Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Maoism in China Essay Example for Free

Maoism in China Essay Generally, the Communist system in the Soviet Union and in China are practically identical politically, economically, with the reciprocal purges ect†¦ However, Mao Tse-Tung and Stalin did not see eye to eye on many things and Maoism is considered today by most people to be a more developed stage of Marxism-Leninism. This is because of the historical and cultural background of China and because of her geographical position and climate which affects society. Contrary to Russia, Communism developed in the countryside instead of in the cities. Thus it was a peasants revolution rather than, as predicted by Karl Marx, a workers revolution. The cities in China were at the beginning, anti-Communist. The Chinese absorption of Marxism was highly selective. China took from Marxism those aspects which best suited the Chinese situation rather than force the Chinese situation to fit an overachieving ideology. Thus Marxism was to be the servant of the Chinese Revolution. Mao Tse-Tung believed that adherence to pure Marxist theory would be suicidal and concluded that proletarian revolution based upon the urban areas was impossible in China since 80 percent of the people were peasants. Due to the warmer climate and more fertile land, peasantry was more popular in China. This pragmatic solution led to the Revolution starting in the rural areas. The most important difference between Stalin and Mao is the comprehension of the word proletariat. The Russians believed it meant, as Marx had, the industrial workers while the Chinese, by lack of sufficient workers, understood it as the peasantry. The Great Leap Forward where everyone was put to work was another Maoist characteristic. For 100 days each year, the peasants were not working in the fields so Mao set them up to work in the off-season harvest after 1957. Millions of men and women were put to work in winter, digging irrigation ditches and canals, preparing railroads and laying track. Then the backyard furnace was invented and 600 000 small steel establishments were set up.  The object was to overtake Britain in steel production. However, when the peasants left their land to work on the industrial projects, the lands suffered. So more changes were made. In some communes, men and women were separated to increase their productivity by cutting down socialising. On February 27th 1957, Mao was feeling very positive about all that he had done so he decided to loosen the straps on the Chinese people. He introduced the hundred flowers campaign where he encouraged arts, sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely. It seemed he was encouraging free thought and criticism of the system. After only six weeks though, Maos open invitation brought a real storm of furious criticism from the intellectual community who believed the chairman was sincere. This infuriated Mao who was expecting positive feedback and in April 1957 a rectification campaign had begun to eliminate the triple evils: subjectivism, sectarianism, and bureaucratism. The party members and Mao believed to be above criticism so a purge of intellectuals began. The Cultural Revolution is perhaps the greatest difference between Stalinism and Maoism and was entirely set up by Mao Tse-Tung. He has been called insane many times for the crazy extent which the Cultural Revolution took and for the lasting and devastating effects it continues to have. Mao favoured the word, destruction when he promoted the Cultural Revolution; he preached that he had to destroy an old system of production, an old ideology and old customs first. He thought that once the ideology had been established, productivity would follow in a revolution. Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds and endeavour to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do the exact opposite: it must deal merciless blows and meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas, culture, customs and habits of the proletariat to change the mental outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to struggle against and overthrow those persons in authority who are taking the  capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic authorities and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art and all other parts of the superstructure not in correspondence with the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system. Fifteen years after the success of the Revolution, Mao saw his new society as troubled, he had destroyed the old ruling class, but had established two new ones: the intelligentsia and the bureaucracy. Mao had turned against the intelligentsia after the hundred flowers campaign but had not finished destroying them. When he saw the Soviet Unions new aristocracy with their dachas and limousines, he set out to destroy the establishment he had created. Always one to manipulate the masses, he turned towards the youth for a new