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What has Mao Zedong thought added or improved onto Leninism?
To me it seems like Maoism has actually regressed rather than advanced the ideas of Lenin.
Today the Trotskyites have a right to accuse those who once howled along with the wolves. Let them not forget, however, that they had the enormous advantage over us of having a coherent political system capable of replacing Stalinism. They had something to cling to in the midst of their profound distress at seeing the revolution betrayed. They did not "confess," for they knew that their confession would serve neither the party nor socialism.
- Leopold Trepper (Organizer of Soviet spy ring, Red Orchestra)
It is. It has absolutly nothing to do with Marxism (Leninism too because it is a continuation). It believes in the same Stalinism ideas of two stage theory, only take farther. It says that communism can be built by including the petty bourgeoisie in the revolution. Maoism is also ANTI-proletariat. It is against urbanization and for the peasantry alone. www.newyouth.com and the FAQs about Maoism are an ok summary.
No War but Class War
"I am suffering this ordeal partly because I sought an honourable and equitable via media of conflicting interests in order to harmonise our disjointed structure. It seems that the lesson of this coup d’etat is that via media, a modus vivendi, a compromise is a utopian dream. The coup d’etat demonstrates that the class struggle is irreconcilable and that it must result in the victory of one class over another. Obviously, whatever the temporary setbacks, the struggle can lead to the victory of one class.” - Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, former leader of Pakistan, on the eve of his execution.
“If we oppose terrorist acts, it is only because individual revenge does not satisfy us. The account we have to settle with the capitalist system is too great to be presented to some functionary called a minister” – Leon Trotsky, 1909.
All Power to the Popular Assemblies!
Long Live the Workers and Peasants Revolution in Bolivia!
American trotskyist, im not a Maoist but even i can tell u definately got everything backwards.
Maoism doesnt oppose proletariats. My grandmother was a child labor when the Liberation army came to liberate the town. Soon she was given an education and served in the medical field and held considerably high positions.
In old China, Peasants are considered to be proletariats because unlike the peasants of Europe, Chinese peasants dont have land(or any other capital other than labor) which makes them serfs which makes them even more revolutionary than the workers, believe it or not. not to mention Peasants were more than 90 % of the population thus cannot afford to be ignored.
Just because Mao is pro-peasants doesnt make him anti worker. By anti urbanization, did u mean industrialization?
around the time of the countrys liberation capitalists are divided into two groups: patriotic capitalists who sympathize the revolution; and the evil industrialists and landlords. the former was protected(for a while) while the latter is crushed.
Maos theory of contradiction is without doubt, a great development of dialectical materialism. It explains the conflict and struggle between all things based on dialectical materialism.
and u havent forgotten about Maos brilliant theory of guerilla war, have u?
So overall i find it hard to dismiss Maoism as bluntly as American_Trotskyist did.
There are room for discussion but it is definately wrong and irrational for a Marxist to bash Maoism so carelessly.
by the way, there is no way one could catagorize the Nepalease Maoists as true Maoists. They broke many fundamental rules to Maoism(or Mao Zedong thoughts) by conducting terrorist acts against the PEOPLE.
Do not say that we have nothing,
We shall be masters of all under heaven!
My nepalease friend believes that the Maoists would have come to power much earlier had they not alienate the population by forcing them to do all sorts of things.
Mao emphasized educating people then mobilize them, other than forcing them to serve the so-called voluntery labor.
Do not say that we have nothing,
We shall be masters of all under heaven!
About a billion people.
In terms of ideas, I suppose you could credit Mao with the further erosion of democratic principles within Leninism, but by that time Stalin had already eviscerated what little democracy Lenin had originally included, so really Mao just continued what "Comrade" Stalin had already begun.
Beyond that, I guess you could, as RedStarOverChina did, include Mao's "Agrarian Socialism" which did, I suppose, deviate from classical Marxist-Leninism in several ways, although to be fair Marxist-Leninism had already begun down that road anyways, it's just that China had a lot more peasants.
As for Mao's "brilliant theory of guerilla war"... well.... I'll acknowledge that he was a succeful and innovative general, but he kinda lucked out in that the Nationalists were effectively already beaten and the Japanese occupation had made the people willing to consider alternatives far more freely than under normal circumstances. But either way, I hardly see how one can consider Mao's military record relevent in discussing his ideological contributions to Leninism.
I'd say it's "wrong and irrational" for Leninists to dismiss Mao, not Marxists. Don't forget that there's an important difference between the two.
