How can people like Mao?

[CatsAttack]

He wasn't a Marxist, never read Das Kapital, didn't speak any foreign language, he wasn't an internationalist, he was a butcher, created his own cult of personality and slaughtered people who didn't worship him. Became an open agent of US imperialism in the heat of the Vietnam war, based his entire foreign policy on Anti-Sovietism, supporting the nastiest regimes and movements in the world. He was such a disgusting man with zero redeeming qualities. I'm sad to see so many 'Maoists' on this forum.

[Astarte]

He wasn't a Marxist, never read Das Kapital, didn't speak any foreign language, he wasn't an internationalist, he was a butcher, created his own cult of personality and slaughtered people who didn't worship him. Became an open agent of US imperialism in the heat of the Vietnam war, based his entire foreign policy on Anti-Sovietism, supporting the nastiest regimes and movements in the world. He was such a disgusting man with zero redeeming qualities. I'm sad to see so many 'Maoists' on this forum.

But he sure was one hell of a revolutionary.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

He wasn't a Marxist, never read Das Kapital,


No, when Mao first got involved in revolutionary politics he was well read in Anarchism and was one himself for a bit. It is true that he had not read Das Kapital before the civil war but he read all of Fredrick Engel's major works on dialetical materialism, in addition to Marx's Theories of Surplus Value, The Communist Manifesto, and the Critique of the Gotha Programme. He didn't get to Das Kapital till the 1950's. This was because there was no Chinese edition and he was busy fighting in an actual revolution to spend his time reading a thousand page tome unrelated to the task that was at hand. However he did study the works of Marx even more when he was able to get translations, not only including all volumes of Das Kapital but the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, which was considered an extremely rare work until recently. He also read a fair bit of Marx's personal correspondence.

Now, how much Marx have you read?


didn't speak any foreign language


So? He might not have been able to speak a foreign language, but I believe he knew some classical Chinese languages as well as dialects, I am not sure about that, I am only basing that on my knowledge of his early education.


he wasn't an internationalist


http://www.crestock.com/uploads/blog/2009/china-propaganda/1966-Vietnam.jpg
If you are wondering, which I imagine you are if you do not have a greater knowledge of foreign languages than Mao, the Chinese reads: Resolutely Support the American People's Struggle Against US Imperialism

I could post a million examples of his internationalism but I don't see the need for it. During the Sino-Soviet Split, the Soviet Union promoted the line of peaceful co-existence, the idea that any form of armed insurrection should be avoided because it might risk the chance of starting a world war in which the Soviet Union would be destroyed, and since the primary task of the Communist movement, according the the soviets, was to preserve the "socialist" nations", that therefore there could be no armed insurrections. Mao took the line that a world war would be positive because it could lead to world revolution if the International Communist Movement took Lenin's line of Revolutionary Defeatism and turned it into a world revolutionary war, even if this meant the destruction of the socialist camp. A line that is the direct descendant of Lenin's proposal to the "peace" mongering of liberal socialists and "socialist patrotism" of supporting one nation against another.


he was a butcher


This is a lengthy topic, so I'll just link this article.

http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward



created his own cult of personality


Actually, this was the work of Lin Biao who printed the Quotations of Mao in order to use the momentum of the Cultural Revolution to advance his position and become the successor of Mao. Chen Boda proposed that Mao be given a new position by the name of "State Chairmen" which would give him the same position as Kim Il Sung. Mao opposed this move and gave this document to the local regional party leaders:


“The question of genius is a theoretical question. Their theory was idealist apriorism. Someone has said that to oppose genius is to oppose me. But I am no genius. I read Confucian books for six years and capitalist books for seven. I did not read Marxist-Leninist books until 1918, so how can I be a genius?… I wrote ‘Some Opinions.’ which specially criticizes the genius theory, only after looking up some people to talk with them, and after some investigations and research. It is not that I do not want to talk about genius. To be a genius is to be a bit more intelligent. But genius does not depend on one person or a few people. It depends on a party, the party which is the vanguard of the proletariat. Genius is dependent on the mass line, on collective wisdom… I spoke to Comrade Lin Biao and some of the things he said were not very accurate. For example he said that a genius only appears in the world once in a few centuries and in China once in a few millennia. This just doesn’t fit the facts. Marx and Engels were contemporaries, and not one century had elapsed before we had Lenin and Stalin, so how could you say that a genius only appears once in a few centuries? In China there were Ch’en Sheng and Wu Kuang, Hung Hsiu-ch’üan and Sun Yat-sen, so how could you say that a genius only appears once in a few millennia? And then there is all this business about pinnacles and ‘one sentence being worth ten thousand’. Don’t you think this is going too far? One sentence is, after all, just one sentence, how can it be worth ten thousand sentences? We should not appoint a state chairman. I don’t want to be state chairman. I have said this six times already. If each time I said it I used one sentence, that is now the equivalent of sixty thousand sentences. But they never listen, so each of my sentences is not even worth half a sentence. In fact its value is zero.” “You should study the article written by Lenin on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Eugene Pottier. Learn to sing ‘The Internationale’ and ‘The Three Great Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention’. Let them not only be sung but also explained and acted upon. ‘The Internationale’ and Lenin’s article express throughout a Marxist standpoint and outlook. What they say is that slaves should arise and struggle for truth. There never has been any supreme saviour, nor can we rely on gods or emperors. We rely entirely on ourselves for our salvation. Who has created the world of human beings? We the laboring masses. During the Lushan Conference I wrote a 700-word article which raised the question of who created history, the heroes or the slaves.” [



and slaughtered people who didn't worship him.

From a recent discussion on Kasama

http://kasamaproject.org/history/1495-27mao-zedong-should-reactionaries-have-free-speech

The following is a transcript of one of Mao's conversations with his niece Wang Hai-Jung (December 21, 1970.) It deals with HOW revolutionaries should expose and isolate reactionaries -- and how they should deal with criticism from hostile forces. It touches directly on the question of whether to criminalize reactionary speech.



Hai-jung: Class struggle is very acute in our school. I hear that reactionary slogans have been found, some written in English on the blackboard of our English Department.

Chairman: What reactionary slogans have been written?

Hai-jung: I know only one. It is, 'Chiang wan sui.'

Chairman: How does it read in English?

Hai-jung: 'Long live Chiang.'

[i.e. a slogan, written in english, upholding Chiang Kai-Shek the leader of Nationalist Kuimintang Party that was overthrown by the communist revolution in 1949.]

Chairman: What else has been written?

Hai-jung: I don't know any others. I know only that one.

Chairman: Well, let this person write more and post them outdoors for all people to see. Does he kill people?

Hai-jung: I don't know if he kills people or not. If we find out who he is, we should dismiss him from school and send him away for labour reform.

Chairman: Well, so long as he doesn't kill people, we should not dismiss him, nor should we send him away for labour reform. Let him stay in school and continue to study. You people should hold a meeting and ask him to explain in what way Chiang Kai-shek is good and what good things he has done. On our part, you may tell why Chiang Kai-shek is not good.

Chairman: How many people are there in your school?

Hai-jung: About 3,000, including faculty and staff members.

Chairman: Among the 3,000 let us say there are seven or eight counter-revolutionaries.

Hai-jung: Even one would be bad. How could we tolerate seven or eight?

Chairman: You shouldn't be all stirred up by one slogan.

Hai-jung: Why should there be seven or eight counter-revolutionaries?

Chairman: When there are many, you can set up opposition. There can be teachers in opposition. Only they should not kill.

Hai-jung: Our school has realized the class line. Among the new students 70 per cent are workers and sons and daughters of poor and lower-middle farmers. Others are sons and daughters of cadres and heroic officers and men.

Chairman: How many sons and daughters of cadres are there in your class?

Hai-jung: In addition to myself, there are two, while others are the sons and daughters of workers and poor and lower-middle farmers. They do well. I learn much from them.

Chairman: Are they on good terms with you? Do they like you?

Hai-jung: I think our relationship is good. I find it easy to associate with them and they find the same with me.

Chairman: That's good.

Hai-jung: But there is the son of a cadre who doesn't do well. In class he doesn't listen attentively to the teacher's lecture and after class, he doesn't do homework. He likes to read fiction. Sometimes he dozes off in the dormitory and sometimes he doesn't attend the Saturday afternoon meeting. On Sunday he doesn't return to school on time. Sometimes on Sunday when our class and section hold a meeting, he doesn't show up. All of us have a bad impression of him.

Chairman: Do your teachers allow the students to take a nap or read fiction in class? We should let the students read fiction and take a nap in class, and we should look after their health. Teachers should lecture less and make the students read more. I believe the student you referred to will be very capable in the future since he had the courage to be absent from the Saturday meeting and not to return to school on time on Sunday. When you return to school, you may tell him that it is too early to return to school even at eight or nine in the evening, he may delay it until eleven or twelve. Whose fault is it that you should hold a meeting Sunday night?

Hai-jung: When I studied at the normal School, we usually had no meeting Sunday night. We were allowed to do whatever we liked that night. One day several cadres of the branch headquarters of the League (I was then a committee member of the branch headquarters) agreed to lead an organized life on Sunday night but many other League members did not favour the idea. Some of them even said to the political counsellor that Sunday was a free day and if any meeting was called at night, it would be inconvenient for us to go home. The political counsellor eventually bowed to their opinion and told us to change the date for the meeting.

Chairman: This political counsellor did the right thing.

Hai-jung: But now our school spends the whole Sunday night holding meetings -- class meetings, branch headquarters committee meetings or meetings of study groups for party lessons. According to my calculation, from the beginning of the current semester to date, there has not been one Sunday or Sunday night without any meetings.

Chairman: When you return to school, you should take the lead to rebel. Don't return to school on Sunday and don't attend any meetings on that day.

Hai-jung: But I won't dare. This is the school system. All students are required to return to school on time. If I don't people will say that I violate the school system.

Chairman: Don't care about the system. Just don't return to school. Just say you want to violate the school system.

Hai-jung: I cannot do that. If I do, I will be criticized.

Chairman: I don't think you will be very capable in the future. You are afraid of being accused of violating the school system, of criticism, of a bad record, of being expelled from school, of failing to get party membership. Why should you be afraid of so many things? The worst that can come to you is expulsion from school. The school should allow the students to rebel. Rebel when you return to school.

Hai-jung: People will say that as the Chairman's relative, I fail to follow his instructions and play a leading role in upsetting the school system. They will accuse me of arrogance and self-content, and of lack of organization and discipline.

Chairman: Look at you! You are afraid of being criticized for arrogance and self-content, and for lack of organization and discipline. Why should you be afraid? You can say that just because you are Chairman Mao's relative, you should follow his instructions to rebel. I think the student you mentioned will be more capable than you for he dared to violate the school system. I think you people are too metaphysical.


