Month: September 2017

Speech about Hammer and Sickle

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Mark Ma

Professor Hamilton

English 137, Section 009

09/20/2017

When you see the portraits of Stalin or Mao Tse-tung, what are some words that first come to your mind? Red Terror? Excruciation? Or Repression? How about the symbol of “Communism”: Hammer and Sickle? Is this next Nazi’s symbolism? However, at this moment, I want to discuss the original idea and the origin about this artifact, the real “Communism“: why “Communism” is abused and the misunderstanding by Western society. Hopefully, after my speech, you could all have a brand-new view of Communism instead of some stereotypes you heard from media or even the government.

 

  • The history of Hammer and Sickle
    •  Was conceived during the Russian Revolution
      • The hammer represented for industrial laborers
      • The sickle represented for peasantry
    • Why was this artifact used?
      • Represented the worker-peasant alliance worked as a whole (also called Bolsheviks led by Lenin)
      • Against White movement (represented the ruling class, like Tsar)
      • And Allied intervention during the Revolution (represented foreign Capitalism).
    • After WWI and Russian Civil war
      • Was used as the emblem of the USSR
      • Caused several Communist movements in worldwide.
    • Nowadays
      • Communist Party of China
      • Represented the fundamental interests of working class and broad masses.
      • Only 4 countries left under “Communism”: China, Cuba, Lao, and Vietnam.

Transition: At this point, you probably still confused about why “communism” can be called Red terror, because “Communism” is still a symbol of most of the people’s interests against ruling class (we called that democracy) instead of autarchy. Then the next topic I’m going to talk about the real “Communism” and how this idea was abused.

 

  • The theoretical basis-Marxism (formed by Marx and Engels)
    • General Purpose
      • From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
      • to establish a communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money and the state.
        • The whole society produces goods based on the needs instead of interests
      • Against Capitalism
        • Capitalism – The best way to work with exploitation is to allow anyone to do it, too.
          • Bourgeoisie- people who owned physical capital- tools that used to produce goods
          • Proletariat-people who sell their labor without the tools to produce goods by themselves
        • Making working opportunity is a lie, which caused exploitation
      • Capitalism-Socialism-Communism
      • It was mostly economic theory! Not political

Transition: That information above was the general idea about the real “Communism” that a theoretic perfect society that formed by Marx and Engels, a utopian conception. However, after the death of Marx, his theory divided into two major factions: Comintern and Revisionism.

  • Comintern
    • Like Leninism, then Stalin and Mao used this theory.
      • The revolution could start right now and would be successful soon.
        • Armed rebellion
        • Use violence to destroy all the wealth, law, morality and even the flesh of the bourgeoisie, strongly resisted by the capitalist countries.
        • Succeeded in Russia, China and etc.
  • Revisionism
    • Also called democratic socialism
      • An ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy
      • Nowadays, can be found in Northern Europe
        • Didn’t get that much of resistance compared to Comintern
      • The one that Marx realized when he near to die

Transition: Those two factions all came from the same idea but had such a different results and consequences. Moreover, the stereotypes were raised by the United States during the cold war and used it as an enemy to fight against for.

  • The name “Communist State”
    • Used to call USSR and other “communist” countries.
    • However, the Totalitarianism they tried to blame was not Communism at all!!!
      • Those countries didn’t even call themselves as Communism because communism was their supreme goal.
  • Freedom, Utopia, and mandatory
    • Having a Utopia is not terrible, but when someone’s Utopia became mandatory for everyone in the country, then everything becomes terrible
      • White Terror
      • Red Terror

Conclusion: Farewell to Utopia is always easy, but it is difficult to get out of mandatory. Politically correct is always mandatory but it changed so quick in a short period of time. The United States used to strongly condemn an enemy called “Communist State” and didn’t establish a diplomatic relation until 1976; by the way, People’s Republic of China was established at 1949. However, nowadays, China has become the biggest trade partner and you can easily find “Made in China” sign, especially in Wal-Mart. I heard a sentence before that represent that situation the most: “ The weapon is not an evil, but the people use it.”  Our values and morals are always changing, but the true diamond won’t.

Yesterday Once More

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In her book, It’s What I do, she used vivid description and images to show about her experience happened during the period before and after 9/11. In this chapter, she started with the story with the relationships with her boyfriend Uxval, and his misunderstanding of her work at the War Zone, but going to the pictures from front line was Addario’s because she believes only the vivid images from the place where events that truly happened would be the most mind-blowing. So according to her story, I realized that only after you experience or truly understand something, then you would know the best way to achieve your goal. Like my experience happened with that patient and the Ebook I donated.

I start the Warmth Project after meeting cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Xu at the Zhejiang Children’s Hospital in 9th grade.

He taught me that many young children in the area suffered from congenital heart disease because of exposure to pollution. I decided to find a way to make their hospital stays a little easier, and my solution was to give the children e-readers, something fun and educational for while in bed. We raised money through our community, and I felt proud that I could make their lives a little better.

In the second year, however, I went back and visited one of the children to whom we had given one of the e-readers; he was still in the hospital. However, when I asked him where he was, he seemed to look away and get nervous. The doctor pulled me aside to tell me that his family had sold it.

I couldn’t believe that they would be so disrespectful over a gift that cost lots of organized time and energy to purchase. Was it a waste?

But, as Dr. Xu explained, he and others came from poor families, who had extreme difficulty paying for medical treatment—the last thing the family needed was an e-reader.

I was immediately mortified by my self-righteous response, and it made me question my motivations for the work I had done. A true benefactor, I concluded, should do good deeds for others for no reason besides altruism. By recognizing this, I decided to transform my charity to focus on paying for medical bills for low-income families rather than paying for their kids’ entertainment. By working to improve my community, I realized that there are degrees to impact and that, moving forward, I should focus on impacting my world where it needs the most help, like Addiro who encouraged so many people to set up awareness against the war.

Your life isn’t just about get alone

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Addario started the story with an “unexpected kiss with Uxval who had attracted Addario with his decisiveness, which naturally remained her about the conversation Nana, her grandmother. Nana loved Ernie, who was a good provider and gave her freedom and stayed her whole life with him but she had inside passion and heartfelt love with Sal who had no money but could satisfy her passion and her imagine about life. Because of that story that Nana told, Addario never wants to regret the kisses she missed, and kind of explained her crazy behaviors in her memoir.

Personally, I consider my passion deeply rooted in my heart. Even though my life turned into a flabby endless loop, your passion would still be readily combustible after a spark appeal, and then, the single spark starts the prairie fire. I have my own passion about charity since I learned the adage from my mom: “The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose,” and there is a good feeling a person gets when he or she does something positive for others.

However, people often identify nonprofit leadership with a “good feeling,” but the reality is more complex than that. Leading a charity taught me that worthwhile results occurred because I was flexible to change and adapt to other situations. Ultimately, my efforts depended on my goals, my organizational ability, and the maintaining to buy-in from my team of volunteers. Doing all this presented the organization with new challenges—it was hard to look at a list of names longer than we could manage and try to address large costs such as health care bills. When we rose to the challenge, however, we got an even greater reward: we had not only done a good deed but had overcome obstacles that were insurmountable for the families we assisted.