I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do, so I leave it up to you...
thats nonsense. Maos guerilla tactics worked just fine way before the Sino japanese war got started. Also the communist troops were also wore-out after WWII.
some the most important contribution of Maoism (to leninism) is its military tactics so i felt the need to bring it up.
remember the central theme of Marxism?
dialectical materialism.
whether or not Mao is a marxist is still debated. I do not want to make the judgement too early. but in terms of theory, Maos theory of contradiction is a brilliant development of dialectical materialism. So in that sense Mao contributed to marxism overall. so if Marxists discard Maos theory of contradiction, its like slapping ourselves in the face.
u disagree with Leninism, as i do. But know the difference between Lenin and Leninism.
just out of curiosity: do u have any role models or anyone u feel not very objectionable?
Do not say that we have nothing,
We shall be masters of all under heaven!
No question, but there's no way that they would have been nearly as succeful had the war not happened. IF after 28 the KMT had been able to fully solidify its position, the communists probably wouldn't have had a chance. If Chian Kai-Shek had had the time to build up his army and fight the communists alone, he most likely could have crushed them while Mao was still running the "Jiangxi Soviet".
Of course they were, but not nearly to the extent of the nationalist ones. Unlike the CCP, the nationalist army had been waging the defensive battles of the war, whereas the CCP, when it helped at all, was largely fighting a guerrila war. This meant that the total bulk of the nationalist armies were not only worn, they were battle-scarred and exhausted. Furthermore most of their supply stations were ruined and their support bases devastated.
Because of Chiang Kai-Shek's long anti-communist movement, most (if not all) of the CCP's heasquarters / main bases were located in rural and hard to reach areas, effectively out of reach of the Japanese. This meant that while the nationalist army stations were being broken, the CCP's were largely intact. This gave the CCP an enormous advantage once the civil war broke out.
Well, that's sort of my point!
If the biggest contribution you can point to isn't ideological, than I would say its fair to say that Mao didn't really modify the ideology!
Personally, I reject Dialectics in all forms, so I have no trouble dismissing Mao's "empirical conflict" model.
The fact is that there is absolutely no evidence that Mao's paradigm actually works, and by all indications it is such a politicized theory that it basically describes what the CCP did because it was their theory!
Now I'm a true empiracist, and since so far this theory has not made any accurate predictions ...so I'm going to hold of on believing it for now.
I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do, so I leave it up to you...
It doesn't have anything to do with Leninism.
It doesn't really have anything to do with ideas, even.
Read the "Little Red Book". Most of those empty platitudes have two sides: on the one hand, on the other hand.
That's so Mao could do whatever was convenient at the moment, to look out for the apparatchik caste he headed, and find some justification for it. His policies constantly changed throughout his political career, in and out of power, often without warning or serious explanation. His "theory" had to be infinitely flexible in order to keep up.
Mao was an incredible guerilla fighter but definatly not a statesman. His policies were much like Stalinism only I beleive Mao actually had his peoles best intentions at heart, he just sucked at carrying out.
From what little I know Mao was an excellent guerilla fighter. And thats what made him so popular. But he wasnt up to par with revolutionary theory.
It also seems the Maoists have incorperated lots of ideas that Lenin was fighting against. Such as guerralism.
Also, American Trot, do you happen to stop by the YFIS forums. It seems like you stop there... and steal my flag! :P
Today the Trotskyites have a right to accuse those who once howled along with the wolves. Let them not forget, however, that they had the enormous advantage over us of having a coherent political system capable of replacing Stalinism. They had something to cling to in the midst of their profound distress at seeing the revolution betrayed. They did not "confess," for they knew that their confession would serve neither the party nor socialism.
- Leopold Trepper (Organizer of Soviet spy ring, Red Orchestra)
I think Maoism in the proper sense is only Marxism-Leninist politics and ideology with tactics suited to revolution in the 3rd world, such as those used in the Chinese revolution. Maoist concepts like protracted people's war, involving peasent armies liberating the country side outside of teh control of the state, work only in states with comparatively weak governments (as a sort of revolution by civil war, as opposed to the Russian revolution which was more revolution by coup detat).
Cultural revolution, revolutions within a socialist state against reactionary elements in that state, is also counted as a maoist invention, but unlike protracted people's war, i don't think its been done anywhere but China, and it didn't work in China (as the Gang of Four were deposed and the 'capitalist roaders' came to power anyways) soooo....
To say that all of Mao's policies constitute "maoism" is to ignore the historical and poltiical context of his policies, not to mention that his position evolved over the period of his administration. I think you can support Mao as a political leader without claiming to follow him as some sort of 'ideology', because frankly his biggest contributions by far were political and not theoretical.
