scarletghoul
10th August 2011, 03:46
I was gonna post this classic early piece from the chinese revolution anyway, but its already been put up on Kasama so here it is with their commentary :)
This is a very basic question of world-view and class stand including right now when the whole world is awash in propaganda and hand-wringing denouncing the rebels of London. If we dont speak out for them what are WE about?!
Here is a crucial essay from communist history a story of orientation when class struggle breaks out, in all its shocking and disruptive forms.
Peasants rose up in Chinas rural Hunan province in 1927, and many observers, virtually ALL of them, even among the communists, declared it was terrible.
After all, there were excesses in these disturbances. The urban educated ones found these rough out-of-control farmers terrifying. There was often no sign of tight control OVER the peasant associations. And there was a sense of where will this go if not contained?
Indeed!
Mao Zedong, then a young communist activist, went to Hunan for one month of investigation during this 1927 uprising. He declared that all these critics were fundamentally confusing right and wrong and more, were unable to see what was arising and most promising within society.
All talk directed against the peasant movement must be speedily set right.
We are publishing a few excerpts from this essay and the reason for this should be obvious: The great uprising in Britain has even well meaning people muttering and too often people question whether it is OK to react to police murder in such extreme and shocking ways. If we dont get this right, we wont get anything right.
We urge you to read the whole essay (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm).
Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan
by Mao Zedong
During my recent visit to Hunan [1 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n1)] I made a first-hand investigation of conditions in the five counties of Hsiangtan, Hsianghsiang, Hengshan, Liling and Changsha.
In the thirty-two days from January 4 to February 5, I called together fact-finding conferences in villages and county towns, which were attended by experienced peasants and by comrades working in the peasant movement, and I listened attentively to their reports and collected a great deal of material. Many of the hows and whys of the peasant movement were the exact opposite of what the gentry in Hankow and Changsha are saying. I saw and heard of many strange things of which I had hitherto been unaware. I believe the same is true of many other places, too.
All talk directed against the peasant movement must be speedily set right. All the wrong measures taken by the revolutionary authorities concerning the peasant movement must be speedily changed. Only thus can the future of the revolution be benefited.
For the present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event.
In a very short time, in Chinas central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves.
Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/anyuan-study-young-mao-zedong.jpg?w=300&h=420 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/anyuan-study-young-mao-zedong.jpg)The young Mao Zedong
ITS TERRIBLE! OR ITS FINE!
The peasants revolt disturbed the gentrys sweet dreams.
When the news from the countryside reached the cities, it caused immediate uproar among the gentry. Soon after my arrival in Changsha, I met all sorts of people and picked up a good deal of gossip.
From the middle social strata upwards to the Kuomintang right-wingers, there was not a single person who did not sum up the whole business in the phrase, Its terrible!
Under the impact of the views of the Its terrible! school then flooding the city, even quite revolutionary-minded people became down-hearted as they pictured the events in the countryside in their minds eye; and they were unable to deny the word terrible.
Even quite progressive people said, Though terrible, it is inevitable in a revolution. In short, nobody could altogether deny the word terrible.
But, as already mentioned, the fact is that the great peasant masses have risen to fulfill their historic mission and that the forces of rural democracy have risen to overthrow the forces of rural feudalism. The patriarchal-feudal class of local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords has formed the basis of autocratic government for thousands of years and is the cornerstone of imperialism, warlordism and corrupt officialdom. To overthrow these feudal forces is the real objective of the national revolution.
In a few months the peasants have accomplished what Dr. Sun Yat-sen wanted, but failed, to accomplish in the forty years he devoted to the national revolution. This is a marvelous feat never before achieved, not just in forty, but in thousands of years.
Its fine. It is not terrible at all. It is anything but terrible.
Its terrible! is obviously a theory for combating the rise of the peasants in the interests of the landlords; it is obviously a theory of the landlord class for preserving the old order of feudalism and obstructing the establishment of the new order of democracy, it is obviously a counterrevolutionary theory.
No revolutionary comrade should echo this nonsense. If your revolutionary viewpoint is firmly established and if you have been to the villages and looked around, you will undoubtedly feel thrilled as never before. Countless thousands of the enslavedthe peasantsare striking down the enemies who battened on their flesh.
What the peasants are doing is absolutely right, what they are doing is fine!
Its fine! is the theory of the peasants and of all other revolutionaries. Every revolutionary comrade should know that the national revolution requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911 [3 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n3)] did not bring about this change, hence its failure. This change is now taking place, and it is an important factor for the completion of the revolution. Every revolutionary comrade must support it, or he will be taking the stand of counter-revolution.
