For context: the Chinese imperial family had collaborated with the Japanese occupiers which meant even the nationalists fucking hated them. The Romanovs were beloved by the Russian right, hell they still are, a lot of Russian orthodox consider them saints. So any surviving Romanovs could have become symbols the Whites could rally around, that wasn't a risk with Puyi.
41
xiaohongshu [none/use name] - 1mon
The nationalists were supported by the feudal landlords who gained prominence in organizing local resistance during the Taiping rebellion, when the late Qing army was too inept to even fight the rebels.
Ironically, it was under support of the feudal landlords that led to the overthrow the Qing monarchy, but it also tied the KMT to the vested interests of the feudal landlords that would dictate the ultimate defeat of the KMT, as they could not initiate land reform (as the CPC did) without screwing the interests of the landlords.
It is no coincidence that the KMT was finally able to initiate their own land reform after they had retreated to the island of Taiwan, free from the influence of the feudal landlords in the mainland.
33
алсааас [she/they] - 1mon
The Romanow family are not considered saints, they were canonised as such by the ROC in the early 2000s
4
ConcreteHalloween [none/use name] - 1mon
Yeah I actually only know about this because I used to work with a guy who was a convert to Russian Orthodoxy. He had a book with a picture of the Romanovs on it, which I thought was weird. At the time I wore my politics on my sleeve a bit more so when I pointed it out he was like "must be awkward for you considering you're a bit of a socialist".
Yeah it was awkward...
2
ClathrateG [none/use name] - 1mon
He was actual quite a bad gardener he was super clumsy and uncoordinated from having everything done for him his entire life up until re-education
36
chgxvjh [he/him, comrade/them] - 1mon
One of the gardeners of all times.
34
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
Supposedly a pretty good actor though,
19
kristina [she/her] - 1mon
He settled down with a eunuch too, never had kids, asked to be buried in the cemetery next to his eunuch helper
Pretty good deal, sweep streets and have a queer life under communism
35
Tatar_Nobility @lemmy.ml - 1mon
He settled down with a eunuch too, never had kids, asked to be buried in the cemetery next to his eunuch
Didn't know the emperor had such a close friend! (/s)
22
Yuritopiaposadism [none/use name] - 1mon
They were roommates!
19
DragonBallZinn [he/him, they/them] - 1mon
NGL, even under communism that has to be one hell of a conversation starter.
“Yeah, I was the emperor, let me tell you all about the secrets of the old system.”
19
LeninsBeard [he/him] - 1mon
Imagine being the handler for some re-educated CIA freak, you could get some wild information.
18
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
He settled down with his actual wife though?
He married Li Shuxian who met Puyi after escaping concubinage.
14
ClathrateG [none/use name] - 1mon
Yeah iirc he married a nurse he met when he was visiting the woman he (accidentally) ran over on his bike in the hospital everyday
I'm not discounting that perhaps he had a eunuch partner also but I don't think I've ever read about it if so, perhaps @kristina@hexbear.net is getting Puyi mixed up with the Empress Dowager Cixi? who definitely did have a eunuch lover
21
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
That would be Li Shuxian, whose testimony of him is basically that he was totally besotted with her.
There is certainly a queer angle to puyi. His tutor/advisor Reginald Johnston and his first consort Wanrong both paint him as someone rather uninterested in sex, and someone for whom romantic interest in women did not come naturally, and I think someone else in his orbit once wrote that his only sexual interest was in anal. But it is possible that given that basically his sole human contact for years besides Reginald Johnston were eunuchs and Li Shuxian was the first person whom he engaged in a relationship for love (Publicly at least) that he was just a very late bloomer and Li Shuxian was the first woman he actually liked.
15
kristina [she/her] - 1mon
That's possible 🤔 the changing of imperial names constantly gets me confused
3
chgxvjh [he/him, comrade/them] - 1mon
Pretty incredible that they managed to turn him into a human. It's so much easier to think of enemies as evil that can't be reformed.
The KMT would have killed him after a show trial for sure and in many ways that's what he deserved.
23
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
"You weren't responsible for becoming Emperor at the age of three or the 1917 attempted restoration coup. But you were fully to blame for what happened later. You knew perfectly well what you were doing when you took refuge in the Legation Quarter, when you traveled under Japanese protection to Tianjin, and when you agreed to become Manchukuo Chief Executive."
It is remarkable that Puyi's only objection to this statement by Zhou Enlai was to state that he had acted monstrously while a child emperor.
In that sense Puyi might be the first and only war criminal and dictator who was too hard on himself. (At least in some aspects)
22
purpleworm [none/use name] - 1mon
tbf he was also really sadistic as a child and that might have been the first time in his life that he was prompted to take ownership of those sorts of actions.