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that was the plan but things didnt turn out that way.
Against the will of Mao, Gen. Peng Dehuai of the communists waged the Battle of a Hundred Army Groups in which he clearly demonstrated to the Japanese the threat of the communists. Altho Pengs campaign was successful in severely damaging the Japanese army, it exposed to the Japanese the real strength of the communists, which caused the Japanese to focus on fighting the Communists for a long period of time. Because of that the communists experienced disasterous results. Many even worry that the Japanese would allie themselves with the Nationalists against the communists.
Dont forget that the nationalists after WWII were armed by the USA while the CCP received minimum amount of aid from the Soviets until the very end of the war. They were still using the most backward rifles when the nationalists got hold of airplanes and tanks.
If I do remember correctly, Chiang amassed about 2 million troops in total to try to take out Maos Jiangxi Soviet when Maos troops never exceeded 80 thousand. But he failed miserably UNTIL Maos tactics were discarded by Soviet dogmatism within the communist party. Thats the beauty of guerilla warfare developed by Mao.
He did modify Marx-Leninism to fit the condition of China as i explain before. I dont know how else to put it.
How can u be a Marxist if u dont even employ dialectical materialism? Thats the soul of all Marxist thoughts, u know.
Once again i wanna know what exactly is ur political view other than empiricism.
of course it does.... its developed upon Marx-Leninism. Thats a well-known fact.
What????
Who reads the Little Red Book to understand Maoism? Tho some material in there summarize Maos thoughts(and much of it certainly arent empty platitudes...) u can not understand Maos thoughts through a book of his quotes--just like how u cant understand Marxs economic theory just by reading his quotes.
Maos idea of contradiction suggests that everything is changing thus creating new conflicts.(which goes back to Marxs dialectical materialism) Of course he was practical but thats the thing with dialectical materialism(its practicality. Many Marxists are forgeting about that.) It makes perfect sense tho i dont think i agree with his way of dealing with those changes.
could u tell me whats so objectionable about Maos guerillaism? Im sure u have misunderstandings about it....
yeah thats the conventional marxist view on him except that he was an excellent statement tho not a economist(thats the conventional view).
U will find more andmore conflicting ideas about him as u learn more about him...hes really a contriversial person.
sorry comrade, u got it the other way around. A Maoist revolution aims to overthrow a STRONG centralized government. Russias October revolution succeeded cause the government was weak. The main reason Maoists go rural is that the government forces are too powerful in major cities. That was the case in the Chinese revolution, Cuban revolution and the current Nepalese revolution. So instead of gathering support from the workers in major cities(which would be doom to failure), Marxists(or not) in those cases go to rural areas and gather support from the oppressed peasants.
Do not say that we have nothing,
We shall be masters of all under heaven!
actually. you're basically right if you want to look at it that way..but i don't think maoist tactics would work in an imperialist state because any concentration of rural guerrillas would just be wiped out. on the other hand urban guerrillas and 'vanguard parties' can operate in imperialist states...i mean i think Iraq right now is a good example of that (iraq being occupied by an imperialist state). What i meant more was in terms of third world states compared to first world states (and countries they're occupying).
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And in response Mao reasserted his control over the party, the CCP pulled out of direct Japanese confrontations and, while the nationalists were still fighting it out, the CCP was able to build up its forces in relative isolation for the remaining six years of the war!
Granted. And, again, I'm not saying that Mao (and many around him) wasn't a very good military leader. I'm just saying he did have a significant amount of luck on his side.
Yes, the nationalists were better supplied, but they also were more worn and exhausted. They also were increasingly unliked by the people and the CCP had been running a subversive propaganda campaign for decades. The CCP was always better at recruitment that the KMT (for obvious reasons <_<) and so, again, while Mao's leadership probably contributed, I wouldn't say that he was indispensible from a strategic perspective.
...well, before the Hundred Regiments Offensive in 1940, the CCP fighting force was up to 400,000, but I take your point.
Again, Mao had a great deal of advantaged and yes, he used them quite well, I just don't know if someone else in his place wouldn't have made the exact same decisions.
I don't consider myself a "Marxist".
I consider myself a communist. I take a great deal from Marxism and greatly respect his invaluble contributions... but I think that in terms of Dialects he was severely trapped in Prussian dogmatism.
Do you realy think that if Marx had been born in France, he would have so "naturally" adopted Hellelian thinking?