Became an open agent of US imperialism in the heat of the Vietnam war


His negotiations with Nixon helped the Vietnamese secure an American withdrawl from South Vietnam, the PRC actually never withdrew material support for the Vietnamese. Most of the issues of discussion were over Tawian, with both parties agreeing that a peaceful solution would be best, and with both parties disregarding that as soon as the meeting ended.


based his entire foreign policy on Anti-Sovietism,


This was because the Soviet Union had become a capitalist state with imperial desires. The Soviet Union at this point exported capital to numerous third world nations, consituting what is defined as imperialism in the Marxist framework, and invaded Czechslavia, Hungary, and Afganistan, while also supporting proxy armies in numerous countries, restarted the scramble for africa, and supported the Peruvian military regime against the Communists attempting to overthrow it.

Here is a very short article explaining the capitalist nature of the USSR

http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-3/iwk-ussr.htm

supporting the nastiest regimes and movements in the world.


Admittedly, I am not to knowledgeable about this particular subject. There is an article about his foreign policy that I have been meaning to read so I will try to reply to this soon.



He was such a disgusting man with zero redeeming qualities.


Between 1948 and 1970 China's life expectancy rose from 36 years to 69 years. During the first five year plan alone, China's industrial capacity doubled and the proletariat expanded from 1.5-3 million in 1948 to 25-30 million in 1970. Additionally, during the Cultural Revolution education was expanded to 30 million peasants and illiteracy was abolished, the population doubled due to the food stability and the Communists legalized abortion. I could go on but I do not want to make this post too long.


I'm sad to see so many 'Maoists' on this forum.

That's too bad, because we are here to stay.

[ind_com]

How can people like Mao?

We all fell for his cute smile. :wub:

[TheEmancipator]

Maoists do not venerate Mao. Mao is probably not a Maoist in modern terms...He certainly didn't practise what he preached, the latter being what maoism is.

You can listen to the excuses above, but his intent and legacy is what we should pass judgement on. Both fall short of a "great revolutionary".

[Fourth Internationalist]

I personally don't look up to him much. A bit less than Lenin, but definitely more than Stalin. Things like the Great Leap Forward are a tricky subject, which were more of an accident then a "evil plan". Much of the problems causing the Great Leap Forward were also locally caused as well, not by the central government (though some were). I do think, like in Lenin's and then Stalin's Russia, there was too much of a bureaucracy and power in the government, but I am unaware of the degree to which that was true. I need to learn more about him to be honest, but these are my thoughts on him.

[Fourth Internationalist]

We all fell for his cute smile. :wub:

I find his hair hideous.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I find his hair hideous.

http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/mao.jpg

How could you help but to fall for a beauty like that?

[Bostana]

I find his hair hideous.

Haters gonna hate

[Fourth Internationalist]

http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/mao.jpg

How could you help but to fall for a beauty like that?

:blink: Eww!

[rebelsdarklaughter]

I think a better question would be "Why do people spend so much time obsessing with historical figures instead of fomenting revolution in the present?"

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Maoists do not venerate Mao. Mao is probably not a Maoist in modern terms...He certainly didn't practise what he preached, the latter being what maoism is.

You can listen to the excuses above, but his intent and legacy is what we should pass judgement on. Both fall short of a "great revolutionary".

In all fairness, there is a bit of truth of this, We Marxist-Leninist-Maoists believe that Maoism exists beyond and seperate from mao, and with this theoretical framework, we can critique Mao. Here is a decent article by the respected comrade JMP

http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2011/09/marxism-beyond-marx-leninism-beyond.html

And while I do not know what you are referring to by "falling short". It is true that he was defeated, and that he made mistakes. But since Maoism exists outside of Mao, then I think we can also learn from other figures who were within this movement. For example. despite the fact that some people sneer at the slogan of "people's war till communism" due to the fact that no one knows what it actually means, Gonzalo formulated it as an internationalist strategy for world revolution. In essence, he said that the peoples war would extend outside of Peru's boarders into neighboring Latin American and beyond until the entire world was engaged in a revolutionary world war. This is why in the late stages of the Peruvian Revolution, communists from Bolivia went to Peru to train in their camps and receive arms to fight for the Shining Path and to spread the peoples war to Bolivia.

[CatsAttack]

No, when Mao first got involved in revolutionary politics he was well read in Anarchism and was one himself for a bit. It is true that he had not read Das Kapital before the civil war but he read all of Fredrick Engel's major works on dialetical materialism, in addition to Marx's Theories of Surplus Value, The Communist Manifesto, and the Critique of the Gotha Programme. He didn't get to Das Kapital till the 1950's. This was because there was no Chinese edition and he was busy fighting in an actual revolution to spend his time reading a thousand page tome unrelated to the task that was at hand. However he did study the works of Marx even more when he was able to get translations, not only including all volumes of Das Kapital but the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, which was considered an extremely rare work until recently. He also read a fair bit of Marx's personal correspondence.

Now, how much Marx have you read?



So? He might not have been able to speak a foreign language, but I believe he knew some classical Chinese languages as well as dialects, I am not sure about that, I am only basing that on my knowledge of his early education.




I didn't read beyond this point. Only so much nonsense I can waste time responding to. Note the parts in bold.

1. Look what we have here! A 1930 edition of Das Kapital in Chinese?

cnlu . net/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2009220225756177. jpg

Maybe you'd like the 1938 edition by Wang YaNan and Guo DaLi that became the standard?

img10. 360buyimg. com/N0/29514/684422db-5938-4355-aa2c-c4fdcfab56db. jpg


2. Mao knew classical Chinese and numerous dialects? lol, he couldn't even speak Mandarin.

3. You aren't really sure of anything, are you? I say this due to your attitude. I have read das kapital and I do speak Chinese, not that that has anything to do with what we're discussing.

[Brutus]

What a great way to learn, cats!

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

1. Look what we have here! A 1930 edition of Das Kapital in Chinese?

cnlu . net/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2009220225756177. jpg

Maybe you'd like the 1938 edition by Wang YaNan and Guo DaLi that became the standard?

img10. 360buyimg. com/N0/29514/684422db-5938-4355-aa2c-c4fdcfab56db. jpg


Interesting you meantion the year 1930, as it was the year that Mao's forces were on the brink of defeat during the first encirclement campaign. Surely he had more productive things to do than to local the nearest edition of Das Kapital. And even if he did have time, considering that he was in the countryside how on earth would he have gotten the book? After all, China was largely illiterate, and the only places he might find it would be in the cities.

And this is all irrelevant as he definitely read it later in his life.


2. Mao knew classical Chinese and numerous dialects? lol, he couldn't even speak Mandarin.

Mao read most of the Chinese Classic texts, though admittedly didn't like them. I suppose that makes him an Anti-Marxist as well. Additionally, he ranked third in his graduating class at the normal school he attended. So if your point is related to his intellect then you are mistaken.


3. You aren't really sure of anything, are you? I say this due to your attitude.


My "attitude" If I have been impolite at any point in this extange, than please show me where and I will self criticize. As Mao always said:


If we have shortcomings, we are not afraid to have them pointed out and criticized, because we serve the people. Anyone, no matter who, may point out our shortcomings. If he is right, we will correct them. If what he proposes will benefit the people, we will act upon it.

~Mao Zedong



and "not being sure" is from the fact that I do try to check my sources, and occasionally some of them contradict. This is because I am concerned with scholarly integrity. I am "not sure" of many things, because there are a million different historical narratives that exist on every subject and each of them is worth consideration and study, not because I do not have definite opinions.


I have read das kapital and I do speak Chinese, not that that has anything to do with what we're discussing.

I agree that it does, if only you also agreed.

[TheEmancipator]

One thing I will say is that someone's ability to learn a language does not make him an internationalist anymore than a multilinguist.

Mao's "internationalism" extended to the far reaches of the globe, sure. What it didn't extend to was China's neighbours. Invasion of Vietnam, Tibet (and before the social imperialist trolls come out, I don't give a shit if Tibet was an autocratic, feudal, religious state, Mao only had the balls to invade his neighbouring nations that need "redevelopment"...I wonder why...) and an overall aggressive expansionist agenda where nations would be put under the flag of the People's Republic of China instead of anything remotely internationalist (At least pretend like the USSR).

Clear nationalist agenda for all to see. Now go on, post another propaganda poster, because we all know they are such a reliable source, right?

http://t.qkme.me/3v3kgu.jpg



And while I do not know what you are referring to by "falling short".

I already showed where he fell short in terms of intent, so in terms of legacy, you only have to look at China today, the biggest, most consistent capitalist nation on earth (probably bigger than the US) to see how Mao's handiwork was view by his successors.

[Devrim]

Became an open agent of US imperialism in the heat of the Vietnam war


Mao and the CCP lined up alongside the imperialists in the Second World War. Rather than 'socialism with Chinese characteristics', the policy of the CCP was defence of Chinese capitalism with leftist rhetoric.

Devrim

[Astarte]

Mao read most of the Chinese Classic texts, though admittedly didn't like them.

Actually, this is not true. Mao was quite a fan of Luo Guanzhong's 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' and 'Water Margin' aka 'Outlaws of the Marsh' aka 'All Men are Brothers' ... allegedly he carried the former work around with him.


Mao Zedong carried this book with him everywhere. In Communist Party meetings, he would ask his comrades if they had read Romance of the Three Kingdoms – he thought that reading it showed how to overcome all problems in China. http://old.thebrowser.com/recommended/romance-three-kingdoms-by-luo-guanzhong

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

One thing I will say is that someone's ability to learn a language does not make him an internationalist anymore than a multilinguist.

Mao's "internationalism" extended to the far reaches of the globe, sure. What it didn't extend to was China's neighbours. Invasion of Vietnam, Tibet (and before the social imperialist trolls come out, I don't give a shit if Tibet was an autocratic, feudal, religious state, Mao only had the balls to invade his neighbouring nations that need "redevelopment"...I wonder why...) and an overall aggressive expansionist agenda where nations would be put under the flag of the People's Republic of China instead of anything remotely internationalist (At least pretend like the USSR).



This is an over simplification of events. It is true that Mao did send an army to the border of Tibet and defeated the Tibetan army there, however instead of marching in and annexing it, the red army sent a message to the Tibetan capital stating that they could keep their independence if they became a legal part of the People's Republic of China.

The PLA then entered Tibet, but instead of burning it to the ground and imposing foreign rule, they feed hungry peasants, gave them medicine, offered waged employment to the enslaved serfs. By this time they earned the respect of the enslaved peasants and the peasants started a branch of the Communist Party in Tibet in the 1950's. in 1956 there was a peasent rebellion against the Tibetan ruling class in the outer areas of Tibet, and in response the Tibetan ruling class gathered their own forces and attacked a garrison of PLA men and woman in 1959 with the backing of the CIA. After this attempt at coup failed the Dali Lama escaped China with the help of foreign backing. This triggered a massive wave of revolt in Tibet, where the ruling clique was overthrown.