19
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
He was a complete shit who made adults around him literally eat dirt.
Those adults also at various points plotted to murder him and were the people whose responsibility included raising him. The only non eunuchs in his court whom he could not order around the same way refused to see him and engaged in weird courtly games around his behavior, including the senior female courtier forcing Puyi's mother to commit suicide when he misbehaved.
There was no way he was going to come out of this undamaged, and none of the people responsible took ownership of that. He was the sole person to take any ownership of the fact that he wasn't raised right, and he blamed himself as a toddler and pre-teen.
21
Moidialectica [he/him, comrade/them] - 1mon
fuck
1
purpleworm [none/use name] - 1mon
I think the correct communist line is that the idea of someone "deserving" punishment or death is idealist nonsense, and it's better for society to have rehabilitative justice for everyone if you have a stable enough situation and enough resources to enact such a thing (but obviously even summary executions may be necessary in an unstable revolutionary context, just not because of what people "deserve").
22
xiaohongshu [none/use name] - 1mon
In what timeline did the Chinese communists overthrow the monarchy?
The first communist party branch in China did not even exist until the 1920s, after the Russian Revolution, and years after the fall of the Qing dynasty.
When the CPC defeated the KMT and took power, it had been 38 years since Puyi had been an emperor (except as some sort of a figurehead under the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo). Nearly two generations of people had grown up without living under monarchy.
The situation was vastly different than the Soviet Union, where Russia transitioned from an imperial power with a Tsar straight into a socialist state.
23
purpleworm [none/use name] - 1mon
I think the main thing is that it's a joke, and Puyi was still nominally a little emperor even though you are of course correct that he was just a puppet.
17
xiaohongshu [none/use name] - 1mon
Puyi was a nominal figurehead of the puppet state Manchukuo put up by the Japanese during the occupation, which is in the northeast (Manchuria).
The rest of China had been a Republic since 1911. The point being that there was a 40-year gap between the fall of Qing and the communist taking power. By 1949, nobody gave a damn about the Qing empire, as opposed to the Bolshevik revolution when collective memory of living under the Tsarist rule was still fresh in people’s mind.
12
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
In what timeline did the Chinese communists overthrow the monarchy?
The Russian communists did not overthrow the monarchy either.
Edit made after the xiaohongshu made their reply:
The situation was vastly different than the Soviet Union, where Russia transitioned from an imperial power with a Tsar straight into a socialist state.
As I noted in the reply I made l further down, the bolsheviks replaced the government that replaced the government that overthrew Nicholas. But it also should be noted that Prince Lvov (The first head of state and government after the abdication of Nicholas) was a Kadet who became a Progressists which means that at the time of the revolution he was part of a constitutional monarchist and economic liberal party and abandoned the revolution when it became clear it was republican in nature rather than merely replacing Nicholas with someone competent, and that Kerensky's government and not the monarchy formed the core around which the white movement was initially organised
12
xiaohongshu [none/use name] - 1mon
They still took over the country immediately after the Russian monarchy ended, as opposed to the situation in China where someone born in 1911 would have been nearly 40 years old with grown up kids and they all have no material connection, not even nostalgia, to the Qing monarchy when the CPC finally took power.
11
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
They still took over the country immediately after the Russian monarchy ended,
The communists overthrew the government that replaced the government that overthrew the monarchy. The Bolsheviks were certainly not monarchists, but it is worth bearing in mind that everyone wanted the Romanovs gone, including at least one Romanov who joined in the movement to overthrow Nicholas.
12
xiaohongshu [none/use name] - 1mon
You’re not getting my point. There was a 40-year gap between the fall of Qing in 1911 and the communists taking power in 1949, at which point nobody gave a damn about the Qing empire anymore.
The Bolshevik situation was very different. Many people living under the new socialist state still had collective memory of living under a Tsarist rule. In China, at least two generations of people had been living under a Republic when the communists came to power.
8
Keld [he/him, any] - 1mon
Your point was that the Chinese Communists did not overthrow the emperor as indeed they would not have been in a position to do so, and I'm telling you that the Russian communists did not overthrow the tsar either, as they were not in a position to do so. There was no direct transition to a socialist state. The liberals remained in power for months, after which the Bolsheviks fought a civil war in which whether or not Russia had a functional state was kind of an open question, transitioning into the NEP, transitioning into socialism.
The two situations are vastly different, but not in the way you originally claimed.
Also, if we care about such distinctions, the Republican government and the KMT recognised Puyi as being Qing emperor until 1924, not 1911. The Articles of Favourable Treatment explicitly recognises the Qing emperor as emperor, just not as ruling China.
2
xiaohongshu [none/use name] - 1mon
I don’t know why we’re splitting hairs here.
