Maoism, Socialism, Workers States, etc.

[RED DAVE]

We have to have this one every few months. Helps to get rid of the bad blood.


First you call the entire Maoist party as class betrayers by stating they're only wanting Capitalism, & now you're saying Prachanda is a class betrayer by "betraying" his party. The only opportunities I see here is you trying anyway you can to throwing dirt on the Maoists.
You consistently refuse to see the possibility that the Nepalese Maoists, by following the same class policies as the Chinese Maoists, may well be opening the way for capitalism.

Are you so blind that you don't even see the possibility that this could happen? Is the history of Maoism in Asia a history of the establishment of workers states? Or is it the history of state capitalism, which opened the way to private capitalism?

Cheerleading is a fine thing, but even the girls with the pom-poms and the boys with the megaphones know that their team can lose.
By your logic, then Bolshevism is a historical failure too, since that established state capitalism in Russia too.The failure of Bolshevism and the Russian Revolution has been analyzed over and over again. We have a good idea why it happened. These include: the underdeveloped nature of Russia, the failure of the revolutions in the West, especially in Germany, the invasion of Russia by the Allied armies and the depredation of the civil war, the addition of members to the Bolshevik Party who had not been party members during the revolution and the civil war (the so-called Lenin Levy) and the opportunism of Stalin and his faction.


Hell, if you logically take it to the extreme, the whole idea of workers' power is a historical failure because 160 years after the Communist Manifesto, most of the world is still capitalist.If you use bullshit analysis, you're sure to come up with bullshit.


This type of socialist puritanism, that nothing except everything in the Trotsky bible will do is more than annoying: it is wrong, arrogant, and a parasite on the workers' movement as it denies any real success as "state capitalist" or "class collaborationist". As Parenti says, you only support revolutions that fail, Dave.If you call the current situation in China, Russia, etc., "success," I wonder what you call failure.

RED DAVE

[Lyev]

RED Dave do you have anything better to do?Do you have anything better to do than wasting your posting inane one-liners? That contributed nothing to the thread, nor does it constitute in any way whatsoever a substantial argument. Has anyone got any ideas as to how permanent revolution (in the Trotskyist sense), or similar theories, can be applied to Nepal? While it is officially a republic, it has only been so for 2 years, I think the economy stagnated somewhat under the monarchy and more than 90% of the total population live in rural areas with 81% of the labour force engaged in backward agricultural occupation. Or is this situation not suitable for it?

[Chimurenga.]

If you call the current situation in China, Russia, etc., "success," I wonder what you call failure.

Who the hell said anything about Russia and China currently?

[Rusty Shackleford]

china and the SU brought huge advancements for the working class and peasantry. i would call that a success even though the SU no longer exists and the CPC has gone off the deep end.

[Queercommie Girl]

On the one hand we must recognise the great gains the USSR and China made for the working class and the cause of socialism. On the other hand we must never forget the grave mistakes and deformations that also existed, otherwise we will never learn from history.

It's not a case of "either or", but "both and".

[Ned Kelly]

The Soviet Union and China under Mao took their respective nations out of feudalism, and greatly furthered and improved the conditions of the working class. Mistakes were most certainly made, but the achievements must never be ignored.

[Lyev]

The Soviet Union and China under Mao took their respective nations out of feudalism, and greatly furthered and improved the conditions of the working class. Mistakes were most certainly made, but the achievements must never be ignored.I often feel as though these "achievements" frequently obfuscate what we're really looking for here in this debate, and similar ones. What we're looking for is a commitment to building wholly proletarian-based socialism with worker-ownership at the forefront of priorities. The point of contention here is not the material gains and social progress made under Stalin or Mao -- often these are quite obvious -- but "socialism" and "workers states", as written clearly in the title of thread. Stalin's and Mao's regimes gave better living standards, healthcare, electrification, empowerment of women, good education, zero unemployment etc., but electricity and better living standards aren't criteria for socialism. It should be noted that such aspects in society might be a product of workers' control, but it often follows that such gains are made only at the expense of proletariat; some people lived in dirty, unsanitary tents as new industrial towns and cities were being built in 1930s Russia, just as one example. Proletarians were often overworked and were understandably a bit annoyed when their bosses or factory directors got more perks and pay than them. I have often heard people say that such conditions, in the face of industrialization and modernization, are frankly wonderful sacrifices made by the Soviet Unions ordinary working men and women, but this seems like a bit of cop-out.

