Mao's Three Worlds

[PigmerikanMao]

During Mao's control of China, he developed what people now refer to as the "Three Worlds Theory." Used by many scholars as the economic pretense to describe the economic situation of nations around the world. Mao Tse-Tung said that on earth, there were three categories of nations on earth- the first, second, and third worlds. The first world was made up of the oppressor nations, such as the United States, the CCCP, and the nations of Western Europe. The second world was made up of the beneficiaries and allies of the first world nations. For example, Eastern Europe, British colonies, and other rich nations which had not engaged in direct oppression of the worlds peoples to such an extent as the first world, like Australia and Canada. The third world was made of the neutral and oppressed nations, countries like Bolivia, the Congo, Thailand, and many others.
What I made this thread to ask is your opinions as to what nations belong to which world today. Does China now belong to the first world, having become an oppressor nation? Is Russia now in the second world? What of the Middle East? Does Israel belong to the first or second world? What about Iran?

(Feel free to criticize the Three Worlds Theory, but try not to veer off the main topic too much- I'm tired of people using their disgust in Maoism as a legitimate argument in a debate).

[Panda Tse Tung]

I think the theory is flawed on behalf of the USSR, where Mao claimed it was 'social Imperialist'. This is incorrect in my opinion.

But back on track:

I think the nations are still developing because of the altered world situation. I think Russia is turning 1st world, and China... we'll have to see. The second world is almost irrelevant nowadays, mostly still Australia and Canada though.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by No. [email protected] 26, 2007 07:24 pm
The second world is almost irrelevant nowadays, mostly still Australia and Canada though.
Well, those were just examples. There's also South Africa, India, which is developing but not necessarily oppressed, as well as countries in Central Asia like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which have not been oppressed by the western powers and if so, it has been minimal. In any case- what about Russia? Has it necessarily imposed its concerns over other nations as other members of the first world? (i.e: The US or UK)

[Bilan]

Originally posted by No. [email protected] 27, 2007 05:24 am
I think the nations are still developing because of the altered world situation. I think Russia is turning 1st world, and China... we'll have to see. The second world is almost irrelevant nowadays, mostly still Australia and Canada though.
As far as I know, Second World refers to Developed Communist nations.
Australia and Canada are first world nations. They are developed capitalist nations.

[MarxSchmarx]

What I made this thread to ask is your opinions as to what nations belong to which world today. Does China now belong to the first world, having become an oppressor nation? Is Russia now in the second world? What of the Middle East? Does Israel belong to the first or second world? What about Iran?

Forgive my obtuseness, but I fail to see the point in dividing the world thusly.

There are transnational corporations from all the countries you mention, screwing workers and the poor at home and abroad. I implicate the governments of all these countries in promulgating the interests of their ruling class internationally through oppressive measures abroad. Well maybe not Bolivia. But certainly its neighbors. And I'm guessing the main reason the Bolivian elite don't make irredentist claims on Chile for a port, for example, is because they know they'll get their butts kicked if they tried something like that.

So: what is gained by categorizing countries like this?

[Vargha Poralli]

The theory of three worlds is a stupid argument put forward by Mao to justify the break with USSR.

Contrary to popular thinking the first world includes USSR too. It contains the exploiter nations which includes USA and USSR - which according to Mao is Social Imperialist. The second world contains the allies of exploiters like western Europe and Canada-USA and Great Britain and Eastern Europe- USSR .

The third world according to Mao consists of China and other ex colonies like India,African countries etc which were not aligned with either camps.

