Maoist Opinions of Lin Biao

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

What is the general Maoist opinion regarding Lin Biao?

Specifically Lin Biao opposing Mao's alignment with the United States, alleged attempted coup and afterwards the propaganda used against Lin Biao by Mao.

It rather confuses me about how Maoists can uphold Lin Biao when this had occurred. :confused:

[Savage]

Mao's alignment with the United States

Sorry for not answering your question, but what exactly is the Maoist explanation for this and other controversial alignments made by Mao?

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Sorry for not answering your question, but what exactly is the Maoist explanation for this and other controversial alignments made by Mao?

I would imagine that it would be due to Mao considering the USSR of being a greater threat due to the Near-Conflicts and Border Conflicts with the USSR during this time. However, I don't feel that this is an excuse for alignment to Imperialism as Mao could have made the People's Republic of China one of the leading Non-Aligned Nations.

Lin Biao's attempted coup was due to this alignment as well.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

I don't think most Maoists do uphold Lin Biao. The LLCO are the only ones who properly uphold him, the MIM semi-upheld him. I think most Maoists agree with the official version where Lin Biao was a pro-Soviet comprador who tried to coup Mao.

There's pretty much no evidence that he did actually attempt a coup though. And he definitely wasn't some kind of pro-Soviet comprador either. He might have seen the USSR as a lesser evil and that the west was the greatest danger in the world (I would agree) but that was it. Mao and Zhou were all about how "China must ally with the liberal democracies of the west against the Hitlerian social-fascist new Tsars of the USSR" though so Lin had to go.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

I would imagine that it would be due to Mao considering the USSR of being a greater threat due to the Near-Conflicts and Border Conflicts with the USSR during this time. However, I don't feel that this is an excuse for alignment to Imperialism as Mao could have made the People's Republic of China one of the leading Non-Aligned Nations.

I think this was due to Mao's age and the influence of Zhou Enlai on him because the USSR was never really a greater danger to China. Yeah, the USSR and China had had a couple border conflicts and the Soviets had part of their army mobilised on the 7500 km Sino-Soviet/Mongolian. But western imperialism was committing genocide in Indochina over China's southern border, had its unsinkable aircraft carrier Japan just over the sea, had already fought a full-scale war with China in Korea, was still messing around in Tibet, was directly occupying China in Hong Kong and Taiwan, etc. etc.

Zhou Enlai was always a rightist, even before the border conflicts the foreign ministry under his direction was trying to make friends with Romania and Yugoslavia. And Mao was just too old and wasn't thinking straight. The way China turned out shows to me that there should be some mandatory retirement age for leaders and that rightists always need to be purged. On 'Two-Line Struggle' I think that's one thing where Stalin was right and Mao was wrong.

[Savage]

Mao and Zhou were all about how "China must ally with the liberal democracies of the west against the Hitlerian social-fascist new Tsars of the USSR" though so Lin had to go.

So when exactly do Maoists believe that the USSR became capitalist to the point that it was a worse regime than the USA?

[Marxach-Léinínach]

So when exactly do Maoists believe that the USSR became capitalist to the point that it was a worse regime than the USA?

After the Kosygin reforms which occurred between 1965 and 1971 which reorganised the economy around profit. Criticising the revisionism and all the elements of capitalism that were being introduced was fine and all IMO, the anti-revisionist struggle went overboard though when Mao and Hoxha started saying that the CPSU had become a "fascist party". Even with all the revisionism workers in the USSR, Yugoslavia etc. still lived pretty good lives.

[Savage]

So do Maoists generally consider the post-1971 era USSR to be capitalist? or just 'less socialist'?

[Marxach-Léinínach]

State capitalism

[Savage]

Well you yourself have already mentioned that you believe this era of the USSR to be superior to western capitalism, but wouldn't most Maoists defend Mao's position that the USSR state capitalism was worse than the USA? If so, wouldn't these people view the collapse of the USSR as a good thing?