Maoists Is this real?

[Valeofruin]

Supposed interview between Nixon and Mao:

SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB19/05-01.htm (http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB19/05-01.htm)

Lol @ #4

http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB19/05-01.gif

http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB19/05-02.gif



http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB19/05-04.gif







http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB19/05-08.gif

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Oh my! Chairman Mao engaging in realpolitik, offering peaceful coexistence to the imperialists, and saying he prefers right-wing parties in power in the West! And there I was thinking that only Soviet revisionists did such things. :lol:

As a side note, Kissinger's skill at sucking up is without parallel.

[Q]

Very illuminating.


Those writings of mine aren't anything. There is nothing instructive in what I wrote.
Good to have that finally cleared up :lol:

[Valeofruin]

Very illuminating.


Good to have that finally cleared up :lol:

lol don't jump to conclusions.

This thread is questioning its legitimacy, not confirming it.. it came from a government source. I'm actually expecting the Maoists to refute it.. very well. That's the whole point of posting it... better here on revleft, posted by me, then a more.. difficult.. venue...

I point out no Communist is perfect, not Stalin, nor Mao, nor Trotsky. Yet it does seem to be a rather big mistake.

[BobKKKindle$]

lol don't jump to conclusions.

This thread is questioning its legitimacy, not confirming it.. it came from a government source. I'm actually expecting the Maoists to refute it.. very well. That's the whole point of posting it... better here on revleft, posted by me, then a more.. difficult.. venue...

I point out no Communist is perfect, not Stalin, nor Mao, nor Trotsky. Yet it does seem to be a rather big mistake.

Are you asking whether the Chinese government sought closer relations with the US in the 1970s? If so, the answer is obviously yes, and this was justified by arguing that US imperialism was waning whereas the imperialism of the Soviet Union was on the rise, so that entering into an alliance with the latter was justified if it could strengthen the position of the PRC vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. I would argue that Mao's eagerness to build relations with the US was due not only to a desire to pull China out of international isolation, which was the situation she had been in since the Sino-Soviet split (this isolation having been exacerbated during the Cultural Revolution due to the collapse of general administration and the xenophobic aspects of the student movement) but also a desire to reduce the power of the PLA (and hence Lin Biao) in order to solidify Mao's own position within the ruling elite. If you're going to pick out the most reactionary elements of Chinese foreign policy then making friends with the US whilst the US government was butchering the people of Vietnam through the use of bombs and chemical weapons would probably come pretty high on the list but even more outrageous than that was the fact that the Chinese government was one of the first states to recognize Pinochet after the overthrow in Allende (the first state in the Eastern bloc, in fact) and was also one of only three embassies or foreign legations out of all the countries in the entire world (!!) not to offer refuge to dissidents and leftists whilst the coup was taking place, the others being the British and the French.

The OP may be interested to know that both before and after the meetings between Nixon and Mao, the US and PRC built relations through "ping-pong diplomacy" whereby they invited each others' table tennis teams to play friendly matches.

[Number 16 Bus Shelter]

Reminds me of that Philip K Dick novel, The Penultimate Truth, where they make a fake video to show to the public in which Stalin holds secret talks with Nixon to secretly rule the world together. Or something to that effect anyway.

The legitimacy of that 'Top Secret' document is somewhat... dubious. :blink:

[Saorsa]

Firstly, why exactly should we trust the account of the American capitalist state and it's top officials when they try to tell us what Mao, their enemy, had to say| Not a single word on that page should be assumed to be the truth. That said, you'll find few Maoists who agree with everything Chairman Mao ever said or did - there were plenty of very bad calls made, their allegiances are to the ideas and contributions to Marxism made by Mao Zedong, not the man personally. Recognizing Pinochet stands out...

To be fair, China had the Soviet Union massing troops and aiming nuclear missiles right on it's border. They judged them to be the main threat and adjusted elements of their national strategy in response. Part of this was to try and ease tensions with the United States. This really isn't a big issue in itself, and while there were some bad lines coming out at the time that's true of any time.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I'd say that this is conclusive evidence that all Maoists like the Republican Party and are therefore inherently evil.

[BobKKKindle$]

I'd say that this is conclusive evidence that all Maoists like the Republican Party and are therefore inherently evil.