The Theory became a complete bullshit in Mao's lifetime itself and Mao himself contributed to make that theory bullshit. For example India which was 3rd world received a hell a lot of aid from USSR and aligned with USSR in many ways in many issues. China under Mao did the opposite by Aligning with USA on many issues - which included supporting reactionary regimes and groups against USSR supported regimes and groups.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 09:26 am
So: what is gained by categorizing countries like this?
The idea fits into Mao's and Zhou Enlai's theories on people's war. In a people's war, the exploited, landless, peasantry should be mobilized for many key reasons. First, the peasantry surround the cities and cooperation with them would be a strategic bonus to any communist movement. Second, in the feudal societies in which all the classes have not yet deteriorated into the two camps of proletariat and bourgeoisie, Mao found the peasantry to be the lowest class, being semi oppressed by the proletariat as well as the upper classes- being forced to provide capital to be sent to urban areas, where the lower classes, although exploited themselves, bask in what little capital they have acquired that was taken from the peasantry- thus, a people's war is a war of the mass peasantry, overrunning the minority of the urban areas. There are other, smaller, ideas I could mention but I won't.
This idea ties into the concept of a global people's war where the exploits of the third world are taken by the urban proletariat- the first and second worlds, in which the workers are also oppressed, but are themselves oppressors. In a people's war, the guerrillas surround the cities and military bases, choking off their resources and reinforcements, enabling the guerrillas to overrun them. The same is with the global people's war, except the countryside is the third world, and the urban areas are the first and second. It is crucial then, to maoists- not so much to a marxist-leninist group, to understand which nations belong to the third world, and which belong to the first and second, so the maoists know which countries in which to spread influance first (obviously the country side and thus the third world), before overrunning the first world.
Though if you're a marxist-leninist, you won't gain much except for the knowledge of which maoist group considers themselves exploited and which others don't.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 10:18 am
The theory of three worlds is a stupid argument put forward by Mao to justify the break with USSR.

Contrary to popular thinking the first world includes USSR too. It contains the exploiter nations which includes USA and USSR - which according to Mao is Social Imperialist. The second world contains the allies of exploiters like western Europe and Canada-USA and Great Britain and Eastern Europe- USSR .

The third world according to Mao consists of China and other ex colonies like India,African countries etc which were not aligned with either camps.

The Theory became a complete bullshit in Mao's lifetime itself and Mao himself contributed to make that theory bullshit. For example India which was 3rd world received a hell a lot of aid from USSR and aligned with USSR in many ways in many issues. China under Mao did the opposite by Aligning with USA on many issues - which included supporting reactionary regimes and groups against USSR supported regimes and groups.

The theory of three worlds is a stupid argument put forward by Mao to justify the break with USSR.
I would disagree saying the break with the USSR was put forward as a result of the realization of the three worlds theory. The three worlds theory was actually accepted into the Maoist party line prior to the Sino-Soviet split.


The Theory became a complete bullshit in Mao's lifetime itself and Mao himself contributed to make that theory bullshit. For example India which was 3rd world received a hell a lot of aid from USSR and aligned with USSR in many ways in many issues. China under Mao did the opposite by Aligning with USA on many issues - which included supporting reactionary regimes and groups against USSR supported regimes and groups.
Please understand that Mao didn't use the three worlds theory as an ultimate guideline for foreign policy, but rather a small idea to consider during the time in which political decisions were made. Furthermore, keeping with the idea that the USSR was social imperialist and a member of the first world as well as the United States, Mao could take either side and be called a hypocrite, but took sides anyways alternating on which stance would, in his mind, help further the people's revolution more.



The third world according to Mao consists of China and other ex colonies like India,African countries etc which were not aligned with either camps.
Yes, and because of their failure to align with a foreign superpower, were the most vulnerable, and thus the most easy to exploit.

[Vargha Poralli]

Please understand that Mao didn't use the three worlds theory as an ultimate guideline for foreign policy, but rather a small idea to consider during the time in which political decisions were made.


And those political decisions were ultimately used to shape PRC's foreign policies.


Furthermore, keeping with the idea that the USSR was social imperialist and a member of the first world as well as the United States, Mao could take either side and be called a hypocrite, but took sides anyways alternating on which stance would, in his mind, help further the people's revolution more.

:rolleyes:

Yeah allying with Nixion, supporting Pakistan in Bangladesh Independence war, supporting the UNITA in Angola along the South African and US imperialism were all done to help to further people's revolution more :rolleyes:

[Xiao Banfa]

PigmerikanMao, can you stop using italics? It's making me feel woozy.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

PigmerikanMao, can you stop using italics? It's making me feel woozy.

I second that. :wacko:

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 08:16 am
And those political decisions were ultimately used to shape PRC's foreign policies.

