Talk:People's Republic

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It has typically been used by political members of the political right wing to castigate towns for policies they deem beyond the pale or "un-American", by casting their ideological opponents as communists.

I lived in Boston for a long time, surrounded almost exclusively by liberals and socialists. It was from them I heard the term "People's Republic of Cambridge", in a light-hearted jocular way. They seemed to think it was normal usage.

I believe it refers to substantial changes (made within the democratic system) to conform the economic modalities of the community to the socialist ideal. Such measures as rent control come to mind.

I don't think the usage is primarily a dig by conservatives. I listened to 3 or 4 months of Sean Hannity on the radio and can't remember hearing him use the term. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 18:43, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

In Amherst, several of my teachers used it half-jokingly, to refer to excessive political correctness on the part of the town or the school board, or less commonly, to refer to such incidences as the performance of The Vagina Monologues, which would be unacceptable in most towns. Generally these teachers did consider themselves "liberals" (with one exception, who never refered to his own politics), and didn't appear to object to the concepts referenced, but were rather old, and did appear to find the goings on in modern Amherst mildly amusing.

I think it's more often independents who use it actually, most of the Republicans in the town keep fairly quiet, those who don't use rather more hysterical terms. One teacher considered himself a "liberal" but was a staunch independent, the others I can think of didn't mention their affiliation. Regardless, I think it's common to use the term humorously, if one isn't really offended by the goings on but doesn't particularly support them. --71.192.116.13 01:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this is kind of inaccurate, though not entirely. Just from having studied Maoism, Mao is pretty specific in saying that China is a people's republic because the People -- workers, students, peasants, cadres, revolutionary classes in general -- enjoy the full benefits of democracy (borrowed from America's 1st amendment) whereas reactionary classes are denied these basic freedoms. I think he talks about it in "On Handling Contradictions Among the People," and Starr does a good job of summarizing it in his book "The Political Thought of Mao". User:arobotar

• Irrelevant. China isn't under Mao anymore and can hardly be called Maoist. 67.39.180.44 22:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In Chinese

In Chinese, the words for "people's republic" (renmin gongheguo 人民共和国) and "republic" (minguo 民国) are practically synonyms. In fact if you abbreviate "people's republic" in Chinese (a la Chinese language conventions), it becomes "republic" (民国). To the Chinese speaker, renmin gongheguo (people's republic) is just a wordier term for minguo (republic). 67.39.180.44 22:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Not just in Chinese... Republic itself is derived from res publica. -- Миборовский 22:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vital info missing

The article at this point completly lacks the very fundamentals on the meaning of the term. A 'people's republic' or a 'democratic republic' is, in Marxist-Leninist doctrine, not just a state governed by communists, its is a transitory stage towards building socialism. Thus, when the name of Vietnam was changed from 'Democratic Republic of Vietnam' to 'Socialist Republic of Vietnam', this marked a qualitivative development in the analysis of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Likewise, the usage of the term 'People's Republic' denotes that the CP of China does not consider that China has acheived socialism. --12:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)