society by creating the Red Guard, an army of children. They were sanctioned by the highest authority, Mao himself and were bent on destruction. In essence, the children destroyed anything which did not appeal to them, although the initial target was to destroy the four olds: ideas, culture, customs and habits. They travelled in bands for mutual protection and inspiration, destroyed stores and restaurants and attacked however they desired. The Red Guards were divided by family background: poor peasants against well-to-do peasants, peasants against workers, and the children of army officers. The next step of the Cultural Revolution came in January 1967 when Mao replaced the officials all over China by young people with no experience and no common sense. Then universities, middle schools and primary schools closed down. This was called the period of the terror. The only young people to receive an education were the children of intellectuals who were taught by relatives and parents. Mao tried to destroy the education process which was disastrous for China as specialist, technicians ect†¦ were indispensable for the development of a country, and in this case, they were dismantled. However, he changed his mind in 1978 and sent in the Peoples Liberation Army to desman the Red Guard. Maos theory of constant revolution to avoid the forming of classes is the major separation with Leninism and Marxism. It was under these conditions that the most earthshaking political event and the largest mass mobilization the Earth has ever seen took place. This is how Chairman Mao defined its objectives: The current Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is absolutely necessary and most timely for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism. Maos Communism focuses especially on the particular interest for China and this by rejecting foreign intervention. The only use for foreign involvement is to insure Chinese security, economy†¦ He believes in Chinese Communism first, and not in World Communism. However, China supports people threatened by oppression which explains their expansion policy. Indeed, China has expanded her territory by invading the Tibet, fighting Korea. China has refused economic aid, except for trade with the Soviet Union which represented only 2 percent of Chinese investments. China developed its own brand of Communism to suit its needs and similarly to Stalinism, was dictated by only one man, who had the power to decide anything he desired.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Jacque Onassis :: essays research papers fc

JACQUELINE LEE BOUVIER KENNEDY ONASSIS Jackie Kennedy will always be remembered for her courage after her husband’s death. Few people know what her life was actually like. In this paper I hope to inform you about the good and bad times of Jackie’s long and at some times treacherous life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born July 28, 1929. She was the oldest of two daughters born to Janet and Jack Bouvier . She grew up with her parents fighting constantly. Only months after her sister was born her parents got a divorce. Most of her classmates and teachers thought that the divorce was the reason Jackie acted up in class. Her mother said it was because Jackie finished all her work before the other children and she just got bored. In 1942, when she was thirteen, her mother married Hugh Auchincloss. Jackie divided her time between her father’s home, â€Å"Merrywood† and McLean, Virginia where her mother lived. Jackie’s junior year of high school she convinced her mother and stepfather to let her study in France for the year. They agreed and soon four of her classmates and her were on their way to France. When in France Jackie found a love for foreign countries that would help in the future. When Jackie came home she foun d out that she had won a photography contest for â€Å"Vogue† magazine. She was invited to work as a photographer for the magazine. Her stepfather thought it was a bad idea and talked her out of it. After Jackie graduated from high school she went to George Washington University where she studied photography. After she graduated her stepfather got her a photography job for a newspaper in New York. Not long after she started she convinced her boss to also let her write columns. In 1942 Jackie met and fell in love with John Husted. They soon got engaged, but her friends and family were skeptical. They thought that Jackie and John didn’t share anything in common. They convinced Jackie to call off the engagement. After she called off her engagement Jackie met John F. Kennedy who was running for senator of Massachusetts. In April of 1953 John was sworn-in as senator. As time went on Jackie and John’s relationship grew and on June 24, 1953 John proposed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On September 12, 1953 the couple were married in Newport, Rhode Island. As Jackie took on the role of senator’s wife she found herself attending many banquets and balls.

