. He was another famous figure in Europe: Giordano Bruno of Italy.
He continuously promoted Copernicus’ theory of the sun center and spread it throughout Europe, seriously shaking the rule of religion.
Therefore, in 1592, he was sentenced by the Inquisition as “heresy”, arrested and imprisoned, and burned to death in Rome’s Campo de’Fiori on February 17, 1600.
During the period from the 14th to 16th centuries, many people became suspicious of religion and published many works, hence this period is also known as the “Renaissance period”.
The Renaissance shook the foundation of theology and guided another movement in Europe: the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment refers to an anti feudal and anti church ideological and cultural movement of the bourgeoisie and the masses of the people in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is another great anti feudal ideological liberation movement after the Renaissance. It strongly criticized feudal Despotism, religious ignorance and privilege, and promoted the ideas of freedom, democracy and equality.
These two movements promoted the birth of modern science.
We Chinese people do not believe in God, and the Ruling class does not rule the people with theology, so in order to govern the country well, “Hundred Schools of Thought” were born, namely, Confucianism, Legalism, Taoism, Mohism, School of Diplomacy, strategists, etc.
“Hundred Schools of Thought” have nothing to do with God. No matter how much oppression Chinese people are subjected to, it is unnecessary to prove that “God does not exist”, so modern science was not first born in China.
This is the main reason why ancient China was very powerful, but modern science was not first born in China. The fact that modern science was first born in Europe does not mean that Europeans were smarter than Chinese people. On the contrary, it precisely demonstrates their ignorance: because of ignorance, they believe in God; Because God did not help them, they began to doubt God; Doubting God has promoted the birth of modern science.
It’s like people living by the sea are always better at swimming than those living in mountainous areas, and people living on grasslands are better at riding and shooting than those living on plains… This is not related to race or intelligence, but only to their living environment – people in different environments think more about their own living environment.
The birth of modern science has promoted the progress of technology, which in turn has promoted the development of industry, which has promoted the birth of capitalism.
Feudal society is built on the foundation of agriculture, while capitalist society is built on the foundation of industry. When feudal society transitions to capitalist society, significant contradictions will inevitably arise.
You are a landlord with a large amount of land, and many farmers are farming for you. I am a capitalist and I have the skills to produce industrial products, but I do not have enough workers available. At this point, I will definitely go and compete with you, but if your people are taken away by me, there won’t be enough people in your land to plant, and you definitely won’t want to.
In order to develop industry, the bourgeoisie will rob the people of the landlord class, while the rulers of feudal society are all landlords. They will certainly not agree with your request, so you can only start a revolution if you want to rob people, which is the so-called “Bourgeois revolution”.
After the bourgeoisie gained political power, they vigorously developed industry, and the people’s living standards continued to improve, gradually leading to problems: either insufficient raw materials, insufficient population, or severe overcapacity
For example, I am a capitalist who makes cars. The demand for cars is very high, so I kept expanding the factory. However, after expanding, I found that there were not enough workers and steel
Similarly, there are also aircraft manufacturers who lack steel and workers
Due to the continuous development of technology, the categories of industrial products are also increasing, but the population and resources are limited.
What should we do?
There is only one way: invasion, plunder!
Thus, we can see that after the western countries have entered the Industrial society first, they have invaded and colonized all over the world by virtue of their own industrial advantages, and constantly robbed raw materials and population!
Why are there so many black people in Europe and the United States?
One of the most important reasons was that during the colonial period, Europe and America had insufficient population and sold a large number of slaves from Africa to provide them with free labor.
If you look closely, you will find one special thing: most of the wars before the Industrial society were very cruel, mainly killing people and seizing land; After entering the Industrial society, the main purpose of the war is not to kill people, but to seize resources and population.
For example, the former British Empire had colonies all over the world, but after the fall of the British Empire, many countries not only did not hate Britain, but also regarded the Queen as their head of state.
Why?
Since Britain entered the Industrial society, it had colonized other countries in order to rob population and resources, so it was naturally reluctant to kill more people – this was certainly not because the British were more “benevolent”, but it was more in its interests to kill fewer talents.