If this is social imperialism, then Lenin is a social imperialist for letting his forces invade the Menslevik government of Georgia, and Marx is a social imperialist for backing Lincoln against the slave owning south.


Mao and the CCP lined up alongside the imperialists in the Second World War. Rather than 'socialism with Chinese characteristics', the policy of the CCP was defence of Chinese capitalism with leftist rhetoric.

Devrim

It is true that he did receive some American arms during the period when he was fighting Japan (actually I will admit that I am not even sure if this is true, but for the sake of argument, I will say it is). However the sum his party received was dwarfed by the amount of funding the KMT received, and during this period his party was engaged in a life and death struggle against Japanese imperialism. Compare this to the fact that Trotsky received 6 million dollars from oil companies in his stay in America, and that Lenin returned to Russia with a safe passage guaranteed by Britain and Germany, and I think Mao's collaboration is minor in comparison to those revolutions you consider proletarian.

[Devrim]

It is true that he did receive some American arms during the period when he was fighting Japan (actually I will admit that I am not even sure if this is true, but for the sake of argument, I will say it is). However the sum his party received was dwarfed by the amount of funding the KMT received, and during this period his party was engaged in a life and death struggle against Japanese imperialism. Compare this to the fact that Trotsky received 6 million dollars from oil companies in his stay in America, and that Lenin returned to Russia with a safe passage guaranteed by Britain and Germany, and I think Mao's collaboration is minor in comparison to those revolutions you consider proletarian.

They were allies in an imperialist war. I wouldn't call that minor. I would call that dragging the working class and peasantry into imperialist slaughter.

Devrim

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

They were allies in an imperialist war. I wouldn't call that minor. I would call that dragging the working class and peasantry into imperialist slaughter.

Devrim

In what what was he dragging the working class and peasantry into slaughter? Japan invaded China, not the other way around. What was he supposed to do? Sit on his hands and let the Japanese tanks roll by? It is self evident that no dictatorship of the proletariat can be established without the overthrow of colonialism in the area in which it exists. It is natural that the proletarian state must abolish the bourgeois state in it's vicinity, it is not a logical jump to also conclude that the proletarian state would also have to abolish imperial rule in it's vicinity. Mind you, that Mao never "sided" with America. All that happened is that America offered them arms, and they accepted. I don't see much wrong in that.

And let's say that Mao didn't do that. Let's say that he declared war against all imperialism and Stalin's USSR, let's say that he spent as much party resources trying to some how attack British and American Imperialism all the way from rural China in the mist of a war against Japan, would that not be leading the working class and peasantry into slaughter, than accepting some arms would be?

[The Feral Underclass]

He wasn't a Marxist, never read Das Kapital

I would wager that 75% of Marxists haven't read Das Kapital. I mean, if people were honest, how many do you think have actually read it page-to-page -- and further more understood it? I also think your implication that not reading Das Kaptial means you're not really a Marxist is pretty tenuous.

In any case, are you saying there is literally nothing in Mao's views that can be of use to revolutionaries today?

[Fourth Internationalist]

I would wager that 75% of Marxists haven't read Das Kapital. I mean, if people were honest, how many do you think have actually read it page-to-page -- and further more understood it? I also think your implication that not reading Das Kaptial means you're not really a Marxist is pretty tenuous.

In any case, are you saying there is literally nothing in Mao's views that can be of use to revolutionaries today?

More like 99% honestly haven't read it like that.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I would wager that 75% of Marxists haven't read Das Kapital. I mean, if people were honest, how many do you think have actually read it page-to-page -- and further more understood it? I also think your implication that not reading Das Kaptial means you're not really a Marxist is pretty tenuous.

On an unrelated note, I'm going to try my 3rd attempt to read Das Kapital soon. I've read the smaller works of political economy but I think it's about time I try again. So far I've only got about 5 chapters in from my other attempts.

Das Kapital is bloody impenetrable, I know he intended it for proletarians, but he missed the mark by fair.

Though I will say, reading about and studying Dialectics is quite helpful. I don't think I'd be able to try it again if not for Mao's On Contradiction

[Devrim]

In what what was he dragging the working class and peasantry into slaughter? Japan invaded China, not the other way around. What was he supposed to do? Sit on his hands and let the Japanese tanks roll by?

What were Russian communists supposed to do in the First World War? Germany invaded Russia not the other way round. What were they supposed to do? Sit on their hands and watch German troops march by?

I believe that you know the answer to these questions.


Mind you, that Mao never "sided" with America. All that happened is that America offered them arms, and they accepted. I don't see much wrong in that.

Yes, they fought on one of the imperialist sides in the Second World War. They were allies.


And let's say that Mao didn't do that. Let's say that he declared war against all imperialism and Stalin's USSR, let's say that he spent as much party resources trying to some how attack British and American Imperialism all the way from rural China in the mist of a war against Japan, would that not be leading the working class and peasantry into slaughter, than accepting some arms would be?

But that is what the CCP did do. Not because it had bad policies, but because it was a thoroughly nationalist pro-capitalist party, which had had the last remanants of any working class life bled out of it about a decade earlier.

Devrim

[Rural Comrade]

If you consider all of the allies Imperialist I guess you consider the countries fighting for control of their homeland from Germany imperialists.

[Devrim]

If you consider all of the allies Imperialist I guess you consider the countries fighting for control of their homeland from Germany imperialists.

Yes, it was an inter imperialist war. The French were imperialists, and the Soviets were imperialists.

Devrim

[Rural Comrade]

So the Poles, Czechs, Austrians, etc fighting against Germany to be imperialists?

[Devrim]

So the Poles, Czechs, Austrians, etc fighting against Germany to be imperialists?

Well the Austrian state merged with Germany and didn't fight against it. Poland and Czechoslovakia were part of the world imperialist system, and although not major imperialist powers were minor imperialist powers. Poland in fact preyed on Czechoslovakia and took terretorial gains whilst German was dismembering Czechoslovakia after the Munich agreement.

Devrim

[Rural Comrade]

What I'm trying to say is that your saying those who fought against imperialist were imperialist including the proletariat fighting for sovereignty.

[Devrim]

What I'm trying to say is that your saying those who fought against imperialist were imperialist including the proletariat fighting for sovereignty.

It was an inter imperialist war, just like the First World War. National defence was an ideology of supporting your own bourgeoisie.

Devrim

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

What were Russian communists supposed to do in the First World War? Germany invaded Russia not the other way round. What were they supposed to do? Sit on their hands and watch German troops march by?

I believe that you know the answer to these questions.


This was the German advance into Russia:

http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW1/images/easternfrontlarge.jpg


This was the Japanese advance into China

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Japanese_Empire_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg/250px-Japanese_Empire_%28orthographic_projection%29.svg. png

There were key differences between the Russian situation and the Chinese, for example:

1)While the war exhausted the government and the proletariat, it at no point risked the annexation of Russia under imperial dominion. China on the otherhand, had all of it's major cities occupied by the Japanese and only the rural area was left. If they went father, they could have been in the position to subjugate China completely since they had already deprived her of all of her major ports and industry and only left some barren fields. Tactically speaking, Japanese subjugation would put the Communists at a disadvantage relative to the united front strategy. If our goal is to achieve a worker's state, and not to maintain theological purity, then naturally the resistance to Japanese imperialism is wisest.

2) The line of Revolutionary Defeatism states, in essence, that the working class should defeat it's own government in a war. This implies the existence of a Central government which was more or less absent in China, which at that time was at a state of civil war where warlords were more powerful than the central government. The Nationalist represented merely another force contending for power which naturally had a common interest in defeating Japan.

3)If the United Front strategy led to the permanent union between the KMT and the CPC, then your critique would be correct. However, after the war the KMT was defeated by the CPC's forces. Hence, it is not applicable.


Yes, they fought on one of the imperialist sides in the Second World War. They were allies.


Marx supported Lincoln, does that mean we must throw him into the rubage bin of history, as a mere "ally of imperialism"

[Rural Comrade]

You are missing the point people wanted the imperialist out and they drove them out. And by people I mean the common worker/peasant who suffered under Germany or Japan.

[The Feral Underclass]

On an unrelated note, I'm going to try my 3rd attempt to read Das Kapital soon. I've read the smaller works of political economy but I think it's about time I try again. So far I've only got about 5 chapters in from my other attempts.

Das Kapital is bloody impenetrable, I know he intended it for proletarians, but he missed the mark by fair.

Though I will say, reading about and studying Dialectics is quite helpful. I don't think I'd be able to try it again if not for Mao's On Contradiction

Yeah, I mean it's an impossible book. It's easier now because those ideas exist and are fully understood and have been re-articulated in ways that are more accessible. At the time, it must have been difficult to articulate the profundity of the book for the very first time.

I cannot recommend enough the David Harvey lectures that you can watch along side reading sections of chapters. Harvey, who seems to be somewhat of an expert on the book, and has taught it for decades, is very accessible, lucid and insightful in helping readers get through it.

If you are going to try reading it again, you should seriously accompany your reading with these lectures, they are incredibly helpful.

Reading Marx's Capital Volume 1 (http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/)

[Devrim]

YABA, your argument seems to rest on the fact that the Chinese state was doing worse in the war than the Russian did. It is of course a nonsense argument used to justify the abandonment of any kind of class policy, and dragging the working class into imperialist wars.

France was totally defeated and occupied. It did even worse than China. Should communists have adopted a position of national defence there too?

Devrim

[Devrim]

You are missing the point people wanted the imperialist out and they drove them out. And by people I mean the common worker/peasant who suffered under Germany or Japan.

So are you suggesting that it wasn't an imperialist war at all, and that it didn't end in the two largest imperialist powers, the USA and USSR dominating the world, but that instead it was some part of people's war against fascism. That the same line that the western powers used to get workers to go off and die for their own states.

Devrim

[Astarte]

You really can't compare the brutality the Japanese wrought on the Chinese people during the WWII and prior to the Eastern Front in WWI - the latter being, though incredibly nasty, more of a stalemate and clear/cut example that international socialists throughout Europe all could see for what it was: the newly mechanized product of capitalist advances in warfare killing workers on all sides, the latter being probably the deadly and cruelest invasion of China history had ever seen by a fascist and racially supremacist driven imperium. Revolutionary defeatism in China would have made no sense as you must remember even the KMT themselves were struggling for national liberation and national unification - the United Front was the historically correct move, hands down.

[Devrim]

I cannot recommend enough the David Harvey lectures that you can watch along side reading sections of chapters. Harvey, who seems to be somewhat of an expert on the book, and has taught it for decades, is very accessible, lucid and insightful in helping readers get through it.

Are you serious? Harvey is terminally boring. It is not that he doesn't have anything interesting to say about it, which he doesn't, but the way he says it. He is one of the worst speakers I have ever been unfortunate enough to see.

