Stalinist and so on....

[xx_refused_xx]

Hello, i'm still kindia new to this whole thing, i mean i've been anti-capitalist for a while now and pro-socalist for a while. but i don't understand what a Stalinist, Maoist, Leninist, and so on are. i do know what a Marxist is, heh. anyways i hope you all don't judge me on this, i don't think any of you would but i when i was reading about it but i don't learn best when i read books. I learn best from interacting from other people. Thanks:)

[flyby]

this is a huge topic, and not easily answered in a single post.

But basically, "everything divides into two."

Marxism runs up against new challenges, new crossroads and new phenomena...
and within marxism different answers and roads emerge.

So now (a century and a half after marx) there are many different lines and roads that claim to be "Marxist" of one kind or another.

And it is stark that sometimes forces emerge that oppose the very heart of revolutionary communism, but do so while holding the label "we are still marxists."

Such forces are called "revisionists" beause they revise the living revolutionary heart out of marxism.

And in our world, and over the last two centuries, marxism has emerged and developed (at everypoint) in sharp struggle agains such revisionism (often a revisionism that had the position of "authority" and "respect" within the existing socialist movement.)

Different people on this message board will have different appraisals of the different trends and currents and ideologies. (And that is part of why this board is useful for new people getting a grasp of it all.)

I adhere to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and I am a follower of Bob Avakian. Which gives you a sense of the trend and line I am about.

I won't characterize other trends on this thread (yet! hehehe) But I will briefly give some sources on MLM.

The Maoists, or the Revolutionary communists, or the followers of Bob Avakians (however you want to refer to them) are a specific trend -- which is rather starkly different from anything else calling itself "communist."

there are many, powerful statements of their politics that they have made.

One worth reading is the opening of their draft program -- which has the power of a "Communist Manifesto for Today":

The World is Intolerable and Calls Out for Justice (http://rwor.org/margorp/progpart1-e.htm)

Another place to start is the statement the RCP just published (and is circulationg in the millions) that sharply contrasts the filthy Christian Fascist future represented by George Bush with the liberated, classless communist future represented by bob Avakian. THE BATTLE FOR THE BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE WILL BE THE FUTURE WILL BE FOUGHT FROM HERE FORWARD! (http://rwor.org/future/web.htm)

As for how this is all different from other trends -- like trotskyism, or the dogmato-revisionism of the Hoxhaites, or the line of the CPUSA, or even the focoist line of Guevarists (for that matter). Well, let me just say it is profoundly and fundamentally different and opposed -- and add that we can dig into how later in this thread and elsewhere.

[RedLenin]

Leninism= A belief that the working class can not acheive socialism by itself and needs to be lead by an elite vanguard. This vanguard is supposed to develope into socialism and then into communism. Just an authoritarian extention of marxism basically.

Maoism= Like leninism, Maoist think that the working class cannot acheive socialism by itself and needed an elite vanguard. However, Mao also spoke of the vanguards role in communist society. But communism has no state and therefore Maoism is wrong in this respect.

Stalinism= Nothing new to marxist theory, just a defense of the totalitarian practices under Stalin in the USSR.

[Raisa]

" the working class cannot acheive power by itself"

This is a funny thing to say.
Even in anarchism there are people who are leading and inspiring others.

We dont just all do somethig at the same time, we are inspired and in some places there is alot less inspiration. Like the third world or Russia in the early 1900's.

It is easyer to have a revolution in a place like England or Germany according to marx.
Those places were industrialized and do you know how?
All their machines were making products with rescources from the labor of the third world.

The first world places like France or England were "ready for revolution" because they were industrialized.
They were industrialized because their capitalists exploited the third world. And consiquently the third world, though very exploited was not as industrialized or advanced.

In some peoples opinions this does not make them any less "ready for socialism", they are making stuff for the world, they deserve to be free just like any other worker.
Leninism is a thing that compensates for when society is not so advanced that workers can just lean over to each other cause their so close together that they will say " lets revolt"
Lenin kind of said " SO many of us are uneducated and spread apart, and unaware that there is anythnig we can do, or what the problem is. When someone knows whats going on and when someone realizes what they got to do, they need to lead and guide the others to revolution- and be the vanguard"

Leninism kept it pretty locked though alot of the times, with democratic centralism. SO the people in the higher ranks of the party made alot of the decisions and passed them down. This was sort of stupid especially when it became the way the peoples government was run. It almost welcomes the state to become a new upper class if you are not careful, just like in the soviet union.

Alot of people now reguard this as a problem. I think for example that some centralization is okay because it gives people a thing they can look at and be inspired by and turn to. But completely centralizing things so that the heads of the party make all the decisions, even for places they are not in....is stupid. Because to me that is like putting all your eggs one basket.
Leninism is like a rock. Its all solid and together and centralized.
In 1917 a rock was thrown at the opressor, and he fell down....and a few more rocks were thrown at him in china and viet nam and a few other places. But he caught on and learned how to block the rocks, and turn them into chalk. If you rely all on one central thing, then what happens when your leaders are imprisoned or killed? You see what im saying. Youre putting all your eggs in one basket. We got to do better then that I think, if we really want to be free.

[Hiero]

Maoism= Like leninism, Maoist think that the working class cannot acheive socialism by itself and needed an elite vanguard. However, Mao also spoke of the vanguards role in communist society. But communism has no state and therefore Maoism is wrong in this respect

You didn't really show the difference between Leninism and Maoism besides


Mao also spoke of the vanguards role in communist society

Which you have sourced.

Anyway Maoism main difference is the role of peasants and the belief that capitalist still function in the CP and have to be removed by a cultural revolution. It's actually not really a diffence but a extension to marxism come to over experince with socialist revolutions.