"Marxism-Leninism-Maoism"

[redstar2000]

Mao's "Dialectics" & Chinese Foreign Policy

*Early 1960s -- Mao advised the Indonesian Communist Party to forego people's war and ally with the left-nationalist dictator Sukarno; in October 1965 a military coup took place in which the PKI's half-million members were deliberately massacred and perhaps as many as an additional million Indonesians were killed. (The CIA supplied lists of Indonesians that it wanted the military to be sure and kill.)

*April 1971 -- Mao supported the conservative government in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in crushing a left insurrection in that island nation; the Chinese government actually sent congratulations to the Ceylonese rightists on their shameful victory.

*October 1971 -- Mao's government was among the first to recognize the semi-fascist Pinochet regime in Chile; the Chinese actually held an official reception in honor of Chile on the second anniversary of the coup.

*1973 -- Mao ended support of the revolutionary movement in Oman, while praising the Shah's tyranny in Iran as a "bulwark against the USSR".

*1974-75 -- Mao sided with the left-bourgeois Popular Socialist Party against the workers and soldiers of Portugal after the fascist dictatorship was overthrown. When the PSP triumphed thanks to the imposition of martial law, the Chinese government applauded.

*1975-76 -- As Angola's independence movement approached victory, a U.S.-sponsered reactionary group rebelled and invited racist South African troops to take over the country when Portugal withdrew. Mao allied the Chinese government with the reactionaries against the people who had actually struggled for Angolan independence for many years.

(This summary is from Max Elbaum's Revolution in the Air; Sixties Radicals Turn To Lenin, Mao and Che, pp.210-219.)


Possible Explanations

*Mao simply did not know enough about Indonesia to open his mouth on the subject; and in any event, the PKI was certainly not obligated to take his advice. I have no idea if the PKI considered themselves "masters of the dialectic"...but if that was their claim, it went down in flames along with their party.

*By 1970 or so, Mao had no real power left. He was a "figurehead" and real power was already effectively in the hands of the capitalist-roaders.

*By 1970, Mao was a victim of advancing senility...he still had power but simply had no idea what he was doing.

*Mao's "dialectics" were simply pretentious nonsense...leading to one reactionary blunder after another.


Max Elbaum describes in gory detail the consequences of the Chinese line on the American left, especially those who looked to Mao and "third-world Marxism" as a guide to organizing in the U.S. Small groups that were trying to organize new "Marxist"-Leninist-Maoist parties disintegrated in dismay or exploded in factional recriminations. And pretty much everybody else recoiled from this pseudo-"Marxism" in disgust; some joined the reformist periphery of the bourgeois Democratic Party (around Jesse Jackson) but most simply dropped out of politics altogether.

After these events, can there possibly be any future for "MLM" or "dialectics" in the "west"? A new generation of lefties may not be aware of the past, but there will always be people on hand to pass on the "lessons of history".

Like Max Elbaum.

And me.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Comrade Raz]

Wow, i never knew those things about Mao before. He has seriuosly dimminished in my opinion.

[synthesis]

That's incredible. I never knew Mao was as successful as Stalin in crushing world revolution.

[Saint-Just]

This means nothing at all. There is no detail about these events, so no one can judge these events based only on what has been written here. For example, the Ceylonese government was not right-wing, it was a socialist government that was friendly with the west and the revisionist USSR. Also, many of those who opposed the government were trotskyists, and it is easy to see why Mao's government would support putting down a Trotskyist insurrection.

Mao was certainly not too senile by the 70s, and he and other anti-revisionists in the party still had enough power to direct Chinese foreign policy. So, two of the explanations can be rubbished. I would say that the explanation is that Mao made decisions that he thought would provide the greatest benefit to the world communist movement in each case.

What is being said by redstar2000 is propaganda that should not be accepted out-of-hand.


I never knew Mao was as successful as Stalin in crushing world revolution.

Stalin provided help for the revolution in China. He also aided revolution in Eastern Europe and smaller Asian countries.

[synthesis]

Stalin provided help for the revolution in China. He also aided revolution in Eastern Europe and smaller Asian countries.