Assuming I am a tractor manufacturer and I don’t have enough workers and steel, I will occupy a very poor place with a gun. That place is very backward, with a large amount of iron ore, but they cannot smelt iron, so I forced them to produce steel for me, and forced them to produce tractors for me
They produce and manufacture 1000 tractors for me a year, but I only give them 50, and the remaining 950 are sold for money by myself.
After occupying this area, I not only did not kill them, but also provided them with advanced technology and paid for 50 tractors. Then, they took tractors to open up wasteland and cultivate land, resulting in an increase in grain production and a better life than before.
Do you think these people will hate me?
They will definitely not hate me. However, I have gained huge benefits from it.
This is why Britain has so many colonies around the world, but many countries, after breaking away from British colonial rule, not only do not hate Britain, but also express gratitude to Britain as the main reason.
After the Industrial Revolution, Britain ran out of resources and population, and went everywhere to colonize. After seeing the countries next to Britain, they naturally want to learn from Britain. They have also started to develop industry, and their population is also insufficient. What should we do?
They also learned from Britain and began to colonize everywhere!
Soon, the entire earth was divided up by them.
With the continuous progress of technology, the variety of goods is still increasing – the original industrial products were only textiles, bicycles, electric lights, telephones, etc., but with the progress of technology, new industrial products continue to emerge, such as cars, trains, televisions, refrigerators, etc., starting to appear in large numbers
At this point, the major powers have discovered a new problem: the population and resources are not enough!
What should we do?
The Earth is so big that it has already been divided up by everyone. There is not enough population for them to exploit anymore. What should we do?
There is only one way: to seize the territory of other powers!
So, there was a fight between the powers!
The World War I broke out in this way – the great powers scrambled for each other’s territory!
The great powers started fighting, and their colonies naturally had to participate in this war. Therefore, the scale of this war was exceptionally large, coupled with technological progress, and the power of weapons was far beyond that of previous weapons, so the destructive power it caused was extremely strong.
During the World War I, about 65 million people participated in the war, more than 10 million people were killed and 20 million were injured.
In the process of the West’s entry into the Industrial society, in order to obtain more benefits, in the case of Population decline, in addition to foreign colonization and population plundering, the great powers also took an important measure: to exploit the people of their own country.
Countries such as Britain, France, and the United States have a large number of black people, mainly because after the Industrial Revolution, the population was insufficient and they were trafficked from Africa.
If the population is insufficient, they will recruit a large number of child laborers; In pursuit of higher profits, they constantly extend their working hours
Do you say the workers are willing?
Of course they don’t want to!
So, in these countries, revolutions continue to erupt
At this time, Russia was still in a feudal society and fell behind Europe again, so the Russians sent a large number of personnel to Europe to learn industrial technology
As a result, what they saw was the continuous exploitation of workers by capitalists, and the continuous outbreak of uprisings and revolutions by workers
So the Russians began to think: we can’t go that way, or the country will not be peaceful. What path should we take to develop industry?
They thought of socialism.
How does socialism work?
We cannot let capitalists take power because they are too greedy. We must establish a new social system where everyone works together and distributes goods together, so that there is no exploitation or resistance?
Therefore, Lenin led the working class to launch the “proletarian revolution”, overthrew the bourgeois government, and established the world’s first Socialist state, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, or “Soviet Russia” for short.
However, things are not that simple.
Assuming that China is currently in a feudal society with relatively backward productive forces, and everyone is working hard to cultivate land, they can only have enough to eat. Now we need to develop industry and a large population. Where does the population come from?
European countries developed their industries by plundering and colonizing other countries, seizing raw materials and population to work for them. Russia started much later, so there’s no way to grab it!
What should we do?
As a result, Russia can only take one approach: abolish Serfdom, force some farmers to engage in industry, and leave only a few farmers to continue farming. Then, forcibly confiscate the grain of farmers and divide it equally among them to overcome the difficult period of early industrialization.
Can you imagine how angry the farmers will be?