Devrim

[Devrim]

...the newly mechanized product of capitalist advances in warfare killing workers on all sides, the latter being probably the deadly and cruelest invasion of China history had ever seen by a fascist and racially supremacist driven imperium.

So that is the lesson for Maoists, when the chips are down, support your own state.

Devrim

[Rural Comrade]

I'm saying that there were people who wanted their liberation and their were infact imperialist on both sides but the allies had less.

[Devrim]

I'm saying that there were people who wanted their liberation and their were infact imperialist on both sides but the allies had less.

It is not a question of one side having 'less' imperialists than the other. It is about the nature of the world capitalist system and the role of individual states within it.

Devrim

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

YABA, your argument seems to rest on the fact that the Chinese state was doing worse in the war than the Russian did. It is of course a nonsense argument used to justify the abandonment of any kind of class policy, and dragging the working class into imperialist wars.

France was totally defeated and occupied. It did even worse than China. Should communists have adopted a position of national defence there too?

Devrim

No, it is not about the fact that the Chinese state was doing worse, it is about the fact that there was no such thing as the Chinese state There were merely an abundancy of factions competing to establish such a state. And it is not like the KMT and the CPC were buddies, they fought against eachother before the war and during the world war, Communist forces sought to displace KMT forces as well as Japanese forces. The difference being that they did not go for a full out assault.

And it is absurd to suggest that the Communist dragged them into an imperialist war. The war was brought to the working class. There was no choice in the matter. Besides, the analogy is absurd, Russia was an imperialist country, China wasn't even capitalist yet, and had a proletariat of 1.5 million out of a population of 250 million.

Defeating Japan and KMT at once was simply not an option, it would be humanly impossible. It' be just like if the ICC got guns one day and decided to abolish capitalism all by itself, it simply would not work. At the time of the invasion, the Red Army had only some thousands of troops while the KMT had millions, and even after the war the Communists still had only 1/4 of the force of the KMT. The question was not whether or not to colaborate with the KMT, the question was whether the revolution should be destroyed or saved, because there is no question what would have happened if the Communist tried to attack the KMT while resisting the Japanese, it would have been defeat.


So that is the lesson for Maoists, when the chips are down, support your own state.

Devrim

No, the lesson is that there is a distinction between the tactical and the strategic, and that this distinction is key to any level of success.

[Astarte]

So that is the lesson for Maoists, when the chips are down, support your own state.

Devrim

You have to remember, China had been under the yoke of European Imperialism since about the 1790s, when the "Macartney Embassy" first really "got its foot in the door". By 1911 the Qing Dynasty had been deposed but the country then ultimately went through another several decades long Civil War period of warring states controlled by regional warlords ... the Japanese took advantage of this situation and tried to impose Imperial rule yet again. The decision to enter into the United Front with the KMT really has nothing to do with "supporting your own state" (whatever that means) as even the KMT themselves were striving to establish a unified national government and everything to do with not only national self-determination, but also national liberation and anti-imperialism. Finally, the United Front was, and only could be owing to historical necessity, only temporary.

[The Feral Underclass]

Are you serious? Harvey is terminally boring. It is not that he doesn't have anything interesting to say about it, which he doesn't, but the way he says it. He is one of the worst speakers I have ever been unfortunate enough to see.

Devrim

Have you even watched those lectures?

[Bostana]

Mao's poetry could have had an affect on people.......

[Old Bolshie]

He wasn't a Marxist, never read Das Kapital, didn't speak any foreign language, he wasn't an internationalist, he was a butcher, created his own cult of personality and slaughtered people who didn't worship him. Became an open agent of US imperialism in the heat of the Vietnam war, based his entire foreign policy on Anti-Sovietism, supporting the nastiest regimes and movements in the world. He was such a disgusting man with zero redeeming qualities. I'm sad to see so many 'Maoists' on this forum.

You can criticize Mao in many aspects (Bloc of Four Classes, Three Worlds Theory, Great Leap Forward) but somehow you missed to point one worthy of it.


he wasn't an internationalistApart from Lenin I can't remember of one communist leader in the XX Century who was internationalist and even Lenin is highly disputable in some decisions he took. (I am assuming that you refer to internationalism as a policy adopted because in theory all of them were internationalists including Stalin)


I'm sad to see so many 'Maoists' on this forum.Despite my disagreements with Maoism in theoretical issues I have to recognize that Maoists groups have been and still are one of the most active communists in the world.

[Teacher]

I thought fighting fascists was a good thing

[Geiseric]

No, when Mao first got involved in revolutionary politics he was well read in Anarchism and was one himself for a bit. It is true that he had not read Das Kapital before the civil war but he read all of Fredrick Engel's major works on dialetical materialism, in addition to Marx's Theories of Surplus Value, The Communist Manifesto, and the Critique of the Gotha Programme. He didn't get to Das Kapital till the 1950's. This was because there was no Chinese edition and he was busy fighting in an actual revolution to spend his time reading a thousand page tome unrelated to the task that was at hand. However he did study the works of Marx even more when he was able to get translations, not only including all volumes of Das Kapital but the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, which was considered an extremely rare work until recently. He also read a fair bit of Marx's personal correspondence.

Now, how much Marx have you read?



So? He might not have been able to speak a foreign language, but I believe he knew some classical Chinese languages as well as dialects, I am not sure about that, I am only basing that on my knowledge of his early education.



http://www.crestock.com/uploads/blog/2009/china-propaganda/1966-Vietnam.jpg
If you are wondering, which I imagine you are if you do not have a greater knowledge of foreign languages than Mao, the Chinese reads: Resolutely Support the American People's Struggle Against US Imperialism

I could post a million examples of his internationalism but I don't see the need for it. During the Sino-Soviet Split, the Soviet Union promoted the line of peaceful co-existence, the idea that any form of armed insurrection should be avoided because it might risk the chance of starting a world war in which the Soviet Union would be destroyed, and since the primary task of the Communist movement, according the the soviets, was to preserve the "socialist" nations", that therefore there could be no armed insurrections. Mao took the line that a world war would be positive because it could lead to world revolution if the International Communist Movement took Lenin's line of Revolutionary Defeatism and turned it into a world revolutionary war, even if this meant the destruction of the socialist camp. A line that is the direct descendant of Lenin's proposal to the "peace" mongering of liberal socialists and "socialist patrotism" of supporting one nation against another.



This is a lengthy topic, so I'll just link this article.

http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward




Actually, this was the work of Lin Biao who printed the Quotations of Mao in order to use the momentum of the Cultural Revolution to advance his position and become the successor of Mao. Chen Boda proposed that Mao be given a new position by the name of "State Chairmen" which would give him the same position as Kim Il Sung. Mao opposed this move and gave this document to the local regional party leaders:




From a recent discussion on Kasama

http://kasamaproject.org/history/1495-27mao-zedong-should-reactionaries-have-free-speech

The following is a transcript of one of Mao's conversations with his niece Wang Hai-Jung (December 21, 1970.) It deals with HOW revolutionaries should expose and isolate reactionaries -- and how they should deal with criticism from hostile forces. It touches directly on the question of whether to criminalize reactionary speech.





His negotiations with Nixon helped the Vietnamese secure an American withdrawl from South Vietnam, the PRC actually never withdrew material support for the Vietnamese. Most of the issues of discussion were over Tawian, with both parties agreeing that a peaceful solution would be best, and with both parties disregarding that as soon as the meeting ended.



This was because the Soviet Union had become a capitalist state with imperial desires. The Soviet Union at this point exported capital to numerous third world nations, consituting what is defined as imperialism in the Marxist framework, and invaded Czechslavia, Hungary, and Afganistan, while also supporting proxy armies in numerous countries, restarted the scramble for africa, and supported the Peruvian military regime against the Communists attempting to overthrow it.

Here is a very short article explaining the capitalist nature of the USSR

http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-3/iwk-ussr.htm


Admittedly, I am not to knowledgeable about this particular subject. There is an article about his foreign policy that I have been meaning to read so I will try to reply to this soon.




Between 1948 and 1970 China's life expectancy rose from 36 years to 69 years. During the first five year plan alone, China's industrial capacity doubled and the proletariat expanded from 1.5-3 million in 1948 to 25-30 million in 1970. Additionally, during the Cultural Revolution education was expanded to 30 million peasants and illiteracy was abolished, the population doubled due to the food stability and the Communists legalized abortion. I could go on but I do not want to make this post too long.



That's too bad, because we are here to stay.

What a load of crap! You know he openly supported Pinochet right? And the Khmer rouge?

[Geiseric]

You can criticize Mao in many aspects (Bloc of Four Classes, Three Worlds Theory, Great Leap Forward) but somehow you missed to point one worthy of it.

Apart from Lenin I can't remember of one communist leader in the XX Century who was internationalist and even Lenin is highly disputable in some decisions he took. (I am assuming that you refer to internationalism as a policy adopted because in theory all of them were internationalists including Stalin)

Despite my disagreements with Maoism in theoretical issues I have to recognize that Maoists groups have been and still are one of the most active communists in the world.

You're full of it too, the entire third international was internationalist. As in they realized that socialism in one country wouldn't work, and that it would lead into a defeat for the proletariat, as we've seen. However there was "the great purges" which killed most of the people who realized that.

[Zostrianos]

What a load of crap! You know he openly supported Pinochet right? And the Khmer rouge?

This. How do you explain or excuse something like this?

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

What a load of crap! You know he openly supported Pinochet right? And the Khmer rouge?

1)The Khmer Rouge was supported by Deng for tactical reasons, while Mao may have supported Pol Pot as a progressive nationalist, he wasn't around to see his degeneration.

2) Perhaps this is true, again as I said I need to do more research on China's foreign policy. Still, even if it is true, so? Should we judge a movement based on a single mistake? I could dismiss Trotskyism on the basis that Trotsky advocated a liquidationist line after the failure of the 1905 uprising and on the basis that he was too mean in Kronstadt, but that'd be a horrible standard to use to reject an entire school of thought. Likewise, I'm not going to gasp in terror that Mao made a mistake, other than a few errors he had a great career as a revolutionary. No one is perfect, Marx endorsed British colonialism and even some Left Comms don't like borgida because he supported national liberation later in his life. If Marxists based their politics on theology, then we'd all be Hoxhaists.

My point simply is that the theoretical strain of thought associated with Mao exists beyond Mao as a person, and that a critique of the person is not a critique of the ideology. And that a single sin does not a sinner make.


This. How do you explain or excuse something like this?
Simple, Mao died in 1976, the Cambodian Famine occured in 1977-78. He had nothing to do with it.

[MarxSchmarx]

From the benefit of hindsight, I must confess that I see Mao's anti-Japanese, anti-colonial struggles to some degree irrelevant from a leftist perspective. In this he resembles some aspects of the Bolsheviks.