He assisted Eastern European countries for "national security", not world revolution, as his other actions (and inaction, in some circumstances) testified to. Between refusing to aid insurgents in Greece and Italy, ordering the German Communist Party to cooperate with the Nazis, and assisting the Spanish Fascists in quelling the Anarchists, I think it's hard to say that Stalin wanted anything to do with world revolution.

As for China, let's not forget that Stalin signed a Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with Chiang Kai-Shek, and told Mao to run a coalition government with the Nationalists.

[Saint-Just]

I don't know the details of everything you are referring to. But to that of which I do...

The Red Army was a few hundred thousand strong, whilst the KMT was over 4 million strong. The Red Army had not only the task of fighting the KMT but the Japanese imperialists who had already had some success invading China. If the Red Army and the KMT fought between themselves it would be likely that the Japanese imperialists could defeat both of them.

So, they decided to create a military alliance with the KMT and fight the Japanese and then overthrow the KMT following victory against the imperialists. They fought the Japanese and won, then they fought the KMT and won once more.


In the case of non-aggression pact with the Germans, the Nazis had just invaded Czechoslovakia. Britain and France had promised to intervence should the Nazis attempt to take Czechoslovakia. At this point in 1936 the Soviets could see that no one would stop the Nazis should the move into the USSR, previously it was thought that the British and French would since they had strong ties and imperial interests in Eastern Europe, particularly the French (in Yugoslavia). The USSR was not ready for war, indeed if the Nazis invaded were the Soviets prepared for war the Nazis (Germany as a highly advanced capitalist nation of 80 million) could still defeat any Soviet forces (only recently out of feudalism and a population of around 200 million). So, the Soviets decided to prolong the chance of any Nazi invasion to prepare their forces. Following this pact the Soviets quickly built up their armed forces.

[redstar2000]

I would say that the explanation is that Mao made decisions that he thought would provide the greatest benefit to the world communist movement in each case.

Well, he was full of shit then, wasn't he?

How did it "benefit" the "world communist movement" to have friendly relations with Pinochet?

How did it "benefit" the "world communist movement" to praise the bourgeois PSP's victory in Portugal over the workers and soldiers?

And most of all, how did it "benefit" the "world communist movement" to support racist South Africa and the CIA in Angola, laying the foundation for total devastation in that country in a civil war that has lasted to this day?


What is being said by redstar2000 is propaganda that should not be accepted out-of-hand.

You wish!

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Roses in the Hospital]

In regards the Hitler/Stalin non-aggression pact, I've heard it said that Stalin's reasoning was that he believed Nazism wouldn't be able to sustain itself for very long and would soon collapse and make way for a communist takeover...
I'm not sure of the ins-and-outs of his logic, or reliability of this information but I thought it was a point worth raising...

[Louis Pio]

Hehe it seems anti-revisionism means closing your eyes and only beliving the words of the "great chairman" who shines on and on etc etc

Thanks for the information RedStar, I didn't know the chinese regime took these standpoints.


Also, many of those who opposed the government were trotskyists, and it is easy to see why Mao's government would support putting down a Trotskyist insurrection.


Yes the biggest workers party in Sri Lanka was "trotskyist", unlike the rest of the world it was the stalinists that was booted out there. Both camps degenerated though. But a difference was that the minority (stalinists) wasn't murdered by the majority.

[synthesis]

The Red Army was a few hundred thousand strong, whilst the KMT was over 4 million strong...

You don't have to give me the "a long, long time ago" speech. I know the China story. Thing is, even after World War II was over, Stalin advised Mao to negotiate with Kai-Shek rather than carry out a civil war, and in fact the Treaty to which I referred earlier was signed in mid-1945. Mao ignored Stalin's counsels and went on to capture the reigns of China.


In the case of non-aggression pact with the Germans, the Nazis had just invaded Czechoslovakia.

I accept the non-aggression pact. I understand it was necessary. You'll find that I referred to it nowhere in my post.

