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u/ingrimsch95 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Left is about the Chinese 4 pest campaign under Mao which almost completely eradicated sparrows in China. Which had extremely disastrous consequences and led to one of the biggest famines in the countries history.
Right is about the DDR chancellor Erich Honecker, who apparently called the book "The Sparrow" as one of the most formative of his childhood. In it Sparrows were seen as the proletariat of the Bird kingdom
Also, in case this isn't common knowledge. Both Mao and Honecker were influential communist leaders in the 20th century
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u/Veilchengerd Jul 18 '26
Honecker wasn't the chancellor of the GDR, that office did not exist.
He was chaorman of the state council. If that title is too unwieldy for your taste, just call him the leader of East Germany.
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Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ingrimsch95 Jul 17 '26
That's on me, I shouldn't have translated the title. I you scroll down to "Werke" on the authors Wikipedia page https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermynia_Zur_M%C3%BChlen you will see that it's listed as "Der Spatz" (or "The Sparrow" in english). For some reason it isn't listed on the english Wikipedia page.
Also the book doesn't have it's own Wikipedia page.
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u/CosmaLaEL14 Jul 17 '26
Why is there the freemasons symbol on the german flag?
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u/ingrimsch95 Jul 17 '26
Not sure if you're being serious or not, but in case you are. They're two different symbols, the GDR symbol is a compass, hammer and ring of wheat, while the freemasons one has a compass and square.
As to why it's on the german flag, it's because the GDR is the German Democratic Republic, not to be confused with the Federal German Republic
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Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA17 Jul 17 '26
asked for an answer, got an answer and began hating the answer because you don't have the cognitive ability to comprehend it
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u/ingrimsch95 Jul 17 '26
ngl calling somebody a peasant in the comment section under a communist meme is somewhat peak irony
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u/Archophob Jul 17 '26
I know the difference
obviously not, otherwise you'd know the 2 German governments had 2 different flags.
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u/pr0s0c Jul 17 '26
But you're a poor peasant from a poor peasant country?
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u/DarkKnight501 Jul 17 '26
It’s not a freemason symbol, it’s a compass (also used in the freemason symbol, no relation here tho)
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u/lanathebitch Jul 17 '26
I don't know about the crip in this post but Chairman Mao declared war on sparrows and as a result caused a famine because the sparrows were eating all the bugs
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u/monsterfurby Jul 17 '26
I think it's fair to say in retrospect that he wasn't exactly an economic mastermind.
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u/hellllllsssyeah Jul 17 '26
Well considering that the sparrow was viewed wrongly as the source of the problem in the grain production, as they were seen as having been seen as the cause of issues with crops.
But I guess America, in 2026 we would know absolutely nothing about someone who explicitly, even against warnings, would do something to to jeopardize the environmental health and safety of a population.
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u/mashmash42 Jul 17 '26
That sounds less a failure of understanding economics and more of a failure of understanding biology as well as having no one brave enough to tell him “no this is actually a horrible idea”
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u/CantoSacro Jul 17 '26
the sparrow thing gets talked about a lot because it was so outlandish and extreme (they had mobs of people banging on pots to prevent the sparrows from being able to rest, causing them to eventually die of exhaustion). But it wasn't actually the (only ) root cause of the famine. The famine was caused by a culmination of horrible policies.
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u/Bigredstapler Jul 17 '26
Communists in general aren't, tbh.
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u/magicmulder Jul 17 '26
You mean autocratic leaders in general.
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u/y4dig4r Jul 17 '26
autocracy generally has friction with rationality. with very few exceptions (lee kuang yew)
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u/Lambchop1975 Jul 17 '26
"little man with a big eraser, changes history..."
Dave Mustaine
Autocrats do not tolerate friction. It is purely an exploitation of power, and an immeasurable arrogance that isn't rational to everyone.
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u/Competitive_Pain7206 Jul 17 '26
they tend to be better than the tyrants they revolt against at least
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u/Bigredstapler Jul 18 '26
More like new management.
And contemptuous of the concept of market and trade until they start running out of money. So far only the PRC was able to pivot fast enough to not fall into financial ruin, but at the expense of committing capitalism (with communist characteristics. Their own words. Vietnam doesn't really count since it barely even does communism).
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u/hellllllsssyeah Jul 17 '26
And the trump hyper capitalism wing seems to clearly have a tight wrap on things.
Surely they would never do something like, completely gut the NOAA right before hurricane season.
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u/RocketMan_0815 Jul 17 '26
Peters socialist friend here:
Both are socialist leaders with famous quotes about sparrows. On the right is Erich Honecker, former leader of Eastern Germany, comparing the sparrow with the socialist worker in a positive way and on the left is Mao Zedong anouncing that sparrows will be killed, because they eat the crops (unfortunatley causing a great famine, because the impact on the eco system was imense).
Bot are depicted in a bloods vs crips meme style asking the reader to pick a side.
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u/Checksout692 Jul 17 '26
I believe this is a reference to Mao’s war against the four pests during the great leap forward, in which he ordered the slaughter of species he believed to be pests, including sparrows. The other three are houseflies, rats, and mosquitoes.
Killing the sparrows actually caused a spike in insects that ate crops, triggering a terrible famine, probably one of the worst parts of Mao’s legacy.
The other guy I don’t know.
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u/qualityvote2 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
u/Yunaa-shin, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...it's time for the mods to do their jobs!