The brutality with which he ruled China following 1949, and the effective alliance he established with the United States in the 70s I think more than adequately show that whatever his anti-imperialist, anti-colonial creds, he was unworthy of being considered a leftist.

Similarly, I recognize Stalin among other Bolsheviks played an important rule in discrediting the awful Czarist regime, repelling invasions by America, Japan, the UK, and, yeah, Czechoslovakia, as well as other reactionary shits like that Ungern fellow, and ending the pointless first world war at least in Russia. Frankly this does not erase their enormous subsequent criminality and discrediting the cause of socialism for at least a generation.

Whatever their leftist pronouncements, both Mao and the Russian bolsheviks at least since Stalin gained power proved to be a blight on humanity and brought immense suffering for naught.

Sometimes, in the depths of my cynicism, I wonder whether the only thing separating genuinely doomed revolutionary heroes like Kim Jwa Jin, Eugene Varlin, Petrichenko from a clown like Stalin or Mao is the fact that the former happened to be defeated before they attained serious power.

[Geiseric]

1)The Khmer Rouge was supported by Deng for tactical reasons, while Mao may have supported Pol Pot as a progressive nationalist, he wasn't around to see his degeneration.

2) Perhaps this is true, again as I said I need to do more research on China's foreign policy. Still, even if it is true, so? Should we judge a movement based on a single mistake? I could dismiss Trotskyism on the basis that Trotsky advocated a liquidationist line after the failure of the 1905 uprising and on the basis that he was too mean in Kronstadt, but that'd be a horrible standard to use to reject an entire school of thought. Likewise, I'm not going to gasp in terror that Mao made a mistake, other than a few errors he had a great career as a revolutionary. No one is perfect, Marx endorsed British colonialism and even some Left Comms don't like borgida because he supported national liberation later in his life. If Marxists based their politics on theology, then we'd all be Hoxhaists.

My point simply is that the theoretical strain of thought associated with Mao exists beyond Mao as a person, and that a critique of the person is not a critique of the ideology. And that a single sin does not a sinner make.


Simple, Mao died in 1976, the Cambodian Famine occured in 1977-78. He had nothing to do with it.
What does liquidationist even mean? I've never honestly read about that. however I have read about when he worked on Iskra with Lenin in the RSDLP.

Supporting Pinochet, and Khmer Rouge is not "A mistake." It's statesmanism. Mind you the U.S. backed these same regimes against North Vietnam and the socialist people in Chile, such as Victor Jara, so you might not understand what supporting these people meant. He was no different than Stalin in this respect, that he supported the likes of Mussolini by sending him oil, and Hitler by exporting millions of tons of raw materials to Germany.

Also you're full of shit saying marx supported british colonialism. I can't believe somebody would claim that.

[CatsAttack]

If you don't know something, then you should ask questions. Not present yourself as an authority on the subject.

You have stated numerous flat-out lies in this thread. I admit I could only bring myself to read a few of your posts as every sentence you write makes me cringe. You said Mao didn't read Das Kapital because there was no Chinese translation. But there was. Now everyone in this thread knows there was. How could you say there wasn't? How could you post such a lie?

But you just keep going and going posting lie after lie. Not just lies, but outlandish, disgusting lies such as "Trotsky received 8 million dollars from oil companies while in America."

Is this acceptable here? Can I claim Mao ate babies and invented the internet? Unchallenged?

This is the learning section and you are doing a major disservice to people here actually trying to learn.

No investigation, no right to speak!

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

If you don't know something, then you should ask questions. Not present yourself as an authority on the subject.


Authority is relative, I have read alot on the period, but I am not an omniscient god man and I acknowledge this


You have stated numerous flat-out lies in this thread. I admit I could only bring myself to read a few of your posts as every sentence you write makes me cringe. You said Mao didn't read Das Kapital because there was no Chinese translation. But there was. Now everyone in this thread knows there was. How could you say there wasn't? How could you post such a lie?


Even you admit that this translation existed only in 1930, a time when Mao couldn't have possibly been able to read it. Which fits exactly into what I am saying.


But you just keep going and going posting lie after lie. Not just lies, but outlandish, disgusting lies such as "Trotsky received 8 million dollars from oil companies while in America."


I cite The Rise of the Fourth Reich as my source. Is it a leftwing source? No. But until someone disproves the claim in it, which is based on research, than I consider the information within it valid until shown otherwise.



Is this acceptable here? Can I claim Mao ate babies and invented the internet? Unchallenged?

This is the learning section and you are doing a major disservice to people here actually trying to learn.

No investigation, no right to speak!

http://sadhillnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/oh-lord-please-make-it-stop-sad-hill-news-213x250.jpg

[d3crypt]

Mao Zedong was a class collaborationist, tyrant psycho. So many countless people died under Mao that had no reason to die. I know that you will say that the numbers are inflated and stuff, but that doesn't change anything. I don't see how anyone could like him.

[Astarte]

Comrades need to distinguish between Mao the revolutionary and Mao the Chairman. Mao in power made many mistakes, but those mistakes largely were more so due to the historical circumstances that entailed the industrialization of China than Mao the man as no individual can have so extraordinary an effect on the social forces of history as to be able to be singularly responsible for say the famines the GLF caused - similar mistakes if not the same ones would have been made by most anyone, though admittedly, perhaps not so extreme, attempting to lead the Industrialization of China, and if the there was no resonance with the Cultural Revolution in broad society in 1968, it never would have not could have happened simply by virtue of "Mao's will" alone.

Mao the revolutionary's leadership was instrumental in ending somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 years of the rule of Imperialism on the Chinese mainland and establishing a domestic Chinese self-determination on the world stage for the first time since the Ming dynasty - I am not sure how you can call yourself a Marxist and not have at least some respect for Mao the revolutionary while at the same time recognizing and criticizing, sometimes yes, sharply, the mistakes Mao the Chairman indeed did make.

[CatsAttack]

Comrades need to distinguish between Mao the revolutionary and Mao the Chairman. Mao in power made many mistakes, but those mistakes largely were more so due to the historical circumstances that entailed the industrialization of China than Mao the man as no individual can have so extraordinary an effect on the social forces of history as to be able to be singularly responsible for say the famines the GPLF caused - similar mistakes if not the same ones would have been made by most anyone, though admittedly, perhaps not so extreme, attempting to lead the Industrialization of China, and if the there was no resonance with the Cultural Revolution in broad society in 1968, it never would have not could have happened simply by virtue of "Mao's will" alone.

Mao the revolutionary's leadership was instrumental in ending somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 years of the rule of Imperialism on the Chinese mainland and establishing a domestic Chinese self-determination on the world stage for the first time since the Ming dynasty - I am not sure how you can call yourself a Marxist and not have at least some respect for Mao the revolutionary while at the same time recognizing and criticizing, sometimes yes, sharply, the mistakes Mao the Chairman indeed did make.

And China 'self-determined' to become the world's largest sweatshop and whore house in the interest of global finance capital. All praise the glorious revolutionary Mao!

Let's also praise Chiang Kai-shek, he brought dignity to Taiwan and turned it into one of the worlds rich, industrial countries.

Who else should we praise?

[Astarte]

And China 'self-determined' to become the world's largest sweatshop and whore house in the interest of global finance capital. All praise the glorious revolutionary Mao!

Let's also praise Chiang Kai-shek, he brought dignity to Taiwan and turned it into one of the worlds rich, industrial countries.

Who else should we praise?

Uhh ... no, you're right, let's not fight against imperialism and be for the national liberation and self-determination of colonized nations ... :rolleyes: What kind of leftist are you again...?

[CatsAttack]

Uhh ... no, you're right, let's not fight against imperialism and the be for the national liberation and self-determination of colonized nations ... :rolleyes: What kind of leftist are you again...?

The kind that doesn't praise one scoundrel over another just because he happens to wave a red flag.

What you praise Mao for can be said for a whole row of bourgeois nationalists in the post war period.

[Sea]

1)The Khmer Rouge was supported by Deng for tactical reasonsOh coolio, just like Uncle Sam did!


Mao may have supported Pol Pot as a progressive nationalist, he wasn't around to see his degeneration.explain this bullshit ok


2) Perhaps this is true, again as I said I need to do more research on China's foreign policy. Still, even if it is true, so? Should we judge a movement based on a single mistake?No, we should judge a movement as a whole. Unfortunately for Mao, this means we trod along one mistake at a time.

I could dismiss Trotskyism on the basis that Trotsky advocated a liquidationist line after the failure of the 1905 uprising and on the basis that he was too mean in KronstadtSo now you advocate sweeping liquidatoinism under the rug?

Likewise, I'm not going to gasp in terror that Mao made a mistake, other than a few errors he had a great career as a revolutionary.Supporting Pol Pot isn't a mistake. Mistakes aren't deliberate.

Besides, he must've had a good career to rise to the level of chairman.


No one is perfect, Marx endorsed British colonialismsays you

even some Left Comms don't like borgida because he supported national liberation later in his life.Oh, golly me! They're judging him based on a mistake! Maybe you should be railing against "some Left Comms" instead!


If Marxists based their politics on theology, then we'd all be Hoxhaists. Hahhuheahaugbarerf! What wit! Honestly, I've found Hoxha to be quite a clear-headed fellow, at least from what I'vfe read, despite still being a bit leery about the whole Stalin thing.

My point simply is that the theoretical strain of thought associated with Mao exists beyond Mao as a person, and that a critique of the person is not a critique of the ideology. And that a single sin does not a sinner make.Stop fucking marginalizing Mao's "mistakes".


Simple, Mao died in 1976, the Cambodian Famine occured in 1977-78. He had nothing to do with it.So there was nothing fundementally wrong with the Khmer Rouge during Mao's livelihood and final years? The official date of the famine (which the Kampuchean atrocities precede, mind you) means nothing. The problems that lead to the famine in Cambodia were systemic and already existed before Mao expired.

[Zostrianos]

There were few actual 'mistakes'. The Cultural Revolution was no mistake. Yes, I know you Maoists think the near eradication of Chinese culture and the destruction millions of lives to be a great achievement for the proletariat. And we'll never agree on that point. But even then, how can you defend someone with such a callous disregard for human life and the welfare of his people, someone who, when countless people were so desperate as to commit suicide because of the hell he unleashed, said: "People who try to commit suicide — don't attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people."(q.v. Mao's Last Revolution (http://books.google.ca/books?id=mCKPmUzKeZUC&pg=PA110&dq=%22China+is+such+a+populous+nation,+it+is+not+a s%20%20+if+we+cannot+do+without+a+few+people.%22[&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KG_aUc_eO-%20%20_q0QGH64HQCg&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22China%20is%20such%20a%20populous%20nation%2C% 20it%20%20%20is%20not%20as%20if%20we%20cannot%20do %20without%20a%20few%20people.%22[&f=false), p 110)?