[Salvador Allende]

Koba knew nothing of guerilla warfare, he cannot be blamed for his advice to Mao. As for Mao recognizing Pinochet, recognizing means nothing except you have realized who is in charge and don't ignore it for 20 years and go into denial (like the US did with the PRC). Mao had a choice between Khruschovism or Trotskyism controlling those nations or another party. Chosing between supporting the oppression of Khruschovism, traitorous policies of Trotskyism or another leftist regime, that is an easy choice. Mao even said, if there are two imperialist powers, I will fight the one closer to me first. That was Mao's goal.

[Louis Pio]

Mao had a choice between Khruschovism or Trotskyism controlling those nations or another party. Chosing between supporting the oppression of Khruschovism, traitorous policies of Trotskyism or another leftist regime, that is an easy choice. Mao even said, if there are two imperialist powers, I will fight the one closer to me first. That was Mao's goal.

So in your oppinion Mao's goal was never that of improveing people's conditions? He saw it more as a fight for his and the regimes personal prestige from what I can see in your post.
Great socialist....
And Salvador recognising a regime means that you give it legitimacy, and that was what he did with the Pinochet regime.

[Saint-Just]

In regards the Hitler/Stalin non-aggression pact, I've heard it said that Stalin's reasoning was that he believed Nazism wouldn't be able to sustain itself for very long and would soon collapse and make way for a communist takeover...
I'm not sure of the ins-and-outs of his logic, or reliability of this information but I thought it was a point worth raising...

It was assumed by the Communists that their popularity would increase and that the circumstances for a violent revolution would become clearer when the Nazis came to power. That was possibly a consideration for the non-aggression pact, although it was in 1936 when the Nazis had consolidated their power.


Yes the biggest workers party in Sri Lanka was "trotskyist", unlike the rest of the world it was the stalinists that was booted out there. Both camps degenerated though. But a difference was that the minority (stalinists) wasn't murdered by the majority.

Yes, this it distateful perhaps. But it shows the reasoning behind Mao's thinking rather than redstar2000's idea that, for no apparent reason, Mao regularly made decisions that damaged the communist movement.


Thing is, even after World War II was over, Stalin advised Mao to negotiate with Kai-Shek rather than carry out a civil war, and in fact the Treaty to which I referred earlier was signed in mid-1945. Mao ignored Stalin's counsels and went on to capture the reigns of China.

I see, I did not know what you were referring to. I thought you mentioned the non-aggression pact with the Nazis too, I posted something that I had posted before rather than writing anything new.

[redstar2000]

In the interests of fairness, I thought people here might like to see a hard-core Maoist (Revolutionary Communist Party U.S.) response to my post...

----------------------------


Redstar called this post: Mao's "Dialectics" & Chinese Foreign Policy

But it really is not about dialectics... it is a list of the complaints and indictments made by the Soviet ruling class in the 60s and 70s when they attacked Mao and China. This is picked from Max Elbaum's book (a big attack on the Maoist movement in the U.S.) but he typically did not invent any of this. His politics (then and now) is rehashed Soviet revisionism.

And it is worth pointing out that as the Soviet revisionists were making these charges (which I will deal with one by one), they were selling out and opposing revolution all over the world. While Mao (and the Marxist Leninists aligned with him) were promoting revolution, and seeking to advance revolution all over the world.

So before even getting into the various incidents and issues discussed here, let's just make that much clear.

In the time period we are talking about (1960s and 70s) Mao and the Maoists were fighting (hard) to uphold the Marxist understanding of the need for revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle (not collaboration and capitulation) to the various ruling classes. New Maoist parties were forming (after 1963) and in many cases taking up the road of preparing for revolution, and even initiating peoples war (Naxilbari in India, in Turkey, etc.)

In other words, the impression given by redstar/Elbaum/Soviet revisionists, is that Mao was confused and vacillating -- when in reality, there was an intense line-struggle going down worldwide, and Mao was exactly the opposite: he was taking and leading in a historic and clear stand of pushing forward the world revolution.

In line with this thread, it is worth discussing the issues redstar/Elbaum raises in light of dialectics.

