Growing up in the west (Europe), I never even once heard about serfdom and what kind of role it played in Tibet, prior to the Chinese Red Army liberation. Never once heard the perspective or stories from former serfs.
This documentary suddenly popped up in my YT feed.
It’s quite astonishing thinking about it. How I’ve only ever been exposed to the “Free Tibet!”-crowd and their arguments, while never actually learning about (or hearing about) the actual material and living conditions of the serf population.
Even though this will clearly be called “CPC propaganda” or whatever, it’s really refreshing to get another perspective and some nuance on the history of Tibet.
Great watch with some harrowing stories from former serfs. Really puts things into perspective.
Here’s some further reading for you on this topic: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/1959/tibet/index.htm
It’s a book written by an American journalist who visited Tibet just as it was in the process of abolishing serfdom, and got to witness it in person and talk to the people there who told their stories about what life was like before.
Highly, highly recommend every communist to read this at least once.
Thank you comrade! <3