[Lyev]

Who the hell said anything about Russia and China currently?Urm, Dave did? I think he was probably referring to what they are like now as a result of each of their said regimes. In other words, they are better off now than they were with these caricatures of socialism, however I think both were probably better before their respective capitalist restorations, so I am not sure where Dave is going with this one. I may have interpreted his line of thought wrong though.

[Queercommie Girl]

I often feel as though these "achievements" frequently obfuscate what we're really looking for here in this debate, and similar ones. What we're looking for is a commitment to building wholly proletarian-based socialism with worker-ownership at the forefront of priorities. The point of contention here is not the material gains and social progress made under Stalin or Mao -- often these are quite obvious -- but "socialism" and "workers states", as written clearly in the title of thread. Stalin's and Mao's regimes gave better living standards, healthcare, electrification, empowerment of women, good education, zero unemployment etc., but electricity and better living standards aren't criteria for socialism. It should be noted that such aspects in society might be a product of workers' control, but it often follows that such gains are made only at the expense of proletariat; some people lived in dirty, unsanitary tents as new industrial towns and cities were being built in 1930s Russia, just as one example. Proletarians were often overworked and were understandably a bit annoyed when their bosses or factory directors got more perks and pay than them. I have often heard people say that such conditions, in the face of industrialization and modernization, are frankly wonderful sacrifices made by the Soviet Unions ordinary working men and women, but this seems like a bit of cop-out.

But you can't ignore productive force. In fact, Marx insisted that productive force determines productive relation. And the economic inequality during Mao's and Stalin's time was very minimum indeed. Stalin may have been a bit of a tyrant, but he was very frugal. Even Lenin did not promote an absolute egalitarian society, he only said that cadres and party leaders should have a salary that is no higher than that of the highest salary levels of skilled workers.

The main problem with China and the USSR was not economic, the economic base was indeed largely socialist and collectivist, the main deformation is at the level of political superstructure, namely the lack of worker's democracy in how the socialist state is actually run. Economic inequality was not a problem, but the lack of political control by the workers eventually led to the restoration of bureaucratic capitalism in both countries.

[Queercommie Girl]

Urm, Dave did? I think he was probably referring to what they are like now as a result of each of their said regimes. In other words, they are better off now than they were with these caricatures of socialism, however I think both were probably better before their respective capitalist restorations, so I am not sure where Dave is going with this one. I may have interpreted his line of thought wrong though.

Off topic:

Hey you are a CWI member?

I'm a supporter of the CWI. I was once a member for a while. I wanted to re-join recently (mainly so that I have a platform to do some LGBT activist work) but was refused because they said I don't break with Maoism enough. Indeed, I'm still partially a Maoist. But they said it's nothing personal so we still co-operate on a range of issues, particularly for Chinaworker.

[The Hong Se Sun]

I love how people who trash talk Mao never mention it was his respect for democracy that actually led to most of the things they hate and that Xiaoping and all his right wing thugs have done everything to reverse what Mao was trying to do. I'm really sick of the babel of "Maoism lead to capitalism" read the real history and not what you want to know. Mao collectivized, democratized, and took a imperial dominated ultra backwards society and liberated it and gave its people free education, free health care even in the country sides etc etc etc. But since he did not make a workers run Utopian society the next day from feudal society the day before people are gonna hate.



"This type of socialist puritanism, that nothing except everything in the Trotsky bible will do is more than annoying: it is wrong, arrogant, and a parasite on the workers' movement" -yep and plain out of touch with reality and the reason this kind of bashing goes on about Mao is for opportunistic reasons and is about as sectarian as you can get. Does any one else love that Trots hate "socialism in one country" idea yet attack every country attempting to build socialism for not being pure enough?

sorry for the rant but I can't stand when people attack something they don't understand or because it isn't pure enough for them. Support the poor and working class and shut up. Every back slide of China is not Mao's fault.:rolleyes:

[Queercommie Girl]

I love how people who trash talk Mao never mention it was his respect for democracy that actually led to most of the things they hate and that Xiaoping and all his right wing thugs have done everything to reverse what Mao was trying to do. I'm really sick of the babel of "Maoism lead to capitalism" read the real history and not what you want to know. Mao collectivized, democratized, and took a imperial dominated ultra backwards society and liberated it and gave its people free education, free health care even in the country sides etc etc etc. But since he did not make a workers run Utopian society the next day from feudal society the day before people are gonna hate.



