Mao Tse-Tung

[Nateddi]

What are your opinions of him? Praise / critisism.

[Borincano]

I really don't know too much about him.

From a totalitarianist point of you, he was a master of raising up nationalism and using it in "great ways" and terrific propaganda in expanding culture and communism. He made the people love him and believe him to be a God. Not like dictators, such as the Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo or Haiti's Francois Duvalier, who claimed to be God to "their" people but "their" countries' people had a deep hate for them.

From a democratic, humanitarianist point of view, he wanted communism too fast and allowed things to go too much out of control. He made many mistakes because of it, and millions paid for them. He had some good in mind and did some help for his nation, stabilizing it from the many fractionous wars of warlords and governors before his rule, but was a repressive ruler whose legacy of mass murder is unchallenged to this day.

[Maaja]

There are things that I do like about him, for example the way how he wanted to support the poorest part of China - farmers. But he turned out to be a real dictator, he has bad and disgusting habits and he massacred too many people.

[man in the red suit]

hmm......I didn't know about these massacres. I thought he was a pretty kool guy. Guess not

[Revolution Hero]

Mao wasn't real marxist-leninist. That is why I don't respect him much.

[James]

What is Maoism?

I'm sorry, but i've never really ever claimed to be a "marxist - leninist - maoist - pokerdot". I just believe in the common sense, and gradual apliance.

[man in the red suit]

yeah same with me. good question james. what is Maoism? or even Leninism for that matter. I've asked this before but I never really got a straight answer.
Anyone really know the true definition?

[Nateddi]

I am not sure about Maoism

Leninism has these factors which are not specific under Marxism:
1) The bourgeois will do anything to retain the power, so the only way to crush it is a violent revolution. The bourgeois state will have bourgeois democracy, if a party is threatening the existance of the bourgeois (socialist / communist parties), it will be undermined, crushed, rigged, etc.

2) Imperialism is recognized as the highest and final stage of capitalism and shifts the focus of struggle from developed to underdeveloped countries (globalization). Capitalism is a cancer that needs to grow throughout the world in expansion.

3) Eventually, as the bourgeois is no longer powerful or existant, any rigid governmental structures will not be necessary; the “withering away of the state” occurs.

[thebigcom]

from what i have been recently told he was a stubborn cruel man, with a taste for much younger women (18 or below) not a man to be admired

[man in the red suit]

I just learned a shit load about Mao, yeah he used a lot of propaganda and killed a lot of people as some other people here said. he used his red guards, witch were high school and colledge students, to humiliate, torture, and kill anyone who was associated with the "old" way.
Mao did introduce a five year plan which helped the economy, but then again he also introduced the grat leap forward which was a massive failure and killed about 20 million people. Between that and the cultural revolution, Mao killed as many as stalin and hitler. Mao was a pretty bad guy.

Maoism was Marxism combined with Trotskyism and
propaganda to keep him in power.

Russia believed in peaceful coexistance with the capitalists while Mao wanted to destroy capitalism world-wide.

Tienanmen square was AFTER Mao, for those of you who didn't already know.

[Nateddi]

Marxism and Trotskyism combined?

Explain your reasoning.

[man in the red suit]

I believe I already did. Correct me if I'm wrong.

He believed in communism and that it was a world wide issue as did Trotsky. Mao hated Amerika and did not want to have any ties with them while Nikit Kruschev believed in peaceful coexistance.

Basically Maoism is Trotskism, considering that Trotsky was a Marxist already wasn't he? Saying that Maoism is Trotskiesm and Marxism would probly be a bit repetitive I suppose.

[oki]

mao himself talked often about lenin and his ways,and the most about marx,ofcourse.
he was chinese and therefore believed in a pesant revolt.those millions that died during the great junp foreward ,well,he didn't exactly kill them,he let them die of hunger.there just wasn't any food because of drastic measures to turn the system into sosialism fast.this didn't work at all,and the food production went down,and starvation...
when the party tried to turn back to more capitalistic ways,(which worked)mao turned that back again,and so on.
stalin just had everybody executed.mao even let most of his worst enemies live,and send them to re-education in the country(hard labour on farms to learn about the suffering of the people)

[Michael De Panama]

Mao and Trotsky are waaaaaaaaay different.