The fact is that Dialectics has never made an accurate prediction and has never been at all empirically justified! There is, in simple terms, no proof it works. I am veryhesitant to accept a 200 year old theory with absolutely no evidence behind it because an old dead German claimed that it worked. Hegel claimed that a lot of his stuff works, I don't take his word for it.
Look, I've had this argument several times, once drunkenly with CyM at a bar at 2 in the morning... so I doubt we're going to settle it. If you want to believe in Dialectics fine, but don't expect that every other communist should as well!
I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do, so I leave it up to you...
Had he not adopted Hegelian thinking, I don't think he would have come up with what he did.
I'm not going to support the dialectic as a cyrstal ball, but at the same time is has and continues to be adopted nicely to retrofit both social and material aspects of history. Without the dialectic Marxism would not exist. Does this mean scientific socialism would not exist? No. Without a doubt another means of deriving much of what we learn from Marx could have fallen out of another way of looking at things, and certainly from someone else completely, but it more than likely wouldn't have been Marx, and we wouldn't be calling these contributions Marxism today.
Agreed. It is not science, but a pseudo-science, and one that rarely works for proving things, but seems to work very consitently for analyzing things. This is essentially how Marx used it, looking at all previous and historic aspects of man, society, and thus class struggle -- he merely assumed much of the same progress which he fit to the dialectic would continue, and thus the dialectic would fit to the progression towards socialism.
I don't believe any more than you do that it is a means of prediction, but I believe post-socialism, we will be able to look back at socialism and quite accurately see it's birth, analyzing it's full growth with dialectics. Does this mean dialectics is a crystal ball? No... I'm not so sure Marx ever thought it was either.
I'll admit I've not read all of Marx... but where again did he say it "worked"? He used it and used it well, but I've never seen where he ever let it take a crystal ball role.
He applied that way of thinking to the real and material world, and came to conclusions with it. Are these conclusions possible to come to without it? I believe so. I've yet to come across any piece of Marx's work that flat out preaches the dialectical reasoning behind it. It is, however, infused in the work; It is not encompassing of the work itself.
In this sense you're both right. It's impossible to consider oneself Marxist without accepting the dialectical reasoning "works," because it DID work for Marx, to come to the conclusions he came to. However, I don't think you have to accept the dialectic as the only means and only support of those conclusions, nor do I think Marx did, which is extremely evident when comparing his later works to his earlier works.
I was actually refering to Hegel there.
But I understand how you could get confused in a conversation involving two dead Germans and their theories.
Sounds like a Monty Python sketch...
Yes, and a good deal of these predictions were wrong.
It's perfectly understandable, after all, Marx, as visionary as he was, was a product of his time and was trapped within its preconceptions. He wouldn't possible predict how things would change in the comming centuries. But if dialectics were really what it's cracked up to be, it should have been able to!
...maybe. But if so only in the same way that Marxists today "look back" with dialectics. The same way that Marx "looked back" with dialectics, in fact: Re-invent the theory. Modifying the premises and ideas each time so that it fits the observations.
Now, there's nothing wrong with refining a theory, but if you have to keep reforming and reforming a theory and it still never makes an accurate prediction ...wouldn't you get a new theory?
I do think that in a communist world we will be able to better analyze human sociological progressions, I just don't think that dialectics is the way to do it.
Well, we can never know what Marx would have written had he lived outside of Hegel's iron imperial philisophical kingdom, but I think there's a good chance he would have come up with something similar.
Marx's biggest influence wasn't dialectics. It was observation. Marx identified the class struggles inherent to capitalism not because of Hegelian thinking, but because of careful observation of the world around him. Recognizing the class conflict doesn't take dialectics, it just takes a willingness to look.
Besides, regardless of the history, in the context of today's communism, it doesn't matter what theoretical models Marx might have used to come to his ideas. The only question is what works for us. What is useful for us. The simple truth is that dialectics has shown again and again to not be a reliable tool for prediction or analysis.
It may be useful for historiography, but not for politics!
I think the world has about as much pseudo-science as it can take.
Let's not make any more.
I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do, so I leave it up to you...
Maybe you'd be so kind as to furnish a list of them.
There are a number of specific things which he took up under the critique of capitalism, such as the idea that over time wages would get lower and lower, to the point that their limitation could only be the necessary rate which could be paid to sustain the life of the working class. Even this is not proven "wrong" and especially if not seen through the reasoning of dialectics, which is not how he came about this conclusion, but rather he seemed to borrow this idea from even earlier economic works.
