Maoism

[Forward Union]

Do people here realize that the most successful branch of revolutionary socialism in the world today is Maoism? No other tendency has organised the kinds of revolutionary movements since the fall of the USSR. From the PKK to the Naxals, the PFLP and the Zapatistas, It's actually quite astonishing.

Why do people here think that Maoism has been so successful? Does this warrant a reconsideration of some fundamental aspects of Maosit theory?

[Tim Cornelis]

The Maoists, advocating people's war, do something tangible. Consequently, it appeals to peasants and workers in dire poverty where such strategy becomes the only way to escape their situation. That'd be my view on why Maoism is popular, actually doing something and reaching out. To workers, it doesn't matter whether these people waging war on their behalf and in their interests call themselves Maoists, anarchists, social-democrats -- the theoretical baggage is less important than the strategy. Now, we can contest whether this doing something is qualitatively better than other strategies, or revolutionary at all, but I'd say this is the primary reason Maoism is one of the largest tendencies despite it failing in China.

However, the Zapatistas are not Maoists, the PKK had a Maoist tendency but has abandoned Marxism-Leninism around 1995, and the PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist party (the DFLP is Maoist).

Does this warrant reconsideration of Maoism? No. We need a proper strategical framework to accommodate social change, one that revolves around the short-term interests of workers. This does not, in my view, imply a people's war (especially in the more affluent areas of the world). The strategies of the Landless Workers' Movement and Abahlali baseMjondolo and such seem more successful than the Maoist's.

[Forward Union]

However, the Zapatistas are not Maoists

I didn't say the Zapatistas were Maoists but they are a direct result of Maoism. The EZLN came out of the failings of the Maoist National Liberation Force, of which Marcos was prominent member. When the organisation collapsed he and a few others stayed to continue organizing and were funded by Shining Path.

[Tim Cornelis]

I didn't say the Zapatistas were Maoists but they are a direct result of Maoism. The EZLN came out of the failings of the Maoist National Liberation Force, of which Marcos was prominent member. When the organisation collapsed he and a few others stayed to continue organizing and were funded by Shining Path.

You sort of claimed Maoists organised the Zapatistas, Naxals, etc. which implies they were. So what's the point of crediting Maoists with an organisation that claims no affinity with them? It seems a bit like saying the social-democratic Socialist Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_(Netherlands)) shows how successful Maoism is.
That they were funded by the Shining Path also does not relate to Maoism and it's a first I've heard this. Are you sure you're not confusing them with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front?

[Forward Union]

You sort of claimed Maoists organised the Zapatistas, Naxals, etc. which implies they were. So what's the point of crediting Maoists with an organisation that claims no affinity with them? It seems a bit like saying the social-democratic Socialist Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_(Netherlands)) shows how successful Maoism is.
That they were funded by the Shining Path also does not relate to Maoism and it's a first I've heard this. Are you sure you're not confusing them with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front?

The Zapatistas weren't organised by Anarchists, Trotskyists or Social Democrats. They were organised by Maoists who went there to try to implement Maoism. It didn't quite work and they ended up adapting Maoism to a point where they are now closer to some sort of Libertarian Socialism, at least internally, but that fact is beside the point. It was Maosim which inspired the organisation and insurrection. And I think this is an interesting point. I think you are right that Maosim offers something tangible, but is that it? Don't Anarchism, Trotskyismand Syndicalism also offer some quite tangible things?

I'm obviously playing devils advocate here. I am of course not a Maoist, but aren't there questions about the self-interest of the peasantry being easier to organise than the working class? The mass appeal of Maosim probably shouldn't be ignored by those of us who intend to build the power of working people

[Tim Cornelis]

The Zapatistas weren't organised by Anarchists, Trotskyists or Social Democrats. They were organised by Maoists who went there to try to implement Maoism. It didn't quite work and they ended up adapting Maoism to a point where they are now closer to some sort of Libertarian Socialism, at least internally, but that fact is beside the point. It was Maosim which inspired the organisation and insurrection. And I think this is an interesting point. I think you are right that Maosim offers something tangible, but is that it? Don't Anarchism, Trotskyismand Syndicalism also offer some quite tangible things?

