The Greatest Threat to Tyrants.
Copyright 2008, Michael J. Pottebaum
The greatest intelligence failure in American History consists not of just ignorance but of a willful stupidity of the contents of a nine hundred year old Chinese Historical Narrative Drama which became a Novel in either the year 1494 or 1522. Known as “The Three Kingdoms” (San Guo) first translated into English in 1925 by C.H. Brewitt-Taylor as “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”
Here is some of what it contains: A first quality depiction and sophisticated analysis of the Great Transgressors of the modern era, a archetype of the modern dictator, especially Stalin. There are multiple incidents that closely fit a Template of Tyranny. The Archetype is in the character Ts’ao Ts’ao (Cao Cao). This is an archetype that is completely unknown in the West to Political Scientists or Psychologists
Insights into the methods, motivations, and personal obsessions of Mao Tse T’ung, who I can assert was obsessed with the novel, as depicted in the characters Ts’so Ts’so and Chuko-Liang and as reported in the first-hand participants memoirs of Chang Kuo T’ao, “The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party” Volume One: 1921 to 1927, Volume 2: 1928 to 1938 published by the University of Kansas Press in 1971 & 1972. Mao often posed as a great strategist like Chuko Liang but always used Ts’ao Ts’ao’s treachery and tactics and was a suffused with “Defeatism” and “Warlord habits” or “Brigand inclinations” as Chang Kuo T’ao recounts in his Memoirs. In short, a modus operandi.
The Modus Operandi of the present junta of military dictators in Burma (Myanmar) is also like that of Mao’s posing as the great strategist Chuko-Liang especially with the use of astrology to predict the future by Chuko-Liang but using the treachery and tactics of Ts’ao Ts’ao.
The Modus Operandi of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, complete on Page 2 and Page 3, Volume 1. This includes the mystical inspirational meeting, a favorite rhetorical deception, under the rubric of the “Way of Peace”, the use of the same numerology as in the thirty-six circuits on Page 3 and Rev. Moon’s, 36 “Perfect Families”, assuming grandiose titles, and the final objective of Rev. Moon overthrowing the entire present political and religious order and establishing his own personal Tyranny. See “A Bad Moon Rising: How the Rev. Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom” by John Gorenfeld published by PoliPoint Press.
In “The Unknown Story, MAO” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Copyright 2005, 2006 Globalflair, Ltd. A commendable effort in discarding and destroying many Mao myths and deceptions and exposing Mao’s crimes. However, when it comes to Chang Kuo T’ao the authors fail, and repeat, for example, the mistaken cant that Mao’s Chinese Soviet District in Kiangsi Province was the largest in China. The truth is the Chang Kuo T’ao’s Oyuwan (Hupeh, Honan, & Anhwei Provinces) Chinese Soviet District in the early 1930’s had more troops, more guns, and a bigger area. In addition, there is no recognition that there was for a time two opposing Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (Mao and Chang) and two separate Central Committee’s. The author’s biggest mistake however, is the complete lack of recognition that it is the stories of the Three Kingdoms that deeply influenced the people of China and their rulers for at least 900 years up to this present day.
The essence of “Warlordism” and “Defeatism” with the consequences in the loss of many millions of lives and destruction of the lives of the survivors is concentrated in just a few words in Three Kingdoms. Ts’ao Ts’ao (Cao Cao) reveals his personal philosophy: “I would rather betray the World than let the World betray me.” In all of the writings about the Great Transgressors I have never seen such an accurate and meaningful sentence. Even during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao who tried the rhetorical trick of “Reversing Verdicts” on such universally reviled and excoriated historical figures as Chin Shih, the First Emperor of the Chin Dynasty and the Legalists, never dared to “reverse the verdict” on Ts’ao Ts’ao. Some intellectuals in China were on to Mao’s tricks such as early in the Great Socialist Proletarian Cultural Revolution public references appeared that said that a “Puddling Chuko-Liang” or “Watery Chuko Liang” making an argument at the Lushan Conference (8th Plenum of 8th Central Committee, July, 1959) when the majority of attendees would not at first support Mao’s purge of Marshall Peng Dehuai. Of course, in Three Kingdoms, Chuko Liang did not publicly weep to get his way. Even today the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party does not dare to prettify Ts’ao Ts’ao (Cao Cao), this ancient novel represents a direct threat to the continued rule of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Warlord Ts’ao Ts’ao (Cao Cao) provides the reader with many crystal
clear insights into the most secret of places in modern world history, the
mind of a dictator. This 900 year old historical drama has the extraordinary capability, with the depiction of Cao Cao, to solidly bridge the almost insurmountable barriers of Time, Space, Ideology, and Culture. In just one example, early in Chapter 21 (of 120 Chapters) of San Guo the principle hero, Liu Pei (Xuande), and the evil Cao Cao are in Cao Cao’s garden talking about their contemporaries and ranking them,
“Cao says, “Now heroes are men who cherish lofty designs in
their bosoms and have plans to achieve them; they have all-embracing
schemes and the whole world is at their mercy…” “…Who merits such a
description? Xuande asked. Cao pointed first to his guest, then at himself,
saying.” “The only heroes in the world are you and I.” Cao Cao tries to kill
Xuande, in many ways that unfold in much of a total of 1,260 pages in the novel.
In “THIS I CANNOT FORGET”, Anna Larina Bukharin, widow of Nikolai
Ivanovich Bukharin, 1988, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., Page 117, “…prior to
the July, 1928 plenum…Stalin…tried to sweet-talk Bukharin.” “He called
him to his office and said, “You and me, Nikolai, are the Himalayas.
The others [the rest of the politburo] are non-entities.” Stalin killed
Bukharin.
Cuba’s Fidel Castro followed the same Template of Tyranny. Castro eliminated the very best Cuban military man, a potential rival, General Arnaldo Tomas Ochoa Sanchez, nicknamed, “El Moro”, executed on July 12, 1989.
The Template of Tyranny also fits the present day American Authoritarian Right Wing both in and outside of the Bush Administration. With the same type of “Defeatism” and “Warlordism” just like that of Ts’ao Ts’ao (Cao Cao). It is well established that Iraq’s Dictator Saddam Hussein patterned himself directly after Stalin. This Novel is also a direct threat to the continued rule of the Authoritarian Right Wing in America.
The historical failures of the Authoritarian Right Wing also follow the same pattern. In April, 1960 the Chinese broke with the Soviets for the first time in public with the publication of “Long Live Leninism” since there was “no Blood” the American Authoritarian Right Wing was just like Cao Cao before the battle of the Red Cliffs. The Chinese and Russians would not start killing each other until 1969 in border skirmishes.
Prior to June 22, 1941 Stalin would not believe the warnings of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union from Prime Minister Churchill, President Roosevelt, many others and even information from his own spy’s in Tokyo, Sorge-Ozaki spy ring, which may have included a member of Japan’s Royal Family and Leiba Domb’s Red Orchestra spy ring in Germany. There was no Blood!
In the month of August, 2001 in a midst of a frenzy of activity to unilaterally abandon the 1972 ABM Treaty the Bush Administration committed two great strategic failures with vast and far reaching consequences: One is ignoring the Presidential Daily Briefing entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the U.S.” on August 6, 2001. Number Two is to drive the Russians and the Chinese together again for the first time since April, 1960.
In a display of the continuing mass popularity of this Chinese historical drama, the Hong Kong movie director, John Woo, is directing an upcoming movie near Beijing, with a budget of $70 Million USD, entitled, “Red Cliffs”, the most expensive Asian film to date. Set to premiere on July 10, 2008 in China after first showings in France.
Copyright 2008, Michael J. Pottebaum