Here are some contradictions worth discussing first:

* The Chinese party both played the role of a leading communist force in the world communist movement, and as the leading party in a socialist state within a very intense world of threatening powers and possible allies. This meant there were real pulls and contradictions on them.

On one hand, they supported, encouraged and had relations with communist movements all over the world. On the other hand, they also had relations with countries that claimed to be communist and were headed by revisionists (like Romania). And on yet another hand, they had to have relations with various governments with reactionary bourgeois rulers -- for trade, for mutual resistance to imperialist moves, for resolution of border issues, etc.

* Another contradiction: there was always within the Chinese party and state a sharp two-line struggle over how to resolve these issues -- it was one of the sharp contradictions between the capitalist road and socialist road within the Chinese party.

So, for example, the Foreign Ministry (which handled both relations with foreign governments, but also relations with foreign communist parties) was under the leadership of Chou enlai -- and his line sometimes coincided with Mao's revolutionary line, and sometimes (increasingly) did not.

* This is not a "revolution only" world. While Mao was seeking the way to push forward the world revolution, the U.S. had China encircled, was attacking Vietnam on China's southern border, and the USSR had massed two million troops in the North and was threatening a preemptive nuclear strike. The international relations, moves and approaches of the Chinese revolutionaries took place on a very complex and difficult terrain, where the stakes were very high -- the very survival of the Chinese revolution, and the world revolution.

So with that in mind, let's look at Redstar/Elbaum/Brezhnev's complaints.


Early 1960s -- Mao advised the Indonesian Communist Party to forego people's war and ally with the left-nationalist dictator Sukarno; in October 1965 a military coup took place in which the PKI's half-million members were deliberately massacred and perhaps as many as an additional million Indonesians were killed. (The CIA supplied lists of Indonesians that it wanted the military to be sure and kill.)

This is completely upside down and wrong.

Mao was arguing for peoples war as a strategy in third world countries, and the PKI had a different strategy.

Let me put it like this: If you (redstar) have any evidence that Mao suggested the strategy that PKI followed, share it with us. Because that evidence doesn't exist.

Mao was struggling to have communists around the world recognize revisionism, break with it and take the revolutionary road.

The PKI was the largest party in a non-socialist country, and one of the parties with the best chance of seizing power. So Mao did not just say fuck you guys. He struggled with that party, and had relations with them, and sought to win them over to an MLM path.

He failed to win them over. And their rightist, revisionist course led to their massacre.

But if you want to fix blame for this massacre: it goes first to the U.S. who carried it out. and then second to the Soviet revisionists who were the authors of the rightism the PKI endorsed.

There is a powerful (and famous) document that sums up the stand of the Maoists on the line and events in Indonesia:

Self-Criticism by the Indonesian Communist Party, 1966 (http://www.antenna.nl/wvi/eng/ic/pki/selfcrit.htm)

Central to that self-criticism of the Communist Party of Indonesia is their summation that their failures arose from not studying what Mao was saying:


The self-criticism emphatically points out that the experience of the struggle waged by the Party in the past has shown how indispensable it is for the Indonesian Marxist-Leninists, who are resolved to defend Marxism-Leninism and to combat modern revisionism, to study not only the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, but also to devote special attention to studying the Thought of Mao Tsetung who has succeeded in brilliantly inheriting, defending and developing Marxism-Leninism to its peak in the present era.

This is the opposite of the idea that Mao urged them on this rightist path.


April 1971 -- Mao supported the conservative government in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in crushing a left insurrection in that island nation; the Chinese government actually sent congratulations to the Ceylonese rightists on their shameful victory.

This completely confuses the facts about these events.

First, there was an uprising in Ceylon, which had a communalist edge. Ceylon is a multinational country (with Sinhalese and Tamil communities).

The Chinese government did not support the uprising, and did not consider the movement revolutionary. And did not consider it to have a chance of bringing about a more radical situation on the island.

As for what Mao said and thought -- I do not know. (And I suspect neither does redstar/Elbaum). Do you have any evidence of where Mao stood on this?