Yeah allying with Nixion, supporting Pakistan in Bangladesh Independence war, supporting the UNITA in Angola along the South African and US imperialism were all done to help to further people's revolution more
Yes, but the three worlds theory did not dictate foreign policy entirely, it only influenced them slightly.

Allying with a capitalist nation is better than allying with a false communist dictatorship that threatens to destroy the very ideology of the worker's movement.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by Xiao [email protected] 29, 2007 08:54 am
PigmerikanMao, can you stop using italics? It's making me feel woozy.
Never! ^_^

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Israel has leanings of a 1st and a 2nd world country. China is definately 1st world today. I would say that 2nd world countries have become rarer and this is an understandable part of concentration of wealth in the imperialist system. Iran, like Venezula, are third world, they aren't completely complacent with the imperialist system.


Yeah allying with Nixion

Mao never allied by Nixon. Mao talked with nixon and so did the USSR. Maos talks, along with resistance in the USA and the uncompromising power of the people's war in Vietnam were the reason why US pulled out. the PRC said it would not invade if the US pulled out. It was legitimization. Even while he talked to Nixon supply lines were sending food, clothing, arms, and anti-aircraft weaponry to the Vietcong and NVA. I once talked to Clark Kissinger, a long time leader in the RCP who had been to China during the midst of the Cultural Revolution and People's War in Vietnam and he told me all these stories about workers working overtime in factories just to make shit to aid the people's war or traveling on a bus and stopping infront of a rail line for hours as long trains steamed by carrying anti-aircraft weaponry headed south for Vietnam.

As for UNITA remember, UNITA was Maoist when Mao aided it, only later did it become straight up US imperialist lackeys. This is one critiscism I think there is to be made of Mao, but remember this was all under the pretext of the Soviet Union having more troops on the USSR-PRC border than anywhere else, and how the USSR had basically sabotaged the GLF by pulling out blueprints and industrial advisors.

[Dimentio]

What was Mao's China then?

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 08:38 pm
What was Mao's China then?
Mao's China was a member of the third world because it did not ally itself with any first world oppressor nations. Only after the overthrow of the gang of four and the re installment of the bourgeoisie did China become an oppressor nation and become a member of the first world itself.

[RNK]

Sounds like the entire ordeal was more a personal Cold War between the PRC and the USSR. When did UNITA split ideologically from China, and run to the US camp?

[Spirit of Spartacus]

Allying with a capitalist nation is better than allying with a false communist dictatorship that threatens to destroy the very ideology of the worker's movement.

Comrade, this is the kind of reactionary conclusion which one reaches if they take the theory of Soviet "social-imperialism" too far.

The Soviet Union was ruled by revisionists after 1956, but it was not a "false communist dictatorship", whatever that is.

It is your responsibility to prove that the USSR was social-imperialist, because you are putting forward that accusation.




PigmerikanMao, can you stop using italics? It's making me feel woozy.
Never&#33; <_<

Pretty please? :rolleyes:

[MarxSchmarx]

Hmmm... so after reading other posts, it still sounds to me like the "3 worlds theory" just divides up the world between largely agrarian, rural countries with a sizable peasantry and largely urban, industrialized countries with no real peasantry, and where some of the latter of which have considerable international influence. I still don&#39;t understand what is so distinctly Maoist, much less leftist or revolutionary, about this categorization.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 01:09 am
Hmmm... so after reading other posts, it still sounds to me like the "3 worlds theory" just divides up the world between largely agrarian, rural countries with a sizable peasantry and largely urban, industrialized countries with no real peasantry, and where some of the latter of which have considerable international influence. I still don&#39;t understand what is so distinctly Maoist, much less leftist or revolutionary, about this categorization.
Yes, thats basically what the three worlds are, and I believe I&#39;ve already made a post as to it&#39;s benefits above, and to importance to Global People&#39;s War.

[MarxSchmarx]

Yes, thats basically what the three worlds are, and I believe I&#39;ve already made a post as to it&#39;s benefits above, and to importance to Global People&#39;s War.

Well, it seems our interest in this approach hinges on its implications. In particular, this analysis and categorizing itself would be useful to (but not based on or deriving from) a Maoist/leftist analysis if it is true that socialist revolutions must derive from third world peasants. Otherwise, the exercise would become something one could gain from looking up tables in the world almanac.