Much of these things Marx supposedly got wrong (which still have yet to run their course) are very similar specific critiques, and again, founded through the thinking of the time, but not through dialectical reasoning.
Well see my point above. Unless there are some drastic difference as to what we agree are the questionable and unproven Marxist theories, the majority of these critiques have little to do with his dialectical reasoning. For the most part his economic work is nearly void of this when compared to his philosophical work such as "The German Ideology." -- Strangely enough, both you and Marx seem to agree that the current thinking in that part of the world at this time was flawed, maybe you have more in common than you think?
The further question, who said they were all they were cracked up to be, depends on who defines the "all." Which Marx, personally, never bothered with or took the time to do. His work is effectively void of preaching about his method, which is not so clean cut as simple dialectics.
And we have no reason not to look back with dialectics in mind. They are an amazing tool for analyzing previous points in history. I've yet to come across anyone who re-invented it with each passing phase, the most I've ever seen from this board with the exception of a few posts (and what I'm assuming is the brunt of this argument) is misunderstanding of it.
Whether or not we can or should even bother to try looking forward with dialectics is another question altogether. Marx did this, but the material and scientific progression towards socialism does not rely on the dialectic, but seems merely to have been discovered by his use of it.
You can throw away the dialectics completely and come to all the same conclusions he did and be equally as wrong without it. This is not a sign that dialectics fails to predict the future any more than it is to say all the other logic used in the work does. Nor am I sure Hegel or Marx ever claimed it did predict the future. While Hegel may have applied it as aptly as possible and said "this is how things work," Marx never even took it that far. Instead, he simply relegated it to the position of a ruler: a way to see and determine the line, but hardly the means by which it is drawn and hardly to what ends it points to.
Why not?
I agree, and have made that point quite clear in this post and my previous one. The problem is again that without having applied dialectics would he have seen the initial coils of what he devoted so much more observation to, and thus, would his theory have ever been as complete as it was? I do not believe it would be.
My point was very simply that you can throw out the dialectics and maintain the conclusions of Marxism, but you cannot throw out dialectics and still maintain Marxism itself.
I'm not sure where dialectics has ever been about prediction other in the minds of those who distort it's purpose, and who would rather attempt to use it to predict out of necessity to predict and lack of a better tool... Lenin comes to mind. Nor have I ever seen dialectics to have anything to do with "what is useful." It is not about creating a paradigm which one must follow, it is about simple understanding. This is why I will agree wholeheartedly with your comment about prediction, but as far as analysis goes, it has seemed to work mountains better than you have made it out to be.
I've read countless of articles that properly use the dialectics to analyze the social progression of man aspects ranging anywhere from racial descrimination, all the way to communal policing, and as I had pointed out just the other day on this board, overcoming sexual gender-bias stereotypes.
As far as dialectical materialism, only in the wizards mind and those who have put faith in it as magic, has it ever failed and I'd challenge you to point out where Marx ever succumbed to this problem.
Unfortunately there are some aspects of life which scientific method does not apply well to, specifically in the realm of social progression. As such, for all intents purposes, pseudo-science will be as good as it gets in the political and sociological sphere.
Are different means of analyzing these aspects available? Maybe. But still none that I am aware of bridge material and apparent immaterial life the way Marx found dialectics could, and for that, it is still a very useful tool.
Common error.
Maoism isn't actually a theory - it is merely Stalinism adopted to China. The Chinese bureaucracy was merely an expansion of the counter-revolution in Russia.
If anyone has ever suffered Mao's "writings", you'll see its mostly banal military writings, useless quotations and a keeness to label everything in site "revisionist".
Since, according to their fantasy, the relationships of men, all their doings, their chains and their limitations are products of their consciousness, the Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus of removing their limitations. This demand to change consciousness amounts to a demand to interpret reality in another way, i.e. to recognise it by means of another interpretation. The Young-Hegelian ideologists, in spite of their allegedly "world-shattering" statements, are the staunchest conservatives.
Karl Marx
you forgot the eastern mysticism ala Confucius
"Getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't." - Harvey Pekar
Haahaha
Oh my, so that's where the Maoists get it from. I cant debate a Maoist without getting labeled reformist or dogmatic Kautskite.
Today the Trotskyites have a right to accuse those who once howled along with the wolves. Let them not forget, however, that they had the enormous advantage over us of having a coherent political system capable of replacing Stalinism. They had something to cling to in the midst of their profound distress at seeing the revolution betrayed. They did not "confess," for they knew that their confession would serve neither the party nor socialism.
- Leopold Trepper (Organizer of Soviet spy ring, Red Orchestra)
