Mao

[Pogue]

Could comrades of differing opinions please send me their two cents on Mao to me by PM please? i want to get the point fo view from people from all over the left, but I don't want this thread ot be hijacked by people pushing their agenda who just want to argue and thus hijack and ruin the thread, meaning I get nothing from it. So yeh, PM's please.

[Qwerty489]

Mao was a left-deviationist to begin with, who eventually took a ultra-left turn and nearly destroyed what state structures China had inciting lumpenproletarial gang warfare (the so-called 'cultural revolution'). As a British Communist noted during his time in China during the cultural revolution, the whole thing took on a decidedly fascist aspect as intellectual and creative 'western' material was burnt by the Red Guards. Ironically to the ultra-lefts, it was the 'Stalinists' who first spoke out against it.

More broadly though, the so called epitome of Chinese Socialism, the People's Communes, were run by the previous small-bourgeois owners ('patriotic bourgeois') of the enterprises, all these people had to do was engage in self-criticism and they were back in control. Proper Marxists though like Enver Hoxha rejected this and properly put forward the point that it was against class struggle.

[Rawthentic]

Qwerty takes a misconceived look at the Cultural Revolution. It had nothing to do with "lumpenproletarian gang warfare" :blink:, but a real, democratic, and mass struggle to defeat the capitalist roaders inside the CCP whom were pushing for lines and policies that objectively led back on the capitalist road. Under socialism, there is still class struggle, there is still a bourgeoisie, there is still imperialism, commodity production, and all these things are reflected within the vanguard party in the form of lines and policies that are draped in red, but really lead towards capitalism, as Deng's coup proved.

Of course, the GPCR did have real shortcomings, as an unprecedented movement and on such a scale will inevitably have. But the burning of western material did not change the nature of socialism in China, or the leap that Maoism meant in the communist movement. Also, western material, particularly material that spoke out against the revolution, asked for policies and reforms that would lead to capitalism, needed to be addressed and at times suppressed. In such a volatile and revolutionary movement as the GPCR, art, culture, and literature needs to serve the revolutionary purpose of the masses. In other times, there should be space for creative art that does not directly do this.

SOME of the communes were run (or led) by PREVIOUS small owners. Mao said, and was correct to say, that these small bourgeois (national bourgeois) could return to civil society if they underwent re-education and self-criticism. What is wrong with this concept? It is more efficient that executing them or imprisoning them. If they can come to support the revolution and show to be honest, then they should be allowed another opportunity. This, once again, does not change the nature of the state. In addition, sometimes these small owners were needed in the communes due to their expertise on how to run them. Peasants, only recently liberated at that time, had never had the chance to do such a thing, and there needed to be a process by which they were established, and the peasants gradually learned to manage them on their own. The masses, no matter in what country, cannot learn overnight how to run society after a revolution. It is a process. There might have been, and definitely were, capitalist remnants in China, but what matters is what road it is on. After the seizure of power, did the CCP have a line and leadership that led to capitalism? Or socialism? It was the latter, that is until the capitalist roaders seized power in 1976 and led the country the reverse way. Socialist construction would have taken many more years and even decades to really complete (if that is possible).

[Unicorn]

"The Soviet Union today is under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the German fascist type, a dictatorship of the Hitler type."

- Mao Zedong

As far as I am concerned that statement proves that he was more anti-Communist than Ronald Reagan.

[Rawthentic]

I have never seen that quote before, can you link it?

Either way, the USSR became an imperialist nation, socialist in name only. So yes, it was led by the bourgeoisie.

How does the analysis and recognition of capitalist restoration make someone "anti-communist"? I'd say it is the other way around.

[Unicorn]

I have never seen that quote before, can you link it?
http://books.google.com/books?hl=fi&q=%22The+Soviet+Union+today+is+under+the+dictators hip+of+the+bourgeoisie%2C+a+dictatorship+of+the+bi g+bourgeoisie%2C+a+dictatorship+of+the+German+fasc ist+type%2C+a+dictatorship+of+the+Hitler+type.%22&btnG=Hae+teoksia



Either way, the USSR became an imperialist nation, socialist in name only. So yes, it was led by the bourgeoisie.

How does the analysis and recognition of capitalist restoration make someone "anti-communist"? I'd say it is the other way around.
It is sheer madness to claim that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a Hitlerite Fascist party. Mao did not know what Fascism is or if he did he was a damned liar. Either way he does not deserve recognition as a serious theoretician.