Monday, January 13, 2020

Business process reengineering Essay

1) Why are information systems (IS) essential in organizations? Information systems are the modern approach to data organization. It allows an effective and efficient way to store, modify, retrieve and manipulate data and information for a specific business or organization. 2) Why do systems analysts need to know who the stakeholders are in the organization? One of the major task and responsibilities of the system analyst is to bridge the connection of all the stakeholders in the organization. The system analyst has experience and/or knowledge in every perspective in a system and delivers their expertise in whatever section the analyst is analysing. Along with this, the system analyst must have good interpersonal communication and relation skills in order to have effective communication/relation with the stakeholders. 3) Who are the typical stakeholders in an information system? What are they roles? Besides the system analyst, the major players in an information system is the project manager, the system owners, designers, builders and users. The project manager is an experience professional who takes on the monitoring of the course of the project being in terms of scheduling and budget. The project manager also ensure quality and standards upon his team. The system designer uses the project requirement and plans out the design of the system. Its their responsibility to create the architecture of the business plan over the database(s) and the network. They visualize the process from input to output which is used by the system users but created by the system builders. The system builders will make the necessary tools that the system users will require. The system users are the ones who put into effect the outcome of the information system. They manipulate data with day-to-day tasks such as entering, storing, validating and exchanging information. System users may be internal or ex ternal (ESP). 4) Please explain the consequences are if an information system lacks a system owner? Many stakeholders are crucial to the development of the system and without a system owner, the project may not come to realization. To start, the team will require funding and without proper financial management, the team members will need to cut corners and may not have the proper equipment or tools to establish the project requirements. To add, without a system owner, the project manager must take on more responsibilities to ensure correct operations and maintenance is being held through the systems development. 5) What are the differences between internal users and external users? Give examples. Internal users take up the majority of the population of workers involved in the system. Internal users are ones to remain in the facilities of the project while external users could either be temporary workers or workers in a different location that the building that holds the business. Internal users can be categorized into clerical/service, technical/professional or supervisor/management workers.Temporary workers may be experts brought in for advice or other external users may be considered remote or mobile users having new or different location than their previous post. 6) What are the differences between the role of system analyst and the rest of the stakeholder? The system analyst has many more responsibilities than a single stakeholder because the system analyst needs to understand each point of view to fill in the communication gaps. For example, a system analyst must understand the responsibilities and view of the system users in order to visualize help for system builders. 7) What skills and knowledge must a system analysts posses The goal of the system analyst is to improve the system. In order to facilitate this burden, the analyst must know how to ‘system think’ and improve their mind into a problem-solving state. To start, he/she must have a vast knowledge in technology and should stay on top of the game by learning new and emerging technologies. In order for the analyst to be able to give expertise to programmers, the analyst must itself have great experience in multiple languages of programming. A system analyst must also be able to connect the bridges from technology to business and to be able to communicate with the business side of the organization. 8) In addition to the business and computing knowledge the system analysts should possess, what are the other essential skills that they need to effectively complete their jobs? 9) Why are good interpersonal skills essential for system analyst? Although an analyst has great practical skills, he also must have a great character and leadership skills to develop a more important skill: communication. It is crucial to be able to reach out to the other stakeholders with qualities such as great interpersonal social, communication and relation skills. A system analyst cannot be someone who isn’t able to handle dynamic groups and must be ready for change with flexible flexibility. Finally, a system analyst must be a respectable worker with good moral ethics. 