"This type of socialist puritanism, that nothing except everything in the Trotsky bible will do is more than annoying: it is wrong, arrogant, and a parasite on the workers' movement" -yep and plain out of touch with reality and the reason this kind of bashing goes on about Mao is for opportunistic reasons and is about as sectarian as you can get. Does any one else love that Trots hate "socialism in one country" idea yet attack every country attempting to build socialism for not being pure enough?

sorry for the rant but I can't stand when people attack something they don't understand or because it isn't pure enough for them. Support the poor and working class and shut up. Every back slide of China is not Mao's fault.:rolleyes:

I don't agree with your idea that it was democracy that let Deng into power. The issue here is that you should know that democracy also has a class basis. It is useless to talk about "democracy" in a purely universalist sense, we need to consider "democracy for which class". If it's working class democracy, how could it ever put the bureaucratic capitalists into power?

In fact it is the other way around, Mao Zedong tried to introduce more worker's democracy into the Chinese system during the Cultural Revolution, partly because he already saw the problems of the Soviet model which lacked democracy. It is interesting to compare Chinese and Soviet factory management systems. Under Stalin, a factory is solely managed from the top, the workers on the production lines have little say. But Mao introduced a democratic management system known as the Angang system, in which the workers, technical personnel and party cadres manage the plant together in a more democratic manner.

But for various reasons the Cultural Revolution failed. When Deng got into power he crushed what is left of worker's democracy in China and took away the right to engage in strikes by workers from the Chinese constitution. So no it's not democracy that got Deng into power, but that after Deng got into power Chinese workers lost almost all of their democratic rights, such as the right to strike.

Contemporary Maoists in mainland China tend to be more critical of Stalin and more explicitly democratic (with a strong proletarian class basis of course). There was an article written by a Chinese Maoist recently called "Without complete democracy, socialism is surely going to be betrayed". It is a very good article which also criticised Stalin in some quite fundamental and explicit ways.

I have contact with the MCPC (Maoist Communist Party of China). They say they are not anti-Trotskyist, but they can't work with the Trotskyists because the Trots are always going against them. Personally I've been influenced by both Maoism and Trotskyism and I actually hope they can be fused together in the future.

[The Hong Se Sun]

Good point Iseul (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../member.php?u=28218) I failed to specify but when I say democracy I mean democracy for all not any other kind. But to further elaborate on my point; what I meant is that the right wing in the party used the democratic policies to cut back on a lot of what Mao did to further socialism in China at the time. Then after Mao died the right wing went gangster on the left wing and purged all the left wing out of the CP and thus hints why the CP is now out of touch with the working class and has taken revisionist steps and why people felt they needed to create a separate CP called the MCPC.

[Barry Lyndon]

I don't agree with your idea that it was democracy that let Deng into power. The issue here is that you should know that democracy also has a class basis. It is useless to talk about "democracy" in a purely universalist sense, we need to consider "democracy for which class". If it's working class democracy, how could it ever put the bureaucratic capitalists into power?

In fact it is the other way around, Mao Zedong tried to introduce more worker's democracy into the Chinese system during the Cultural Revolution, partly because he already saw the problems of the Soviet model which lacked democracy. It is interesting to compare Chinese and Soviet factory management systems. Under Stalin, a factory is solely managed from the top, the workers on the production lines have little say. But Mao introduced a democratic management system known as the Angang system, in which the workers, technical personnel and party cadres manage the plant together in a more democratic manner.

But for various reasons the Cultural Revolution failed. When Deng got into power he crushed what is left of worker's democracy in China and took away the right to engage in strikes by workers from the Chinese constitution. So no it's not democracy that got Deng into power, but that after Deng got into power Chinese workers lost almost all of their democratic rights, such as the right to strike.

Contemporary Maoists in mainland China tend to be more critical of Stalin and more explicitly democratic (with a strong proletarian class basis of course). There was an article written by a Chinese Maoist recently called "Without complete democracy, socialism is surely going to be betrayed". It is a very good article which also criticised Stalin in some quite fundamental and explicit ways.

I have contact with the MCPC (Maoist Communist Party of China). They say they are not anti-Trotskyist, but they can't work with the Trotskyists because the Trots are always going against them. Personally I've been influenced by both Maoism and Trotskyism and I actually hope they can be fused together in the future.

This.

Being originally an orthodox Trotskyist, I was quite hostile to Mao initially because I simply saw Maoism as an Asian outgrowth of Stalinism. But learning more about Maoist China, I changed my mind, especially after reading about the democratic aspects of the Cultural Revolution.
Mao, in my view, was originally a doctrinaire Stalinist but later moved away from it, and the GPCR was a massive attempt to oust the parasitic bureaucracy and establish workers control, exactly what Trotsky called for in the USSR. Just because the Chinese weren't marching around with big pictures of Trotsky and James P. Cannon, Trotskyists reject the GPCR out of dogmatism.

