I am starting this thread in order to pull this discussion out of the "bring back the draft" thread. Hope that's okay. I see 2 fundamental flaws in your argument. 1. The Domino Theory asserted that the there was a communist bloc consisting of the USSR, China, and their satellites that moved and thought virtually as one and that they exported revolution to effect the spread of that political system. There’s never been any evidence offered that supported that theory as it was applied in SEA. The Domino Theory was promoted because the US leaders of the time applied what they had seen in Eastern Europe after WWII to SEA, without considering differences of history, culture, and the interests of the colonized populations, and also because it was a pretty nifty rationale for US meddling. Did the USSR and China support leftist revolutions in the region? You bet. Was this support the reason the revolutions happened? No. To return to the main case in point, Ho Chi Minh, lefty though he was, early on saw more in common between his and the US revolution than with Russia or China’s. He attempted to reach out to the US leaders in the ‘50s and was rebuffed because they saw him only in terms of their limited worldview. Furthermore, you’re overlooking the fact that Vietnam did invade Cambodia, but they did so in order to overthrow the Khmer Rouge. Then they left. That doesn’t sound like evidence 2. You talk as if Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc. were stable states what were threatened with overthrow by communist insurgency. They were not. During the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, all but one (Thailand) of the places you mention were in a state of flux caused primarily by the fact that colonial powers, after having been removed by the Japanese during WWII, were trying to reassert their control over former colonies. The people in these former colonies were not going to let this happen without a fight. In almost every case, communism was one of a number of ANTICOLONIAL revolutionary ideologies, but its presence in the region was more attributable to European educations for “native” elites than to Soviet and Chinese agents. Why was communism prevalent (to the extent it was)? Because it’s an excellent revolutionary ideology, providing not only a rationale for revolution, but a blueprint for mobilizing the masses (granted, history shows it’s a much better revolutionary ideology than it is a system of government, but that’s not the point we’re arguing here). The rule of thumb for these revolutions, when they came was, the harsher the colonial regime, the more violent the means of removing that regime. France was particularly brutal and that very brutality contributed in a major way to the spread of communism throughout French Indochina. The Dutch were not quite as bad, but their system was generally repressive, extractive, and caused widespread poverty throughout Indonesia, especially in Java, where the PKI had the most support, but the strength of the PKI is frequently exaggerated. Philippines: they shucked Spain earlier on (Spain was never as substantial a colonial presence as the other European countries in SEA, but their heavy focus on extracting raw materials and converting the natives made for a pretty rough ride.) When the US took over, they were so ambivalent about being postcolonial colonialists that they never established a real presence there. Details to follow...
(drumming fingers while I wait 60 seconds) Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have to be taken together. There were separate communist/nationalist movements in each, which developed in opposition first to colonial presences. Communism was successful there because, as stated above, it works very well as a revolutionary ideology and also because the only indigenous system that might have acted as an option to it was Confucionism, which was extremely hierarchical and provided the great majority of the people (peasants) very little motivation to risk their lives in opposing the French. Vietnam: First of all, they had every right to oppose the illegitimate colonial presence of the French. The fact that they chose do so as communists is neither here nor there. They did so choose, and the US was wrong, first in using Lend/Lease to prop up the French and second in subverting a legitimate peace treaty by dividing the country and setting up its own puppet government there. The always tenuous and negotiated connection between Vietnamese communists and China was strengthened in response to the US war there, when, of necessity North Vietnam was forced to rely on foreign aid from its historical enemy. Cambodia: The Communist revolution here overthrew a (reasonably) legitimate indigenous gov’t (under Norodom Sihanouk) and frankly would never have succeeded if not for the Vietnam war. Does this support the Domino Theory? Only if you overlook the origins of the Vietnam War and the fact that the Vietnamese came into Cambodia in ’79-80 to overthrow the murderous regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The put some better rulers in place, their protégés to be sure, but then they left and Cambodia and Vietnam have been separate entities ever since. Laos: Similar to Cambodia, but without the aberration of Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge.
