Urban Maoism ?

[AussieCollectivist]

If I am not mistaken, Maoism is primarily based on the peasantry as the vehicle of revolution, not the urban working class. So, why would there be Maoist groups and such in urban areas ?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. :unsure:

[Q]

If I am not mistaken, Maoism is primarily based on the peasantry as the vehicle of revolution, not the urban working class. So, why would there be Maoist groups and such in urban areas ?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. :unsure:
Well, there aren't really. In the sixties and seventies Maoism was something of a fad in the West. Most of these groups have collapsed. Where they still exist, they live a marginal existence, just like most of the far left. An exception to this rule is the Dutch SP, which had the opportunity to fill in a vacuum left there by a rightward moving Labour party and a collapsing communist party. It nowadays is set to become the largest party on the left in the Netherlands, which results in all type of problems for which I wrote an article here (http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1053/against-coalitionism/), if you like.

[Sasha]

calling the SP maoist is a bit weird though, even calling them ex-maoist is a stretch, they are a split of a split of a maoist cult but besides maybe 2 or 3 founding members no'one in the party has ever been there while the platform was still maoist, they are populist soc-dems who just happen to have a few roots in 60's maoism, i'm sure europe is littered with groups (though often smaller than the SP) that have some maoist roots.

[Palmares]

Urban Maoists are primarily concerned with fundraising for their overlords.

[Sasha]

ultra-left maoism was very urban and proletarian though (earlier thread; http://www.revleft.com/vb/spontaneous-maoism-t181863/index.html?t=181863) , they had actually some pretty intresting ideas.

and obviously many of the people sympathetic to/in the urban guerilla groups of the 60's and 70's identified as either maoists or focaists but this was more to position themselves as "not moscow aligned" than a clear political theoretical program.

[Tim Cornelis]

I think urban Maoists focus mostly on Maoist strategy of the mass line, and then of course to try and use that to implement a socialist society very much like the one under Mao with (attempted) controlled mass participation.

[John Nada]

If I am not mistaken, Maoism is primarily based on the peasantry as the vehicle of revolution, not the urban working class. So, why would there be Maoist groups and such in urban areas ?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. :unsure: If they're in cities, it's because they're in the city, like other Marxist:).

It's not based on peasant revolution anymore than Leninism itself, or Marxism for that matter. The peasants were focused on because in countries like China that was a large percentage of the population. The working-class(leading the revolution) was a minority that had to reach out to the peasantry as class allies. That the Chinese Communists operated in the countryside(not exclusively) was more a reflection of the situation on the ground at the time, rather than excluding the urban workers and urban areas for ideological reasons.

[G4b3n]

The Blank Panthers where one of the most affective revolutionary organizations in recent U.S history. They were urban Maoists. Newton described their theory as a cross between Mao and Malcolm X. They viewed communities of marginalized racial minorities as colonies within the first world, connected yet distinct at the same time. I am sure you can figure a few points on how Maoism can be useful from that premise for an urban movement.

It was mostly garbage even back in the 60s though. And today, there is no point in being a first world Leninist, let alone a Maoist. The material conditions that necessitated these politics have changed, while left theory has failed to do the same.

[JiangQing]

If I am not mistaken, Maoism is primarily based on the peasantry as the vehicle of revolution, not the urban working class. So, why would there be Maoist groups and such in urban areas ?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. :unsure:

Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is, as defined and developed by Chairman Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru, the red fraction of the ICM, the new, third and superior stage of Marxism. Being a Marxist today means to be a Maoist. I think that is the shortest and most precise you will get.

As Lenin defined Marxism consting of three elements, philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism we have to look if there are develepments in this three aspects.


