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Uh, I'm not going to go looking through my posts to try and find something I don't believe and have never argued, that would be inane. If you can't point to posts where I've defended Mao, you shouldn't have made the accusation.
This is a confusing and ignorant post. I don't know why you begin by talking about Stalin's views on fascism and social democracy when those views are of little relevance to China. The Third Period did manifest itself in some ways in Chinese politics during the late 1920s and early 1930s in that Li Lisan called for the formation of red unions rather than seeking to work through the traditional organizations of the working class or through the yellow unions that were formed by the KMT, and when Wang Ming and his associates arrived in the Jiangxi Soviet they also supported radical policies of equalization in the countryside that had a detrimental impact on the alliance between the middle and poor peasants, but in general, it's fair to say that the Comintern became less relevant in Chinese politics and in the policy-making of the CPC during this period, mainly because the CPC found it extremely difficult to remain in contact with the Soviets especially during the Long March, and so the CPC had more opportunities for autonomy, whereas this was not true of Communist Parties in Europe and elsewhere. As for Comintern strategy during the 1920s, which is what the Trotskyist critique is primarily concerned with, at no point do you explain why it was necessary for the CPC to subordinate itself to the KMT and why it was forced to continue the first united front even when its leaders were calling for a break, especially after the March 1926 coup. The very fact that the CPC was in such a subordinate position relative to the KMT was what prevented the party from pursuing a revolutionary policy in the countryside and taking advantage of its popular support amongst the peasantry in that the KMT limited its policies to rent and interest rate reduction and the CPC's rural activists were forced to agree that they would not encourage struggle against landlords who were officers or the relatives of officers in the National Revolutionary Army. It is not surprising that this severely limited the scope of the CPC's activism given that by the 1920s there had emerged a convergence of different forms of property in the hands of a single landlord-bourgeois class, rather than there being a meaningful distinction between landlords and bourgeoisie or between different sections of the bourgeoisie - this being something that Trotsky argued, against Stalin and Bukharin's nonsense about China being a semi-feudal society and the KMT being a bloc of four classes, which no-one with any knowledge of social relations in China under the late Qing or the Republic can take seriously.
The fact that, in defense of Stalin, you can only cite a single letter that he sent to Molotov says a great deal about both you and Stalin. People should be judged on their public arguments and decisions. Stalin was absolutely instrumental to the initiation and continuation of the first united front. He was the one who supported the KMT being accepted as an associate party in the Comintern and he was also one of the members of the ECCI who supported Chiang himself being accepted to that body. He and Bukharin were the leaders who, after the initial suppression of the CPC in April of 1927, called for the party to join with the allegedly left-KMT government in Wuhan under Wang Jingwei, until that government also carried out a campaign of violent suppression against the CPC and the peasant movement that it had been seeking to develop - which makes a mockery of your and Stalin's claim that the first united front was necessary to strengthen the left wing of the KMT, as if there were meaningful differences of class interests between the factions. At no point during the first united front did Stalin explicitly and clearly warn that the CPC needed to prepare itself for a coming clash with the KMT. He is largely to blame for the multiple and repeated debacles of the late 1920s.
This is not equivalent at all, and in any case there are many instances of Lenin making poor decisions in relation to other class forces and political actors.
I find that both of the texts referred to amount to nothing more than strategy and tactics for a revolution that has successfully given birth to hundreds of state capitalist regimes in the global South. Usually at the expense of the workers themselves.
What did Trotsky achieve in practice? He led a bloc that attempted to thwart the development of the soviet soviet using terrorism and sabotage. What a contribution!
Luckily these fools were caught, tried and executed before the Nazis over-ran the country.
Trotsky fled the SU and spilled his guts to every enemy the soviet union had.
Thanks Trotsky!
Hmmh........how about this "Organizer of Victory" or so proclaimed the Bolshevik Party and leadership, and their various news organs. Sounds much better to me than "Gravedigger of the Revolution" the label so appropriately tied to Stalin and the policies of the Comintern.
Luckily, and expelling, exiling, killing all those officers, like Tukhachevsky. Yeah, hell, if that hadn't been done, why the Nazis might have made all the way to Moscow, encircled Leningrad, killed millions and millions of soviet workers.
Luckily, otherwise there might have been some agreement between the USSR and Germany which essentially made Russia a supplier of material to the German army and German industry.
Luckily, otherwise Soviet and Nazi military and intelligence units might have collaborated in Poland.
Luckily.
