Burmese Way to Socialism
Burma — via the anti-colonial independence question in debate: Aung San, the Japanese interregnum, British rule.
From the INFRARED RUMBLE: MASSIVE SERVER-WIDE DEBATE:
> "What were the whites in Burma doing? Siding with the moderates — European elite opportunists... Then when they realized Britain would finally have to be forced to give them independence — because the Japanese finally gave the Burmese a taste of freedom, political freedom, unlike the British who were intent on keeping political AND economic control..."
> "Burma's independence was very quickly disposed of, and that's why it was a failure. But the person the Burmese look up to is still Aung San... You're looking up to a corpse, looking up to a failure. You want to be successful, look up to someone who's a winner."
An opponent answered by symmetry: "I could say the same thing for Stalin — he failed by allowing Khrushchev to take power..." — exposing the real question: are revolutions judged by their defeats or their achievements, and who defines "failure"? (Yezhovshchina, Socialism With a Human Face).