I don't know if the above document is real, although it probably wouldn't be that hard to find out - all you would have to do is look at the US State Department archives or get access to a decent collection of primary sources on modern Chinese history or the history of Chinese foreign relations. This seems to be missing the point however. Whether Mao had a conversation with Nixon in which he said that his writings had nothing instructive in them or that he liked rightists isn't important, what's important is that Mao and the rest of the government of the PRC (with the possible exception of Lin Biao) wanted to move closer to the US during the early 1970s. The job of the historian is to analyze why that happened when relations between the two countries had previously been hostile, in terms of both domestic and international factors, what effects it had on China's position in the world and the lives of China's people, and what it can tell us about the nature of China's government and Chinese society.

[Wanted Man]

Why would you want to ask Maoists if it's real? Ideologues don't have some kind of detector to find out whether documents pertaining to their history are real. We do definitely know what Nixon was doing in China, and what kind of consequences this had. With that in mind, these reports make sense.

Most Maoists probably already know about Nixon in China, and they will probably either dismiss it as one of Mao's "mistakes", or claim that it was necessary because of the conflict with the USSR, or a bit of both, like in Alastair's post.

[RHIZOMES]

Firstly, why exactly should we trust the account of the American capitalist state and it's top officials when they try to tell us what Mao, their enemy, had to say| Not a single word on that page should be assumed to be the truth. That said, you'll find few Maoists who agree with everything Chairman Mao ever said or did - there were plenty of very bad calls made, their allegiances are to the ideas and contributions to Marxism made by Mao Zedong, not the man personally. Recognizing Pinochet stands out...

To be fair, China had the Soviet Union massing troops and aiming nuclear missiles right on it's border. They judged them to be the main threat and adjusted elements of their national strategy in response. Part of this was to try and ease tensions with the United States. This really isn't a big issue in itself, and while there were some bad lines coming out at the time that's true of any time.

Also to add to that, particularly the whole "Soviets aiming nukes at their border" thing, how do we know Mao was being sincere at all when dealing with Nixon, if these documents are real (which I suspect they are, if it was just propaganda it wouldn't have been classified for 30+ years). It is entirely within the realm of possibility he was just kissing his ass for strategic reasons...

[Honggweilo]

ffs people, read machiavelli :rolleyes:

[IrishWorker]

I never read a bigger pile of shite in all my life any ejit could make this up.

[the last donut of the night]

I never read a bigger pile of shite in all my life any ejit could make this up.

I don't know what "ejit" is, but I'm sure it's pretty bad. Nonetheless, did you read the previous posts? While, yes, there are chances that this document could have been American propaganda, there are also chances that it wasn't. As Arizona Bay pointed out, it wouldn't make much sense to classify propaganda for 30+ years. Also, as Bob pointed out, the validity of the document could be easily proven by looking through some books of Chinese modern history primary sources.

Even so, this document is a tool in discussing the nature of the PRC government at that time. However, one-liners, be they from left communists to maoists, don't really help anybody. In fact, they are detrimental to any discussion, as there are some people trying to learn on this forum. Sure, you may be a great Marxist scholar, renowned in your knowledge of all the revolutionaries' theories, but I am not. So please let me learn.

[Woyzeck]

Firstly, why exactly should we trust the account of the American capitalist state and it's top officials when they try to tell us what Mao, their enemy, had to say| Not a single word on that page should be assumed to be the truth. That said, you'll find few Maoists who agree with everything Chairman Mao ever said or did - there were plenty of very bad calls made, their allegiances are to the ideas and contributions to Marxism made by Mao Zedong, not the man personally. Recognizing Pinochet stands out...

To be fair, China had the Soviet Union massing troops and aiming nuclear missiles right on it's border. They judged them to be the main threat and adjusted elements of their national strategy in response. Part of this was to try and ease tensions with the United States. This really isn't a big issue in itself, and while there were some bad lines coming out at the time that's true of any time.

Wow. Supporting a fascist coup in Chile and aligning with the world's dominant imperialist power is just a "bad line"? Why not just admit that there was nothing remotely proletarian, socialist or indeed internationalist about the PRC's government then and now and that all they were concerned about was defending 'Chinese' interests against perceived threats from the USSR? Whether these documents are real are not is hardly the crux of the matter and there's nothing all that surprising about a weaker capitalist power seeking a new bedfellow in the United States to fend off a regional enemy.