No, he didn't flee. He was exiled and then expelled. And he didn't spill his guts to class enemies; he criticized the disastrous policies of the ruling clique in Moscow and the 3rd International, the cliques that couldn't resist turning over militants to class enemies, or skipping the middle man, simply executing the militants themselves.
You're just another foamer with hoof in mouth disease.
I did say Mao or the CCP. Nearly every one of your posts relating to Stalin or whatever involves you defending the CCP.
I wanted to post some info on the Comintern and Stalin's disagreement with some of their policies, but to no avail. It's still the fault of one person.
The first stage was the all-national united front, striking at imperialism and the national bourgeoise supported this revolution, as the first stage of the Chinese revolution. The second goal was the bourgeois democratic revolution, which the bourgeoisie would abandon if the CCP was in a comfortable spot to exercise power in conjunction with the KMT, which would infact abandon the CCP. Stalin (although he was losing control of the comintern at this time) argued that the CCP ought to move into agrarian reform. However, this advice was not taken, leaving the CCP exposed. Despite all the Trotskyist rambling, the abandonment of the right-wing of the KMT was anticipated back in 1926:
"It is necessary to adopt the course of arming the workers and peasants and converting the peasant committees in the localities into actual organs of governmental authority equipped with armed self-defence, etc.. The CP must not come forward as a brake on the mass movement; the CP should not cover up the treacherous and reactionary policy of the Kuomintang Rights, and should mobilise the masses around the Kuomintang and the CCP on the basis of exposing the Rights... The Chinese revolution is passing through a critical period, and.. it can achieve further victories only by resolutely adopting the course of developing the mass movement. Otherwise a tremendous danger threatens the revolution. The fulfilment of directives is therefore more necessary than ever before." ECCI Directive to the CCP; February 1926
And despite your claims, Stalin urged the CCP to abandon this bloc with the KMT:
"The victory of the revolution cannot be achieved unless this bloc is smashed, but in order to smash this bloc, fire must be concentrated on the compromising national bourgeoisie, its treachery exposed, the toiling masses freed from its influence, and the conditions necessary of the hegemony of the proletariat systematically prepared. In other words, in colonies like India it is a matter of preparing the proletariat for the role of leader of the liberation movement, step by step dislodging the bourgeoisie and its mouthpieces from this honourable post. The task is to create an anti-imperialist bloc and to ensure the hegemony of the proletariat in this bloc. This bloc can assume although it need not always necessarily do so, the form of a single Workers and Peasants Party, formally bound by a single platform. In such centuries the independence of the Communist Party must be, the chief slogan of the advanced communist elements, of the hegemony of the proletariat can be prepared and brought about by the Communist party. But the communist party can and must enter into an open bloc with the revolutionary part of the bourgeoisie in order, after isolating the compromising national bourgeoisie, to lead the vast masses of the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie in the struggle against imperialism." J.V.Stalin "Stalin's Letters to Molotov
There was a definate left-wing of the KMT and the object was to unite and attempt to possibly convert some of their members all the while combating and criticizing the right-wing faction.
To help implement the ECCI 7th Plenum Theses by the CCP, in January 1927, M.N.Roy was sent as a special ECCI representative. But the CCP did not heed the warning signs and advice, to escape the struggle from the CI and Stalin. The Chinese national bourgeois led by Chiang Kai-Shek; launched its coup on April 12th, 192, viciously butchering the Shanghai workers, and the militants of the CCP.
Roy managed to pressure the CCP to hold the 5TH CCP Congress in Wuhan on April 27th to May 9th 1927. Chen argued to delay the agrarian revolution. But Roy’s pressure forced the CCP, to verbally accept the ECCI line; however this was short lived. The CCP leadership refused to follow even their own 5th Congress directives. On May 21st, 1927 Colonel Hsu Ke-hsiang seized control of Changsha, and launched a White terror. 20,000 workers and peasants were killed. The CCP sabotaged the peasant army in its attempt to fight back, and forced a retreat. They were then of course easy fodder, and were slaughtered. Still, the CCP and Borodin refused to go to the masses.
"The basic point in all Chen Tu-hsiu's speeches has been the demand that the general leadership in the movement be handed over to the KMT". Tsia Ho-sen: "Istoriia opportunizma v Kommunisticheskoi Partii Kitaia" (An account of Opportunism In the Chinese Communist Party) In :"Problemy Kitaia" (Chinese Problems); No. 1, 1929; p.35
So yes, it is historical simplicity to resort to blaming one man for every failure and setback during the Chinese revolution.