THE QUESTION OF GOING TOO FAR
Then there is another section of people who say, Yes, peasant associations are necessary, but they are going rather too far. This is the opinion of the middle-of-the-roaders. But what is the actual situation? True, the peasants are in a sense unruly in the countryside. Supreme in authority, the peasant association allows the landlord no say and sweeps away his prestige.
This amounts to striking the landlord down to the dust and keeping him there.
The peasants threaten, We will put you in the other register! They fine the local tyrants and evil gentry, they demand contributions from them, and they smash their sedan-chairs. People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs and consume their grain. They even loll for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry. At the slightest provocation they make arrests, crown the arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages, saying, You dirty landlords, now you know who we are! Doing whatever they like and turning everything upside down, they have created a kind of terror in the countryside. This is what some people call going too far, or exceeding the proper limits in righting a wrong, or really too much. Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong. First, the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have themselves driven the peasants to this. For ages they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and trample them underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly. The most violent revolts and the most serious disorders have invariably occurred in places where the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords perpetrated the worst outrages. The peasants are clear-sighted. Who is bad and who is not, who is the worst and who is not quite so vicious, who deserves severe punishment and who deserves to be let off lightlythe peasants keep clear accounts, and very seldom has the punishment exceeded the crime. Secondly, a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. [4 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n4)] A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the power of the feudal landlord class. Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot possibly overthrow the deep-rooted authority of the landlords which has lasted for thousands of years. The rural areas need a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can rouse the people in their millions to become a powerful force. All the actions mentioned here which have been labeled as going too far flow from the power of the peasants, which has been called forth by the mighty revolutionary upsurge in the countryside. It was highly necessary for such things to be done in the second period of the peasant movement, the period of revolutionary action. In this period it was necessary to establish the absolute authority of the peasants. It was necessary to forbid malicious criticism of the peasant associations. It was necessary to overthrow the whole authority of the gentry, to strike them to the ground and keep them there. There is revolutionary significance in all the actions which were labeled as going too far in this period. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter-revolutionaries in the countryside or overthrow the authority of the gentry. Proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot be righted. [5 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n5)] Those who talk about the peasants going too far seem at first sight to be different from those who say Its terrible! as mentioned earlier, but in essence they proceed from the same standpoint and likewise voice a landlord theory that upholds the interests of the privileged classes. Since this theory impedes the rise of the peasant movement and so disrupts the revolution, we must firmly oppose it.http://kasamaproject.org/2011/08/09/when-the-poor-rise-up-is-it-terrible-or-is-it-fine/
tl;dr mao supports the london youth and you should too
This is a very basic question of world-view and class stand including right now when the whole world is awash in propaganda and hand-wringing denouncing the rebels of London. If we dont speak out for them what are WE about?!
Here is a crucial essay from communist history a story of orientation when class struggle breaks out, in all its shocking and disruptive forms.
Peasants rose up in Chinas rural Hunan province in 1927, and many observers, virtually ALL of them, even among the communists, declared it was terrible.
After all, there were excesses in these disturbances. The urban educated ones found these rough out-of-control farmers terrifying. There was often no sign of tight control OVER the peasant associations. And there was a sense of where will this go if not contained?
Indeed!
Mao Zedong, then a young communist activist, went to Hunan for one month of investigation during this 1927 uprising. He declared that all these critics were fundamentally confusing right and wrong and more, were unable to see what was arising and most promising within society.
All talk directed against the peasant movement must be speedily set right.
We are publishing a few excerpts from this essay and the reason for this should be obvious: The great uprising in Britain has even well meaning people muttering and too often people question whether it is OK to react to police murder in such extreme and shocking ways. If we dont get this right, we wont get anything right.
We urge you to read the whole essay (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm).
Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan
by Mao Zedong
During my recent visit to Hunan [1 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n1)] I made a first-hand investigation of conditions in the five counties of Hsiangtan, Hsianghsiang, Hengshan, Liling and Changsha.
In the thirty-two days from January 4 to February 5, I called together fact-finding conferences in villages and county towns, which were attended by experienced peasants and by comrades working in the peasant movement, and I listened attentively to their reports and collected a great deal of material. Many of the hows and whys of the peasant movement were the exact opposite of what the gentry in Hankow and Changsha are saying. I saw and heard of many strange things of which I had hitherto been unaware. I believe the same is true of many other places, too.
All talk directed against the peasant movement must be speedily set right. All the wrong measures taken by the revolutionary authorities concerning the peasant movement must be speedily changed. Only thus can the future of the revolution be benefited.
For the present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event.
In a very short time, in Chinas central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves.
Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/anyuan-study-young-mao-zedong.jpg?w=300&h=420 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/anyuan-study-young-mao-zedong.jpg)The young Mao Zedong
ITS TERRIBLE! OR ITS FINE!
The peasants revolt disturbed the gentrys sweet dreams.
