Communism in Southern Eastern Asia
How did communism develop and what does it do to society?
Communism in China
Communism is making everybody equal and there would be no social classes. Mao Zedong is known as the father of communism. He was the leader of the red army who got kicked out by the democratics, while they were marching 6000 miles west and north, they gained a lot of support for communism from peasants. Once Mao Zedong became chairman, he wanted China to be more powerful. He thought that in order for China to be more powerful, they needed more industry. So, he took many farmers out of the files and put them on factories but, there was a problem. Millions of Chinese people died because of shortages of food, and the Great Leap Forward was abandoned. Many people began to question communism and Mao Zedong. Zedong began the cultural revolution, where everything had to praise communism. No democratic thoughts, and if you spoke out against communism, you would be punished or even killed. This made communism more popular because nobody wants to get killed. Tiananmen Square was worse. People were peacefully protesting again communism when tanks and gunmen came and killed and injured many people who were protesting. They didn't want anybody to speak out against communism. The leader wanted everybody to be equal, which made China a communist country. This showed what happened when communism was introduced to the country of China.
Tank Man in Tiananmen Square
People in Tiananmen Square
Mao Zedong
Korean War
The Korea war started on June 25, 1950. This happened when the North Korean army invaded South Korea in an attempt to turn them to communism. The United States got involved on South Korea's side and took over major cities in North Korea. The United States didn't want communism to spread, which is called Containment of Communism. The US was doing good until China came to North Korea's aid with more than 120,000 troops. The war ended in July 1953 and Korea was still divided into two parts at the 38th parallel, just like how it was before the war. The US was happy enough that containment halfway worked because South Korea was not turned into a communist country.
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War started in 1954 and ended in 1975. After WWII, Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel, North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was a communist country and South Vietnam a non-communist country. The US supported South Vietnam and was against communism, which is why they wanted to contain it and not let it spread. They didn't want one country to fall to communism and the other countries around would also. This was called the Domino Effect. People that supported communism in South Vietnam were called the Viet Cong, which were the ones fighting in the war with North Vietnam by their side. They used guerilla war methods and didn't use regular fighting methods. US troops were sent in 1965. North Vietnam created a trail called the Ho Chi Minh Trail which helped get from North to South Vietnam and surprise them. This is exactly what the US didn't want to happen, they didn't want South Vietnam to fall to communism. The guerilla tactics worked and North Vietnam and the Viet Cong won the war. over 58,00 deaths to the Americans and about 2 million Vietnamese deaths happened. In 1976, both South and North Vietnam joined together in one communist country, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The containment of communism was not a success in Vietnam.
Did Containment of Communism Work ?
In my opinion, containment of communism did work. It worked because there is only 5 countries in the world today that are communism. Only 5 out of 196 remain communist. Of course, it wasn't always this way, but the containment helped many countries become democratic. There were many protesters in Tiananmen square that were fighting for democracy, not everyone agreed to communism because they were introduced to other things, which helped with containment. The containment goal was to avoid every country become communist, they didn't want the countries to fall like dominoes. Most countries became democratic, even when they were under the pressure of becoming a communist country, for example, South Korea. "South Korea has become a prosperous country embracing democratic ideals."