"Communist bandit" () is an

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...

directed at members of the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

. The term originated from the

Nationalist Government The Nationalist government, officially the National Government of the Republic of China, refers to the government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China from 1 July 1925 to 20 May 1948, led by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT ...

in 1927. Nowadays outside

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

, some Chinese people use the term "中共" (literally "Chinese Communist") to refer to Communist China or the Chinese Communist Party. It could also be translated to the English term "''

commie Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distrib ...

''".

Etymology

The characters for "Communist bandits" are composed as follows: # ''Gòng'' () is a shorter writing for the term meaning "

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

" (共產主義). # ''Fěi'' (), "bandits"

History

The term of "Communist bandits" to describe the

was begun in the tumultuous years of the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...

between the Nationalists and the Communists. On July 15, 1947, Document 0744 ordered the Communist Party and its forces to be called "Communist bandits" as a form of rectification of names, to the exclusion of all other terms, such as "Red bandits" (in Chinese 赤匪). Along with the term ''fei'', the term was used in official documents to describe the authorities established on

Mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

and their agencies, and in several slogans such as "Fight against Communist Bandit's Animalistic Life". In the 1980s, the term was replaced by "Chinese Communist Authorities". The term is used today as an insult against the PRC, their sympathizers or just Chinese mainlanders, particularly by Taiwanese independentists and Republic of China supporters. In 1996,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

halted sales of its

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

operating system in mainland China due to discoveries that it contained the term in Chinese-language

input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse oper ...

software bundled with the operating system following police raids on computer stores. In addition, the term is also used towards non-Chinese communists or communist-governed countries, such as ''Yuenán gòngfei'' (, directed at

Communist Party of Vietnam The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the founding and sole legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Founded in 1930 by Hồ Chí Minh, the CPV became the ruling party of North Vietnam in 1954 and then all of Vietnam after the col ...

and the Vietnamese people), or ''Běihán gòngfei'' (, directed at

Workers' Party of Korea The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), also called the Korean Workers' Party (KWP), is the sole ruling party of North Korea. Founded in 1949 from a merger between the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea, the WPK is ...

and the North Koreans). In May 2020, it became known that

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

had been deleting any use of the term since October 2019. Comments containing the phrase would disappear without a given reason shortly after being posted.

Alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

, owner of YouTube, said the removal of such comments was "an error".

Popular culture

There is a pastry shop in

Chiayi Chiayi (,), officially known as Chiayi City, is a Provincial city (Taiwan), city located in Chianan Plain in Regions of Taiwan, southwestern Taiwan, surrounded by Chiayi County with a population of 263,188 inhabitants as of January 2023. The H ...

, Taiwan named 共匪餅, meaning "Communist Bandit Pastries", which makes light of the martial law era epithet.

References

{{wiktionary Anti-communism in China Anti-communism in Taiwan Anti-communist terminology Mandarin words and phrases White Terror (Taiwan)

Etymology

History

Popular culture

See also

References