Or are you just assuming (like any anticommunist) that anything that happened in Russia was Stalin's doing, and anything the Chinese government said or did was Mao's view?

Anyone with any sense of the intense Chinese politics (there was an attempted coup in China in 1971 by the head of the military Lin Biao, and the whole domestic scene was very tense and intense!) knows that what the foreign ministry said about Ceylon may not be what Mao thought.

But perhaps such subtleties are too dialectical for those who just like common sense and claim to just like the facts. (What facts are even presented in this Elbaum list about what Mao said and did?!!)


October 1971 -- Mao's government was among the first to recognize the semi-fascist Pinochet regime in Chile; the Chinese actually held an official reception in honor of Chile on the second anniversary of the coup.

The Maoists of Chile (the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile) were on the forefront of the struggle against Pinochet, and many of them were murdered by his killers.

Maoists did not (obviously) and do not (obviously) support fascism.

At the same time, the Chinese government was, at that moment, facing the danger of a Soviet nuclear strike (documented in U.S. government memoirs etc. as well as the materials of the Maoist government in China). They were working hard to break out of diplomatic isolation -- and prevent themselves from being isolated on the global stage in a complex world situation. So they developed diplomatic, state-to-state relations with many countries -- including (obviously) many countries with reactionary governments.

The Soviet Union had embassies in Nazi Germany (and anywhere else they had diplomatic relations). And Maoist China also had embassies in all kinds of countries -- and held receptions, and met with government officials.

There is a complex relationship between the state to state relations of a socialist country -- and the party to party relations of the internationalist communist movement.

Are you suggesting that socialist countries should not have relations?

There were some complex issues in the Chinese foreign policy at that point. And some rather extreme rightist forces (including prominently Teng himself) were influential in Chinese diplomatic efforts. So there were also some errors made (both by genuine communists in china making errors, and by revisionists on the capitalist road in China pursuing their pro-U.S. road).


Mao ended support of the revolutionary movement in Oman, while praising the Shah's tyranny in Iran as a "bulwark against the USSR".

If redstar has any evidence that Mao called the Shah a "bulwark against the USSR", let's see it. You put quotes around that like it is a fact. Got a quote? Got a citation? Or is it just more bullshit?

By 1973 Mao was three years from death, and very sick with Parkinson's disease; he was not running day to day affairs, and certainly not foreign policy.

The Chinese did not cut off aid to Oman's revolutionaries -- those forces were defeated by a counterinsurgency campaign (carried out by that pig, the Shah.)

The revisionists in China (who were, as I said, very powerful in Chinese foreign policy) were deeply involved in seeking to build an anti-soviet united front. And it is clear (from the documentary evidence) that Mao and Chou had some very different ideas about how things should be done -- particularly on the role of revolutionary internationalism and struggle in the forward movement of things.


Mao sided with the left-bourgeois Popular Socialist Party against the workers and soldiers of Portugal after the fascist dictatorship was overthrown. When the PSP triumphed thanks to the imposition of martial law, the Chinese government applauded.

This is a new one. And (here again) if there is a place where Mao said anything on Portugal I'll be very surprised. I have read all of Mao's available statements and writings form this intense period (where he launched the Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius campaign -- targeted on Chou enlai and his line). He did not side with the left bourgeois anything against the workers and soldiers -- it is simply bullshit. There was a powerful Maoist component within the Portuguese upheaval -- and I bet if you look closely that (not surprisingly) is the current the Maoists outside Portugal were supporting.


1975-76 -- As Angola's independence movement approached victory, a U.S.-sponsered reactionary group rebelled and invited racist South African troops to take over the country when Portugal withdrew. Mao allied the Chinese government with the reactionaries against the people who had actually struggled for Angolan independence for many years.

This is an old lie.

Here is the truth: there were three liberation armies in Angola.
The FNLA (from the north), the MPLA (in the center) and Unita (in the southeast). The soviets only supported the MPLA. The Chinese called for unity of all three -- and had relations with all three.

One of them, Unita, made an alliance with the South Africans against the MPLA (which was, obviously, a very reactionary thing to do). The Soviet Union used that alliance as an excuse to send in Cuban mercenary troops to invade Angola and basically take over the country. And the Maoists opposed this imperialist action as well.