[ind_com]

There were few actual 'mistakes'. The Cultural Revolution was no mistake. Yes, I know you Maoists think the near eradication of Chinese culture and the destruction millions of lives to be a great achievement for the proletariat. And we'll never agree on that point. But even then, how can you defend someone with such a callous disregard for human life and the welfare of his people, someone who, when countless people were so desperate as to commit suicide because of the hell he unleashed, said: "People who try to commit suicide — don't attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people."(q.v. Mao's Last Revolution (http://books.google.ca/books?id=mCKPmUzKeZUC&pg=PA110&dq=%22China+is+such+a+populous+nation,+it+is+not+a s%20%20+if+we+cannot+do+without+a+few+people.%22[&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KG_aUc_eO-%20%20_q0QGH64HQCg&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22China%20is%20such%20a%20populous%20nation%2C% 20it%20%20%20is%20not%20as%20if%20we%20cannot%20do %20without%20a%20few%20people.%22[&f=false), p 110)?

We communists usually don't care about the lives or culture of the bourgeoisie and their apologists. It is also important to note that the little heard work from which that quote originally came from was written by an ex-red guard who himself was purged for his ultra-leftism.

[CatsAttack]

We communists usually don't care about the lives or culture of the bourgeoisie and their apologists. It is also important to note that the little heard work from which that quote originally came from was written by an ex-red guard who himself was purged for his ultra-leftism.

Speak for yourself.

I know many communists who cared a great deal of 'bourgeois' culture. Marx and Engles being chief among them.

[TheEmancipator]

Speak for yourself.

I know many communists who cared a great deal of 'bourgeois' culture. Marx and Engles being chief among them.

Pretty spot on. Marx was married to an aristocrat ffs. The reason we oppose the bourgeoisie is not because of some kind vengeful hatred, we oppose them because they are yet another ruling class in the cycle of history that has to be deposed in order to progress.

How ironic that those who accuse us of sentimentalism and bourgeois-sympathies are victims of the kind of hatred instigated and promoted by the bourgeois class into them.

The proleteriat is not a tribe. It is a term used to describe the material conditions of a group of people. So enough of the ridiculous tribalism I'd expect to see from a fascist.

Now, please, go back to justifying a bourgeois nationalists' imperialist actions...

[ind_com]

Speak for yourself.

I know many communists who cared a great deal of 'bourgeois' culture. Marx and Engles being chief among them.

Sorry, I meant we modern communists, who have unconditionally rejected the cultural chauvinism or Eurocentrism of some earlier communists. Marx also repeatedly referred to the advanced capitalist countries as the civilized countries, implying what? Are you willing to take your appreciation for bourgeois culture to that extent?

[Old Bolshie]

You're full of it too, the entire third international was internationalist. As in they realized that socialism in one country wouldn't work, and that it would lead into a defeat for the proletariat, as we've seen. However there was "the great purges" which killed most of the people who realized that.

First of all I don't know where I said that the III International wasn't internationalist.

Secondly, I said "Apart from Lenin" which means that I considered Lenin internationalist but some decisions he took are somewhat doubtful as far as internationalism goes.

Thirdly, I didn't know that Socialism in One Country preceded the III International. The III International was set up in 1919 and the theory of Socialism in One Country was elaborated in 1924.

Again, is much more easy to be internationalist in theory than put it in practice.

And is certainly more easy to criticize and condemn people who actually had the responsibility of leading a country than people who never had that responsibility.

[Delenda Carthago]

Mao and his theories are basicly opportunistic. New Democracy was right wing opportunism, TGPCR was a left wing opportunist mistake in order to correct the first. His perception was very volontaristic. Personally I kinda admire some of his philosophical works, but in general I dont like him.


But that has nothing to do with the silly propaganda about a man that eat babies and killed people for using the word "love" that we hear from the system. That is plain BS.

[Astarte]

You cannot put the entirety of the blame for the events between 1949 to 1976 solely at Mao's feet. As far as the Cultural Revolution, or the destruction of Chinese culture, you may as well blame Chinese society as a whole for this. I agree, they were not good things, but Mao was not a god. He simply did not puppeteer large tracts of society into going along with purging out sections of society and history - clearly there was a resonance for this kind of thing and Mao simply was able to tune to its pitch as it were.

Conversely, I would suggest those who want to purge out society, or think destroying the history of past epochs is a good thing read: http://www.marxists.org/archive/bogdanov/1924/religion-art.htm.
The past does not belong to the ruling class, it is the prize of the victorious oppressed classes after the triumph of the revolution, it is our "cultural inheritance".

Those who think self-determination is a trifling thing and not even worth defending may want to check out Lenin's "On The Right of Nations to Self-Determination" http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/

Really, again, please try to distinguish between Mao in power and Mao the revolutionary.

[Devrim]

Have you even watched those lectures?

I listened to them and also read some of his written work, which I think was preferable, not because it had any interesting insights because it didn't, but because at least when reading I didn't also have to listen to an absolutely terrible speaker too.

Devrim

[The Feral Underclass]

I listened to them and also read some of his written work, which I think was preferable, not because it had any interesting insights because it didn't, but because at least when reading I didn't also have to listen to an absolutely terrible speaker too.

You're full of shit, Dev. Trying to claim that those lectures have no interesting insight, just demonstrates that you haven't listened or watched them. It's just a ridiculous statement to make. Even if you don't think they offer any interesting insights to you, someone who is just starting out with Capital will find them useful and to claim otherwise is fucking stupid.

[Nevsky]

Sorry, I meant we modern communists, who have unconditionally rejected the cultural chauvinism or Eurocentrism of some earlier communists. Marx also repeatedly referred to the advanced capitalist countries as the civilized countries, implying what? Are you willing to take your appreciation for bourgeois culture to that extent?

There is no "bourgeois culture" and there is no "proletarian culture". You're right when it comes to societal norm but things like art, science and language don't really follow the ruling power, except if they are forced to (as it happened in the Third Reich).

"Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and different schools in science should contend freely. We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another. Questions of right and wrong in the arts and sciences should be settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific circles and through practical work in these fields. They should not be settled in summary fashion." - Mao

[Devrim]

You're full of shit, Dev. Trying to claim that those lectures have no interesting insight, just demonstrates that you haven't listened or watched them. It's just a ridiculous statement to make. Even if you don't think they offer any interesting insights to you, someone who is just starting out with Capital will find them useful and to claim otherwise is fucking stupid.

There is not a lot to say to that really. Someone has a different opinion to you so you call them a liar, swear at the and abuse them.

That's really a good way to influence people.

Devrim

[The Feral Underclass]

There is not a lot to say to that really. Someone has a different opinion to you so you call them a liar, swear at the and abuse them.

That's really a good way to influence people.

Devrim

But you are lying and what you are saying is stupid. And let's bear in mind that you began this conversation by calling into question my "seriousness" and completely rejecting out of hand the idea that these videos might be useful, despite the fact they already have been.

It's perfectly acceptable for you to offer your opinion (even if it is stupid), but your opinion is just that -- an opinion. It is not the established truth of a particular matter, and you shouldn't present it as such.

Those videos are useful, they are helpful and they do offer insights that will be of benefit. I know that, because that is what they have been, not just to me, but for other people I know who have watched, including people from this very website. The fact you don't like David Harvey or find him uninteresting is neither here nor there, really.

[baronci]

There is no "bourgeois culture" and there is no "proletarian culture". You're right when it comes to societal norm but things like art, science and language don't really follow the ruling power, except if they are forced to (as it happened in the Third Reich).

Then what were Proletkult and Socialist Realism?

[Bostana]

I'm gonna say the same thing I said to Akshay about Mao,

You'll find in his early days, he seemed like he was a legitimate revolutionary. At least I thought he was. However when the revolution began, a lot of what he did contradicted a lot of the stuff he supported early on in his life. (It also contradicted Marxism) And later on he and his team creates ridiculous theories to support their agenda


But he is a damn fine poet. I'll give him that

[Lucretia]

I don't see what "liking Mao" has to do with anything. Now, liking his politics. That would be a useful discussion to have.

[Klaatu]

People aren't perfect; ideas are. ;)

[Delenda Carthago]

Then what were Proletkult and Socialist Realism?
And LEF.

[Sea]

We communists usually don't care about the lives or culture of the bourgeoisie and their apologists. It is also important to note that the little heard work from which that quote originally came from was written by an ex-red guard who himself was purged for his ultra-leftism.This is a very backwards approach. In class society (capitalist or otherwise) the highest of culture is generally confined to the oppressing class(es), for only they are allowed enough leisure time and disposable income to partake in the largest of artistic endeavors.

We should not be destroying "bourgeois culture", on the contrary, we should be making this culture more available and accessible to all. It is not a question of eliminating the "old ways", it is a matter of freeing art from its chains. High art is something the ruling class wants all for itself, and then uses to demean workers as uncultured philistines. We cannot let this perversion of art continue to happen.


Sorry, I meant we modern communists, who have unconditionally rejected the cultural chauvinism or Eurocentrism of some earlier communists. Marx also repeatedly referred to the advanced capitalist countries as the civilized countries, implying what? Are you willing to take your appreciation for bourgeois culture to that extent?Implying countries that have industrial infrastructure that is well-enough developed for socialist construction. Countries with obsolete productive modes are those which are, when compared to advanced capitalist countries, lagging behind in the development of their material relations. "Civilization" as we know the term simply refers to how advanced a given country's ruling class is at oppressing its people. Any description of how "civilized" a country is is simply a description of its mode of production, and Marx recognized this. This in no way implies that the working people of a given place are "savages".

[Zostrianos]

This is a very backwards approach. In class society (capitalist or otherwise) the highest of culture is generally confined to the oppressing class(es), for only they are allowed enough leisure time and disposable income to partake in the largest of artistic endeavors.
We should not be destroying "bourgeois culture", on the contrary, we should be making this culture more available and accessible to all. It is not a question of eliminating the "old ways", it is a matter of freeing art from its chains. High art is something the ruling class wants all for itself, and then uses to demean workers as uncultured philistines. We cannot let this perversion of art continue to happen.

Like everything else that should be distributed equally in an ideal society, culture should indeed be available to all.
Cultural destruction is a reactionary abomination that makes Maoists no different than Islamic or Christian fanatics who did the same things historically (and Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia continue to do today, as did the Taliban). But let's put that aside for a minute. What benefit is there to society to destroy its culture? What will burning down libraries and museums achieve for the people? In a society that in theory should be liberated, what will that achieve?

[MarxArchist]

Hoe can people like Mao
Because people are oppressed and who cares about the fundamental causes. Lets make up our own theories. Historical materialism, materialism in general, is bunk.

[Sūn Wùkōng]

Why is everyone speaking about the „destruction of the chinese culture“ when it comes to the Cultural Revolution?

It seems like some peoples knowledge of the Cultural Revolution is based on youtube-sequences about red guards destroying a Confucius statue or googling „chinese propaganda posters“.

