China's Mao and Spain's Anarchist

[enigma2517]

Part of Mao's revolutionary strategy in china was utilizing the peasants and landless farmers. When I think about it, isn't this in fact very similiar to the anarchists in Spain? Weren't a lot of the participants landless farmers and the such?

On the other hand, now that I think about it even more I remember something I once read about the revolution beginning in industrial places (cities) and only then spreading to more rural areas, as opposed to Mao who led the peasants in war to the cities.

Bit of a theory question to wrap up: what role does the agrarian population/landless farmers play in the revolutionary strategy. Didn't Marx regard them as being the "lumpen proletariat"?

[RedStarOverChina]

First of all, when Marx classify "proletariats" and "Bourgeoise", we assumed that its a capitalist economy he's talking about.

However, during the time of the Chinese peasant revolution, China was still a feudal society, thus we cannot strictly follow Marx's defination of things.

In a capitalist society, Marx thought, peasantry should be considered to be capitalists, because like capitalists, peasants have land as capital with which to generate wealth.

However, in a feudal society such as China in the 1930s, the peasantry takes the form of SERFS, meaning that they are with out land. When u leave peasants without land, their condition is often even worse than workers in factories, and peasants become slaves of landlords. Because of that, the peasants are even more revolutionary than the workers (at least temporarily). And Mao saw that, and decided to unleash their fury.


I dont know about the spanish Anarchists, and whether or not in Spain they have landlords that makes slaves out of peasants. But if peasants are willing to join the revolution it means the condition were pretty nasty for them.

[flyby]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 10:34 PM
First of all, when Marx classify "proletariats" and "Bourgeoise", we assumed that its a capitalist economy he's talking about.

However, during the time of the Chinese peasant revolution, China was still a feudal society, thus we cannot strictly follow Marx's defination of things.

In a capitalist society, Marx thought, peasantry should be considered to be capitalists, because like capitalists, peasants have land as capital with which to generate wealth.

However, in a feudal society such as China in the 1930s, the peasantry takes the form of SERFS, meaning that they are with out land. When u leave peasants without land, their condition is often even worse than workers in factories, and peasants become slaves of landlords. Because of that, the peasants are even more revolutionary than the workers (at least temporarily). And Mao saw that, and decided to unleash their fury.


I dont know about the spanish Anarchists, and whether or not in Spain they have landlords that makes slaves out of peasants. But if peasants are willing to join the revolution it means the condition were pretty nasty for them.
I don't agree Redstar over china.

Marx did not just write about "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" (just read the first page of the communist manifesto)

Marx studied the peasantry deeply -- his first political investigation was among the peasants in central Germany. And much of Europe (in marx's time) was semifeudal.

But more to the point here:

Mao had some sharp criticisms of Spain's communist party. He thought that they did not reach out enough to the peasantry. They were fixated on holding territory in a mechanical way (like bourgeois military theory) when they could have switched to guerilla war that relied on the masses.

In the book "Mao Talks to the People" (edited by Stuart Shram) there are some intersting observations by mao (and kang sheng) about Spain.

And the RCP wrote a deep criticism of the Spanish CP (building on mao's results) that were published in the earlier Revolutino magazine.

[RedStarOverChina]

Yes...however, Marx DID classify peasantry as bourgeoisie. I know that its not just Bourgeoisie and proletarait.

the defination of capitalists(or bourgeoisie) is: owners of means of social production and employers of wage labor.

Now while the peasantry doesnt always fit the second characteristic, they qualify for the first.

"...possesses...simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat."
---second page of The Communist Menifesto

[Djehuti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 11:21 PM
Didn't Marx regard them as being the "lumpen proletariat"?
No. I think that the "lumpen proletariat" is those that has been totally viped out from the process of production. Most unemployed still fills an important function (keeping the wages down), but the so called "lumpen proletariat" is really superfluous for the bourgeosie. I would rather see them as beggar and bums, etc.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Marx thought the peasantry to be deeply reactionary, have none of you read the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte?

[RedStarOverChina]

I explained that in the posts above.

Gee, you can't teach an old dogma new tricks :(

[Holocaustpulp]

I'm pretty sure Marx did consider the peasantry somewhat less effective than the proletariat, but that does not mean at all that they were bourgeois, and at most were merely petty-bourgeois. This reason partially gave Lenin the incentive to use Petrograd and other industrial cities as the vanguard for the Bolshevik Revolution, when in fact the Socialist Revolutionaries can had the majority of party members composed of citizens from the countryside.

Concerning Mao, basically his whole strategy was based on the peasentry; Mao did not have the opportunity to know Marxism as well as he did to "know his people," and it was easier for the communists in China to mount a guerrilla compaign from the peasnt strongholds, especially since the Kuomintag had the strongest presence in the cities.

I am not sure how this compares to Spanish anarchists, though I would think that the anarchists would primarily concentrate on cities as there are more cohesive unions or union potential among the industrialized workers.

- Holocaustpulp

[flyby]

peasants are not part of the "bourgeoisie"

The bourgeoisie is the capitalist class, that lives by extracting surplus value from workers.

The peasantry is a class emerging from feudal relations (not capitalist relations) -- and it is a landed laboring class that is widely and brutally oppressed in our world.

It has great revolutionary potential -- and has played a very iimportant role over the last century (as the powerful force of the chinese revolution, and defeating the u.s. in vietnam, and now as the base of the communist revolution in Nepal, and more...)

for important reasons, the peasantry (left to itself) cannot lead a revolution to victory -- because left to itself, its demands for justice and land do not produce a revolutionary new society. But led by the communist proletariat, connected to the world-historic struggle for communism, the anti-feudal struggle of the peasantry, and the anti-imperialist struggle it has so courageously joined in many countries, can both be a major force for revolution and for a new world.

And after victory, the class struggle continues -- including a sharp struggle within the peasantry itself over what road to take: the road of capitalism or the road of socialism.

And this is a struggle that has unfolded AFTER the victory of the two major revolutions (russia and china) with very important lessons and implications for the future.

[Holocaustpulp]

Good message flyby. My point (that peasants may be part of the petty-bourgeoisie) still does not signify that they are bourgeois (i.e., they are still subject to bourgeois employment, and thus inevitably connected with the other lower-classes). I realize now that my expanation does not widely apply, and that even some peasants that have unwarrented authority over other peasants are still subject to the landlord or corporation.

- HP

[RedStarOverChina]

I guess it depends on what kind of peasant u r talking about.

a peasant with alot of land cant leave his farm for a day without thinking about it...