(dum de dum de dum...) This is a tautological argument. You assume the Domino Theory is true, therefore the “weakness” of Thailand may used to support it. Who was planning on invading Thailand? What evidence is there to support this assertion? Incidentally, there was never much of a communist party in Thailand because Thailand was never colonized, thus no need for the revolution. There was never “significant” communist activity in Malaya or Malaysia. What little there was was exaggerated by the British, first, and the Islamic rulers of Malaysia, second. The reason the communist insurgents in Malaya never turned into anything big was precisely because communism there existed primarily among the ethnic Chinese, a distinct minority always regarded with much suspicion by the ethnic Malays. Among the Malays, Islam served as a much more effective lubricant for nationalism. Nationalist The “Konfrontasi” with Indonesia has virtually no bearing on this discussion. It was an argument over territory among 3 non-communist countries, caused largely by Sukarno (Pres of Indonesia until ’65) setting up a wag the dog scenario to relieve his government from pressure by the military. More about that later.
The attempted coup by the PKI: The PKI’s influence was significant but it was never sufficient to take control of the country, especially if you look beyond Java. If there was a coup attempt, the only evidence of it was that a) some prominent generals were killed and b) the ABRI (Indonesian Armed Forces) killed anyone suspected of being a communist shortly thereafter. Why do I say “if there was a coup attempt”? Because many scholars, including Indonesian ones, wonder if the purported arms shipment from China and the “Well of Alligators” assassinations were not all engineered by Suharto, who assumed power immediately afterward. And Suharto didn’t stamp out Communism. He accused anyone who opposed him of being communist, and either had them killed or imprisoned. There was essentially no communist presence in Indonesia after 1965. Indonesia and the then Socialist government of Portugal made a deal. More precisely, Portugal caved because it was politically incorrect for a Socialist gov’t to have East Timor as a colony and because they couldn’t afford it: both East Timor’s and Portugal’s economies were failing at the time. Thus, they basically told Indonesia that if certain lip services were paid, they wouldn’t support the Timorese nationalists when Suharto’s occupying force moved in. This was 10 years after the PKI had been annihilated. Indonesia’s concern was not that East Timor would be communist, but that it was predominantly Christian. They did not want a Christian state cheek by jowl with their eastern provinces, wherein the great majority of Indonesia’s small Christian population resides. They were having enough trouble with separatist movements in the rest of the country, very little if any of which had anything to do with Communism. True to Suharto’s form, Indonesian propaganda made much of FRETILIN, but that was only to justify their military actions to the domestic audience, especially those few Christians.
The Communist Huks ceased to be anything remotely like a force by the mid 1950’s. The most significant separatists in the Philippines have always been Muslims, who feel they have little in common with the rest of that largely Catholic nation. Communist rebels? Not many. Re Marcos being “our bastard.” This neglects the other, less spoken component of the Domino Theory, viz, the presumption that the communist rebels in Vietnam, and elsewhere, were fiends incarnate and we had to oppose them because it was the right thing to do. In fact, the way you put it is more to the point. We opposed communists because we thought they were more likely to ally with our chief enemies, and thereby deny us access to things like mineral rights and other natural resources in their own countries. As long as the ruler was someone we could work with, be it Diem or Marcos or Suharto, we didn’t give two turds that he was a corrupt brutal despot doing his own country much more harm than good. Imagine? Yep, that’s the key here. The Domino Theory has virtually no explanatory value unless you’re willing to imagine away anything remotely like historical facts. As for not liking the scholarly necessity of supporting hypotheses with evidence, I understand that some people prefer to have their food pre-chewed, too. Makes it easier to swallow.
This, too, is the merest shibboleth promulgated by Suharto's immensely potent propaganda machine. If you had read carefully, you'd have seen that I have already dealt with this at length in paragraph 7G of my 18th post in this thread.
This was an informative thread with lots of historical insights until pizza crept in.... usually we use sex to end a serious thread with sillyness. oh well....