Have you ever watched any of the „model operas“? There are lots of elements of traditional chinese operas in it, as well as western influences. Mao himself wrote his famous poetry in traditional chinese style (although he recommended a more modern style to the younger writers) and of course he had known the classics of the chinese literatur very well, quoted them in his works and invited people to study them. The barefoot doctors of the Cultural Revolution used modern western as well as traditional chinese medicin. The famous Terracotta Army was digged out in midst of the Cultural Revolution. The farmers-pictures of the Hu province, which where very popular in the Cultural Revolution, contained apperently lots of traditional elements.

These are just a few examples that the relations between traditional chinese (and even modern western) culture and the Cultural Revolution or maoist China in general, are far more complex than just “destroying the old” as claimed by bourgeois media. There are also new academic publications on that topic, as for example Paul Clarks “The Chinese Cultural Revolution – A history” (2008) which is basically about the culture oft the Cultural Revolution (“Writing against the conventional but mistaken view that Chinese culture was put on hold or simply destroyed, Clark provides an impressively detailed and nuanced study of artistic life in the 1966-1976 period.”)

Edit: Sorry for my English, I'm still learning ;)

[DaringMehring]

Devrim is wrong when he criticizes Mao for the resistance to the Japanese invasion. Of all the things to criticize Mao for, he really picked the wrong one.

What is the point of Lenin's revolutionary defeatism? To expose the ruling class, to turn the war into a civil war, to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Revolutionary defeatism was an appropriate tool to reach that result in Russia WWI, in China WWII the situation was different and in fact the route taken by Mao achieved the result of a revolution. The CPC built itself up hugely through the anti-Japanese struggle, and after, there was no sell out to the KMT.

As for the "popular front" with the KMT, in its functioning, it was not very real. What it mainly meant, as I understand it, was that CPC fighters attacked Japanese not KMT, rather than cooperating with KMT. The real "popular front" disaster where the Chinese working class vanguard was massacred, was in 1927. Ironically, it was the Trotskyist or Trotskyish Chen Duxiu who followed the Comintern/Stalinist orders to disarm and submit to the KMT. Mao on the other hand was much more independent of Comintern/Stalinist orders and basically disregarded them.

There were plenty of problems with Mao's politics. The "New Democracy" theory is Menshevism, false, and a disaster for the working class, for example. He oriented toward nationalism, the detente with Nixon, etc. etc. But when we analyze the past scientifically, we don't have to say everything any figure did was right or wrong, as if they were a saint or demon. Instead, we have to learn from the successes and failures.

[Rural Comrade]

While were here can someone explain to me why Mao is considered right wing by some people?

[synthesis]

While were here can someone explain to me why Mao is considered right wing by some people?

Basically, the more nationalism that is displayed in the theory, the more the theorist is considered to be on the "right-wing" of communism, so to speak. (Of course, the definition of nationalism here includes the degree of fixation upon "national liberation.")

[Geiseric]

Devrim is wrong when he criticizes Mao for the resistance to the Japanese invasion. Of all the things to criticize Mao for, he really picked the wrong one.

What is the point of Lenin's revolutionary defeatism? To expose the ruling class, to turn the war into a civil war, to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Revolutionary defeatism was an appropriate tool to reach that result in Russia WWI, in China WWII the situation was different and in fact the route taken by Mao achieved the result of a revolution. The CPC built itself up hugely through the anti-Japanese struggle, and after, there was no sell out to the KMT.

As for the "popular front" with the KMT, in its functioning, it was not very real. What it mainly meant, as I understand it, was that CPC fighters attacked Japanese not KMT, rather than cooperating with KMT. The real "popular front" disaster where the Chinese working class vanguard was massacred, was in 1927. Ironically, it was the Trotskyist or Trotskyish Chen Duxiu who followed the Comintern/Stalinist orders to disarm and submit to the KMT. Mao on the other hand was much more independent of Comintern/Stalinist orders and basically disregarded them.

There were plenty of problems with Mao's politics. The "New Democracy" theory is Menshevism, false, and a disaster for the working class, for example. He oriented toward nationalism, the detente with Nixon, etc. etc. But when we analyze the past scientifically, we don't have to say everything any figure did was right or wrong, as if they were a saint or demon. Instead, we have to learn from the successes and failures.

You know the post WW2 chinese state was multi party, including the KMT right? Also you're basically saying that if the Bolsheviks fought the Germans along with the provisional government, that would of been an acceptable thing. After the war, the KMT were just allied with other imperialists anyways, accepting 750 million$ worth of aid from the U.S. So no the popular front with KMT was a bad tactical move.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

http://www.crestock.com/uploads/blog/2009/china-propaganda/1966-Vietnam.jpg


"Get out of Vietnam"?

What complete hypocrites the CPC were.

I really hope we aren't going to develop a trend of substituting the actual history of the PRC for it's propaganda departments' romanticist political posters.

[Karlorax]

"Get out of Vietnam"?

What complete hypocrites the CPC were.

Almost everyone who considers themselves coming from the Maoist tradition believes that by the time China invaded Vietnam, China was revisionist. Mao died in 1976, the invasion was later. The CPC was no longer the *C*PC, but rather the "C"PC by then, total revisionists.

The Maoist revolution in China was the most significant of the great waves of revolution. It involved a country whose population was about 1/4th of the world. It destroyed feudalism for 1/4th of the world's population. It granted basic rights to 1/4th of the world's women. Things like footbinding were ended. Women gained the right to marry who they pleased for the first time. Like all the revolutions of the last century, it failed, but so? We are trying to uproot centuries of reactionary social programming, it is going to take a lot of work to do so. People seem to very idealist conceptions of how revolutions work. I think this sums up the Maoist accomplishments:



The Maoist revolution in China was part of the second great wave of sustained revolution. This revolutionary wave occurred during an economic crisis and after World War 2. The European imperialist powers had weakened each other by going to war with each other. This created an opening for making revolution in the colonies and neocolonies. National liberation movements seeking independence from European and American imperialism popped up all over the world. Often, social revolution, including communist-led social revolution, piggybacked on top of these national liberation movements. Of all of these, the Maoist revolution in China was the most significant. It involved a quarter of the world’s population. And its social revolution was the most radical. The Maoists sought to reorganize society at the deepest levels in order to actually reach communism. The Maoist revolution in China was a long and bloody one with many twists and turns. It lasted over half a century. At its peak, during the Cultural Revolutionary years, the Maoist revolution represented the furthest advance toward communism in human history.

In the early part of the twentieth century, China was in chaos. Semi-feudalism was the dominant mode of production. Poverty was everywhere. The majority of Chinese were destitute, impoverished peasants. Slavery was still practiced. Many Chinese lived as European serfs once had. Famines were common. Epidemics swept the country. There was little or no healthcare for the majority of Chinese. Women were treated as property. Women’s feet were often crippled in order to make them more easily controlled by men. China was in a dark age. China’s coast had been carved up by competing imperialist powers who had occupied its ports. The central government was weak. Warlords and opium traffickers were in constant civil war with each other. The imperialists fueled these wars in order to divide and conquer. In 1937, imperial Japan invaded and occupied China. The Chinese communists were attacked on all sides. They were attacked by the anti-communist state. They were attacked by the warlords and feudalists. They were attacked by the imperialists, especially the Japanese. It was by taking up the national banner that the communists were able to rally the people to their cause. The communists raised the national banner against the “two mountains” of imperialism and feudalism. The communists organized a people’s army and seized power in the countryside. They created New Power. They created their own society and state in the remote countrysides and mountains. They created red zones. The communists fought the imperialists. They fought the feudal warlords. The communists carried out land reform. They began the liberation of women. They carried out New Democratic revolution, the first stage of China’s revolution. They created a new system everywhere they went. They slowly expanded their New Power. The people’s war went from the countryside to surround China’s cities. It was in 1949 that the communists drove the imperialists and their lackeys from the mainland. It was on October 1st, 1949 that Mao declared “China has stood up” at Tiananmen. Mao declared the birth of the People’s Republic of China.

China’s revolution went through many phases. The first phase was the New Democratic revolution. This phase aimed at getting rid of the “two mountains” of feudalism and imperialism. It focused on land reform, national development, national unity, creating a functioning society, creating the beginnings of democratic control, creating a central state, beginning the liberation of women, public education, healthcare, literacy, etc. Limited capitalism, as a method of national development, still existed during New Democracy. The New Democratic Revolution laid the groundwork for further, socialist social transformation. The New Democratic Revolution began to phase into socialist construction after 1949, into the 1950s. Socialist construction meant even greater collectivization of the productive forces. It meant collectivizing agriculture and industry. It meant putting the workers in command. It meant creating more and more revolutionary culture in place of old culture. It means more class struggle. It means trying to move toward communism. The two major efforts at trying to push to a higher level of socialism were the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.

The Maoists sought to reorganize Chinese society at the deepest level. They saw the mistakes that the Soviets had made by putting too much emphasis on technology, the productive forces. Maoists saw revolution as a train on two tracks: development of the productive forces and reorganization of power. Of these, the latter was principal for the Maoists. They adopted a more “bottom up,” people-power approach. They sought to unleash the masses to build socialism by using mass campaigns and mass line. The Maoist model was one that allowed for more mass spontaneity and more creativity. They sought to reorganize all of society into people’s communes. These communes would be the basic unit of society, eventually replacing the central state apparatus. These communes were to be as self-sufficient and as sustainable as possible. They would produce their own food and they would have their own industry. Housework and traditional women’s work was to be phased out. For example, the people’s communes sought to have community meals in public dining halls, thus shifting “women’s work” onto the collective. In the communes, people strove to be equals. Even most teens could participate politically in communes. Thus the communes sought to encourage youth liberation and youth participation in politics. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, even young teens and children participated in politics at various levels. Education was combined with work in the communes just as the People’s Liberation Army combined its training with economic work and ideological work. These communes were created during the Great Leap, but they ran into problems due to opposition, sabotage and mismanagement. A food crisis resulted from human errors and natural disasters. This resulted in a temporary defeat for the Maoists. After the Great Leap, Maoist power waned. A new capitalist class, a revisionist group, began to rise to displace the Maoists. They sought to reverse socialist construction and dismantle the people’s communes. As a result, the Maoists launched the Cultural Revolution in 1965. Mao’s general Lin Biao took control of the People’s Liberation Army and turned it into a bastion of communist thought. Lin Biao advocated a global people’s war from the global countryside to surround the global cities, from poor to rich countries. Mao then called on the students to rise up and rebel against their teachers and overthrow those in the Communist Party and state who were betraying the revolution. Red guard students and rebel workers took to the streets. They took over whole cities. They formed huge armies to protect socialism. For a moment, they were able to consolidate socialist power at even a higher level with the help of Lin Biao’s People’s Liberation Army. The communes were defended. More collectivization occurred. A whole new culture of revolution was promoted. Big philosophical debates were carried out in the streets and in the media. All of society was aspiring to reach communism. Unfortunately, it did not last. Mao shifted rightward and allowed the revisionists to launch their offensive against the left. Mao, who was old and sick, began slipping ever rightward. The revisionists struck back hard. The revisionists were able to kill and discredit Lin Biao, who had been the voice and face of the Cultural Revolution and global people’s war. The revisionists seized command of the People’s Liberation Army. Throughout the 1970s, Mao presided over a regime that systematically moved toward the restoration of capitalism. The regime in the 1970s even began aligning with the United States in world affairs. Mao hoped to have a negotiated settlement between the revisionists and the remaining Maoists, but the revisionists were easily able to sweep away the remaining Maoists, the so-called “Gang of Four,” shortly after Mao died in September of 1976.
Source: http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/

[Devrim]

Devrim is wrong when he criticizes Mao for the resistance to the Japanese invasion. Of all the things to criticize Mao for, he really picked the wrong one.