"In your system, gentlemen fascists, to whom do the means of production belong? To individual capitalists and to groups of capitalists and, therefore, you cannot have genuine planning, except for bits, as the economy is divided among groups of owners." - J.V. Stalin
"[The children's] life will be better than ours; much of what was our life, they will not experience. Their lives will be less cruel. [...] Our generation has succeeded in doing a job of astounding historical importance. The cruelty of our life, forced upon us by conditions, will be understood and justified. It will all be understood, all of it!" -V. Lenin
Quite literally, stageist bullshit, never recognizing how the "first stage" can only survive by destroying the "second stage" and that the "anti-imperialist front" is nothing but the original version of the popular front, where the class interests of the workers is subordinated.
Sure there was, sure... and Chiang was its leader which is why the 3rd International awarded the KMT full member status. And exactly how did that work out?
No, the proletariat cannot enter into an "open bloc with the revolutionary [sic] bourgeoisie" because there is no such thing as a revolutionary bourgeoisie; hadn't been one for 60 years when this little piece of ideological obfuscation was being promoted.
That's the point.
Quite literally Trotskyite bullshit. History and social systems move in stages. That's how it goes. Anti-imperialist fronts can actually be quite effective in terms of achieving short term goals, but that does not mean that the Communists and the nationalists would enjoy a long term mutual relationship. Use the naitonalists for what their worth and get rid of them when their service had ended.
Like I said above, use the bourgeoisie for what they're worth and then get rid of them. Of course, you have the comprador bourgeoisie (who would rather ally with imperialism in order to advance their class position) and the anti-imperialist bourgeoisie ala India who would rather control the means of production on their own, without the intervention of a foreign military power. When it comes to fighting either feudalism or imperialism, some sections of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie can be temporarily revolution, but not thoroughly revolutionary when it comes to establishing actual socialism.
"In your system, gentlemen fascists, to whom do the means of production belong? To individual capitalists and to groups of capitalists and, therefore, you cannot have genuine planning, except for bits, as the economy is divided among groups of owners." - J.V. Stalin
"[The children's] life will be better than ours; much of what was our life, they will not experience. Their lives will be less cruel. [...] Our generation has succeeded in doing a job of astounding historical importance. The cruelty of our life, forced upon us by conditions, will be understood and justified. It will all be understood, all of it!" -V. Lenin
According to what, some metaphysical law? Because God has decreed it to be so? The idea that revolution can and should proceed neatly by stages is totally alien to the classical Marxist tradition. Marx himself, writing back in the mid-nineteenth century when it was still possible to have confidence in the power of the bourgeoisie and capitalism to overturn existing social and political institutions, was conscious that the bourgeoisie carrying out a bourgeois-democratic revolution might not be applicable to countries other than France, in that he pointed to the possibility of the working class having to take the leading role in a democratic revolution in Germany, and he also suggested towards the end of his life and in relation to Russia, through his correspondence with Vera Zasulich, that socialist revolution might grow out of the agrarian communes, that is, the traditional basis of Russian agriculture and rural life, rather than those communes having to be destroyed and their inhabitants dispersed through capitalist development. So even Marx was hesitant to accept a rigid conception of stages, even though his broader intellectual environment was quite supportive of that kind of thinking.
You simply have not offered any account of why it was so necessary for the revolution to take place in China by means of stages and how the bourgeoisie or any section thereof could ever have played a progressive role. What you ignore in particular is that when the working class in China moved into action during periods of nationalist agitation and in spite of the constraints that were set down under the first united front, its organizations and methods of struggle transgressed the boundaries of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and entered onto the terrain of socialism. Specifically, when the working class moved to impose a blockade on Canton and Hong Kong in 1925-6 as part of the May 30th Movement, which you actually referred to in one of your previous posts, it did not look to the government in Beijing or the KMT, but created embryonic Soviets in order to police the boycott, which included a militia force and democratic modes of election and decision-making amongst the workers who were involved, such as delegates being subject to recall, and the workers also conducted agitation amongst the peasants in order to maintain the boycott along the coast. This dynamic - of events having their own logic, and workers being pushed by the logic of events to enter the terrain of socialism in order to maintain advances that are in and of themselves only part of the bourgeois-democratic revolution - is one of the major insights of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, and what it shows is that you cannot draw rigid boundaries between stages, and that the revolutionary process cannot be reduced to such a simple and abstract schema. This development occurred in spite of the fact that Stalin and Bukharin resisted Trotsky's calls for Soviets throughout the 1920s and decreed that Soviets would be impossible in a period where the bourgeois-democratic revolution had not yet been completed. What is also significant about the outcome of the May 30th Movement and the formation of the Hong Kong-Canton Soviet is that it was directly followed by the first coup of Chiang in March 1926, which resulted in the CPC having to hand over their membership lists and Comintern advisers being placed under house arrest, with it being precisely at that point that the CPC leaders were calling for a break with the KMT, so it is absurd to argue that the events of April 1927 came as a complete shock or that there was nothing during the preceding period that indicated that the united front was inherently unstable. The reaction of the KMT in southern China at that point and subsequently in April 1927 combined with its complete failure to carry out the tasks of land reform, national unification, and democratic government throughout the whole of the Nanjing decade is just one form of evidence that shows that there was no progressive section of the bourgeoisie in China and that the united front was fatally flawed for that reason. The underlying weakness of the bourgeoisie was a product of longer-term social processes such as the concentration of land and industrial property in the hands of a single ruling class and the forging of close links between capitalist enterprise in China and Western financial institutions, which is precisely what Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution leads us to respect, based on Trotsky's characterization of the weakness of the bourgeoisie in Russia and his analysis of the political consequences of the bourgeoisie being a vacillating class.
