What makes a 'Marxist'?

[Blanquist]

In 1950, Mao Zedong admitted to Molotov that he had never read Capital. He was 56 years old at the time and supreme leader of China. Was he a 'Marxist'?

In his memoirs Mikoyan writes about the fight against illiteracy in the SU, saying (I'm paraphrasing) that "In some areas of central Asia over 90% of Marxists were illiterate" Could these illiterate people possibly be "Marxists"?

You get the idea.

So, what makes a 'Marxist'? Who is a Marxist and who isn't?

Thank you for your time.

[Rooster]

Most people here have never read Capital either.

[Agent Ducky]

Someone who believes in the fundamental ideas:
Including but not limited to... history is essentially class conflict, bourgeoisie is exploiting proletariat, proletariat should unite and overthrow capitalism and take the means of production so it can be collectively owned... This happens after the dictatorship of the proletariat stage, which ends when the workers' state withers away due to it not being necessary anymore... (someone's going to get all over my shit for this. I know it's oversimplified and basic.)
One doesn't have to necessarily be literate to be a Marxist. One doesn't have to have read X amount of works by Marx, as this would count out a lot of beginners. Having read Capital doesn't determine whether Mao Zedong was a Marxist or not. His beliefs and actions and whether or not those aligned to those outlined by Marx do. The degree to which Mao's beliefs and actions did or did not would be the subject of a huge gross tendency war that I, for one, have no interest in witnessing.

[daft punk]

Mao was not a proper Marxist. He was a stagist so he thought China should be capitalist for at least several decades. Also he based himself on the peasantry and took power via a guerilla war against the capitalist KMT (who Stalin was backing). Marx, Engels, Trotsky, and Lenin after September 1917, all said socialism had to be built by the urban workers, and that if they led, the poor peasants would split from the richer ones and follow them. Stalin then sacked that idea for several years until he was forced to collectivise to save his ass.

No you dont need to read capital but there are odd chunks that are worth knowing, you just need to know that basics and have a grasp of history.

One of the best things to read is In Defence of October. This is a speech by Trotsky to Danish social democrat students in 1932. The Danish government wouldnt let him talk about the Russian regime, ie Stalin, but it is a very good short piece.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/11/oct.htm

[RedAtheist]

Someone who believes in the fundamental ideas:
Including but not limited to... history is essentially class conflict, bourgeoisie is exploiting proletariat, proletariat should unite and overthrow capitalism and take the means of production so it can be collectively owned... This happens after the dictatorship of the proletariat stage, which ends when the workers' state withers away due to it not being necessary anymore... (someone's going to get all over my shit for this. I know it's oversimplified and basic.)


Actually I thought your description was good overall, except that my understanding of Marx's theory of socialist revolution leads me to think that he believed the means of production would become common property as part of the establishment of a proletariat dictatorship, not after the proletariat dictatorship was over. Basically the proletarians become the ruling class and rearrange society to suit their interests (kind of like how the capitalists, after they gained power, came up with a constitution which guaranteed the 'right' to own private property.) This would involve the means of production becoming collective property, since the workers (who work together using such means of production, but do not currently own them) would benefit if the factories, farms, offices, etc. became the property of the entire community, allowing them to have a say over how they were used.

That's my understanding at least, feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

[el_chavista]

A Marxist is any one who realizes that getting rid of the bourgeois is the only way to achieve a true democracy.

[MajorGeneralPineapple]

Mao was not a proper Marxist. He was a stagist so he thought China should be capitalist for at least several decades.

But didn't Marx see Capitalism as the necessary step toward socialism, not only because it antagonizes class relations and facilitates class consciousness, but also because it establishes the industrial and technological foundation necessary for a working socialist/communist society?

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, but he also saw the creation of the world market, not the development of capitalism in any given locale, as the important factor here.

Which is why the Marxists of the Second International, and on into the Third International, thought that the First World War had opened up the period when there would be no more capitalist development; capitalism had completed its historically necessary tasks and henceforward, everywhere proletarian revolution was on the agenda.

[Soseloshvili]

In 1950, Mao Zedong admitted to Molotov that he had never read Capital.

Dude, have you read Capital? It's the densest, least reader-friendly book you will ever encounter. I had to go at it with multiple study guides twice before I even understood the basics of what Marx was trying to say.

Capital, really, is all the little details about HOW Capitalism works. Which is good to understand, but not essential to being a Marxist.


But didn't Marx see Capitalism as the necessary step toward socialism, not only because it antagonizes class relations and facilitates class consciousness, but also because it establishes the industrial and technological foundation necessary for a working socialist/communist society?

That's highly debatable - whether all societies must pass through the phase of Capitalism or not is something Marxists argue over a lot.

In general, I'm going to say that a "Marxist" is anyone who:

1) understands that the proletariat (those who have to sell their labour to survive) and the bourgeoisie (those who control the means of production to profit) are diametrically opposed

2) understands that the proletariat do not need the bourgeoisie in order to maintain society

3) realizes that nothing is static, that everything in our world is coming from somewhere and heading towards something (dialectics) and that the subjective world is just a reflection of the objective world (materialism)

[Rooster]

Dude, have you read Capital? It's the densest, least reader-friendly book you will ever encounter.

Pfft, no it's not.


Capital, really, is all the little details about HOW Capitalism works. Which is good to understand, but not essential to being a Marxist.

I actually think that having a good understanding of capital is one of the crucial points about being a Marxist and you can't really be an effective one otherwise (see all those state-capitalists and market socialists).

[Sakura]

Well, I think the answer to that question depends on who you ask.

To reactionary types, it practically refers to everyone and everything.
To certain groups calling themselves Marxist, it doesn't include certain rival groups who also call themselves Marxist.

