Differences between Maoist and Trotskyist theories of capitalist restoration?

[heiss93]

What are the differences between Maoist and Trotskyist theories of capitalist restoration? I suppose the question is complicated by the different tendencies within Trotskyism. The deformed workers state theory is significantly different, while the state capitalist position mirrors the Anti-revisionist stance. Other than the differences in dates 1927 or 1954, what are the differences in how the capitalist or bureaucrat class actually seizes power?

Some of the more radical GPCR Peking Review articles refer to Russia as a fascist dictatorship of the big monopolies of the Hitler type. I don't think any modern Maoists believe the USSR was in fact fascist. I've always found the capitalist restoration theory somewhat idealistic in that is uggests that "bad leaders either Stalin or Khruschov or Gorbachev are responsible and not material class relations. IF the USSR was capitalist under Stalin or Khruschov/Brezhnev, WHO were the big monopolists?

[Random Precision]

Maoists believe that capitalism is restored through a new bourgeois class that in the USSR and China came to power through gaining an increasing amount of control over the party and displacing leaders who wanted to keep the country on "the socialist road". As a state-cap Trotskyist, I believe this theory is in fact somewhat accurate, however the Maoists have failed to look beyond the rhetoric of Mao's regime to see where the bourgeois class really came from, which is the state/party bureaucracy itself instead of certain people within it. The horse is the problem, not the rider.


I don't think any modern Maoists believe the USSR was in fact fascist. I've always found the capitalist restoration theory somewhat idealistic in that is uggests that "bad leaders either Stalin or Khruschov or Gorbachev are responsible and not material class relations.

That's true of idealistic theories of capitalist restoration that are based on political expediency rather than an honest critique of the regime and economy in question. I have the Maoist view in mind when I say this. However, other forms of state-cap theory get at the problem much better.

[BobKKKindle$]

RP raises important points but he seems to have forgotten the most important point of all - the differences between Trotskyists and Maoists concerning the ways in which bureaucratic degeneration could have been prevented. This is the most important point because our answer to this question has deep implications for future attempts to construct and defend socialism. Trotskyists have always recognized that the survival of Soviet Russia depended on the ability of the revolution to spread to other more advanced capitalist states which would have been able to break imperialist encirclement and provide Russia with the means to develop its productive forces, as this would have allowed Russia to enlarge the size of its proletariat and overcome material scarcity. Therefore, the solution to bureaucratic degeneration (or, rather, the means by which degeneration could have been prevented in the first place) is international revolution. In this respect, Trotskyists share the same position as Lenin. Maoists, on the other hand, believe that socialism can be constructed in one country (in opposition to the Trotskyist theory that the prerequisites for socialism only exist on a world scale during the age of imperialism due to the globalization of consumption and distribution) and bureaucratic degeneration can be both prevented and dealt with through a cultural revolution, which involves workers and other oppressed sections of the population including students removing corrupt officials (or "capitalist-roaders") and fighting against outdated and reactionary practices such as the "four olds" in China. This is why Maoists believe China was an example of socialism (and the GPCR the farthest advance towards communism in human history) until Mao's death and the subsequent restoration of capitalism.

[BIG BROTHER]

Yea bob pretty much nailed it.

[Rawthentic]

good post, Bob.

I also do not believe that RP does justice do what is really a groundbreaking theory of cultural revolution that Mao exposed.

It certainly is a lot more complex than how you pose it.

We all know that socialism is a society that is still profoundly scarred with the "birthmarks" (as marx put it) of capitalism. People's thinking, behaviors, actions, etc., all reflect this.

As a result of this, EVERY socialist society will be faced with a life and death struggle between taking the capitalist road or continuing socialist transformation.

There are a few main arenas where the class struggle (that of between the proletariat and bourgeoise as mao puts it) exists is in the ideological, external, and internal arenas, but mainly in the first. Bourgeois ideology manifests itself as long as the basis for its existence still continues.

So, how is this overcome? Well, Mao put forward that since the class struggle between the former oppressed and oppressor still exist (mainly the ideological and theoretical realm), there needs to be wave after wave of political struggle that the PEOPLE take up and that allow them to expose and destroy those offiicials in power that are implementing moves and policies that correspond to the rise of a new bourgeois class (due to the existence of capitalism and small production).

Rather than pointing the gun at corrupt and basically bourgeois officials within the CCP, Mao unleashed the workers and peasants to do so, and, in return, allowed for a popular, democratic struggle that allowed for the people to do so.

Stalin was incorrect when he believed that the existence of capitalist roaders was due to imperialist encirclement and conspiracy, and thus purged and murdered those around him whom he thought fit that description. This is a wrong method that views the people merely as objects, not subjects and conscious makers of history.

Should profit, administration, and technique be in command under socialism? Or should it be politics and the deepening of socialist relations? Was it ok for capitalist methods to be used in factories in china, or was it better when workers, cadre, and soldiers formed 3-in-1 committees that empowered the people? These are the crucial questions posed to them (and us today under a diff context).

Mao said "line is decisive", and I think he is correct.

Lenin said,"
"The dictatorship of the proletariat is a most determined and most ruthless war waged by the new class against amore powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased tenfold by its overthrow (even if only in one country), and whose power lies not only in the strength of international capital, in the strength and durability of the international connections of the bourgeoisie, but also in theforce of habit , in the strength ofsmall production . For unfortunately, small production is still very, very widespread in the world, and small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. For all these reasons the dictatorship of the proletariat is essential." - emphasis NOT mine