I'm obviously playing devils advocate here. I am of course not a Maoist, but aren't there questions about the self-interest of the peasantry being easier to organise than the working class? The mass appeal of Maosim probably shouldn't be ignored by those of us who intend to build the power of working people

Right, and the Dutch Socialist Party was organised by Maoists but only became popular once they dropped the Maoism and Marxism-Leninism. This would suggest a failure of Maoism rather than a success, no? So how do the Zapatistas, having to drop Maoism ("it didn't quite work") in order to successfully organise prove Maoism to be a success? That would, instinctively, show Maoism to be unsuccessful in this particular instance.
Does anarchism provide something tangible? Usually not. Most anarchist organisations agitate against oppression and exploitation, but don't produce any results. Syndicalism does provide something tangible, hence it having been a major success historically (and anarchist mass movements always having been syndicalist -- presently, the three out of four largest explicitly libertarian socialist organistions in the world are syndicalist: CNT, SGT, SAC, with the Turkish ÖDP being a rare non-syndicalist mass movement, though small in historical perspective). Trotskyists, like anarchists, also usually don't produce any 'tangible' results. If they do, it's merely through electoral populism (like in Algeria, Sri Lanka, and Ireland).

[Forward Union]

Right, and the Dutch Socialist Party was organised by Maoists but only became popular once they dropped the Maoism and Marxism-Leninism. This would suggest a failure of Maoism rather than a success, no? So how do the Zapatistas, having to drop Maoism ("it didn't quite work") in order to successfully organise prove Maoism to be a success? That would, instinctively, show Maoism to be unsuccessful in this particular instance.

Perhaps. But on the other hand the idea got further than any of the others in this case, and the majority of others. And I don't think adaptability is a weakness there may be some serious flaws in Maosim, but the fact is that it's done more stuff and been at the center of the majority of these mass movements. Alright so it's messy, impure, and adaptable. I'm talking about Maosim as a discourse rather than a strictly defined ideology. The point still stands thats Anarchists didn't organise the EZLN. Anarchists didn't even get as far as changing their appraoch to win more people over. I'm not specifically picking on Anarchists, just using them as an example.


Does anarchism provide something tangible? Usually not. Most anarchist organisations agitate against oppression and exploitation, but don't produce any results.

Anarchism has probably been the least effective tendency on the far left. I am not of the opinion that this is because of an inherant flaw in the political proposals of Anarchism. In fact Maoism and Anarchism do have so overlap in their rejection of the legitimacy of a Socialist state after the revoluton, but actually I don't want to discuss anarchism.

[SamEmm]

How are you defining "success" here?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[Jimmie Higgins]

If we are abstractly looking at success, and accomplishments, then we'd have to say that democratic socialism has had the most success: in popularizing a kind of general marxism, in organizing the most workers, in attaining parliamentary power, in being the leading political force when old regimes have fallen. However it has done a terrible job at connecting that clout and organization to working class self-emancipation.

In terms of organizing workers for revolutionary self-emancipation, I think that anarcho-syndicalism and non-Stalinist Bolshevism are the high water marks (so far). Partially this is due to the historical situation when they emerged: mass working class movements at a time when the failures of reformist efforts had become more apparent to tons of people and capitalism went into crisis of wars and the economy.

Moaism was very sucessful in the context of national liberation revolutions after WWII IMO. They could unite parts of the workers movement with peasant rebellion and the intelligentsia which was a potent combination - especially at that time. But today I don't think it would be possible for a revolutionary movement in Mexico to be lead by the intelligencia allied with rural struggles; a revolution in Mexico would need the massive Mexican working class. While the most resistance in India is probably rural opposition to neoliberal modernization, India can not be liberated from the countryside IMO. If China sees another revolution it will likely be a urban worker's revolution, not a rural rebellion. That isn't to say that the Zapatistas or rural resistance in India are not important, but I don't think they could actually be fully successful without industrial rebellion and I don't think that socialism would be possible if the whole rebellion is not led by working class forces, not academics in the name of the good of "the people", not sincere rural revolutionaries either.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Well, first of all, I think in this case we need a stricter definition of Maoism as to define it's success. It simply isn't fair for Maoism to claim the Zapadastas or the Kurdish workers party. So let's limit our definition to parties that follow the line of the Communist Party of Peru and the 1993 declaration of the RIM that established Marxist-Leninist-Maoism as a specific tendency within the communist movement, and the parties that adopted MLM later. Additionally, despite the fact that the Communist Party of the Philippines was late in the game and it is unclear if they adopted MLM in their programme (they use ML-MZT and MLM in different declarations at different times, suggesting a constant debate over the issue in their internal affairs), I don't think anyone minds if I include the CCP within the category of "Maoism".