What is the point of Lenin's revolutionary defeatism? To expose the ruling class, to turn the war into a civil war, to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Revolutionary defeatism was an appropriate tool to reach that result in Russia WWI, in China WWII the situation was different and in fact the route taken by Mao achieved the result of a revolution. The CPC built itself up hugely through the anti-Japanese struggle, and after, there was no sell out to the KMT.

The view that you take in this depends whether you think that there was anything socialist at all about the Chinese revolution. I don't think there was. I think it was just a nationalist movement, and that Mao was a bourgeois revolutionary, similar to somebody like Atatürk.

Devrim

[Karlorax]

How can people not like Mao? He led a revolution that encompassed nearly a quarter of humanity. Feudalism was smashed for 1/4th of humanity. He was the greatest feminist of all time, etc. He removed the "two mountains" of feudalism and imperialism off the backs of the Chinese people. He brought socialism to 1/4th of humanity. I found this document very helpful when trying to understand Stalin and Mao: http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/ It is important to see these things from both sides.

[Red HalfGuard]

The view that you take in this depends whether you think that there was anything socialist at all about the Chinese revolution. I don't think there was. I think it was just a nationalist movement, and that Mao was a bourgeois revolutionary, similar to somebody like Atatürk.


Oh my sweet summer child...You have never known true colonialism.

(Seriously tho Mao completely transformed social relations in formerly capitalist China, your statement is defeated by an even elementary look at the evidence.

Remember that screen that thanked you for posting? It lied.)

[Karlorax]

I have often heard communists say that the Maoist revolution was the furthest advance in terms of concretely making revolution in all of history. I didn't understand what that meant at first. I just saw the Chinese revolution is another one, next to all the others. Then I realized that scientific revolutions learn from the past. The Maoist revolution saw the weaknesses in the earlier attempts at socialism, so they tried some bold new radical social experiments in order to attempt to reach communism. I applaud them for that.


There were many accomplishments of the Maoist revolution in China. Think about it: A quarter of the world’s population was mobilized to build a new world. The Maoist revolution was vast and profound. The Maoist revolution sought to reorganize all of society to root out all oppression and exploitation, to actually reach communism. It was the greatest feminist movement of all time. A quarter of the world’s women stood up to say “we will no longer be property!” Patriarchal, feudal relations were ended across a quarter of the world. Even with the food crisis during the Great Leap, China solved its food problem overall. China went from a country with regular famines to a country that could feed itself. An illiterate population became literate. Life expectancy doubled. The infant-mortality rate declined. China became strong. Like the Soviet Union before it, China went from a feudal state to a modern atomic power. A whole new culture was developed. Egalitarianism was promoted. Altruism, “serve the people,” was promoted. New socialist art and culture emerged to replace the old, reactionary art. The Chinese matched the accomplishments of the Soviets, but went even further. They created a more advanced model of socialism that was more mass oriented and “bottom up.” They sought to begin phasing out the state in order to actually reach communism. They began to understand the nature of counter-revolution and the need for continuous cultural revolution to fight it. The Chinese revolution went further than all previous attempts to reach communism. from: http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/

The Maoist revolution seemed to re-energize the world revolutionary movement.

[Geiseric]

The chinese revolution as of today as culminated in a country wrought with famine and brutal workers conditions. So no I wouldn't take an example from the person who was a leader in the Stalinist international counter revolution, who murdered other communist dissidents, and had to be forced by struggle from below to create the somewhat existent state regulations on the economy, and state owned enterprises which may be the only thing China has going for them, but which are currently threatened by the CPC itself who are part in parcel with imperialism. There are 30,000 major strikes in china a year, which we should be supporting over dead dictators.

[Zostrianos]

Now to be fair I do think Mao started off well and initially made the country better than it was before. The 1949 - 1956 era was a genuinely good period. If only it had stayed that way. Everything went to hell after that.

[Brotto Rühle]

Some people are fans of collaboration with bourgeois nationalism.

[Red HalfGuard]

Explain how the nationalism of oppressed nations is "bouergoise" and then explain how Mao's China specifically was bouergois

[Red HalfGuard]

The chinese revolution as of today as culminated in a country wrought with famine and brutal workers conditions.

Yes, Mao is completely responsible for what happened in China after a right wing coup d'etat took power. He controls the CPC from ~beyond the grave~.

[Devrim]

Oh my sweet summer child...You have never known true colonialism.

I wish that I was a sweet summer child. Unfortunately though I am quite advanced into middle age, and would imagine that I am at least twice your age. I also originally come from a place which is one of the countries with a national liberation movement supported by all sorts of leftists, and I have relatives who have been imprisoned for being members of this movement. You I notice are American. Pray, please enlighten me about colonialism.

Devrim

[Red HalfGuard]

Oh shit. This guy's older than me. Better pack it in. (Which is how old again?)

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Oh my sweet summer child...You have never known true colonialism.


For a supposed maoist, you do seem to have a certain leaning to emotional appeals typical of the average liberal.

Even if Devrim 'hadn't known true colonialism', this does not contradict nor even challenge his claim that....


I don't think there was (anything socialist about the Chinese revolution). I think it was just a nationalist movement, and that Mao was a bourgeois revolutionary, similar to somebody like Atatürk.


...No. You're just using pissweak guilt politics because someone said something disagreeable about your sacrosanct Mao.

[Karlorax]

Might spank you.

Spanking.. we should probably be against it, being that true communists are for liberation of the young. I read a little about the concept of total liberation, which includes youth liberation: http://llco.org/about/

[quote] Our goal is Leading Light Communism. The end of all oppression. No exploitation. No rich. No poor. No national oppression. No chauvinism. No racism. No gender oppression. No sexism. No oppression of youth, elderly, women, or men. No oppression of the Earth. We fight for a radically egalitarian and sustainable social order. Total liberation. Leading Light Communism.

It should be also remembered that Mao was one of the few who actually empowered the youth, real political power..

[Devrim]

Oh shit. This guy's older than me. Better pack it in. (Which is how old again?)

No, it doesn't mean that you should pack it in. It does mean that you shouldn't patronize people.

Anyway, you were going to explain to me about how you know true colonialism.

Devrim

[Red HalfGuard]

Devrim made the claim: "Mao's revolution was bouergoise in character, like Ataturk's." the burden of proof lies on him. How many Armenians did Mao drive out of Anatolia on horseback again? Come on.

(And it'd be smart of him not to take his brilliant denunciation of my Game of Thrones reference too far, unless 'Central Europe' is a hotbed of anticolonial resistance. Or does he not think that colonialism was never practiced within the borders of the USA? Does he have any idea how those borders were established?)

[Invader Zim]

How many Armenians did Mao drive out of Anatolia on horseback again? Come on.

And how many did the regime under Mao outright murder or kill through its oppressive policies, staggering incompetence, negligence and callous disregard for human life? A whole many more I'd wager.

[Red HalfGuard]

Again, facts and figures. Provide them or stop mindlessly parroting imperialist war propaganda.

The Armenian Genocide killed around 700,000 people, out of a total Turkish population of 13 million in 1914. The Chinese population in 1950 was about 500 million. To have matched the Ottomans in total portion of the Chinese population, he would have had to kill about 21,400,000 people. Can you provide any proof at all that happened?

And before you go BUT BUT THE FAMINE: monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward



population sources:
populstat.info/Asia/turkeyc.htm
geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/chinapopulation.htm

[Brutus]

So now it doesn't matter how many people die, only how much of the population die when compared to that of the Ottoman empire?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

The Armenian Genocide killed around 700,000 people, out of a total Turkish population of 13 million in 1914.

I thought it was more?

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-479143/The-forgotten-Holocaust-The-Armenian-massacre-inspired-Hitler.html

http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/genocide.html

http://genocide.am/article/about_the_genocide.html

http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-armenian-genocide

All the references I've looked up say it was over 1.5 million people.

Just being picky.

[Red HalfGuard]

Could be. I was using a conservative estimate.

[Red HalfGuard]

So now it doesn't matter how many people die, only how much of the population die when compared to that of the Ottoman empire?

Zim made the claim that Mao killed more people than the Ottomans.

[Invader Zim]

Zim made the claim that Mao killed more people than the Ottomans.

Indeed I did, but I never suggested anything about more deaths per capita. Strawman anybody?

And, of course, if this (http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#Mao) survey of the literature is anything to go by, Mao's regime was replete with humanitarian disasters.

[Red HalfGuard]

Yes, the article I posted above debunked that.

[Invader Zim]

Yes, the article I posted above debunked that.

It didn't debunk anything, take a look at the list of notes. You will quickly see that primary sources were virtually entirely absent from the making of this article. How can you hope to debunk anything without even stepping into an archive? In short you can't. Instead what the author attempts is to cast doubts on the veracity of the sources presented in the secondary literature, obfuscating the issue in the hope that readers will assume that few concrete conclusion can be made about anything, and ironically enough contend that everybody else is 'one-sided'.

To put it bluntly, this is not a serious historical rebuttal - the author operates in the same intellectual spaces as the likes of Grover Furr (indeed, they actually both contribute to the joke of a journal Cultural Logic).

Find me a serious study. It isn't hard, here's the abstract of just such a study:

"The Great Leap Forward disaster, characterized by a collapse in grain production and a widespread famine in China between 1959 and 1961, is found attributable to a systemic failure in central planning. Wishfully expecting a great leap in agricultural productivity from collectivization, the Chinese government accelerated its aggressive industrialization timetable. Grain output fell sharply as the government diverted agricultural resources to industry and imposed an excessive grain procurement burden on peasants, leaving them with insufficient calories to sustain labor productivity. Our analysis shows that 61 percent of the decline in output is attributable to the policies of resource diversion and excessive procurement."

Wei Li and Dennis Tao Yang, 'The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster', Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 113, No. 4 (August 2005), pp. 840-877.