[Woyzeck]

I don't know what "ejit" is, but I'm sure it's pretty bad.

"eejit" is Irish slang for "idiot".

[IrishWorker]

I don't know what "ejit" is, but I'm sure it's pretty bad. Nonetheless, did you read the previous posts? While, yes, there are chances that this document could have been American propaganda, there are also chances that it wasn't. As Arizona Bay pointed out, it wouldn't make much sense to classify propaganda for 30+ years. Also, as Bob pointed out, the validity of the document could be easily proven by looking through some books of Chinese modern history primary sources.

Even so, this document is a tool in discussing the nature of the PRC government at that time. However, one-liners, be they from left communists to maoists, don't really help anybody. In fact, they are detrimental to any discussion, as there are some people trying to learn on this forum. Sure, you may be a great Marxist scholar, renowned in your knowledge of all the revolutionaries' theories, but I am not. So please let me learn.
If you want to learn Imperialist propaganda and lies by all means "learn" away.

[RadioRaheem84]

Can one be a Maoist without having to actually like Mao? I mean he himself denied his own writings (according to the transcript). I don't know much about Mao, but are his writings instrumental in understanding Maoism or are Maoists called such because of the practical applications of his ideals/politics, or both? Can one like the former and not the latter and still be a Maoist? I mean if this is real, then Mao was a pretty shitty guy.

[bcbm]

Firstly, why exactly should we trust the account of the American capitalist state and it's top officials when they try to tell us what Mao, their enemy, had to say| Not a single word on that page should be assumed to be the truth.

yeah, they kept a document on mao they made up secret, then released it in 1997 to defame the poor chairman. clever bastards. :rolleyes:

[Raúl Duke]

Perhaps Mao, when talking about his writings, was just down-playing the flattery the U.S. president was giving to him (i.e. referring to the chairman as a philosopher) by saying "oh, it's nothing really."

Some cultures tend to down-play their own importance while stressing the importance of their guests. In those cultures, it could also be culturally expected that the guests flatter their hosts (even though the host will be downplaying i.e. "oh I'm no big deal" the praise).

The only way we could get close to accuracy (resolve the issue about the validity of this account that is being raised) is by seeing the Chinese accounts of this meeting (if they even made one, but most likely they do have one) and compare/contrast with this U.S. account.

[Rusty Shackleford]

if one attempted to actually get a copy of this IRL it might be more plausable. Also, if the chinese kept transcripts and it was somehow possible to obtain Nixon-Mao conversations then it could be proved.

i wont embrace or dismiss this information yet though

[Revy]

this was also interesting (the original poster did not post all the pages)

http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB19/05-09.gif

Mao tells Nixon he doesn't want to see him overthrown.:lol:

[LeninBalls]

It's not that dramatic, I thought everyone knew Mao was a complete failure/US suck up in the last year(s) of his life anyways.

[Valeofruin]

Perhaps Mao, when talking about his writings, was just down-playing the flattery the U.S. president was giving to him (i.e. referring to the chairman as a philosopher) by saying "oh, it's nothing really."

Some cultures tend to down-play their own importance while stressing the importance of their guests. In those cultures, it could also be culturally expected that the guests flatter their hosts (even though the host will be downplaying i.e. "oh I'm no big deal" the praise).

The only way we could get close to accuracy (resolve the issue about the validity of this account that is being raised) is by seeing the Chinese accounts of this meeting (if they even made one, but most likely they do have one) and compare/contrast with this U.S. account.

Lol problem is, if Mao screwed up, we wont get any info on it till the chinese completely abandon the last few remaining shreds of their Maoist past.

[We Shall Rise Again]

wouldnt believe a word of it.

since when do socialists beliieve the word of yankee or brit imperialists?

[the last donut of the night]

If you want to learn Imperialist propaganda and lies by all means "learn" away.

Oh really? FFS, things aren't so one-sided, you know.

[IrishWorker]

Oh really? FFS, things aren't so one-sided, you know.