Rather than relying on crappy slogans and assertions, you need to provide evidence and analysis for the existence of a progressive bourgeoisie in China during the 1920s, and you need to provide an empirically supported account of exactly why it was necessary for the revolution to proceed in accordance with some a priori stageist schema, given that this had not been true in Russia, and given that the Chinese working class itself showed the possibility of a seamless transition between democratic and socialist tasks, through its experiences and innovations during the May 30th Movement.
^^^^^Word.
Actually, it was not Stalin that formulated the idea of stagism, or a short period of bourgeois democracy following revolution in certain countries where it is applicable. Lenin himself argued that the national bourgeoisie of colonial and more backwards countries could play a useful role.
"All the Communist parties must assist the bourgeois democratic liberation movement in these (ie colonial type countries-ed).. The Communist International (CI) must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in colonial and backward countries." V.I.Lenin : Preliminary Draft of Theses on National and Colonial Questions, 2nd Congress; CI in "Selected Works", Volume10, London, 1946; p. 236-7.
Lenin's view was endorsed by the Comintern with only one change made to the original draft (the term "bourgeois democractic" was replaced by "nationalist revolutionry). The idea was that the working class should support a bourgeois revolution so long as the movement remained genuinely revolutionary. Of course, capitalists will never support a socialist revolutionary, and that is why it is necessary for workers to expell capitalists after their revolutionary potential has dried up.
"The meaning of this change is that we communists should, and will, support bourgeois liberation movements only when these movement do not hinder us in training and organising the peasants and the broad masses of the exploited in a revolutionary spirit.. The above mentioned distinction has now been drawn in all the theses, and I think that, thanks to this, our point of view has been formulated much more precisely." Lenin. Report Of Commission on the National and Colonial Questions, Ibid, p 241
After the first coup took place and the CCP and the workers took a massive hit, Roy stressed that another coup was imminent if the CCP did not carry out agrarian reform in the areas that they controled. The ECCI was contacted and asked for advice. Meanwhile, the Wuhan Left KMT met Chiang Kai-Shek, and Feng Yu-hsiang and combined against the CCP. Roy again warned the CCP leadership that a coup was imminent, and once more, this warning was ignored. The CCP refused to launch agrarian struggle. Instead, Chen Tu-Hsiu messaged the ECCI:
"90% of the National Army are.. opposed to excesses in the peasants' movement. In such a situation, not only the KMT but also the CCP is obliged to adopt a policy of concessions, It is necessary to correct excesses and to moderate the activities of the confiscation of land." Chen Tu-hsiu: Telegram to ECCI; June 15th 1927; In M.N.Roy :"Revolution and Counter revolution in China"; Calcutta; 1946; p.482.
So instead of abandoning the bloc with the temporary bloc with the KMT, the CCP leadership denied this more than once, against the advice of the Comintern.
"In your system, gentlemen fascists, to whom do the means of production belong? To individual capitalists and to groups of capitalists and, therefore, you cannot have genuine planning, except for bits, as the economy is divided among groups of owners." - J.V. Stalin
"[The children's] life will be better than ours; much of what was our life, they will not experience. Their lives will be less cruel. [...] Our generation has succeeded in doing a job of astounding historical importance. The cruelty of our life, forced upon us by conditions, will be understood and justified. It will all be understood, all of it!" -V. Lenin
This is political megalomania.