Originally, I could only eat half full when I was farming. Now that you have taken away a large number of farmers to engage in industry, I have to plant more land, but the food has been taken away by you. In the end, the food distributed to me is not even as much as before (in addition to maintaining workers’ rations, I also need to exchange food for technology and resources from other countries)!
My workload has increased a lot, but the food I receive has decreased compared to before. Do you think farmers are angry or not?
Anger leads to resistance.
Resistance will be brutally suppressed!
So, in the early stages of industrialization, the Soviet Union was very cruel to farmers, but that was also something that could not be done – older people may also remember that we had adopted this policy in the beginning.
However, after the early stages of industrialization, it gradually began to improve.
With the development of industry, such as tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, etc., the intensity of farmers’ work has decreased, and grain production has continued to increase. Everyone can have enough to eat, so socialism gradually begins to stabilize – the most difficult to start, once we get on the right track, everything starts to improve.
At this time, the world still had little interest in Soviet socialism, and Soviet influence was not as great.
But then another great event happened, which made the world know socialism. This event was the World War II.
After the World War I, the European powers were greatly weakened, but in the process of the war, they further promoted the progress of science and technology, so they recovered quickly after the war, and the whole Europe was thriving.
However, capitalism has two fatal institutional drawbacks:
Firstly, it adopts a free market economy and cannot avoid economic crises;
Secondly, it overemphasizes the power of capital and seriously overdraws the future.
What does it mean?
Capitalism adopts a market economy of free competition, and under the market economy system, economic crises will inevitably arise.
For example, there is a high demand for watermelons nowadays, and the profits from planting watermelons are very high. Therefore, everyone goes to plant watermelons. However, as more and more people grew, the yield of watermelons increased, and ultimately the price plummeted. Those who intervened later went bankrupt
In addition, the money I spend growing watermelons is not entirely my own, but I raised it through issuing stocks – I raised 10 million yuan from the market by issuing stocks and invested it all in growing watermelons. Due to the high demand for watermelons and high profits at the beginning, everyone went to buy my stock, and the stock price rose very high
However, as more and more people grew watermelons, I no longer made money, so I had to lay off the workers, who lost their jobs; My stock price has also plummeted, and those who bought stocks at high prices have also lost money and gone bankrupt, and have no money to survive
In this way, problems have arisen in various industries, leading to a serious economic crisis and the people living in poverty!
What was the cause of the World War II?
On October 24, 1929, there was a frenzy of stock selling on the New York Wall Street Stock Exchange in the United States, followed by the collapse of the stock market and a wave of bank runs, which plunged the American economy into a desperate situation and subsequently affected the entire capitalist world
Under the impact of the economic crisis, a large number of people have lost their jobs, money, and are unable to survive!
If the common people can no longer survive, they will definitely rebel.
At this moment, Hitler of Germany raised his arms and called for us to overthrow capitalists, nationalize all their enterprises, and provide everyone with jobs and food
So, the people “one person, one vote” elected him to the stage.
What was Hitler’s political stance?
Nazism!
What is Nazism?
The Nazi concept is very similar to socialism, but it has the color of Ultranationalism!
We have analyzed with you before that the Germans have always regarded themselves as “the successor of the Western Roman Empire” and have always had the ambition of unifying Europe. In addition, Germany was defeated in World War I, and its national interests were greatly damaged (Germany was forced to sign the Versailles Peace Treaty, which humiliated the country), so the Germans are very dissatisfied.
Hitler, that kind of person too!
So, after he took office, he first massacred the wealthiest Jews and nationalized their property!
Then, he claimed that Germanic peoples people are the race endowed with “dominant power” by God, and that the world is a jungle of the jungle of the jungle where the weak eat the weak and the fittest survive. All nations must compete in the fierce competition for survival
Thus, the World War II broke out.
We can say that it is precisely because of the institutional defects of capitalism that the economic crisis was caused, and the economic crisis was the inducement of the World War II.
During the period when capitalist countries suffered from serious economic crisis, one country developed very well without any impact. This country is the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, or “Soviet Russia” for short.
Why hasn’t Soviet Russia been affected in any way?