When the news from the countryside reached the cities, it caused immediate uproar among the gentry. Soon after my arrival in Changsha, I met all sorts of people and picked up a good deal of gossip.
From the middle social strata upwards to the Kuomintang right-wingers, there was not a single person who did not sum up the whole business in the phrase, Its terrible!
Under the impact of the views of the Its terrible! school then flooding the city, even quite revolutionary-minded people became down-hearted as they pictured the events in the countryside in their minds eye; and they were unable to deny the word terrible.
Even quite progressive people said, Though terrible, it is inevitable in a revolution. In short, nobody could altogether deny the word terrible.
But, as already mentioned, the fact is that the great peasant masses have risen to fulfill their historic mission and that the forces of rural democracy have risen to overthrow the forces of rural feudalism. The patriarchal-feudal class of local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords has formed the basis of autocratic government for thousands of years and is the cornerstone of imperialism, warlordism and corrupt officialdom. To overthrow these feudal forces is the real objective of the national revolution.
In a few months the peasants have accomplished what Dr. Sun Yat-sen wanted, but failed, to accomplish in the forty years he devoted to the national revolution. This is a marvelous feat never before achieved, not just in forty, but in thousands of years.
Its fine. It is not terrible at all. It is anything but terrible.
Its terrible! is obviously a theory for combating the rise of the peasants in the interests of the landlords; it is obviously a theory of the landlord class for preserving the old order of feudalism and obstructing the establishment of the new order of democracy, it is obviously a counterrevolutionary theory.
No revolutionary comrade should echo this nonsense. If your revolutionary viewpoint is firmly established and if you have been to the villages and looked around, you will undoubtedly feel thrilled as never before. Countless thousands of the enslavedthe peasantsare striking down the enemies who battened on their flesh.
What the peasants are doing is absolutely right, what they are doing is fine!
Its fine! is the theory of the peasants and of all other revolutionaries. Every revolutionary comrade should know that the national revolution requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911 [3 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n3)] did not bring about this change, hence its failure. This change is now taking place, and it is an important factor for the completion of the revolution. Every revolutionary comrade must support it, or he will be taking the stand of counter-revolution.
THE QUESTION OF GOING TOO FAR
Then there is another section of people who say, Yes, peasant associations are necessary, but they are going rather too far. This is the opinion of the middle-of-the-roaders. But what is the actual situation? True, the peasants are in a sense unruly in the countryside. Supreme in authority, the peasant association allows the landlord no say and sweeps away his prestige.
This amounts to striking the landlord down to the dust and keeping him there.
The peasants threaten, We will put you in the other register! They fine the local tyrants and evil gentry, they demand contributions from them, and they smash their sedan-chairs. People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs and consume their grain. They even loll for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry. At the slightest provocation they make arrests, crown the arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages, saying, You dirty landlords, now you know who we are! Doing whatever they like and turning everything upside down, they have created a kind of terror in the countryside. This is what some people call going too far, or exceeding the proper limits in righting a wrong, or really too much. Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong. First, the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have themselves driven the peasants to this. For ages they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and trample them underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly. The most violent revolts and the most serious disorders have invariably occurred in places where the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords perpetrated the worst outrages. The peasants are clear-sighted. Who is bad and who is not, who is the worst and who is not quite so vicious, who deserves severe punishment and who deserves to be let off lightlythe peasants keep clear accounts, and very seldom has the punishment exceeded the crime. Secondly, a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. [4 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n4)] A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the power of the feudal landlord class. Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot possibly overthrow the deep-rooted authority of the landlords which has lasted for thousands of years. The rural areas need a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can rouse the people in their millions to become a powerful force. All the actions mentioned here which have been labeled as going too far flow from the power of the peasants, which has been called forth by the mighty revolutionary upsurge in the countryside. It was highly necessary for such things to be done in the second period of the peasant movement, the period of revolutionary action. In this period it was necessary to establish the absolute authority of the peasants. It was necessary to forbid malicious criticism of the peasant associations. It was necessary to overthrow the whole authority of the gentry, to strike them to the ground and keep them there. There is revolutionary significance in all the actions which were labeled as going too far in this period. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter-revolutionaries in the countryside or overthrow the authority of the gentry. Proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot be righted. [5 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm#n5)] Those who talk about the peasants going too far seem at first sight to be different from those who say Its terrible! as mentioned earlier, but in essence they proceed from the same standpoint and likewise voice a landlord theory that upholds the interests of the privileged classes. Since this theory impedes the rise of the peasant movement and so disrupts the revolution, we must firmly oppose it.http://kasamaproject.org/2011/08/09/when-the-poor-rise-up-is-it-terrible-or-is-it-fine/
tl;dr mao supports the london youth and you should too