In Marxist philosophy he developed the essence of dialectics, the law of contradiction, establishing it as the only fundamental law; and besides his profound dialectical understanding of the theory of knowledge, whose center are the two leaps that make up its law (from practice to knowledge and vice versa, but with knowledge to practice being the main one). We emphasize that he masterfully applied the law of contradiction in politics; and moreover he brought philosophy to the masses of people, fulfilling the task that Marx left.
In Marxist political economy, Chairman Mao applied dialectics to analyze the relationship between the base and superstructure, and, continuing the struggle of Marxism-Leninism against the revisionist thesis of the "productive forces", he concluded that the superstructure, consciousness, can modify the base, and that with political power the productive forces can be developed. By developing the Leninist idea that politics is the concentrated expression of economics, he established that politics must be in command, (applicable on all levels) and that political work is the life-line of economic work; which takes us to the true handling of political economy, not just a simple economic policy.
Despite its importance, an issue which is often sidestepped, especially by those who face democratic revolutions, is the Maoist thesis of bureaucratic capitalism; that is, the capitalism which is being developed in the oppressed nations by imperialism along with different degrees of underlying feudalism, or even pre-feudal stages. This is a vital problem, mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, since a good revolutionary leadership derives from its understanding, especially when the confiscation of bureaucratic capital forms the economic basis for carrying forward the socialist revolution as the second stage.
But the main thing is that Chairman Mao Tse-tung has developed the political economy of socialism. Of the utmost importance is his criticism of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, as well as his theses on how to develop socialism in China: Taking agriculture as the base and industry as the leading economic force, promoting industrialization guided by the relationship between heavy industry, light industry and agriculture; taking heavy industry as the center of economic construction and simultaneously paying full attention to light industry and agriculture. The Great Leap Forward and the conditions for its execution should be highlighted: One, the political line that gives it a just and correct course; two, small, medium, and large organizational forms in a greater to lesser quantity, respectively; three, a great drive, a gigantic effort of the masses of people in order to put it in motion and to take it through to success, a leap forward whose results are valued more for the new process set in motion and its historical perspective than its immediate achievements, and its linkage with agricultural collectivization and the people's communes. Finally, we must bear well in mind his teachings on the objectivity and the subjectivity in understanding and handling the laws of socialism, that because the few decades of socialism have not permitted it to see its complete development, and therefore a better understanding of its laws and its specification, and principally the relationship that exists between revolution and the economic process, embodied in the slogan "grasp revolution and promote production". Despite its transcendental importance, this development of Marxist political economy has received scant attention.
In scientific socialism, Chairman Mao further developed the theory of social classes analyzing them on economic, political, and ideological planes. He upheld revolutionary violence as a universal law without any exception whatsoever; revolution as a violent displacement of one class by another, thus establishing the great thesis that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". He resolved the question of the conquest of political power in the oppressed nations through the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside, establishing its general laws. He defined and developed the theory of the class struggle within socialism in which he brilliantly demonstrated that the antagonistic struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the socialist road and the capitalist road, and between socialism and capitalism continues. That in socialism it was not concretely determined who would defeat whom, that it was a problem whose solution demands time, the unfolding of a process of restoration and counter-restoration, in order for the proletariat to strongly hold political power definitely through the proletarian dictatorship; and, finally and principally, the grandiose solution of historical transcendence, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as the continuation of the socialist revolution under the proletarian dictatorship.
These basic questions, simply and plainly stated but known and undeniable, show the Chairman's development of the integral parts of Marxism, and the evident raising of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third and superior stage: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.

[The Feral Underclass]

If I am not mistaken, Maoism is primarily based on the peasantry as the vehicle of revolution, not the urban working class. So, why would there be Maoist groups and such in urban areas ?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. :unsure:

I think the better thing to do is understand why the peasants of pre-revolutionary China were seen as the vehicle of revolution in the first place and see whether that can be applied to sections of the working class in urbanised countries. The issue then is about who the revolutionary subject is. By identifying that subject you are then able to apply similar tactical and strategic methods, and build bases of support that can ultimately be used in generating conflict in the cities and -- theoretically -- supporting a protracted people's war. Although it's possibly arguable that PPW is not particularly useful for countries with such sophisticated military apparatuses.

