At the end of the Korean War,
James Veneris was an American POW awaiting repatriation. But when his time came, he—
along with twenty other Americans and a Briton—declined to leave and chose to cast his lot with Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. Over time, almost all of these men became disillusioned with Marxism and eventually
returned to their homelands. The Cold War that informed their decisions has become a chapter in the history books but the story of Western defectors to the Communist bloc is just now being written.
posted by jason's_planet
on Jan 4, 2007 -
9 comments
Now we're faced with a supposedly
democratic Russia where the opposition parties are
established, crushed, united, their leadership changed, all at the behest of the president. China, now clearly
a capitalist state, albeit one without the democratic trimmings, still calls
itself communist. Vietnam has
gone much the same way.
Some things remain the same, though. America's still
meddling in Latin America,
just like it did during the Cold War. The US Army is also fighting a guerilla resistance in Iraq, its leaders apparently ignorant of
the lessons of history, yet accusing others of
exactly that. It's just like the 60s, when it was just as obvious
who had learnt lessons and who hadn't.
posted by imperium
on Aug 30, 2006 -
48 comments
