Reply to MIM and to all Maoists/Stalinists. - Explanation of

[Turnoviseous]

In order to understand Maoism and its differences with Stalinism we have to
go back to the early days of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the 1920s
the CCP was in quite a good position in the revolutionary movement in China
with a wide influence amongst the workers and youth and a certain influence
amongst the peasants.

Unfortunately, instead of adopting a Bolshevik, a Marxist, a Leninist
approach to the revolution they followed the advice of Stalin and this lead
to a defeat of the revolution. The policy of Bolshevism had always been one
of class independence and the primary role of the working class. The workers
had to lead the revolution and could not make any compromises with the
bourgeoisie.

Instead of this, Stalin advocated the same policy that the Mensheviks had
had during the Russian revolution. This is called the two-stage theory and
basically says that the tasks of the revolution in a backward country are
bourgeois tasks, that is: the land reform and the struggle against
imperialism. Because of this, they said, the leadership of the revolution
has to be in the hands of the "progressive" bourgeoisie and the workers can
only play an auxiliary role.

The Bolsheviks had an opposite policy. Yes, tasks of the revolution in these
countries (like Russia and China) are bourgeois tasks. But because of the
domination of worldwide capitalism, the bourgeoisie cannot play a
progressive role. They are linked by class interests to the feudal landlords
and foreign capital and they are more afraid of the workers and peasants
than they are of the old semi-feudal regime. Therefore, the working class
must lead the revolution (winning the support of the poor peasants) and when
they take power they will not stop at the bourgeois tasks of the revolution
but will also start to implement the socialist tasks (expropiation of the
capitalists, national and foreign) and try to spread the revolution
internationally.

Back to China. Stalin advocated that the CCP instead of having and
independent working class policy they should join the Kuomintang (the party
of the Chinese bourgeoisie) because the KMT was fighting against Japanese
and imperialist domination. Stalin said that only after the country had won
independence you could fight for socialism. In the meantime, the CCP should
be part of the KMT and not have an independent policy.

In 1927 the workers of Canton organised an insurrection and took power. Then
they called on the KMT troops to enter into the liberated city (following
the advice of the CCP under a Stalinist leadership). The KMT (the
bourgeoisie) immediately started to smash the Canton uprising, killing all
the Communist, trade union and worker leaders!!!

The policies of Stalin led to a bloody defeat in China. After this, many of
the CCP cadres went to the countryside to hide from repression in the
cities. It was at that time that Mao (as a reaction to the defeat of the
1927 revolution) started to develop his theories. He said that the
leadership of the revolution had to be in the hands of the peasants (not the
workers) and his idea of a "long people's war" and the "countryside
encircling the cities".

Marx and Engels already explained in the Communist Manifesto why the workers
had to be in the leadership of the revolution: they are the only class which
can have a socialist collective consciousness, and this is because of the
place they occupy in capitalist production. They produce in a collective
way. If the workers take power they will not think about dividing the
factory and each one being the owner of a little bit of it. They will think
about organising the production collectively. A peasant on the other hand
has a natural tendency to fight for the division of the land into small
plots and himself having his own one. Poor peasants can be very
revolutionary, but usually it will be difficult for them to develop a
socialist consciousness They must play an important auxiliary role but the
leadership of the revolution must be in the cities and in the hands of the
workers. This is Marxist ABC which Mao did not accept.

Mao had a revolutionary policy in relation to the peasant question. He
promised the land for the peasants and even he said that there would be land
allocated for all the soldiers in the KMT army. This was the key to his
victory. The soldiers in the KMT army were peasants and gradually most of
them joined Mao's Red Army because of this promise of land.

But Mao's perspective was still one of two-stages: first fight for a
democratic independent China and later on fight for socialism. When he
finally won the war in 1949 this was only possible because of the defeat of
Japan in the Second World War and the tiredness of the troops of the US who
had been fighting in the war for years. Mao's Army seized the cities but
instead of promoting bodies of workers democratic power, he suppressed all
independent initiative of the workers to organise by themselves. The tight,
bureaucratic structure of the Red Army was replicated in the cities. Far
from following the model of Lenin he followed the model of Stalin.

But he was faced with a contradiction. He realised that by taking power the
bourgeoisie had been defeated. There was no section of the bourgeoisie which
was progressive! This was exactly what the Bolsheviks had always argued:
there is no progressive bourgeoisie in the epoch of imperialism. Mao was
faced with the need to plan the economy which was already in his hands, but
his original intention was that there should be a process of capitalist
development before fighting for socialism.

So his regime was fundamentally the same as Stalinism: a planned
nationalised economy but no democratic participation of the workers. So why
was there a clash between Moscow and Beijing? The reasons were not political
but a question of the conflicting interests of the bureaucracies. The
Chinese bureaucracy did not want to follow the dictats of Moscow and wanted
a degree of independence and therefore broke with Moscow. In order to win
support internationally they put forward a more "left-wing" image
internationally. But basically their foreign policy was not reactionary,
just based on opposition to Moscow. For example they supported the Zia
dictatorship in Pakistan, they opened diplomatic relations with the
dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile, they allied themselves with the
reactionary forces of UNITA in Angola, etc, just in opposition to Moscow.

However Maoism attracted a whole layer of left wing youth, workers and
peasants which were against the conservative policies of the Moscow
bureaucracy. But the basis of the Chinese regime were the same as the
Stalinist regime. Just one last example. In 1989 when hundreds of thousands
of students went on the streets with Red flags and singing the
Internationale they were crushed in Tian An Men Square by the CCP
bureaucracy which was afraid of any genuine movement of the workers or the
youth.


There are also some links that would interest maoists:

-About Philippine Revolution:

http://www.marxist.com/Asia/philippines87.html

-About Colonial revolution and Sino-Soviet split:

http://www.marxist.com/TUT/TUT4-3.html

[Marxman]

Wonderful post, I must say. It's exclusively for MIM traitors who think they fight for the people.

[Marxman]

Great post, man. I really like the part where it explains why proletariat must lead the revolution. I hope all of stalinists shall learn from this.