Actually, the coup which overthrew Sihanouk in 1970 was not Communist in origin. Far from it. It was a US-backed initiative, led by Sihanouk’s then-Prime Minister, Lon Nol. A direct result of the coup In the years following the coup, right up until the fall of Phnom Phen in 1975, was military and economic aid from the US in quite phenomenal quantities, as well as the expansion of the war into previously neutral Cambodia by the US and their South Vietnamese allies. By 1973, in fact, the country was more or less being run by the US embassy. The government that replaced the Sihanouk regime could not have been less communist if it had tried. It is true that the initial group of conspirators included three men who had a background as middle-class socialists, who formented their communist credentials whilst studying in Paris in the 1950’s and who would later emerge as communist leaders of what was to become the Khmer Rouge, but the coup was not Communist in origin. In actual fact, the three members of his government who were Communists fled his regime in 1972/3 to join up with the Khmer Rouge. In actual fact, it was Prince Sihanouk who aligned himself with the Communist side when he became the leader (albeit an increasingly nominal one) of the Royal Revolutionary Front of Kampodchea , a group which formed an exile government under his leadership in Beijing and which included the Khmer Rouge and had the backing, at least on paper, of the North Vietnamese regime in Hanoi. The notion that the overthrow of Sihanouk would not have succeeded had it not been for the war in Vietnam is miscued - the reality is that it would never have been attempted. There would have been no need. Had the war in Vietnam not been taking place, then the Viet Cong and the NVA would not have had the need to establish the “sanctuaries” that peppered eastern Cambodia and formed the axis of communist supply routes into South Vietnam. Without the presence of the VC/NVA forces there, no palpable threat to the hitherto fairly successful and prized Cambodian neutrality would have existed. Certainly, Kissinger and Nixon would not have felt compelled by their own peculiar little view of the world to launch secret, intentionally concealed and thoroughly unconstitutional “Menu” bombing campaign that began over Cambodia in late 1969 and would eventually play a part in the impeachment case against Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. So, in terms of your arguments about the destructive nature of the Domino theory, I agree. The nascent communist movement in Cambodia always struggled to attract support from the peasantry because Sihanouk enjoyed extraordinary support amongst that section of the Cambodian people. Class struggle and revolutionary zeal was hard to inspire in a country that, prior to 1970 was a self-sufficient net exporter of food and resources and in which the Paddy, the Pagoda and the village formed the core of an average person’s life. Your overall perception of the failings of the Domino Theory (or more precisely, the wilfully malignant “Nixon Doctrine”) are correct, It’s just some of the details that are out.
Thanks for the correction. I was less sure of my memory of things Cambodian (and Laotian) than the other areas and frankly had completely forgotten about Lon Nol.
So much easier to talk about this stuff more than 25 years removed from the events. Do you think the policy makers had even remotely close to this much to go on? Absolutely not! Even so, while much of what has been said can be substiantiated, must is also disputed. Even to this day, people can't agree on what was going on in South East Asia at the time. Can you imagine what was going through the heads of policy makers? Please, get real for a minute!
What is all that supposed to mean? You're not actually saying anything. As to "what was going through the heads of policy makers" yes, I can well imagine. Indeed, I can know. For instance, in the case of Cambodia, much of what now forms the accepted history of events is based upon records, depositions, sworn testimony and eye-witness evidence from the time itself - most specifically from the many congressional hearings into the foreign policy affairs of the Nixon administrations that surrounded his impeachment. The extensive media coverage by people like Elizabeth Foy and Simon Steiner from within Cambodia during the years 1970 - 75 gives us a very real and verifiable picture of conditions in the US-controlled Cambodia of that time. The opinions, thoughts and official comments and records of Nixon, Henry Kissinger and later Gerald Ford on much of what went on in South East Asia are available in the Public Records Library of the US Senate, the official histories of the conflict from the US military, the State Department and the Department of Defence, the (declassified) records available from each of the previously mentioned governmental bodies and the official records/cables/memoes and papers of senior officials at the time. What are we supposed to be "getting real" about here? They are also exhaustively illustrated in countless autobiographies from the people involved in that crisis at that time - like Ambassadors Swank and Dean, Secretary of State Rodgers, Secretary of Defence Laird, Tom Enders, General Matakis, and the French Ambassador to Peking, Mana' ach.
Re: Re: Domino Theory Exactly--this is all a matter of verifiable public record. As a matter of fact, much if not most of what Matt Clark and I posted was available to the public within the same time frame as the events described (even the Pentagon Papers were released in 1971). Beyond assuming he's one of the better one-handed typists on this board, I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure DoyleG out, but Ludahai, this kind of waffling is well below your usual standard.
Communisim wasn't the force that drove these movements. These movements began as resistance to the Japanese occupation of their lands. All of these movements were nationalist in the begining, Communisim was secondary. What you say about the PKI is untrue. The PKI was the largest Communist organization outside of the Communist bloc. There membership was drawn from all ends of the Indonesian culture. There still was a presence of Communisim in Indonesia during the Suharto reign. After '65 the movement went underground. The movement has move back into the public eye with the establishment of democracy in Indonesia. What your saying about signifigant activity in Malaya is wrong. The Malayan Emergency cost tens of thousands of lives. The main reason for their failure was the British kept their promise of Malayan independence. The British also adopted tactics that would used in many out CI operations around the world, the latter incorrectly.