10) What are some of the business drivers for today’s information systems? Globalization of the economy The information system must be globalized to support access from any country/language/culture. Situation are resolved with international stakeholders who can read/write/communicated in the desired language Electronic commerce and business the information service of a commerce or business going to the internet in order to either buy/sell/exchange goods or inform the public about the business. It modernizing things out in the market, onto the virtual platform for simplicity in accessing information Security and privacy As users/customers raise awareness in security and privacy online, companies/businesses must keep up with preventing a security breach. Information and data must only be viewed with users and/or managers with permission. Collaboration and partnership Within one’s business, it’s necessary to open the connections between departments and outside a single business, its important to establish partnership to have easy cooperations with other organizations and to make better business sense. Knowledge asset management Knowledge is the combination of data into useful information and these three are considered as an importance in business resource Continuous improvement The system analyst is always making the effort to add to process improvement which can be either making price reduction changes or adding value to the current process Total quality management A true key of success is overall quality which can only be achieved by the quality factor of each stakeholders. TQM is approach that is acknowledge by the workers to ensure sastifying quality in the system Business process redesign This is the approach to improvement in business process in effect to cheaper cost and additional value. This differs than CPI by modifying bigger changes in the business 11) What are the difference between electronic commerce and electronic business? E-commerce has the goal of making a financial profit by the sell/buy/exchange of products or services. E-business may be an informant website to display electronic support directly to one’s business. 12) What are the difference between information and knowledge? Both information and knowledge comes from raw data, but it’s information that comes out of the process and organization of data. Considering stand-alone data has no relative meaning, it is formed and group in such that information may be achieved. Knowledge is the deep form of information that may be interpreted as facts, truths, beliefs, judgments, experience or/and expertise. 13) What are the most important technology drivers for today’s information systems? Network and the Internet System informations will use the internet with all their tools which can consist of the languages (HTML, XHTML, PHP, javascript, perl, etc†¦), Intranets and Extranets, portals and web services. Mobile and wireless technologies with nowadays hardware, mobile gadgets are becoming increasingly popular because wireless technologies are becoming more efficient and practical Object technologies The use of high-level programming involved in object-oriented design. The use of objects as data are more efficient and reusable Collaborative technologies consist of technologies to aid communication with tools such as emails, instant messaging, groupware and workflow Enterprise applications business will develop custom software and application in order to achieve desired results with better compatibility than to buy a license for an application

Saturday, January 4, 2020

What to Know About Visual Basic

In 2008 Microsoft stopped support for VB and declared it a Legacy software. Feel free to read this article written before that time. It provides good background for the current .NET software still in use today. Its a computer programming system developed and owned by Microsoft. Visual Basic was originally created to make it easier to write programs for the Windows computer operating system. The basis of Visual Basic is an earlier programming language called BASIC that was invented by Dartmouth College professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. Visual Basic is often referred to using just the initials, VB. Visual Basic is easily the most widely used computer programming system in the history of software. Is Visual Basic Just a Programming Language? Its more. Visual Basic was one of the first systems that made it practical to write programs for the Windows operating system. This was possible because VB included software tools to automatically create the detailed programming required by Windows. These software tools not only create Windows programs, but they also take full advantage of the graphical way that Windows works by letting programmers draw their systems with a mouse on the computer. This is why its called Visual Basic. Visual Basic also provides a unique and complete software architecture. Architecture is the way computer programs, such as Windows and VB programs, work together. One of the major reasons why Visual Basic has been so successful is that it includes everything that is necessary to write programs for Windows. Is there more than one version of Visual Basic? Yes. Since 1991 when it was first introduced by Microsoft, there have been nine versions of Visual Basic up to VB.NET 2005, the current version. The first six versions were all called Visual Basic. In 2002, Microsoft introduced Visual Basic .NET 1.0, a completely redesigned and rewritten version that was a key part of a much larger computer architecture. The first six versions were all backward compatible. That means that later versions of VB could handle programs written with an earlier version. Because the .NET architecture was such a radical change, earlier versions of Visual Basic have to be rewritten before they can be used with .NET. Many programmers still prefer Visual Basic 6.0 and a few use even earlier versions. Will Microsoft stop supporting Visual Basic 6 and earlier versions? This depends on what you mean by support but many programmers would say they already have. The next version of the Windows operating system, Windows Vista, will still run Visual Basic 6 programs and future versions of Windows might run them too. On the other hand, Microsoft now charges big fees for any help for VB 6 software problems and soon they wont provide it at all. Microsoft doesnt sell VB 6 anymore so its difficult to find. Its clear that Microsoft is doing everything they can to discourage the