[The Feral Underclass]

The Blank Panthers where one of the most affective revolutionary organizations in recent U.S history. They were urban Maoists. Newton described their theory as a cross between Mao and Malcolm X. They viewed communities of marginalized racial minorities as colonies within the first world, connected yet distinct at the same time. I am sure you can figure a few points on how Maoism can be useful from that premise for an urban movement.

It was mostly garbage even back in the 60s though. And today, there is no point in being a first world Leninist, let alone a Maoist. The material conditions that necessitated these politics have changed, while left theory has failed to do the same.

I'm not sure I understand what you think is particularly garbage about the premise that 'colonies' of marginalised and disenfranchised racial minorities exist in "first-world" countries. I think it's a fairly sound analysis. There are politically dispossessed, economically disenfranchised and 'militarily' repressed communities in the West who are, by and large, racial minorities.

[G4b3n]

I'm not sure I understand what you think is particularly garbage about the premise that 'colonies' of marginalised and disenfranchised racial minorities exist in "first-world" countries? I think it's a fairly sound analysis. There are politically dispossessed, economically enfranchised and 'militarily' repressed communities in the West who are, by and large, racial minorities.

I do not disagree with the premise. But neither do many left liberals. Eugene Mccarthy was very vocal about the problem of the "ghetto colonies" in the 1968 democratic primaries as a candidate running to the left of Robert Kennedy. Does that mean he was a Maoist? You be the judge.
Edit: Also, I happen, to live in one of these colonies. On the west side of Jacksonville Florida, where the white population is less than 5%. Sound proportional? Its not.

I think the concept of revolutionary organization is garbage. The centralization, that the Panthers and almost all Maoist parties indulged in, is not flattering to a genuine worker's movement that wishes establish a workers' state. Or in the case of the panthers, the lumpen proles, whom they helped in a variety of ways, but their mode of organization would have been harmful had they somehow seized power.

[The Feral Underclass]

I do not disagree with the premise. But neither do many left liberals. Eugene Mccarthy was very vocal about the problem of the "ghetto colonies" in the 1968 democratic primaries as a candidate running to the left of Robert Kennedy. Does that mean he was a Maoist? You be the judge.

Could you explain the relevancy of this?


I think the concept of revolutionary organization is garbage. The centralization, that the Panthers and almost all Maoist parties indulged in, is not flattering to a genuine worker's movement that wishes establish a workers' state. Or in the case of the panthers, the lumpen proles, whom they helped in a variety of ways, but their mode of organization would have been harmful had they somehow seized power.

From the way you structured your post, it seemed that you were saying the position on urban colonies was garbage. "Revolutionary organisation" is a whole other issue :)

[G4b3n]

Could you explain the relevancy of this?

From the way you structured your post, it seemed that you were saying the position on urban colonies was garbage. "Revolutionary organisation" is a whole other issue :)

The premise is not unique to Maoism in any way. So my rejection of Maoism is completely independent of this premise. I do accept the premise, but not on the basis of Maoist analysis.


And No, I was clearly referencing Maoism as an ideology. Misunderstandings happen though.

[Bala Perdida]

I guess you can still see the mass line thing here in the US with the RCP. Basically one of the most active communist organizations here, and they're maoist. Although they don't hail Mao as much as they do Avakian. You just basically see them in almost every protest for racial justice and other issues. They commonly lead them, or try to lead them. Also the PSL and their allies ANSWER coalition have the same presence in the protests, but they're not as loud as RCP.

[Comrade Jacob]

You can be Maoist in an urban area, sure the peasantry is a chunk of Maoism, however there is more to Maoism than just "muh peasants". To be a Maoist is to except Mao's contributions to Marxism-Leninism. You can live in an urban area and still be a Maoist and promote Mao's ideas. The revolution in an urban area won't be one of the peasantry but it can still use the 'mass-line' theory and Mao's guerilla warfare tactics etc.