158 Great Change (17)

Little Moustache was a man of firm will. Before launching the war, he was convinced that the politicians of the European countries were all wimps just like the Weimar government. From then on, he acted freely, annexing Central Europe through the threat of force. In the subsequent war, relying on Germany's advanced armored tactics, he swept across Western Europe and conquered a large territory.

The wimps were wiped out one by one, and the ones remaining were all tough nuts to crack. Germany faced Britain and the Soviet Union in Europe. Little Moustache did not believe that the current Axis group lacked the ability to take on these two countries single-handedly. The problem was that there were people behind these two countries.

There was no military alliance between the Soviet Union and China, but one could figure out with their toes that China would absolutely not allow the Soviet Union to fall. The old fox in the United States, Roosevelt, passed the "Lend-Lease Act" in the US Congress, in which Britain could obtain American munitions without limit on credit.

Of course, there were also relatively deep contradictions between China, who was behind the Soviet Union, and the US-UK group. China strongly expressed its intention to overthrow the world colonial system, which Britain would absolutely not agree to. The problem lay in the fact that the United States was wavering on this matter. War required a supreme goal. Germany's war propaganda was "break the shackles of the Versailles system and gain living space for Germany." No matter what other countries thought, the German people firmly supported this goal.

Although China's slogan of destroying the colonial system pushed Britain to the position of a mortal enemy, the regions of the world under the British colonial system all very much approved of China's stance. Even South America, under the strong pressure of the United States, also very much agreed with China's stance. If the Axis powers could reach a consistent stance with China and the Soviet Union, then it would be the entire World Island confronting North America and Britain.

But Chen Ke seemed to be schizophrenic. As a socialist country, he was dallying with the United States under the capitalist system. He even ran to the United States and gave a speech, claiming that there was no need for socialist countries and capitalist countries to fight a bloody war to the death for national interests.

If socialist countries did not fight a life-and-death war with capitalist countries, then the remaining choice was for socialist countries and capitalist countries to join hands to strangle the Fascist alliance. This was the question that Little Moustache could not understand no matter how much he thought about it. Leaving powerful countries aside, China actually wanted to stand with those inferior peoples in the colonies. Disregarding the possibility of occupying the entire Asia, China actually attempted to get close to the United States in ideology.

"Communism is a Jewish conspiracy! The United States is a country controlled by Jews! That's why they want to unite together!" Little Moustache could only come up with such an answer that even he himself felt was a bit unreliable.

Chen Ke did not care about Little Moustache's thoughts at this time. The NPC and the government were about to have a general election in 1941, and the voice for Comrade Lu Huitian to serve as the State Chairman was getting higher and higher. Of course, this voice mainly came from civil servants and the "intellectual class." Originally, the intellectual circles did not have many views on who should be the chairman, but after Chen Ke made some moves against the intellectual circles, the intellectual circles seemed to have awakened their political awareness.

Wu Xiangyu's original reputation was quite good, but Comrade Wu Xiangyu's insistence on inner-party discipline caused his reputation to start to fall back. No matter how "excellent a prime minister" he was, if a prime minister only firmly executed the current ideological line, comrades who were dissatisfied with the current line would also give up choosing Wu Xiangyu.

Comrade Lu Huitian did not oppose Chen Ke, and did not even support an attitude opposite to Chen Ke. He believed that the current domestic situation needed rectification. The existing order needed to be smoothed out, and the system needed adjustment. "Increase the intensity of government management and smooth out the operation of the current order."

Many comrades who had not seen the line struggles of later generations quite supported Lu Huitian's stable views. Chen Ke and Lu Huitian had a long talk. After all, they were veteran comrades, and they spoke very frankly. Lu Huitian believed that at the present stage, they could no longer crazily "continue the revolution" and needed stable development.

"Comrade Lu Huitian, do you feel that the speed at which the masses are mastering science is too slow?" Chen Ke asked.

Generally speaking, the divergence between the elite system and the democratic system is that the elite system, because of its rich practical experience, makes more scientific decisions, which is conducive to the stability of development in the long run. The democratic system satisfies the gaming needs of interest groups, and at any rate gives the "populists" and even the public an illusion of "I participated in politics," which is conducive to the stability of society in the short term. Of course, Chen Ke opposed both of these views.

"Neither elite rule nor voting democracy. Use the method of the government operating everything to wash away the old era!" Lu Huitian gave such an answer.

In the past old era, all the intellectual classes came from the folk, and the same was true for bureaucrats. Lu Huitian hoped to establish an unprecedentedly big government. This big government would grasp everything from ideology, culture, education, to economy. From then on, the gentry, populists, and intellectuals from the folk would all step aside. The unprecedentedly powerful and unprecedentedly advanced government would lead everything in China.