Maybe I did not iterate my point well enough above, but what I’m saying is that communists taking power in the span of months (when the memory of Tsarist rule was still very much fresh in the people’s mind) is very different from the communists taking power after two whole generations of people had grown up living under a Republic who barely had any memory of living under the Qing emperors.
4
AF_R [he/him] - 1mon
Hairs are being split because you are the one splitting them my comrade
2
Tachanka [comrade/them] - 1mon
i want to be pedantic for some reason
the tsar abdicated, and went into house arrest while still under the february 1917 revolution, which was not really communist. the communists overthrew the liberal provisional government in october 1917. america for example was OK with the february revolution, but not the october, because the communists of the october revolution wanted to pull out of WW1 against the germans, but the february revolution did not.
3
AssortedBiscuits [they/them] - 1mon
Well, the CPC didn't overthrow the Qing dynasty either. They didn't even exist under like a decade after Qing was overthrown.
Yuritopiaposadism in history
He was a good gardener.
For context: the Chinese imperial family had collaborated with the Japanese occupiers which meant even the nationalists fucking hated them. The Romanovs were beloved by the Russian right, hell they still are, a lot of Russian orthodox consider them saints. So any surviving Romanovs could have become symbols the Whites could rally around, that wasn't a risk with Puyi.
The nationalists were supported by the feudal landlords who gained prominence in organizing local resistance during the Taiping rebellion, when the late Qing army was too inept to even fight the rebels.
Ironically, it was under support of the feudal landlords that led to the overthrow the Qing monarchy, but it also tied the KMT to the vested interests of the feudal landlords that would dictate the ultimate defeat of the KMT, as they could not initiate land reform (as the CPC did) without screwing the interests of the landlords.
It is no coincidence that the KMT was finally able to initiate their own land reform after they had retreated to the island of Taiwan, free from the influence of the feudal landlords in the mainland.
The Romanow family are not considered saints, they were canonised as such by the ROC in the early 2000s
Yeah I actually only know about this because I used to work with a guy who was a convert to Russian Orthodoxy. He had a book with a picture of the Romanovs on it, which I thought was weird. At the time I wore my politics on my sleeve a bit more so when I pointed it out he was like "must be awkward for you considering you're a bit of a socialist".
Yeah it was awkward...
He was actual quite a bad gardener he was super clumsy and uncoordinated from having everything done for him his entire life up until re-education
One of the gardeners of all times.
Supposedly a pretty good actor though,
He settled down with a eunuch too, never had kids, asked to be buried in the cemetery next to his eunuch helper
Pretty good deal, sweep streets and have a queer life under communism
Didn't know the emperor had such a close friend! (/s)
They were roommates!
NGL, even under communism that has to be one hell of a conversation starter.
“Yeah, I was the emperor, let me tell you all about the secrets of the old system.”
Imagine being the handler for some re-educated CIA freak, you could get some wild information.
He settled down with his actual wife though? He married Li Shuxian who met Puyi after escaping concubinage.
Yeah iirc he married a nurse he met when he was visiting the woman he (accidentally) ran over on his bike in the hospital everyday
I'm not discounting that perhaps he had a eunuch partner also but I don't think I've ever read about it if so, perhaps @kristina@hexbear.net is getting Puyi mixed up with the Empress Dowager Cixi? who definitely did have a eunuch lover
That would be Li Shuxian, whose testimony of him is basically that he was totally besotted with her. There is certainly a queer angle to puyi. His tutor/advisor Reginald Johnston and his first consort Wanrong both paint him as someone rather uninterested in sex, and someone for whom romantic interest in women did not come naturally, and I think someone else in his orbit once wrote that his only sexual interest was in anal. But it is possible that given that basically his sole human contact for years besides Reginald Johnston were eunuchs and Li Shuxian was the first person whom he engaged in a relationship for love (Publicly at least) that he was just a very late bloomer and Li Shuxian was the first woman he actually liked.
That's possible 🤔 the changing of imperial names constantly gets me confused
Pretty incredible that they managed to turn him into a human. It's so much easier to think of enemies as evil that can't be reformed.
The KMT would have killed him after a show trial for sure and in many ways that's what he deserved.
"You weren't responsible for becoming Emperor at the age of three or the 1917 attempted restoration coup. But you were fully to blame for what happened later. You knew perfectly well what you were doing when you took refuge in the Legation Quarter, when you traveled under Japanese protection to Tianjin, and when you agreed to become Manchukuo Chief Executive."
It is remarkable that Puyi's only objection to this statement by Zhou Enlai was to state that he had acted monstrously while a child emperor.
In that sense Puyi might be the first and only war criminal and dictator who was too hard on himself. (At least in some aspects)
tbf he was also really sadistic as a child and that might have been the first time in his life that he was prompted to take ownership of those sorts of actions.