(This summary is from Max Elbaum's Revolution in the Air; Sixties Radicals Turn To Lenin, Mao and Che, pp.210-219.)

Let's just be clear who Max Elbaum is: he is a veteran of the pro-soviet revisionist movement. He was a leading member of the Line of March organization that was dedicated to opposing the revolutionary line of Maoism in the U.S. left, and promoting pro-Soviet forms of revisionism on every question, including, by the way, dialectics: their line on dialectics was an extreme, almost-Hegelian teleological one, that literally said negation of negation is THE Marxist theory of development.


Mao simply did not know enough about Indonesia to open his mouth on the subject; and in any event, the PKI was certainly not obligated to take his advice. I have no idea if the PKI considered themselves "masters of the dialectic"...but if that was their claim, it went down in flames along with their party.

I think I dealt with this. You simply don't know what you are talking about. And your claim that Mao "opened his mouth on the subject" is both insulting (to a great revolutionary) and simply factually wrong on all sides. Mao did not run around telling people what to do, first of all. And his overall line (for the world communist movement) was opposed to the rightist approach that led the PKI to defeat.


By 1970 or so, Mao had no real power left. He was a "figurehead" and real power was already effectively in the hands of the capitalist-roaders.

This is typically onesided (and dare I say, undialectical).

Mao may not have controlled every decision and statement of the Chinese government. (He never did, neither did Stalin!)
But that doesn't mean he had no real power left.

Are those the only two choices: either he had metaphysically total power or he had zero real power? What a mechanical, and undialectical binary view of reality!

How about (as the Maoists say) viewing the state as an arena of class struggle, where there are capitalist roaders and also genuine communists fighting on many levels. Isn't that what the Cultural revolution was (and what it revealed)?


By 1970, Mao was a victim of advancing senility...he still had power but simply had no idea what he was doing.

This is too stupid to bother responding to. Anyone curious about this should read the essay Mao s Last Battle by Ray Lotta -- for the complex and soul-stirring struggle led by Mao as he was dying. He was old, dying, losing the ability to do what he used to, and was waging complex struggle.

But then again, if you don't bother to study or investigate, if you uphold "facts" but don't really look into them -- you can claim anything.


Mao's "dialectics" were simply pretentious nonsense...leading to one reactionary blunder after another.

Of course the options are not just that Mao was either powerless or a fool.

There are some other options:

a) There was complex class struggle in China (which would soon lead to a coup)

b) There were complex and contradictory pulls on a socialist state -- that both needs to uphold revolution [...sentence breaks off here]

c) Much of what redstar borrows from the Soviet imperialists and reprints here (via Elbaum) is just counterrevolutionary bullshit.

d) And through all of that the dialectics of Mao and the Maoists was a powerful weapon for sorting things out, for developing policy in complex situations, for advancing under difficult conditions, and for waging the class struggle (under socialism and within their own state) for a way forward.


Max Elbaum describes in gory detail the consequences of the Chinese line on the American left, especially those who looked to Mao and "third-world Marxism" as a guide to organizing in the U.S. Small groups that were trying to organize new "Marxist"-Leninist-Maoist parties disintegrated in dismay or exploded in factional recriminations. And pretty much everybody else recoiled from this pseudo-"Marxism" in disgust; some joined the reformist periphery of the bourgeois Democratic Party (around Jesse Jackson) but most simply dropped out of politics altogether.

Blah blah blah. Elbaum is a lying revisionist, and he is stumping for Anybody But Bush (talk about recoiling in disgust.)

He was an enemy of revolution and Marxism in the 1960s, and he is an enemy of revolution and Marxism today.

Why not just quote Fox news?

posted by eat the world at Another World Is Possible on June 8, 2004.

http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?boar...isplay&start=15 (http://awip.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=theory&num=1086283076&action=display&start=15)

-----------------------

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Salvador Allende]

Khruschovism and Trotskyism doesn't improve things for the people. They worsen them. That is why Mao opposed them. Recognizing a country in all honesty is nothing, the country's regime is either in power or it isn't and you more or less have to recognize the ruling regime, it is stupid not to.