It seems to me that validity of latter point (about the revolutionary role of the 3rd world peasantry) is what Maoists should be worried about, rather than whether Bolivia or Kyrgyzstan or Australia belong in the third, second or third world. If this sounds garbled it is because it probably is.

[The Author]

This comes from the April 2004 issue of Revolutionary Democracy, and the article can be found here (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv10n1/mao.htm).


On the Question of the Differentiation of the Three Worlds

(February 22, 1974)

Mao Zedong

Three decades ago fierce polemics were conducted in the international communist movement on the theses of the Communist Party of China on the theory of the three worlds which differentiated the planet into three zones and argued for the unity of the second and third worlds and even US imperialism against the threat of Soviet social-imperialism. These views came into prominence after the speech of Deng Xiaoping at the United Nations on this theme in 1974. As US and Chinese diplomacy became more intimate after the meeting of Nixon and Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1972, which took place even as the US B-52 bombers were blasting the people of Vietnam, questions came to the fore on the support of People’s China to the pro-US client regimes of the Shah of Iran, Mobutu, and the fascist states of Spain and Chile. From 1971 at its Sixth Congress and onwards the Party of Labour of Albania expressed its opposition to any proposal to pull back from the struggle against both of the two superpowers. On the 7th July 1977 Zeri i Popullit published the editorial ’The Theory and Practice of Revolution’ which openly assailed the stand of the CPC on the theory of three worlds. The bulk of the trends in the CPI (ML) supported the CPC stand on three worlds theory as being the epitome of Mao Zedong thought with the honourable exception of the Mass Line tendency which briefly adhered to the PLA positions. As People’s China increasingly linked up with the US at the international level and as commodity-money relations accelerated and multiplied in the economy of People’s China the CPI (ML) groups quietly abandoned the theory of three worlds. In the context of these now historical polemics the following text which consists of the published excerpts of Mao Zedong’s talk with President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and which is little known in India, is of considerable interest.

Vijay Singh

Chairman Mao Zedong (hereinafter referred to as Mao): We hope the Third World will unite. The Third World has a large population&#33;

President Kenneth David Kaunda (hereinafter referred to as Kaunda): That’s right.

Mao: Who belongs to the First World?

Kaunda: I think it ought to be world of exploiters and imperialists.

Mao: And the Second World?

Kaunda: Those who have become revisionists.

Mao: I hold that the U.S. and the Soviet Union belong to the First World. The middle elements, such as Japan, Europe, Australia and Canada, belong to the Second World. We are the Third World.

Kaunda: I agree with your analysis, Mr. Chairman.

Mao: The U.S. and the Soviet Union have a lot of atomic bombs, and they are richer. Europe, Japan, Australia and Canada, of the Second World, do not possess so many atomic bombs and are not so rich as the First World, but richer than the Third World. What do you think of this explanation?

Kaunda: Mr. Chairman, you analysis is very pertinent and correct.

Mao: We can discuss it.

Kaunda: I think we can reach agreement without discussion, because I believe this analysis is already very pertinent.

Mao: The Third World is very populous.

Kaunda: Precisely so.

Mao: All Asian countries, except Japan, belong to the Third World. All of Africa and also Latin America belong to the Third World.

(From the verbatim record)

Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1998, page 454.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Comrade, this is the kind of reactionary conclusion which one reaches if they take the theory of Soviet "social-imperialism" too far.

Social Imperialism/capitalism is mos dangerous because it tricks people into believing this is what socialism looks like when in fact it is not. It tarnishes what socialism really is by hiding behind it and commiting crime after crime against the people and establishing a neo-bourgeois.

Was the way mao handled the contradiction between Socialism vs. Social-Imperialism/State-Capitalism vs. US Imperialism/Capitalism riddled with mistakes? Yes it was, he made big errors in supporting groups but it was in a tough context, and remember its both which are enemies of the people, Mao was trying to stop revisionism from plaguing the international communist movement. He failed and this set the scene for perestroika and Socialism wit Chinese Characteristics

[OneBrickOneVoice]

CEA thanks for posting that conversation, I had a very different opinion of the Zambian leadership before reading that