As for the USSR see my response in this thread:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1190355&postcount=81

[Rawthentic]

I think that Mao was wrong to say that it was fascist in the literal sense, although metaphorically it could have been correct. I mean, the Black Panthers constantly referred to the USA as a fascist pig nation, although it literally was not. The point here is that the Soviet Union underwent a period of capitalist restoration after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's coup, that was a devastating blow to the oppressed in the USSR as well as around the world.

These links are great in providing scientific analysis of the restoration in the Soviet Union : http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html#s10 (http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html#s10)
and: http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/KPC64.html

The first one is called the "Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR" by Martin Nicolaus and the second is called "On Khrushchev's Phoney Communism" by the Editorial Department of the People's Daily and Red Flag [socialist China's main newspapers].

If you disagree with them, lets get into it.


And I already responded and refuted you in that same thread you just linked.

[Pogue]

Why don't people on this board learn to read and stop fucking hijacking threads with their own pointless agenda?

[The Intransigent Faction]

I think that Mao was wrong to say that it was fascist in the literal sense, although metaphorically it could have been correct. I mean, the Black Panthers constantly referred to the USA as a fascist pig nation, although it literally was not. The point here is that the Soviet Union underwent a period of capitalist restoration after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's coup, that was a devastating blow to the oppressed in the USSR as well as around the world.

These links are great in providing scientific analysis of the restoration in the Soviet Union : http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html#s10 (http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html#s10)
and: http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/KPC64.html

The first one is called the "Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR" by Martin Nicolaus and the second is called "On Khrushchev's Phoney Communism" by the Editorial Department of the People's Daily and Red Flag [socialist China's main newspapers].

If you disagree with them, lets get into it.


And I already responded and refuted you in that same thread you just linked.

Agreed. I see nothing wrong with calling out the Khruschevites.
Also, note that Mao never supported a dogmatic following of Soviet policies. I mean that in this sense:

" Some people consider that Stalin was wrong in everything. This is a grave misconception. Stalin was a great Marxist-Leninist, yet at the same time a Marxist-Leninist who committed several gross errors without realizing that they were errors. We should view Stalin from a historical standpoint, make a proper and all round analysis to see where he was right and where he was wrong and draw useful lessons therefrom."
-Mao Zedong; "Stalin's Place in History".

So it's important to remember that any true progressive Marxist-Leninist will take advantage of hindsight when possible. Reformists who seek to restore Capitalism deserve to be called nothing less.
If that was said in the period of time following Stalin's death and the Sino-Soviet split, then I don't see how, from an anti-Bourgeois-Revisionist perspective, it's that far from the truth.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Why don't people on this board learn to read and stop fucking hijacking threads with their own pointless agenda?

True enough.
I guess some just saw a need to reply back after one reply was given, for fear that leaving inaccuracies without a response could be potentially misleading to newcomers in what happens to be the "Learning" forum.

[Rawthentic]

Why don't people on this board learn to read and stop fucking hijacking threads with their own pointless agenda?
You asked about Mao.

This is a central aspect to Maoism.

[Pogue]

I also asked for PMs. Learn to read.

[Decolonize The Left]

Why don't people on this board learn to read and stop fucking hijacking threads with their own pointless agenda?

Listen, this is a forum based around discussion and dialogue. It is absolutely pointless to start a thread requesting that everyone PM you with information for several reasons:
1) Most of that information could be found by yourself with a little research.
2) You will learn less from having massive amounts of information thrown at you than from being engaged in a discussion with your comrades.
3) It is far more complicated to have several discussions through PMs than to use the simple "quick reply" button available in threads.

And finally, please don't insult the community when they take the time to address the question that you asked of them. Granted that threads do get hijacked, there is lots of valuable understanding to be divulged from the discussions which take place here.

- August

[Qwerty489]

as Deng's coup proved.

No, Deng's coup proved that Mao's 'self-criticism' and 'bourgeois in the party' lines for the national bourgeois is bunk and allowed the bourgeois to get into the party simply by engaging in fake exercises in 'self-criticism'. Mao achieved short-term economic gain after the Civil War by sacrificing class struggle and taking a soft-line on the bourgeois.

Enver Hoxha and Stalin were correct, the bourgeois don't come into a party unless the party allows it, and Mao allowed it and it's no surprise it led to a revisionist takeover and the state of China today.

As I said earlier, the rise of Chinese revisionist is linked directly to Mao's rejection of the correct theoretical line of comrade Stalin of the development of socialism alongside the aggravation of class struggles.