So in a certain sense, yes, the MLM movement has been successful. Presently, we are engaging in armed conflict in numerous states including India, the Philippines, Bhutan, Peru, and others, And I would say that in India, the Philippines and Nepal it is adequate to say that Maoist forces represent a revolutionary challenge to state power. However at the same time there is also the problem of revisionism that some people use to write off the entire movement ,as if we are all Prachandas in hiding. To be honest, this is a fair critique. But at the same time I think we need to be aware of the fact that revisionism doesn't fall out of the air, it is real possibility that affects real movements. So yes, it is correct that this is a fair critique, however at the same time it is bound to happen to any real movement when humans want to exploit the movement to it's end. And while this might not happen to your adverage hoxhaist/trotskyist/leftcommunist/anarchist group where you have them ditch the programme for reformism, we have also never seen any of these groups enter a position where they could fail because they have not made a challenge for power. So while I respect this critique, I also think that if Trotskyism or Left Communism were in the position of Maoism today, that they would also have their own Prachandas to deal with, and that we could not dismiss them on that basis.


India can not be liberated from the countryside IMO.

You do realize that the Maoists are moving into cities, have led multiple general strikes throughout the country, are one of the leading forces in the trade union movement, and that the reason why they operate in the country side is the relative lack of state suppression there, which in India is the modern equivalent to Tsarist Russia, correct?

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

You wanna know what I think?

I think that different tendencies work better in different situations. I sometimes don't understand how people can get so obsessed with sects and tendencies and completely miss the big picture? Why can't people use BOTH armed revolution and political advocacy? No one tendency is a blanket antidote that the whole world can use, we have to take the good parts, combine it with what works, and adapt as the struggle goes.

[ind_com]

Why can't people use BOTH armed revolution and political advocacy?

What will the political advocacy be like?

[Ismail]

Maoism is a petty-bourgeois tendency. It gains support in rural areas because of its peasant-centric focus, but that's hardly surprising. Many prominent American Communists started out as Syndicalists before the advent of the October Revolution. That people are willing to fight under the banner of Communism anywhere, no matter how bastardized that banner may be, is always a good sign. The problem is how those "Communists" actually act, and what happens when they come to power.

Also if the EZLN was comprised of ex-Maoists then that says something quite bad about Maoism, considering how ridiculously naïve the EZLN was/is. As William Blum once noted (http://williamblum.org/aer/read/4):

In 1994, it was reported that the leader of the Zapatista rebels in Mexico, Subcommander Marcos said that “he expects the United States to support the Zapatistas once US intelligence agencies are convinced the movement is not influenced by Cubans or Russians.” “Finally,” Marcos said, “they are going to conclude that this is a Mexican problem, with just and true causes.”I notice a lot of Anarchists gravitate toward Maoism in some way. As Hoxha noted, "When one talks of 'Mao Tsetung thought' it is difficult to discern a single clear line in it, since, as we said at the beginning, it is an amalgam of ideologies, from anarchism, Trotskyism, modern revisionism à la Tito, à la Khrushchev... Even those aspects of Mao Tsetung's views which come out in the form of a distorted Marxism-Leninism bear the seal and features of a certain 'Asiocommunism' with heavy doses of nationalism, xenophobia and even Buddhist religion, and were bound to come into open opposition with Marxism-Leninism eventually." (Imperialism and the Revolution, 1979, pp. 449-450.)

[ind_com]

Maoism is a petty-bourgeois tendency. It gains support in rural areas because of its peasant-centric focus, but that's hardly surprising.

Maoism gains support in the rural areas because it usually emerges as the only tendency that has a programme of expropriating feudal lords and redistributing land, and actually implements that programme.


Many prominent American Communists started out as Syndicalists before the advent of the October Revolution. That people are willing to fight under the banner of Communism anywhere, no matter how bastardized that banner may be, is always a good sign. The problem is how those "Communists" actually act, and what happens when they come to power.