No they aren’t your right, sorry.
When ever the Imperialists declassify "secret" documentation in the future I will be sure to take it at face value.
Mao was not perfect but forgive me for not jumping on the bandwagon.

[bcbm]

what is gained by releasing a fake document about mao 30 years after the fact?

[IrishWorker]

what is gained by releasing a fake document about mao 30 years after the fact?
Propaganda. Look at us we are right you are wrong the bastards are experts at it.

[bcbm]

but propaganda against what? mao's been dead forever, china is thoroughly capitalist and most of the world doesn't give a shit about any maoist movements that exist.

[IrishWorker]

but propaganda against what? mao's been dead forever, china is thoroughly capitalist and most of the world doesn't give a shit about any maoist movements that exist.
If you really believe that Capitalism doesn’t view the ideology of Maoism as a threat then you are living in Narnia.
They will stop at nothing to discredit Revolutionary theory.

[bcbm]

i don't think in 1997 the government was concerned enough about maoism to fabricate an interview between nixon and mao.

[IrishWorker]

i don't think in 1997 the government was concerned enough about maoism to fabricate an interview between nixon and mao.
It is not a personal attack on Mao as clearly he was a bit of a wanker it is an attack on Maoism and its strategy for Revolution.
It is an attack by Capitalism and Imperialism on the historical legacy of Maoism as a Revolutionary doctrine.

[bcbm]

i didn't say it was a personal attack on mao. i'm saying i don't see any real reason for them to fabricate and then release a document like this at that point in time.

[IrishWorker]

i didn't say it was a personal attack on mao. i'm saying i don't see any real reason for them to fabricate and then release a document like this at that point in time.
Sadly I dont think you ever will.

[bcbm]

i know its pretty irrational to believe that the ruling class does things for concrete reasons.

[Sendo]

Perhaps Mao, when talking about his writings, was just down-playing the flattery the U.S. president was giving to him (i.e. referring to the chairman as a philosopher) by saying "oh, it's nothing really."

Some cultures tend to down-play their own importance while stressing the importance of their guests. In those cultures, it could also be culturally expected that the guests flatter their hosts (even though the host will be downplaying i.e. "oh I'm no big deal" the praise).

The only way we could get close to accuracy (resolve the issue about the validity of this account that is being raised) is by seeing the Chinese accounts of this meeting (if they even made one, but most likely they do have one) and compare/contrast with this U.S. account.

I'd say this is accurate.

I would also stress the fact that it's ***translated***. Remember Ahmadinejad's "comment" about wiping Israel off the face of the Earth? In reality he said wanted the state of Israel to cease to be, not a carpet-bombing genocide.

There's nothing that wrong here, even if it were mostly true. It shows an isolated country trying to normalize relations with great superpower the US and tacitly agreeing to not interfere further in each other's spheres.

It's a diplomatic meeting. Of course, there's bullshit flattery and modesty. Mao even forced smiles with Khrushchev for a few years (though he did a bad job of faking those smiles).

Whatever, this changes nothing for me. I don't have enough reason to believe it fully, nor enough trust of the translation, nor any substantial fear of the supposed content.

Who knows. It just came out recently that the Bush admin relied on a con-man to do their terror alert levels. The possibility of less than honest translator on EITHER side is high. I live in Korea, and boy howdy, is translation a *****. Taking into account one or more of the following happening in a situation: incompetence, differing cultures, sugar-coating, racist attitudes, people being people, and radically different organizing of sentences and paragraphs and speech writing styles, it's nearly hopeless. Understanding small doses of Korean to pick up from the untranslated bits aids considerably in understanding the tone and mood. For example: foreign-person (외국사람) and alien/outlander (외국인) both get translated as the neutral "foreigner".

[The Author]

There was a book released with these and several other transcripts between Kissinger, Nixon, Mao, Brezhnev, and other political figures in a tome known as "the Kissinger Transcripts."