Mao, just like Kim il-sung, had a soft-spot for the so-called 'patriotic' and 'conscientious' bourgeois, and they never replaced the 'peoples state' (the dictatorship of the many classes including peasants and nat. bourgeois) with the dictatorship of the proletariat.


Mao Tsetung's unlimited power was so farreaching that he even appointed his heirs. At one time he had appointed Liu Shao-chi as his successor. Later he declared that his heir to the state and the party after his death would be Lin Piao. This, a thing unprecedented in the practice of Marxist-Leninist parties, was even sanctioned in the Constitution of the party. Again it was Mao Tsetung who designated Hua Kuo-feng to be chairman of the party after his death. Having power in his hands, Mao alone criticized, judged, punished and later rehabilitated top leaders of the party and state. This was the case even with Teng Hsiao-ping, who, in his so-called self-criticism of October 23, 1966, stated: "Liu Shao-chi and I are real monarchists. The essence of my mistakes lies in the fact that I have no faith in the masses, do not support the revolutionary masses, but am opposed to them. I have followed a reactionary line to suppress the revolution. In the class struggle I have been on the side not of the proletariat, but of the bourgeoisie... All this shows that... I am unfit to hold posts of responsibility".(From the self-crityicism of Teng Hsiao-ping). And despite these crimes which this inveterate revisionist has committed, he was put back in his former seat.


The anti-Marxist essence of "Mao Tsetung thought" on the party and its role is also apparent in the way the relations between the party and the army were conceived in theory and applied in practice. Irrespective of the shibboleths of Mao Tsetung about the "party being above the army", "politics above the gun", etc. etc.. in practice, he left the main political role in the life of the country to the army. At the time of the war, he said, "All the army cadres should be good at leading the workers and organizing trade-unions, good at mobilizing and organizing the youth, good at uniting with and training caeres in the newly Liberated Areas, good at managing industry and commerce, good at running schools, newspapers, news agencies and broadcasting stations, good at handling foreign affairs, good at handling problems relating to the democratic parties and people's organizations, good at adjusting the relations between the cities and the rural areas and solving the problems of food, coal and other daily necessities and good at handling monetary and financial problems". (Mao)


So the army was above the party, above the state organs, above everything. From this it emerges that Mao Tsetung's words regarding the role of the party, as the decisive factor of the leadership of revolution and socialist construction, were only slogans. Both at the time of the liberation war and after the creation of the People's Republic of China, in all the never-ending struggles that have been waged there for the seizure of power by one faction or the other, the army has played the decisive role. During the Cultural Revolution, too, the army played the main role; it was Mao's last resort. In 1967, Mao Tsetung said, "We rely on the strength of the army... We had only two divisions in Peking, but we brought in another two in May in order to settle accounts with the former Peking Party Committee". (From the conversation of Mao tsetung with the friendship Delegation of the PRA, dec. 18, 1967).

(Enver Hoxha, Imperialism and the Revolution, Part 2: III, Mao Tsetung Thought - An Anti-Marxist Theory)

[Rawthentic]

No, Deng's coup proved that Mao's 'self-criticism' and 'bourgeois in the party' lines for the national bourgeois is bunk and allowed the bourgeois to get into the party simply by engaging in fake exercises in 'self-criticism'. Mao achieved short-term economic gain after the Civil War by sacrificing class struggle and taking a soft-line on the bourgeois.

Enver Hoxha and Stalin were correct, the bourgeois don't come into a party unless the party allows it, and Mao allowed it and it's no surprise it led to a revisionist takeover and the state of China today.

As I said earlier, the rise of Chinese revisionist is linked directly to Mao's rejection of the correct theoretical line of comrade Stalin of the development of socialism alongside the aggravation of class struggles.

Mao, just like Kim il-sung, had a soft-spot for the so-called 'patriotic' and 'conscientious' bourgeois, and they never replaced the 'peoples state' (the dictatorship of the many classes including peasants and nat. bourgeois) with the dictatorship of the proletariat.Wrong on several levels.