Also if the EZLN was comprised of ex-Maoists then that says something quite bad about Maoism, considering how ridiculously naïve the EZLN was/is. As William Blum once noted (http://williamblum.org/aer/read/4):
I notice a lot of Anarchists gravitate toward Maoism in some way. As Hoxha noted, "When one talks of 'Mao Tsetung thought' it is difficult to discern a single clear line in it, since, as we said at the beginning, it is an amalgam of ideologies, from anarchism, Trotskyism, modern revisionism à la Tito, à la Khrushchev... Even those aspects of Mao Tsetung's views which come out in the form of a distorted Marxism-Leninism bear the seal and features of a certain 'Asiocommunism' with heavy doses of nationalism, xenophobia and even Buddhist religion, and were bound to come into open opposition with Marxism-Leninism eventually." (Imperialism and the Revolution, 1979, pp. 449-450.)

The usual stuff from Hoxha in the 70s. All show-off and zero analysis.

[Sudsy]

It gains support in rural areas because of its peasant-centric focus, but that's hardly surprising.

Peasant-centric? The october revolution was fought in russia in 1917 where over 80 percent of the population were from the peasantry, so unless Lenin was fighting a petite bourgeoise revolution, the peasantry is a proletarian force. Lenin spoke of the importance of the peasantry, Maoism just puts it in theory.

The peasantry wants land and freedom. There can be no two opinions on this score. All class-conscious workers support the revolutionary peasantry with all their might. All class-conscious workers want and are fighting for the peasantry to receive all the land and full freedom. - V.I Lenin

[Ismail]

Peasant-centric? The october revolution was fought in russia in 1917 where over 80 percent of the population were from the peasantry, so unless Lenin was fighting a petite bourgeoise revolution, the peasantry is a proletarian force. Lenin spoke of the importance of the peasantry, Maoism just puts it in theory.

The peasantry wants land and freedom. There can be no two opinions on this score. All class-conscious workers support the revolutionary peasantry with all their might. All class-conscious workers want and are fighting for the peasantry to receive all the land and full freedom. - V.I LeninNo one denies the importance of the peasantry. Hoxha noted during the National Liberation War that the peasantry, being by far the most numerous class in Albania, should be at the forefront of the war effort, with the working-class and its vanguard always present, educating the peasants and leading them in the struggle. Mao, by contrast, claimed that "New Democracy" gives political power to the peasantry. Unlike the Albanians, who began their struggle in the cities and towns and spread into the countryside, the Maoist strategy begins by rousing the countryside and isolating oneself from the cities and towns, and thus from the working-class.

[ind_com]

Unlike the Albanians, who began their struggle in the cities and towns and spread into the countryside, the Maoist strategy begins by rousing the countryside and isolating oneself from the cities and towns, and thus from the working-class.

Maoists initiate the armed struggle in the rural areas, while engaging in other political activities in the cities. Till now there has been no tendency which has been able to initiate armed struggle in the cities against a stable and well-established government and overthrow it.

[Brutus]

peasant-centric? The october revolution was fought in russia in 1917 where over 80 percent of the population were from the peasantry

The October revolution took place in the cities, not in the countryside. It wasn't peasant-centric just because it included the peasantry, or in that case all of the bourgeois revolutions were peasant-centric!

[Homo Songun]

You guys know that different countries are going to do things differently, right?

[Homo Songun]

So let's limit our definition to parties that follow the line of the Communist Party of Peru and the 1993 declaration of the RIM that established Marxist-Leninist-Maoism as a specific tendency within the communist movement,This is absurdly narrow. The CPPhilippines is more important than most/all of the "RIM" together, which functionally doesn't even exist anymore. And since you agree with me that CPP ought to be considered "Maoist", then it necessarily follows from the fact that CPP sticks with the formulation "ML-MZT" that you must consider those parties.

I'm certain that there are large Indian parties that didn't want anything to do with RIM. There's the CCOMPOSA, ICMLPO, etc groupings for what that's worth, and so on and so on.

[ind_com]

This is absurdly narrow. The CPPhilippines is more important than most/all of the "RIM" together, which functionally doesn't even exist anymore. And since you agree with me that CPP ought to be considered "Maoist", then it necessarily follows from the fact that CPP sticks with the formulation "ML-MZT" that you must consider those parties.

I'm certain that there are large Indian parties that didn't want anything to do with RIM. There's the CCOMPOSA, ICMLPO, etc groupings for what that's worth, and so on and so on.

The Communist Party of the Philippines has shifted to MLM. But it is interesting to note that some key features of MLM themselves have changed with time and both the CPI(Maoist) and the PKP reject many of the theoretical features of Maoism put forward by the PCP.