I would go farther then many Maoists and say that it seems to me that the revisionists had already siezed all effective power by around 1970-71 or so and Mao was a de facto prisoner of them for the last few years of his life.

[Queercommie Girl]

This.

Being originally an orthodox Trotskyist, I was quite hostile to Mao initially because I simply saw Maoism as an Asian outgrowth of Stalinism. But learning more about Maoist China, I changed my mind, especially after reading about the democratic aspects of the Cultural Revolution.
Mao, in my view, was originally a doctrinaire Stalinist but later moved away from it, and the GPCR was a massive attempt to oust the parasitic bureaucracy and establish workers control, exactly what Trotsky called for in the USSR. Just because the Chinese weren't marching around with big pictures of Trotsky and James P. Cannon, Trotskyists reject the GPCR out of dogmatism.

I would go farther then many Maoists and say that it seems to me that the revisionists had already siezed all effective power by around 1970-71 or so and Mao was a de facto prisoner of them for the last few years of his life.


I think the Maoists in China now still have some shortcomings:

1) there is still a bit of a "personality cult" around Mao

2) worker's democracy perhaps doesn't go far enough, the Maoists support democratic worker's supervisory councils, democracy within the Communist Party and some degree of direct democracy within factories and companies. But they don't support multi-party democracy and universal democracy (one person, one vote) in society at large. They think the latter forms of democracy are "intrinsically" capitalist.

Personally I don't think single-party or multi-party is a major issue, if it's multi-party then there must be a clear socialist constitution so that only socialist and leftist parties are permitted. But I do support direct democracy of the "one person, one vote" type, which the Maoists don't support.

[The Hong Se Sun]

Well I appreciate your rejection of that dogmatism [/URL][URL="http://www.revleft.com/vb/../member.php?u=28160"]Barry Lyndon (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../member.php?u=28218). it really makes me sick when people look at China today and go Mao/Maoism did it.

[Communist]

Do you have anything better to do, than to sit in a cafe house talking about theory?
I have better things to do than trash your posts. So, please keep on topic and avoid irrelevant and pointless one-liners, so I won't have to. Cheers.

.

[Lyev]

But you can't ignore productive force. In fact, Marx insisted that productive force determines productive relation. And the economic inequality during Mao's and Stalin's time was very minimum indeed. Stalin may have been a bit of a tyrant, but he was very frugal. Even Lenin did not promote an absolute egalitarian society, he only said that cadres and party leaders should have a salary that is no higher than that of the highest salary levels of skilled workers.

The main problem with China and the USSR was not economic, the economic base was indeed largely socialist and collectivist, the main deformation is at the level of political superstructure, namely the lack of worker's democracy in how the socialist state is actually run. Economic inequality was not a problem, but the lack of political control by the workers eventually led to the restoration of bureaucratic capitalism in both countries.I'm not sure you can sever the political aspects of any given society so readily from the economic. Socialism is still relatively unchartered territory so it makes more sense if we use examples from previous societies that we're familar with - why is it in capitalist society that the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, have the political power they do? Because of their economic status of course. I could be getting this wrong, but I'll learn if I test out my thoughts, but it seems slightly strange, if the economic was truly collectivist and socialist for the most part, that on the other hand the political superstructure degenerated into the bureaucratic mess that it did. Economic and political life -- in any society throughout history -- don't develop as totally separate entities from each other, in their vacuums.