Pay attention to what I wrote and you'll see that this merely repeats, rather less clearly, what I've said. Furthermore, your notion of what constitutes a nationalist movement is simplistic; especially when you match it up with the historical context we’re talking about. What allowed relatively small numbers of colonialists to dominate these populations for so long was not just superior (especially military) technology. Colonialism was also aided by the fact that SEA was a patchwork of hundreds kingdoms of various size and degree of organization, chiefdoms, tribal societies, and even hunting and gathering bands. They had been there for centuries and they didn’t always get along (in fact hardly ever). In order for a nationalist identity to emerge, something had to push these more local identities sufficiently to the background and cause a larger, more amalgamating identity to be established, typically in the face of established habits and armed resistance from the colonizers. This is much easier if you’ve got a set of ideas to bolster the idea of a Malay (or whatever) nation, such as Islam or Communism. Again, you're not reading carefully. I don't dispute that the PKI was the largest in insular SEA, I just dispute that it was large and influential ENOUGH to stage a coup along the lines described by proponents of the Domino Theory. Most if not all historians agree that the 65 coup attempt (again, if indeed there was such an attempt) was totally futile and a terrible and uncharacteristic blunder by Aidit. Estimates of deaths from the retaliation by ABRI, anti communist civilians, and merely anti Chinese civilians nationwide range from 600,000 to more than 1,000,000. After that bloodbath, the Suharto government systematically rooted out and either murdered or imprisoned anything remotely like a communist. Suharto also used the accusation of communism as an all-purpose rationale for arresting prominent (and less prominent) people he found troublesome, under the “bersih linkungan” (clean environment, as in everybody’s past and present associations must be free of any communist taint) program. I repeat: after 1965 there was no effective communist movement in Indonesia. I’m perfectly aware that there were leftists that survived all that (I’ve met a few), but they exerted no influence over the fate of that country after 1965. This theory was propounded early on, largely by British scholars. What they overlook are the extremely important differences in the sociocultural contexts of the Malayan communist movement as opposed to the Vietnamese. First, as I’ve already stated, the Malay states populations are overwhelmingly Malay (the indigenous ethnic group) and Muslim. There were/are quite a few Chinese there, but they were/are still a distinct minority. It’s also worth noting that relations between Malays—including indigenous Indonesians—and the Chinese minorities in both those countries have always been uneasy at best. The Chinese are painted with many of the same stereotypes as have afflicted the Jews in Europe, and have had to endure explicitly anti-Chinese laws. So the fact that Malay communism was seated among the Chinese is significant. There was little to no spread of communism to the dominant Malay population, again largely because the presence of an already pervasive mechanism for supporting nationalism in that population: Islam. It was different in Vietnam. The indigenous system was confucionism, which prioritized obedience and subservience paid by the masses to the ruling classes. There were some anti French Confucionist based nationalist movements, but they weren’t effective. Communism was, because it at least seemed to give the great majority of the population something to fight for. Another key difference lay in the natures of the colonial regimes. The British colonies overall were far more humanely run than the French. Moreover, India/Pakistan had just gained independence, so Malays might reasonably expect the same. The expectation for a diplomatic path to independence also drew motivation away from armed rebellion against British rule and the Communist insurgency. On the other hand, the French colonial regime was much the worst in SEA, and this predisposed huge portions of the population to fight. The Communists provided an excellent framework for doing so. Furthermore, by the time the Americans arrived, the rebellion against the French had been won. The US came in and subverted the peace treaty and tried to re-establish an old-style (Diem was an aristocrat, salvaged from an abbey in, I think, New Jersey) regime over half a country that had come to believe they had just freed themselves from that yoke. British “Emergency” tactics would have been no more effective in that situation than carpet bombing, fortified villages, and Agent Orange.
