So Sam: Human Wave Attack

Human Wave Attack

Translated by Chen-t'ang 鎮棠, edited by K. Griffin, written by So Sam
Original: http://www.passiontimes.hk/article/03-30-2015/21967/ 

PLA's human wave attack during the Korean war.

Hongkongers are so forgetful. Whenever there is a breakthrough in our movement, there are people who will say “this leaves a bad impression on others”, and that our aim should be “to act justly and to love mercy” [Micah 6:8]. These are the people who changed their tacks as soon as the glass door of the LegCo was broken. The Berlin Wall did not fall by itself, and if Ukrainians dared not to break a glass, their very country would long be gone.

When two armies are involved in a battle, things get cut-throat. But when talk turns to the “human wave attack”, the KMT veterans will remain silent – they dare not remember the past. During the Chinese Civil War, the Communists used “human wave attacks”. They held assemblies where landlords and elders were killed. They forced innocent people to be at the frontline in battles so as to waste the KMT's ammunition – old and weak people, female and children were bound and forced to the front to be attacked by grenades. Trenches were exploded and filled up with bodies, and the Communist soldiers marched on. Some KMT soldiers did not want to shoot civilians, but as orders came, they did so with their eyes shut. The KMT base will all be taken to the Commies, with the slightest hesitation from the KMT soldiers.

Such tactics by the People's Liberation Army were said to be inspired by the Thoughts of Mao Zedong, but they were actually plagiarised from a battle in which the Soviet army crossed the Mannerheim Line and stacked many layers of bodies in front of its base. The Communists know, of course, that a coin has two sides. So in the 1979 Sino-Vietnam War, they ordered “Kill all those who march forward, irrespective of their age or gender”.

Mao Zedong once said, “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”

In the course of this action, it is either win or lose; if one succeeds, it's a revolution; if one fails, it is a riot. When active forces are suppressed, the entire movement can only die in silence. To fight for democracy and freedom under an authoritarian regime, you don't “morally impress your enemy”, you terminate your enemy.

Hong Kong is now in an invisible war. Being so gentle and temperate doesn’t help at all.

(Originally on the 28^th Issue of Passion Times [Printed Edition])