[redstar2000]

Here I have combined two posts that I made in reply to eat the world's response.
-------------------------------

eat the world's massive response to my summary of Max Elbaum's account of Chinese foreign policy under Mao seems to be...

1. Elbaum is a "pro-Soviet" liar!

2. Mao was not really responsible for Chinese foreign policy; the revisionists were running things in that department.

3. Mao was too sick after 1973 to be running anything.

4. And, anyways, Chinese foreign policy prior to 1976 was actually correct...or at least excusable under the circumstances.

Since I'm not in a position to take a few months off and attempt to document all of Elbaum's contentions, I will let the matter rest.

Mao clearly remains "the red sun in your hearts" and any criticisms of him or of pre-1976 China in general is, as a matter of principle, unacceptable.

Now, as to the matter of Chinese foreign policy and Mao's influence on it...

First of all, it was clearly a blunder on my part for raising that subject in this thread...or at all, since I'm not a student of modern Chinese history.

When you folks flatly assert that Max Elbaum is a "pro-Soviet revisionist liar"...I am accordingly struck speechless. He does refer to other texts as sources for his summary...but you could call them "liars" too.

I would really have to stop all my other work and investigate the matter thoroughly...and I simply don't have the time or the inclination to do that.

Thus I must reluctantly admit (choke!) that your criticism of me is justified. I "opened my mouth" without proper investigation.

You win some; you lose some.

But there remains a curious contradiction in your defense of China's foreign policy 1970-76.

On the one hand, you suggest that the revisionists had control (partial or total) of the Chinese Foreign Ministry while all this stuff was happening...and thus Mao is "off the hook".

On the other hand, you actually deny Elbaum's interpretation of these events and suggest that China was "doing the right thing"...even under revisionist leadership.

I don't see how both of those things could possibly be true. If Chinese foreign policy was really Maoist...then the revisionists could not have been running things. But if the revisionists were in control, then how could they nevertheless "follow a Maoist line"?

I know you posit Foreign Minister Chou as an ambiguous figure in all this...sometimes Maoist, sometimes revisionist (more revisionist towards the end of his life).

But I don't see how that resolves the dilemma if, no matter who was running things, Chinese foreign policy "was correct", i.e., Maoist.

---------------------

And a couple of minor points.

The matter of diplomatic relations between nations should, in my opinion, be one of principle for nations that claim to be socialist.

That doesn't mean that formal diplomatic relations shouldn't exist between a socialist country and a capitalist country...but it does preclude expressions of "friendship" and other such lies. The diplomats themselves even have an expression for it: "correct relations".

In the case of reactionary coups as in Chile or the emergence of reactionary regimes (the 3rd Reich), I think the principled position is to break off diplomatic relations, close the embassies, impose a trade embargo, and flatly refuse to have anything to do with the bastards.


One of them, Unita, made an alliance with the South Africans against the MPLA. (which was, obviously, a very reactionary thing to do.) The Soviet Union used that alliance as an excuse to send in Cuban mercenary troops to invade Angola, and basically take over the country. And the Maoists opposed this imperialist action as well.

I feel more confident on this point than on all the others that Elbaum brought up.

Cuba did not "invade" Angola...that's bullshit! The MPLA requested Cuban assistance against the Unita reactionaries and their South African allies...and, as I understand it, the Cubans promptly inflicted several stinging defeats upon the South Africans (who, unlike the Cubans, really were mercenaries).

After the South Africans were driven out, the MPLA government told the Cubans that their assistance was no longer needed and the Cubans went home...so much for "an armed takeover".

As far as I know, the USSR supplied the Cubans with transport and arms...can you cite evidence that the USSR "ordered" Cuban troops to Angola?

From what you have said elsewhere, Mao is almost certainly "off the hook" on this one...but you're not.

If you want to "line up" (even in retrospect) with the CIA-sponsored Unita gangsters and their South African mercenaries "against Soviet imperialism", well...just hope everybody forgets it ever happened.