Islam was around in SEA long before the European powers even considered. It doesn't even serve as a force of unification in the region. Neither doesn Communisim. It had the force and support to carry out the coup. They had much broader support amongst the military and the public than you think. The problem was teh troops were in the wrong parts of the the country, not Jakarta. If that is so, why is there now such a debate in Indonesia to bring back the Communists. Communist is gaining in Indonesia given what is going on. Since you need to be taught, the Chinese never back the militant movement. The Chinese minroities in SEA tend to be the upper class. The anti-Chinese movements came about from the end of the Vietnam War. Isam is not even the driving force in SEA. Once again you miss the point. Communisim was never a driving force in Vietnam. The VietMinh were a nationalist movement first and foremost. The option given by the French was a French-controlled government in the South of the country. The reason teh VietMinh and later the VC became so poular because it gave people an option the the status quo. Communisim was irrelevant then and is now. The British were no better in the running of their colonies than anyone else was. The British control during the Emergency was more harsh than what occured in Vietnam or anywhere else. Special tribunals were set up to punish people for "collaberating" with the rebels. Carrying a weapon without a permit resulted often in a death sentence. Being in posssesion of canned goods would end up with you in jail. Tatcics used by the Americans in Vietnam were developed in Malaya. Fotified villages, carpet bombing were amongst what was used in Malaya. Every single community suffered without expection.
As I've pointed out in another thread, Islam came into SEA by way of Muslim traders from what is now India before 1000 AD. And it certainly has served as a significant unifying force in SEA. Imams were among the more significant anti colonial leaders in Malaya. And Malaysia is now a Muslim state. The colonial Dutch were so frightened of it's potential to unify disparate kingdoms in the archipelago that they made a point of missionizing all the so-called hill tribes and eastern populations they could reach, in order to establish Christian buffers. Nevertheless, the Imams in Indonesia were also strong supporters of the idea of an Indonesian state, and there is a very strong Muslim party there, that has agitated for Islam reforms of the government. In any case, you still don't get it. The point being made is that Islam in Malaya inhibited the spread of communism there. There was no such dynamic in Vietnam, nor was there anything similar because of the class divisions that prevailed in the Confucian system. The only "troops" remotely under communist influence in Indonesia of '65 were the Air Force, which was miniscule compared to the Army. There were small Army contigents, too, but nothing remotely like that controlled by Suharto and his cronies. If they'd had anything like the backing you're suggesting, there would have been pitched battles. There were few if any of those. The deaths came from executions and anti Chinese pogroms. Feel free to make more ************ up, though. There is a little more political diversity in evidence now that (HELLO!) Suharto is dead and his machine dismantled. There is even a struggling labor movement. However, the big issue right now is whether or not Megawati Sukarnoputri's government can hold out against the growing strength of the Islamic right. If you've got any evidence of "such a debate in Indonesia to bring back the Communists" I'd be glad to see it. See now this is just plain old wrong. Chinese were at the heart of the communist insurrection in Malaya and also in Indonesia. Indigenous antipathy (all across SEA) against the Chinese has more to do with their long-standing success in the economy of that region. One of the kings of Siam (either the son or the grandson of the one fictionalized in The King and I) actually wrote a pretty scurrilous book about them calling them "the Jews of Asia." This apparent contradiction is a problem only if you believe in stereotypes. In Indonesia, the poorer Chinese leaned left, the richer ones sided with Suharto and were deeply involved in the corruption that marked his entire regime. As for Islam not being a major force in SEA, you're kind of overlooking the fact that Indonesia alone is the world's largest Muslim population. Malaysia is also almost entirely Muslim. There are sizable Muslim enclaves in the southern Philippines...Do you have the slightest idea what you're talking about? This convinces me that you're either joking or so relentlessly stupid that any response here is pointless. Actually, it's very well documented that British colonies (while just as inherently illegitimate as any other colonies) were marked by more humane laws, more stable systems of government, less extractive industry, more development of infrastructure, more opportunities for education of native population. Granted, it's kind of like being the nicest pirate on the Adventure Galley, but there was a significant difference. It is illustrative that the British colonies of the region became independent with far less bloodshed that other European colonies. When I lived in South Sulawesi, it was hard to find a town of any size without a Jalan Korban Empat Puluh Ribuh (40,000 Victims St.) in it.
Re: Re: Re: Domino Theory Sorry. I really didn't want to get into a prolonged debate on this because I just had an exhausting one elsewhere. Some of the points can be conceded 30 years in hindsight. I admitted that others were debatable, but I didn't concede them, just admitted that at least they were open for debate. You are doing a good job holding up the right side of the debate. Keep it up.
I know what I'm talking about since I've read much more into situations such as these than you have. It's a lot better than the revisionist history that you spout.