There are two main reasons:
Firstly, due to Soviet Russia’s choice of the socialist path, European capitalist countries did not play with it and isolated it, so Russia’s economy had no connection with the world economy and was naturally unaffected by the global economic crisis.
Secondly, the Soviet Union adopted a socialist path, where everyone worked together and distributed food. There was no talk of overcapacity (adopting a planned economy where everything was calculated in detail according to the plan, and how much was consumed and produced each year), and naturally there was no talk of economic crisis.
During World War II, under the leadership of Stalin, Soviet Russia rapidly developed its industry through three “Five Year Plans”, defeated Hitler, and ultimately developed into a superpower.
In this comparison, the whole world has found that there are too many problems with capitalism, including serious exploitation and economic crisis. Both World Wars were related to it. On the contrary, socialism has neither exploitation nor economic crisis.
Therefore, Soviet Russia believed that socialism was the best social system in the world, and the world should adopt a socialist system.
This idea gained recognition from many countries and people (including China) during World War II, leading to the emergence of Communist Party members from all over the world
After the end of World War II, capitalist countries began to be afraid!
For some capitalist countries, although they defeated Hitler together with the Soviet Union, they were extremely afraid of the Communist Party, because the Communist Party’s ideas were so good, especially in the process of practice, which had been proven.
After the end of World War II, many countries have embarked on the road of socialism, and the Communist Party in Europe is very powerful. For example, the French Communist Party was once the largest party in France.
So, is there a problem with socialism?
There’s a problem!
Its biggest problem is that because it adopts a planned economy and emphasizes that individuals must obey the collective, the people have relatively no “freedom”.
Many people nowadays are relatively young and have not experienced that era, so they do not know about the events of the socialist era.
Socialism adopts Common ownership and collective economy, that is, state-owned economy (state-owned enterprises in big cities) and collective economy (rural and Township and Village Enterprises).
For example, if you are a farmer, then everyone should work together on the land and share the grain, and everyone should work under collective arrangements. Do you want to be lazy? No way! You want to be lazy, he also wants to be lazy, who will plant the land? Everyone is lazy, there is no food to eat, and everyone has to go hungry. So, you have to obey the collective!
Similarly, I arranged for you to dig the ground. You said, ‘I’m not strong enough to dig the ground. Can you change my job for me?’? No way! You don’t want to dig, he doesn’t want to dig, who will dig?
So, in the socialist collective economic system, the common people do not have as much freedom – unlike now, if you don’t want to do a job, you can resign and find a job that you like. At that time, there was no private enterprise, and you couldn’t resign. If you didn’t do it, you had to do it.
Capitalism naturally saw this shortcoming, so they went everywhere to publicize it, saying that socialism has no freedom, democracy and human rights, and it is a dictatorship… The United States still scolds us like that today.
However, at that time, especially after World War II, the whole world was in a mess, and the people could not survive. What matters most is “freedom, democracy and human rights”. It is the most important thing to have a full stomach, and the socialist “fighting local tyrants and dividing fields” can immediately make them have a full stomach.
So, in the early stages after World War II, socialism had the absolute upper hand.
At first glance, the United States saw that this was not feasible. If it continued like this, the world would become “red”, so it began to provide a large amount of aid to European countries.
The United States helps capitalist countries suppress the Communist Party while also helping them develop their economy – if we cannot feed the people, then relying solely on force to suppress will ultimately not solve the problem.
Thus, the United States formulated the famous “Marshall Plan”.
The official name of the Marshall Plan is “European Revival Plan”. It is a plan of the United States to provide economic assistance and reconstruction assistance to the Western European countries destroyed by the war after the World War II, which has had a profound impact on the development of European countries and the world political pattern.
The plan was officially launched in July 1947 and lasted for four fiscal years. During this period, through participating in the European OECD, Western European countries received a total of 13.15 billion US dollars in financial, technical, equipment and other forms of assistance from the United States, of which 90% were gifts and 10% were loans.
Of course, the United States is not going to be a “good person” either. There is its own calculation behind this, so we won’t expand on it.
