Classicide - Genocide in Communist China

Abstract

The term "genocide" was first coined in the 1940s to describe the horrors of Nazi rule in occupied Europe. In Nazi Germany, the machine of oppression was the concentration camp; in the Soviet Union, the Gulag. In China, it is the Laogai, which means "reform through labor." In fact, Laogai is a brutal and inhumane system that enslaves millions of people throughout China. The govemment in conununist China divides people by class, politics, and religuious beliefs. Such divisions are based not on race, but individual economic status. If a person owns land, capital or property, he or she belongs to the landlord or capitalist classes. Both are considered "exploiting" classes, and their members, including their family, are subject to extermination, since they belong to "counter-revolutionary" classes. During the Cultural Revolution, many people were massacred for die sake of the "Red Revolution." Since 1949, when the Communist Party came to power, it sought to destroy all religjon in China, particularly Christian faiths. The Roman Catholic faith is still illegal in China today. It is common knowledge that people in China are not allowed to practice the religion of their choice Meanwhile, Laogai, or prison camps, throughout China, imprison countless people who belong to the "wrong" religion or hold "wrong* political ideas. The Chinese govemment uses the Laogai to control and eliminate those people. Yet, despite the prevalence of the Laogai and its multitude of victims, the world seems unwilling to acknowledge this widespread plague.