I would consider people who adhere to the basic tenets of Marxian theory to be Marxist, whether or not they strictly believe in the concepts presented in Capital or other works.

[CommunityBeliever]

He was a stagist so he thought China should be capitalist for at least several decades.

It was precisely to avoid having to go through a capitalist stage that Mao iniated the New Democratic revolution. The fact that New Democracy propelled China from a semi-fuedal and semi-colonial society to a radical socialist economy in a few decades is a testament to the revolutionary might of Maoist practice.

[Rooster]

It was precisely to avoid having to go through a capitalist stage that Mao iniated the New Democratic revolution. The fact that New Democracy propelled China from a semi-fuedal and semi-colonial society to a radical socialist economy in a few decades is a testament to the revolutionary might of Maoist practice.

Do you think China is socialist?

[CommunityBeliever]

Do you think China is socialist? Chinese socialists are actively struggling against revisionist, opportunist, and capitalist elements which are working to reverse all of the achievements of socialism development.

[Rooster]

Chinese socialists are actively struggling against revisionist, opportunist, and capitalist elements which are working to reverse all of the achievements of socialism development.

Is it or isn't it socialist? Was it ever socialist?

[daft punk]

"He was a stagist so he thought China should be capitalist for at least several decades."

It was precisely to avoid having to go through a capitalist stage that Mao iniated the New Democratic revolution. The fact that New Democracy propelled China from a semi-fuedal and semi-colonial society to a radical socialist economy in a few decades is a testament to the revolutionary might of Maoist practice.

Mao, 1945:

"Some people fail to understand why, so far from fearing capitalism, Communists should advocate its development in certain given conditions. Our answer is simple. The substitution of a certain degree of capitalist development for the oppression of foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism is not only an advance but an unavoidable process. It benefits the proletariat as well as the bourgeoisie, and the former perhaps more. It is not domestic capitalism but foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism which are superfluous in China today; indeed, we have too little of capitalism."

"Our Party must also have a specific programme for each period based on this general programme. Our general programme of New Democracy will remain unchanged throughout the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, that is, for several decades."

"Why do we say our revolution in the present period is bourgeois-democratic in nature? We mean that the target of this revolution is not the bourgeoisie in general but national and feudal oppression, that the measures taken in this revolution are in general directed not at abolishing but at protecting private property, and that as a result of this revolution the working class will be able to build up the strength to lead China in the direction of socialism, though capitalism will still be enabled to grow to an appropriate extent for a fairly long period."

"Such is the general or fundamental programme which we Communists advocate for the present stage, the entire stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. This is our minimum programme as against our future or maximum programme of socialism and communism. Its realization will carry the Chinese state and Chinese society a step forward, from a colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal to a new-democratic state and society. The political leadership of the proletariat and the proletarian-led state and co-operative sectors of the economy required by our programme are socialist factors. Yet the fulfilment of this programme will not turn China into a socialist society."

"If any Communist or Communist sympathizer talks about socialism and communism but fails to fight for this objective, if he belittles this bourgeois-democratic revolution, relaxes or slows down ever so slightly and shows the least disloyalty and coolness or is reluctant to shed his blood or give his life for it, then wittingly or unwittingly, such a person is betraying socialism and communism to a greater or lesser extent and is certainly not a politically conscious and staunch fighter for communism. It is a law of Marxism that socialism can be attained only via the stage of democracy. "
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_25.htm

Stalinst Two Stage Theory, capitalism first, to build a backward country into an industrialised one, and then socialism several decades later. For Stalin it was just an excuse to crush revolutions, he feared socialism.

[CommunityBeliever]

Mao, 1945: What is the purpose of this quote mining?


Stalinst Two Stage Theory, capitalism first, to build a backward country into an industrialised one, and then socialism several decades later. The characteristics of the capitalism mode of production must first arise for socialist development to occur, however, in a New Democratic revolution this transition takes a radically different form, whereby it is lead by a joint dictatorship of revolutionary classes against the forces of imperialism.

“Although such a revolution in a colonial and semi-colonial country is still fundamentally bourgeois-democratic in its social character during its first stage or first step, and although its objective mission is to clear the path for the development of capitalism, it is no longer a revolution of the old type led by the bourgeoisie with the aim of establishing a capitalist society and a state under bourgeois dictatorship. It belongs to the new type of revolution led by the proletariat with the aim, in the first stage, of establishing a new-democratic society and a state under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes.” - Mao Zedong


For Stalin it was just an excuse to crush revolutions, he feared socialism.Maoists rightfully point out Stalin's mistakes, such as his failure to stop reactionaries such as Lysenko and Khrushchev from hindering socialist development. However, to state that Stalin single-handedly crushed revolutions is the sort of ridiculous slander that I have come to expect from Trotskyists.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think to be a marxist at minimum you have to believe that the way forward for the worker's movement and the way out of the problems of capitalism is the self-emancipation of the working class. It's a synthesis of a historical materialist class perspective (theory) and working class movements (action).

There have been many revolutionary Marxists who as individuals were not all that well read (but still well red:lol:). If there are revolutionary working class movements or even really militant struggle, many theoretical concepts of Marxism become much more readily apparent. Theory is very important in helping guide our actions, but up to a point, large numbers of workers may draw similar conclusions somewhat spontaneously. For example, in times of relative class peace, the role of the Democrats might be somewhat obscured to many people, but if there is a lot of struggle from below, many people will grasp whose side they are really on without first having the theoretical understanding. Theory is important in helping to clarify and solidify these advances though because consciousness may advance spontaneously, but it also retreats spontaneously.

Mao's problem IMO wasn't fundamentally a lack of reading.