In this way, capitalist countries, with the support of the United States, suppressed the Communist Party of various countries while developing their economies
As the World War II once again promoted the progress of science and technology, European countries, with the support of the United States, developed their economies very quickly, and soon people could eat their fill
As for the common people, there are no ideals or ideologies. As long as they have food to eat, they are unwilling to risk losing their heads and start a revolution!
In addition, capitalist countries continue to publicize how free, democratic and human rights socialism is. Gradually, socialism has lost its appeal to them – people will want to be more free as long as they have enough food, and you can’t be lazy under socialist Common ownership.
In addition, in the process of the US Soviet struggle for hegemony, the Soviet Union also gradually exposed its ambition, pursued “great power Chauvinism”, and wanted to control all Socialist state
In the end, the Soviet Union failed in the process of US Soviet hegemony!
Let’s be fair and objective: why did the Soviet Union disintegrate?
It is not about engaging in an arms race with the United States, nor is it because the socialist system is not advanced, but rather because it has been defeated by humanity and the level of human civilization is not yet as high.
Although the United States achieved ultimate victory in the process of US Soviet hegemony, we need to ask: have the serious problems in the capitalist system been fundamentally solved?
Has capitalism eliminated “human exploitation”? Have you eliminated the ‘economic crisis’?
No!
As long as the phenomenon of human exploitation is not eliminated, and as long as the economic crisis is not eliminated, there will definitely be a revolution in the end, and even a world-class war may erupt again!
We can imagine that if there were another world war, the entire Earth might no longer exist, because with the development of technology, the power of weapons now is far from what could be compared before.
So, how can we save the world?
Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
As you all know, my evaluation of Comrade Xiaoping is very, very high.
Why?
Because he created a new social system – Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Isn’t there an economic crisis in capitalism?
So we will continue to control enterprises that are related to the national economy and people’s livelihood in the hands of the state, so as to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis.
Isn’t socialism without enough freedom?
So we can allow the development of private economy, so that we can give the people enough freedom!
This is Socialism with Chinese characteristics: Common ownership as the main body, private ownership as a necessary complement!
Why can China develop so quickly in such a short period of time?
The main advantage is the system!
In the era of the “bipolar structure”, the contradiction between the United States and the Soviet Union was irreconcilable because they represented different classes: the United States represented the bourgeoisie, the Soviet Union represented the working class, and both wanted to gain political power.
China adopts Socialism with Chinese characteristics. In addition to industries related to the national economy and the people’s livelihood, other industries allow the existence of capitalists. Therefore, in the ideological field, China no longer seeks to overthrow the system of capitalist countries, nor will it export Exporting the revolution everywhere like the Soviet Union.
Simply put, we do not seek the path of hegemony, do not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and it is up to them to decide what path they want to take.
Since the system is not a problem, why should China promote world multipolarity?
Because the strength of the United States is not enough!
For example, the chip technology in the United States is very advanced, but can the United States make advanced chips available to everyone?
No!
Why?
Two reasons:
Firstly, its production capacity is insufficient;
Secondly, in order to ensure high profits, it does not allow other countries to “get involved”.
Imagine: If the United States does not suppress China, can China provide the world with more and cheaper chips? Has the living standards of the world’s people been greatly improved?
However, the United States does not allow us to do so.
What are the problems in today’s world?
The United States dominates the most profitable high-end manufacturing industry and does not allow other countries to develop high-tech industries; The United States controls financial hegemony and constantly prints money to plunder the world; The United States is constantly waging wars around the world in order to maintain its hegemony
What is the meaning of world multipolarity?
We need to promote the development of multiple high-tech systems in the world, multiple international currencies, and multiple defense and security systems
Only in this way can the cost of high-tech products be effectively reduced, allowing more people to enjoy cheap goods; Only in this way can we strengthen competition and further promote technological progress; Only in this way can we prevent the United States from indiscriminately printing money and looting the world; Only in this way can we effectively maintain world peace and prevent large-scale wars from happening again
Only in this way can we accelerate the development speed of countries around the world, further improve the level of human civilization, and link the fate of humanity together, rather than being controlled by the United States!
This is the real meaning of the world’s multipolarity and the Community of Common Destiny.
—–This concludes the entire article.