Chen Ke did not know what to say for a moment after listening to Lu Huitian's introduction. His first reaction was no wonder Lu Huitian could get the support of so many people; it must be admitted that Comrade Lu Huitian still had great progressiveness. Judging from the current actual situation, the Chinese People's Party had the ability to establish such a government. Chen Ke felt that with his current physical condition, he could wait until the emergence of the internet age. After solving the technical difficulties from the perspective of scientific and technological development, it was not impossible to establish a society where "Big Brother is caring for you in every possible way."

The only problem lay in, where was the positioning of the people? Did the people just follow the new ruling class? Were the people just the source of fresh blood for the new powerful ruling class? Could this be called liberation?

Even the arrogant Christ had to say that people were left with the power of free choice. The goal of communism was the liberation of humanity itself. Everyone must become their own master, thereby becoming a member of the ruling class of society.

Chen Ke did not dislike big government at all, but the purpose of this government was to "serve the people." Moreover, serving the people was not providing welfare, nor was it distributing some money just because there was a fiscal surplus. Serving the people should be providing the power to guarantee people's labor, guaranteeing people's transformation of themselves through labor, and guaranteeing people's democratic rights.

Of course, democracy had never been the way to resolve contradictions between opposing classes. This was also why the state was the highest stage and highest manifestation of contradictions in the development of human society. Because the state itself was a tool to realize the interests of the ruling class.

No matter how the comrades who supported him viewed Lu Huitian's views, Chen Ke felt fear while feeling gratified.

He was gratified because as China entered the industrial era more and more deeply, China began to make up for all the trends of thought that had appeared in the history of other industrial countries. Lu Huitian's vision of big government was simply not the first trend of thought to be made up. Although Chen Ke unequivocally raised the banner of opposing colonialism, there were people in China who believed that China should take the path of colonial imperialism, and the number was not too small.

No matter how much propaganda stated that the essence of imperialism was exploitation internally and plunder externally, ordinary people would think that being able to plunder externally could reduce domestic pressure. There were also many people who used China's annexation of Australia and New Zealand as an example, trying to prove that colonial imperialism had a future.

Regarding such views, Chen Ke was even considering whether to separate the course of logic from the political class. Because there was a problem with the logic of that view: if colonial imperialism had a future, how come the British colonial empire was beaten black and blue by China? Since the Chinese revolution, it had never adopted a line of supporting colonial imperialism.

Of course, this kind of trend of thought could not be stifled at all. With so many industrial countries in history, every one of them had gone through such a process and had similar views and ideas appear. This showed that this process was a normal process and was basically unavoidable.

This was one of the reasons why Chen Ke felt fear.

As the 20th century entered the 40s, colonialism and fascism had to be swept into the dustbin of history. In the history of this century that Chen Ke saw, powerful countries like the United States could not continue on the path of imperialism. As for Britain, it could not even keep the British Isles, and the Scots wanted independence. This proved that imperialism had no future, and colonial imperialism and fascism had even less future.

Chinese civilization has been able to continue for thousands of years, not just because of its geographical location. The Roman Empire also once controlled the entire Mediterranean, but after its collapse, it could never continue. In the hundreds of years of China's Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it was not that there were no countries pursuing hegemony. Duke Huan of Qi engaged in hegemon politics, and the countries fighting for hegemony took the stage one after another, but didn't they all end up with no result? The culture precipitated in China ultimately negated the hegemonic system. The Asian tributary system and colonialism were completely two different things. Every time foreign countries paid tribute, China even had to lose money when bestowing rewards.

After the United States abandoned the colonialist system, it finally allowed its ally little brothers to earn money from the United States, which actually coincided quite a bit with this tributary system.

As for Fascism... Chu culture is now also a gem in Chinese culture. In fact, Chu culture, with witch-doctor culture as its core, was completely different from the Central Plains civilization. It was not that there were no times when the State of Chu was regarded as barbarians. But after the State of Chu accepted China's world view and regarded itself as Chinese, the State of Chu also step by step became a part of China. If this had been done according to the Fascist way, Chu culture would have been uprooted long ago.

The "multiculturalism" that Europe later engaged in, which was brainless to an extreme, was in a certain sense somewhat similar to the integration of Chu culture and other non-Central Plains cultures into Chinese culture.

After the European and American industrial countries faced the rise of the socialist camp, they were forced to take a path similar to what Chinese history had already played out. Chen Ke really couldn't see any necessity for him to let industrialized China follow these wrong paths that had already been proven.

It was just that some things were hard to communicate. Imperialism had been rampant globally for hundreds of years after all. Even with Chen Ke's existence, the history of China being invaded by imperialism was shortened from 100 years to 60 years. To make people feel that imperialism was a paper tiger and a backward thing, this definitely did not conform to the cognition of ordinary people. It was also a bit inconsistent with the laws of cognition.

What could eliminate imperialism, the highest form of human private ownership, must inevitably be a more powerful force. Before this powerful force appeared, everyone wanted to become a strong power like imperialism.

"Comrade Lu Huitian, I think we still have to promote people's democracy." Chen Ke finally only gave Lu Huitian such an unconvincing answer.