He was a complete shit who made adults around him literally eat dirt. Those adults also at various points plotted to murder him and were the people whose responsibility included raising him. The only non eunuchs in his court whom he could not order around the same way refused to see him and engaged in weird courtly games around his behavior, including the senior female courtier forcing Puyi's mother to commit suicide when he misbehaved.
There was no way he was going to come out of this undamaged, and none of the people responsible took ownership of that. He was the sole person to take any ownership of the fact that he wasn't raised right, and he blamed himself as a toddler and pre-teen.
fuck
I think the correct communist line is that the idea of someone "deserving" punishment or death is idealist nonsense, and it's better for society to have rehabilitative justice for everyone if you have a stable enough situation and enough resources to enact such a thing (but obviously even summary executions may be necessary in an unstable revolutionary context, just not because of what people "deserve").
In what timeline did the Chinese communists overthrow the monarchy?
The first communist party branch in China did not even exist until the 1920s, after the Russian Revolution, and years after the fall of the Qing dynasty.
When the CPC defeated the KMT and took power, it had been 38 years since Puyi had been an emperor (except as some sort of a figurehead under the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo). Nearly two generations of people had grown up without living under monarchy.
The situation was vastly different than the Soviet Union, where Russia transitioned from an imperial power with a Tsar straight into a socialist state.
I think the main thing is that it's a joke, and Puyi was still nominally a little emperor even though you are of course correct that he was just a puppet.
Puyi was a nominal figurehead of the puppet state Manchukuo put up by the Japanese during the occupation, which is in the northeast (Manchuria).
The rest of China had been a Republic since 1911. The point being that there was a 40-year gap between the fall of Qing and the communist taking power. By 1949, nobody gave a damn about the Qing empire, as opposed to the Bolshevik revolution when collective memory of living under the Tsarist rule was still fresh in people’s mind.
The Russian communists did not overthrow the monarchy either.
Edit made after the xiaohongshu made their reply:
As I noted in the reply I made l further down, the bolsheviks replaced the government that replaced the government that overthrew Nicholas. But it also should be noted that Prince Lvov (The first head of state and government after the abdication of Nicholas) was a Kadet who became a Progressists which means that at the time of the revolution he was part of a constitutional monarchist and economic liberal party and abandoned the revolution when it became clear it was republican in nature rather than merely replacing Nicholas with someone competent, and that Kerensky's government and not the monarchy formed the core around which the white movement was initially organised
They still took over the country immediately after the Russian monarchy ended, as opposed to the situation in China where someone born in 1911 would have been nearly 40 years old with grown up kids and they all have no material connection, not even nostalgia, to the Qing monarchy when the CPC finally took power.
The communists overthrew the government that replaced the government that overthrew the monarchy. The Bolsheviks were certainly not monarchists, but it is worth bearing in mind that everyone wanted the Romanovs gone, including at least one Romanov who joined in the movement to overthrow Nicholas.
You’re not getting my point. There was a 40-year gap between the fall of Qing in 1911 and the communists taking power in 1949, at which point nobody gave a damn about the Qing empire anymore.
The Bolshevik situation was very different. Many people living under the new socialist state still had collective memory of living under a Tsarist rule. In China, at least two generations of people had been living under a Republic when the communists came to power.
Your point was that the Chinese Communists did not overthrow the emperor as indeed they would not have been in a position to do so, and I'm telling you that the Russian communists did not overthrow the tsar either, as they were not in a position to do so. There was no direct transition to a socialist state. The liberals remained in power for months, after which the Bolsheviks fought a civil war in which whether or not Russia had a functional state was kind of an open question, transitioning into the NEP, transitioning into socialism.
The two situations are vastly different, but not in the way you originally claimed.
Also, if we care about such distinctions, the Republican government and the KMT recognised Puyi as being Qing emperor until 1924, not 1911. The Articles of Favourable Treatment explicitly recognises the Qing emperor as emperor, just not as ruling China.
I don’t know why we’re splitting hairs here.
Maybe I did not iterate my point well enough above, but what I’m saying is that communists taking power in the span of months (when the memory of Tsarist rule was still very much fresh in the people’s mind) is very different from the communists taking power after two whole generations of people had grown up living under a Republic who barely had any memory of living under the Qing emperors.
Hairs are being split because you are the one splitting them my comrade
i want to be pedantic for some reason
the tsar abdicated, and went into house arrest while still under the february 1917 revolution, which was not really communist. the communists overthrew the liberal provisional government in october 1917. america for example was OK with the february revolution, but not the october, because the communists of the october revolution wanted to pull out of WW1 against the germans, but the february revolution did not.
Well, the CPC didn't overthrow the Qing dynasty either. They didn't even exist under like a decade after Qing was overthrown.
This meme just sucks lmao