Otherwise folks are not going to think well of you...at all!

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[elijahcraig]

Redstar, I think you should answer the post in full and not pick minor points out, or misinterpret (on purpose) what the guy said in reply to your post. YOu are doing the typical redstar thing, editing and picking and choosing your battles, and not addressing the points made in the debate.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2004, 09:31 PM
Redstar, I think you should answer the post in full and not pick minor points out, or misinterpret (on purpose) what the guy said in reply to your post. You are doing the typical redstar thing, editing and picking and choosing your battles, and not addressing the points made in the debate.
Well, how would you reply, Elijah?

Max Elbaum's book struck me as actually friendly to Maoism overall...I had no idea that the RCP folks would flatly reject everything he said as "revisionist Soviet lies".

In my naiveté, I actually thought they'd admit that Mao could be wrong.

Thus, I answered what I could and let the rest go...who the fuck has first hand knowledge of what was actually going on between Mao's sickbed and the Chinese Foreign Ministry?

What am I supposed to say: "Elbaum's not lying, you are!"?

Chile and Angola are the two things that I'm certain that Elbaum is right about...so I dwelt on those. As for the rest...maybe Elbaum is lying. Do you "know", one way or the other?

I don't think that I "only respond" to "minor points" nor did I edit anything out of eat the world's post at Another World Is Possible -- that's the full text.

I do, of course, "pick and choose" my "battles"...as does everyone on a message board...it's physically impossible to respond to everything.

But how about this? Look at what I did say in response to eat the world and tell me where I'm wrong.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[elijahcraig]

I am not saying Mao cannot be wrong, but that you have not proven certain things about what he did...like providing quotes, historical facts, etc...you've just picked facts which have now been proven either wrong or highly sketchy.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2004, 11:41 PM
I am not saying Mao cannot be wrong, but that you have not proven certain things about what he did...like providing quotes, historical facts, etc...you've just picked facts which have now been proven either wrong or highly sketchy.
Come on, Elijah!

The stuff I passed over is just counter-assertion...no more documented or "proven" than what Elbaum himself said.

Elbaum's Sources

On Indonesia: Franz Schurmann, The Logic of World Power; An Inquiry into the Origins, Currents, and Contradictions of World Politics, 1974, pp. 342-45.

On Indonesia: D.S. Sumner and R.S. Butler, The Five Retreats; A History of the Failure of the Progressive Labor Party, 1977, pp.6-7.

On Ceylon: Jack A. Smith, Unite the Many; Defeat the Few; China's Revolutionary Line in Foreign Affairs, 1973 (pamphlet), pp. 33-36.

On Ceylon: Fred Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War, 1983, p.162.

On Chile (the reception): New York Times, October 12, 1973.

On Chile: Albert Szymanski, Is the Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union Today, 1979, p. 169. Also Halliday (1983), p. 162.

On Oman and the Shah: Nigel Disney, "China and the Middle East", MERIP Reports, no. 63 (1977), pp. 11-13.

On Portugal: Paul M. Sweezy, "Class Struggles in Portugal, Parts One and Two", Monthly Review, 1975, 27:4 pp. 1-26 and 27:5 pp.1-15.

On Portugal: Hsinhua, August 18, 1975

On Angola: Azinna Nwafor, "Liberation of Angola", Monthly Review, 1976, 27:9, pp. 1-12.

On Angola: John S. Saul, "Angola and After", Monthly Review, 1976, 28:1, pp. 4-15.

On Angola: John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, 1976.

On Angola: Halliday (1983), pp. 87-88.

All liars?

You really think so?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Enver Hoxha]

Certainly a interesting debate to say the least.

Once again though it seems that those doing all the criticising at Mao or someone else seem to take written statements as facts without bothering to do any research into what actually happened.

Mao certainly made mistakes but I would regard them as more internal than in foriegn policy. And as the Maoists point out it is very wrong to be taking the 'Great man' view of history which redstar so ironically criticises yet uses it when talking about Mao or Stalin in a historical sense.