I may be applying historical materialism wrongly here, I'm still grappling with a more detailed understanding of it but perhaps this will help to clarify my position on it. Let's bear this exposition in mind:
This conception of history depends on our ability to expound the real process of production, starting out from the material production of life itself, and to comprehend the form of intercourse connected with this and created by this mode of production (i.e. civil society in its various stages), as the basis of all history; describing it in its action as the state, and to explain all the different theoretical products and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. etc. arise from it, and trace their origins and growth from that basis.Anyway, if we see social, political, philosophical, cultural etc. structures of a society as, by and large, an outgrowth of humans collectively producing and reproducing the necessities of life then shouldn't the political institutions in Soviet Russia (and China, but I feel more comfortable analysing the former SU as I know more about it) be a reflection of "the material production of life itself"? And as I mentioned a bit earlier, if you regard the collectivization and other such economic aspects of the SU as socialist (and therefore democratic) at heart then the bureaucratic degeneration and thermidor on the other hand doesn't seem to quite add up. I'm inclined to say, at this moment of my understanding, that socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, firstly, has to be voluntary and completely democratic; not like the forced collectivization of the kulaks. Secondly, it cannot be instituted from above (see Draper's The Two Souls of Socialism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1966/twosouls/index.htm)), which was exactly how it was implemented under Stalin, from what I understand. I think this helps get across what I'm trying to say much better (emphasis in bold is mine):
This dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. This dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class – that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.Oh and yes I am part of the CWI. It seems strange that we want to reject you on account of your Maoist leanings yet we're still happy to work with you.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm not sure you can sever the political aspects of any given society so readily from the economic. Socialism is still relatively unchartered territory so it makes more sense if we use examples from previous societies that we're familar with - why is it in capitalist society that the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, have the political power they do? Because of their economic status of course. I could be getting this wrong, but I'll learn if I test out my thoughts, but it seems slightly strange, if the economic was truly collectivist and socialist for the most part, that on the other hand the political superstructure degenerated into the bureaucratic mess that it did. Economic and political life -- in any society throughout history -- don't develop as totally separate entities from each other, in their vacuums.

I may be applying historical materialism wrongly here, I'm still grappling with a more detailed understanding of it but perhaps this will help to clarify my position on it. Let's bear this exposition in mind: Anyway, if we see social, political, philosophical, cultural etc. structures of a society as, by and large, an outgrowth of humans collectively producing and reproducing the necessities of life then shouldn't the political institutions in Soviet Russia (and China, but I feel more comfortable analysing the former SU as I know more about it) be a reflection of "the material production of life itself"? And as I mentioned a bit earlier, if you regard the collectivization and other such economic aspects of the SU as socialist (and therefore democratic) at heart then the bureaucratic degeneration and thermidor on the other hand doesn't seem to quite add up. I'm inclined to say, at this moment of my understanding, that socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, firstly, has to be voluntary and completely democratic; not like the forced collectivization of the kulaks. Secondly, it cannot be instituted from above (see Draper's The Two Souls of Socialism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1966/twosouls/index.htm)), which was exactly how it was implemented under Stalin, from what I understand. I think this helps get across what I'm trying to say much better (emphasis in bold is mine):


Yes, it would be un-dialectical to completely sever the political from the economic. But the idea of the "deformed worker's state" is indeed an orthodox Trotskyist one, and the CWI for the most part adhere to this concept, instead of the "state-capitalist" concept.

It's too mechanical to say that the economic basis of the USSR was "completely socialist" but the political superstructure was "completely deformed". In reality in both cases it was actually mixed, except that at the level of the economic base it was more socialist than not, while at the level of the political superstructure it was the other way around.

Keep in mind that the USSR started off as a genuine democratic worker's state, and while it became deformed as time went on, the underlying public ownership of most of the economy was never changed until the USSR broke apart in 1991. In the case of the USSR the deformation which eventually led to bureaucratic capitalism occurred in the opposite order to how it would normally happen in capitalist societies. Under capitalism economic inequality happen first, which then leads to de facto political inequality and eventually even political dictatorship (e.g. Hitler). But in the former USSR political inequality and deformation (more specifically the lack of proletarian democracy) was the primary driving factor. It was only when the bureaucratic caste became sufficiently entrenched politically that direct economic privatisation and gross economic inequality began to occur in earnest.

So I'm not separating the "political" from the "economic", I'm saying that the order between the two in the former USSR was precisely the opposite to the order between them in "standard" capitalist countries.



Oh and yes I am part of the CWI. It seems strange that we want to reject you on account of your Maoist leanings yet we're still happy to work with you.Which country are you from? It is not "strange" at all. AFAIK the CWI is one of the less sectarian Trot organisations. Here in the UK they have formed what is called the Campaign for a Mass Worker's Party, and clearly not everyone who is a supporter of the CWI or a member of their Campaign for a Mass Worker's Party is an orthodox Trotskyist or even a semi-Trotskyist. If an organisation, Trot or otherwise, is only prepared to work with people who take exactly the same political line as themselves, then such an organisation would be hopelessly dogmatic and sectarian, and basically as good as dead.

The Socialist Party in England just stated that since I'm not prepared to break with Maoism, then they can't let me be a formal member of the party, but I'm still a supporter and a member of their Campaign for a Mass Worker's Party. And I have quite a few friends who are CWI members as well.