Don't be surprised by the content of the text. It is a big reason why I had abandoned Maoism years ago. I never liked Mao's "criticisms" of Stalin because it was actually Mao who dealt with metaphysics and idealism while Stalin worked on the materialist, Marxist side when it came to analyzing the base and superstructure. Hence Mao's subjectivist activities in regards to the Great Leap Forward and to a lesser degree the Cultural Revolution. Plus, criticism and self-criticism and the "mass line" were around long before Mao. And the vast majority of the Quotations in the Little Red Book happened to come from the time before Stalin's death, when Mao used more Marxist lexicon in his writings and didn't dally in his more idealist philosophies as he did in the 1950s. This, giving precedence to the peasantry over the proletariat, ignoring the proletariat completely in some instances, and this "struggle of opposites" attitude in everything from fighting counterrevolutionary tendencies to shaping foreign policy were serious mistakes on Mao's part. It was convoluted thinking such as this that got revisionists such as Deng Xiaoping into power in the first place- because people were tired of the zigzag in politics and economics and they wanted someone who would "open up and reform," unfortunately.

[Sendo]

......

Thank you for the tangent as to how this letter somehow illustrates your points that you think Stalin was the better theoretician?

But if you want to go down this road, Mao didn't put peasants over proleteriat; it was all about working with *working people*. China wasn't industrialized. After the loss of influence in Shanghai and the attacks from Chiang in the South, the Long March dropped the PLA in distant Xi'anxi province. There weren't factories and unions lying around, but rural tenant farmers, rural laborers, middle-class to poor -class artisans, hard-working peasants, rich peasants, and the landlords. There was some capital in the form of workshops and food refineries and such, but it was idle by capitalist standards and owned by the landed aristocracy. In the latter half of the century he did his best to industrialize China evenly. In some ways he failed, but his PRC laid the groundwork for the rapid industrialization after his death, unfortunately becoming hijacked completely by capitalist roaders in the 1980s.

If you want to blame Mao for what happened after his death, how about we look at what happened after Stalin died? Obviously in China the degeneration and subsequent capitalist seizures happened more quickly, but I would ascribe that to the situation of the world in the 1980s and 90s more than the persons.

I'd also add that Mao's personal blunders in foreign policy don't matter to me as far as his revolutionary theory goes. I criticize much, especially the organization of the party after the civil war ended...but that's okay. I can criticize that without revising the theory behind him.

[Durruti's Ghost]

Propaganda. Look at us we are right you are wrong the bastards are experts at it.

On this and all the other "oh this is just propaganda" arguments, why would the United States want to go out of its way to associate itself with a state it was trying to paint as Hell-on-Earth? That doesn't make any sense.

Also:


Thank you for the tangent as to how this letter somehow illustrates your points that you think Stalin was the better theoretician?

Do I smell a Maoist vs. Stalinist tendency war brewing? 'Cuz, y'know, "Variety is the spice of life." :)

[Rusty Shackleford]

If this document is trying to portray Mao as a rightis, the effect would actually be right wing sympathy with maoism, not the discrediting of it. the left may back off a bit from maoism but that hasnt stopped left parties mingling with the right... look at what happened because of the sino-american deals, the US is one of the top consumers of chinese products, chinese laborers are having a shitty time. they both had something to gain from these meetings, china needed markets and the us needed a counterweight to soviet influence. they are now traitors to their political stances

mao saying he didnt want the nixon administration is simply diplomatic flattery. whoever said realpolitik i believe was spot-on. i do NOT believe this is fabricated propaganda, and i agree that it may be simple diplomatic bullshit.

[leninpuncher]

Hooray. Got myself a shiny new sig.

[red cat]

Propaganda. Look at us we are right you are wrong the bastards are experts at it.

Comrade, I think that the word "bastard" is quite inappropriate for a swear word. Same with the word "*****" and all its synonyms. These represent a potentially revolutionary and most downtrodden portion of the working class.

[leninpuncher]

Comrade, I think that the word "bastard" is quite inappropriate for a swear word. Same with the word "*****" and all its synonyms. These represent a potentially revolutionary and most downtrodden portion of the working class.

Do you say this sort of thing in public?

[RedStarOverChina]

First, these documents reveal nothing new.

Second, Mao spoke sarcastically all the time. He was famous for his peasant-style sense of humor. I thought that should be quite obvious when he said "I like rightists" or "nothing I wrote meant anything".

Third, this is cold blooded reapolitik, there is no denial.

[red cat]

Do you say this sort of thing in public?

In certain places, yes.