[peaccenicked]

The tragedy of maoism culminated in the cultural revolution.
''The Pain of the Cultural Revolution

However, the Cultural Revolution, no matter how many people it effected, should never have taken place. It separated brother against brother and made each other divided, gouging the hearts of man, and making them violent and intolerant toward one another. In that sense, the pain of the Cultural Revolution cannot be recovered easily, and still now a lot of people agonize over this period of history. One can never replace a lifetime of memories or terrible experiences, but one can move on and learn from these experiences. As many people suffered and died during this time, it becomes a lesson to everyone to cherish and respect life while one has it. ''
Still Moa was a complex historical character, and I think it is possible to seperate the man from the work. His work is very much a product of Chinese History. He had a deep enough understanding of that history to wrest power from the reactionary government.
There is a simplicity that arose from the peasant character of the revolution, that soon became out of place in the more complex world of Imperialism, fascism and stalinism.
A spokeperson of a more developed country would sound
incongruent if he said anything like this
''
1. In the long and ruthless war of national liberation, in the great struggle to build a new China, the Communist Party must be good at winning intellectuals, for only in this way will it be able to organize great strength for the War of Resistance, organize the millions of peasants, develop the revolutionary cultural movement and expand the revolutionary united front. Without the participation of the intellectuals victory in the revolution is impossible.''.
Vanguardism that even the anti vanguardists on this bb
defend as long as it is Che Guevara.





(Edited by peaccenicked at 4:16 am on June 10, 2002)

[Lefty]

well, as far as i can tell, Mao killed lots of people and liked young girls, but he had some good ideas about revolution and supporting the poor. Sounds like a typical commie leader...they all had their points, but many flaws.

[oki]

he lived a life of luxury and hardly worked himself...

[Vide]

He was a butcher, same as Stalin or Hitler. Nothing worth respecting there.

[Mazdak]

Well, Mao tried to make his country truly communist quickly. TRhe Great Leap Foward was idiotic, but had the right intentions and Mao did work!! He had one of those backyard burners things or whatever they called them..

[man in the red suit]

well yeah, Mao's great leap forward failed but don't forget the success of his first five year plan. And the fact that Mao wanted to give the ownership of land back to the peasants. Maoism differs from Leninism in the way that he did not create a "spend away" economy. And he did not use gross-output production as did the U.S.S.R.
Mao began to view the soviet Union as a disgrace to Marxism, which Mao strongly believed in. I think maybe that Mao believed that the soviets violated Marx's philosophy of Materialism. But of course Mao did create the cultural revolution and the red guards were not exactly the happy smiles patrol. They did a lot of bad things. I have neutral feelings towards Mao, personally. I would say that the good qualities of his, cancel out the bad. Maybe you think differently but this is how I feel.

And yes, Maoism is a little different from Marxism. :)

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from man in the red suit on 4:53 am on June 20, 2002
well yeah, Mao's great leap forward failed but don't forget the success of his first five year plan. And the fact that Mao wanted to give the ownership of land back to the peasants. Maoism differs from Leninism in the way that he did not create a "spend away" economy. And he did not use gross-output production as did the U.S.S.R. Mao began to view the soviet Union as a disgrace to Marxism, which Mao strongly believed in. I think maybe that Mao believed that the soviets violated Marx's philosophy of Materialism. But of course Mao did create the cultural revolution and the red guards were not exactly the happy smiles patrol. They did a lot of bad things. I have neutral feelings towards Mao, personally. I would say that the good qualities of his, cancel out the bad. Maybe you think differently but this is how I feel.

And yes, Maoism is a little different from Marxism. :)

[man in the red suit]

sorry for the repeat of my last post. I accidently went to quote. sorry about that.

[Mazdak]

those are the exact words i was gonna say (neutral feelings)

[maoist3]

What's to be neutral about? Stalin and Mao doubled
the life expectancies of their peoples. Sure the
capitalists only told you about the patches of people
they executed, but if Mao kept executing people
like these fearful imperialists said, how'd China
get to be a billion people? Think about it.

Before anyone runs down Mao, I'd like to see
the names of the leaders they think did more for the
proletariat in the 20th century. It's easy to piss, but
far more difficult to actually accomplish something.

What is a Maoist?
http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/revdefs.html

Myths about the Great Leap and Cultural Revolution:
http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/mythsofmao.html