The bourgoisie has snatched China, the USSR, all of Eastern Europe, Vietnam and will soon have N. Korea and Nepal, and you still think they're a paper tiger.
Your Little Red Book needs some new chapters, like on how to work with the working class, the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the petit-bourgeoisie and global capitalism. Otherwise, you're cool.
RED DAVE
If this was ever right, by 1945 it was dead wrong. And Maoists have been climbing up this asshole for 60 years and more and have learned nothing.
Take a look at Nepal and see the fruit of this. As we speak, the various factions of the Nepalese Maoists are falling all over each other to bring the joys of capitalism to Nepal.
RED DAVE
Too bad I'm not a Maoist
jackass >_>
"In your system, gentlemen fascists, to whom do the means of production belong? To individual capitalists and to groups of capitalists and, therefore, you cannot have genuine planning, except for bits, as the economy is divided among groups of owners." - J.V. Stalin
"[The children's] life will be better than ours; much of what was our life, they will not experience. Their lives will be less cruel. [...] Our generation has succeeded in doing a job of astounding historical importance. The cruelty of our life, forced upon us by conditions, will be understood and justified. It will all be understood, all of it!" -V. Lenin
As far as much of the Left is concerned, Stalinisim, Maoism, Hoxhaism and Juche are kissing cousins: one rationalization or another for state capitalism masquerading as socialism.
ETA: Plz note that every society established by Maoists, Hoxhaists, Stalinists or other M-Ls has either become virulent capitalism without any significant resistance on the part of the working class. Juche is about to present China with a wonderful new source of labor to exploit. Maoists in Nepal are in a capitalist government and opening their country to enterprise zones
Not one of these tendencies supports democratic workers control.
RED DAVE
Last edited by RED DAVE; 13th June 2011 at 03:36.
There was a swedish group that split from the official (eurocommunist-ish) CP with the rest of the maoists, but then proceeded to make some quite radical critique of stalinism (calling it such) in a way similar to the trotskyist critique, I think they had an orientation towards guerillaist movements as well. The similar Danish group, called Venstre Socialistena exists to this day, although these days pretty much wholly absorbed in Enhedslisten. I am not as well read on them though.
"I want to say sweet, silly things." - V.I Lenin
Why don't we just supply OP with a link of some of Sam Marcy's works and not turn this thread into another anti-Maoist shitfest?
http://www.workers.org/marcy/
Last edited by Who?; 13th June 2011 at 03:29.
Are all Marxist-Leninists unable to advance beyond this sort of pissweak wannabe-macho schoolboy non-humour, or is it just the ones that seem to insist on posting here?
Lenin and the Comintern were wrong. Tthe workers organizations, once subordinated to the terms of a "bourgeois democratic" or "national" revolution will be immobilized and incapable of expelling the capitalist.
What happens is that the organizations that the workers thought would become the vehicles of emancipation become the vehicles of their suppression. This is exactly how it played out in Chile, with Allende's Unidad Popular committed to "winning over" "using" "combining" with the "national bourgeoisie" against the "oligarchs" the "foreign capitalists" the "monopolists."
As it turned out, the national, democratic bourgeoisie new that class is thicker than blood, and the UP under the influence of yet another C Communist Party busied itself breaking the workers seizures of factories.
Exactly. Proves the point that there is no such thing as a "revolutionary bourgeoisie."
Lenin's theorys which were proven wrong should be revised, not all of his original thoughts should be taken as gospel. He admitted later on that he made mistakes. P.S. red dave, do you want a hug?
For student organizing in california, join this group!
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1036
http://socialistorganizer.org/
"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
Tell that to Dave, not me. He's the one that spams every fucking thread about Leninism or Maoism with "omg prachanda is ruining Nepal," or "look at those evil Stalinists/Maoists and their socialism in one country!" Yeah, I'm not a fan of Prachanda or the UCPN(M) but I don't jump from thread to thread whining about it in an attempt to make myself look like a hardass.
I mean honestly, just look at his past posts. All he does is complain.
"In your system, gentlemen fascists, to whom do the means of production belong? To individual capitalists and to groups of capitalists and, therefore, you cannot have genuine planning, except for bits, as the economy is divided among groups of owners." - J.V. Stalin
"[The children's] life will be better than ours; much of what was our life, they will not experience. Their lives will be less cruel. [...] Our generation has succeeded in doing a job of astounding historical importance. The cruelty of our life, forced upon us by conditions, will be understood and justified. It will all be understood, all of it!" -V. Lenin