The bourgeoisie does not "creep" into the communist party, its lines and policies are reflected as a result of the remnants of capitalist society that remain in socialism, and need to be struggled against. This was the crux of the GPCR, to mobilize the masses to fight against bourgeois lines and capitalist roaders within the Party. It was not that former capitalists were taking over the party, it is that bourgeois ideology was becoming manifest in the form of lines and policies. One stark example, on the side of the capitalist-roaders, is that they wanted to production to be based on material incentives, rather than politics and a conscious people. Mao said that what was needed was "politics-in command", that is, the goal of continuing socialist construction with the aim of communism, to "serve the people" not look out for one's individual interests over that of the collective. There are many other examples, but this line was in the Party and objectively led back to capitalism. Mao's theory of cultural revolution came into contrast with Stalin's mechanical methods with dealing with the contradictions amongst the people and the enemy. It was a fact that there were very real enemies and counterrevolutionaries within the CPSU under Stalin, but he handled those contradictions in the wrong manner, namely purges. Rather than mobilizing the masses to become conscious of and defeat these capitalist-roaders, Stalin purged them. Wouldn't it have been a million times better if he had called upon the masses to do so? This is what the masses did in socialist China.

In terms of the national bourgeoisie, it had a dual character. During the period of resistance to Japan, it definitely had a progressive character because it opposed that imperialism, even though it did so to further its own narrow interests. After the seizure of power, one could not immediately expropriate them. It was not feasible. Mao said that if these people could reform themselves through self-criticism, education, and labor, they could return to normal society. What is particularly wrong with this? If they are not conspiring against the revolutionary state and are willing to reform, what is the problem? Is it not better to have this then having them organize counterrevolution?

China, as Marx correctly said (about socialism in general), still bore the "birthmarks" of capitalism. It needed commodity production (and this is one way the bourgeoisie regenders within the Party that calls for the need for cultural revolution), it needed state-capitalism and smaller private enterprises to advance China economically. The task of building socialism in such a large country as China (600 million people, 80% in the countryside) would take decades and long struggle. And, lets not act as if the national bourgeoisie were not touched. They were expropriated (as I proved) but in terms of a long process that took into consideration the particularities of Chinese society at the time.

I think it is quite ridiculous to say that Mao rejected the fact of class struggle under socialism. Thats what the GPCR was all about! Mao had the correct understanding that class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, particularly in the ideological sphere, could become acute (and it did as the struggle between the capitalist road vs the socialist road intensified). When Mao called on the workers, peasants, and Red Guards to "bombard the headquarters", he called on them to criticize everything that went against the tide of socialism and back to the horrors of the old society. Stalin, in fact, in 1936, was the one that said that class struggle had ended in the Soviet Union, not Mao! And Mao criticized him for this. I can provide a link.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, Deng's coup proved that Mao's 'self-criticism' and 'bourgeois in the party' lines for the national bourgeois is bunk and allowed the bourgeois to get into the party simply by engaging in fake exercises in 'self-criticism'. Mao achieved short-term economic gain after the Civil War by sacrificing class struggle and taking a soft-line on the bourgeois.

Enver Hoxha and Stalin were correct, the bourgeois don't come into a party unless the party allows it, and Mao allowed it and it's no surprise it led to a revisionist takeover and the state of China today.

As I said earlier, the rise of Chinese revisionist is linked directly to Mao's rejection of the correct theoretical line of comrade Stalin of the development of socialism alongside the aggravation of class struggles.

Mao, just like Kim il-sung, had a soft-spot for the so-called 'patriotic' and 'conscientious' bourgeois, and they never replaced the 'peoples state' (the dictatorship of the many classes including peasants and nat. bourgeois) with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Why do Hoxhaist "Marxist-Leninists" treat Imperialism and the Revolution as a political bible of sorts? I'd read it, and it isn't good except at exposing Mao. :confused:

[Rawthentic]

I'd read it, and it isn't good except at exposing Mao. no, as I showed (in part), this is not true.

[Yes]

I really dislike the arguments of Anti-Revisionist Marxist-Leninists and Maoists because it is always the same...

Leninist: No you're a revisionist!
Maoist: No you're a revisionist!
Leninist: No you're a revisionist!
Maoist: No you're a revisionist!
Leninist: No you're a revisionist!
Maoist: No you're a revisionist!
etc

[RHIZOMES]

I really dislike the arguments of Anti-Revisionist Marxist-Leninists and Maoists because it is always the same...

Leninist: No you're a revisionist!
Maoist: No you're a revisionist!
Leninist: No you're a revisionist!
Maoist: No you're a revisionist!
Leninist: No you're a revisionist!
Maoist: No you're a revisionist!
etc

And if you dislike them, don't read them. I find them very interesting and enlightening to read.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How was Hoxha a "revisionist," then? :lol:

[Yes]

And if you dislike them, don't read them. I find them very interesting and enlightening to read.
As do I. I was just commenting on when very sectarian members of both sides argue about it.