continued use of Visual Basic 6 and encourage the adoption of Visual Basic .NET. Many programmers believe that Microsoft was wrong to abandon Visual Basic 6 because their customers have put so much investment into it over more than ten years. As a result, Microsoft has earned a lot of ill will from some VB 6 programmers and some have moved to other languages rather than move to VB.NET. This might be a mistake. Is Visual Basic .NET really an improvement? Absolutely yes! All of .NET is truly revolutionary and gives programmers a much more capable, efficient and flexible way to write computer software. Visual Basic .NET is a key part of this revolution. At the same time, Visual Basic .NET is clearly more difficult to learn and use. The vastly improved capability does come at a fairly high cost of technical complexity. Microsoft helps to make up for this increased technical difficulty by providing even more software tools in .NET to help programmers. Most programmers agree that VB.NET is such a huge leap forward that its worth it. Isnt Visual Basic only for lower skilled programmers and simple systems? This was something that programmers using programming languages like C, C, and Java used to say before Visual Basic .NET. Back then, there was some truth to the charge, although on the other side of the argument was the fact that excellent programs could be written faster and cheaper with Visual Basic than with any of those languages. VB.NET is the equal of any programming technology anywhere. In fact, the resulting program using the .NET version of the C programming language, called C#.NET, is virtually identical with the same program written in VB.NET. The only real difference today is programmer preference. Is Visual Basic object-oriented? VB.NET certainly is. One of the big changes introduced by .NET was complete object-oriented architecture. Visual Basic 6 was mostly object-oriented but lacked a few features such as inheritance. The subject of object-oriented software is a big topic by itself and is beyond the scope of this article. What is the Visual Basic runtime and do we still need it? One of the big innovations introduced by Visual Basic was a way to split a program into two parts. One part is written by the programmer and does everything that makes that program unique, such as adding two specific values. The other part does all of the processing that any program might need such as the programming to add any values. The second part is called the runtime in Visual Basic 6 and earlier and is part of the Visual Basic system. The runtime is actually a specific program and each version of Visual Basic has a corresponding version of the runtime. In VB 6, the runtime is called MSVBVM60. (Several other files are also normally needed for a complete VB 6 runtime environment.) In .NET, the same concept is still used in a very general way, but its not called a runtime anymore (its part of the .NET Framework) and it does a lot more. What is the Visual Basic .NET Framework? Like the old Visual Basic runtimes, the Microsoft .NET Framework is combined with specific .NET programs written in Visual Basic .NET or any other .NET language to provide a complete system. The Framework is much more than a runtime, however. The .NET Framework is the basis of the entire .NET software architecture. One major part is a huge library of programming code called the Framework Class Library (FCL). The .NET Framework is separate from VB.NET and can be downloaded free of charge from Microsoft. The Framework is an included part of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. What is Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and how does it fit in? VBA is a version of Visual Basic 6.0 that is used as an internal programming language in many other systems such as Microsoft Office programs like Word and Excel. (Earlier versions of Visual Basic were used with earlier versions of Office.) Many other companies in addition to Microsoft have used VBA to add programming ability to their own systems. VBA makes it possible for another system, like Excel, to run a program internally and provide what is essentially a custom version of Excel for a particular purpose. For example, a program could be written in VBA that will make Excel create an accounting balance sheet using a series of accounting entries in a spreadsheet at the click of a button. VBA is the only version of VB 6 that is still sold and supported by Microsoft and only as an internal component of Office programs. Microsoft is developing a completely .NET capability (called VSTO, Visual Studio Tools for Office) but VBA continues to be used. How much does Visual Basic cost? Although Visual Basic 6 could be purchased by itself, Visual Basic .NET is only sold as part of what Microsoft calls Visual Studio .NET. Visual Studio .NET also includes the other Microsoft supported .NET languages, C#.NET, J#.NET and C.NET. Visual Studio comes in a variety of versions with different capabilities that go well beyond just the ability to write programs. In October 2006, Microsofts posted list prices for Visual Studio .NET ranged from $800 to $2,800 although various discounts are often available. Fortunately, Microsoft also provides a completely free version of Visual Basic called Visual Basic .NET 2005 Express Edition (VBE). This version of VB.NET is separate from the other languages and is also completely compatible with the more expensive versions. This version of VB.NET is very capable and doesnt feel at all like free software. Although some features of the more expensive versions arent included, most programmers wont notice anything missing. The system can be used for production quality programming and isnt crippled in any way like some free software. You can read more about VBE and download a copy at Microsofts web site.