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Source: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/...-to-be/ch06.htm
Note: I am not a maoist.
While I was checking on some documents on trade unionism, I found the chinese communism section in www.marxists.org.
I was curious, so I entered and found this particular document by Liu Shaoqi.
It struck me as being an incredibly progressive piece of work, with many good points on how to behave. Although critically it exaggerates the importance of "subordinating" to the party and it idealizes a wee bit the traits a communist should have, I nonetheless was impressed seeing such an agreeable piece of work.
So, thoughts? (Again, I am not a maoist. Do not post things like 'lol maoist scum vanguard discipline shit democratic centralism'. I am very open to any theoretical works, which means I do not adhere with any single current of socialism like a dogmatic and sectarian fool)
"El ideal del P.S.O.E. es la completa emancipación de la clase trabajadora; Es decir, la abolición de todas las clases sociales y su declaración y conversión en una sola clase de trabajadores, dueños del fruto de su trabajo, libres, iguales, honrados e inteligentes." -Pablo Iglesias (founder of PSOE and UGT)
"Quienes contraponen liberalismo y socialismo, o no conocen el primero o no saben los verdaderos objetivos del segundo." -Pablo Iglesias
Art. 1.º España es una República democrática de trabajadores de toda clase, que se
organiza en régimen de Libertad y de Justicia.
I fully agree with it.
And of course it is an exaggeration and 95% of the Chinese Communist Party probably never behaved in such a correct manner. I think it is more of a guideline on where you should aim to be as a Communist Party member. Just reading the document and seeing your own flaws, criticizing those and trying to work on them. And for this it is a great piece of work.
“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.” - Mao Tse-Tung
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Note:
Liu Shaoqi was not a maoist.
Liu Shaoqi was the designated enemy of maoists during the Cultural Revolution.
The call to chase him and his followers out of the Party was the founding call of the Cultural Revolution, which went under the slogan of "Bombard the Headquarters". He was the president at the time.
He was rehabilitated after Deng Xiao Ping rose to power in the 80's, as part of the process undoing maoist reforms.
Whatever this is...
... it is not Marxism in any meaningful way.
Luís Henrique
The world is not as it is, but as it is constructed.
Falsely attributed to Lenin
How so Luís?
Kasama Project- We Are the Ones
South Asia Revolution - Information Project
Kasama Threads
"Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution." - George Jackson
So? What's your point? That we should ignore this (written in the 30's) because of something that happened 30 years later?
No? Being honest, kind, generous, critical, brave and tolerant isn't marxist? Did you even bother to read?
"El ideal del P.S.O.E. es la completa emancipación de la clase trabajadora; Es decir, la abolición de todas las clases sociales y su declaración y conversión en una sola clase de trabajadores, dueños del fruto de su trabajo, libres, iguales, honrados e inteligentes." -Pablo Iglesias (founder of PSOE and UGT)
"Quienes contraponen liberalismo y socialismo, o no conocen el primero o no saben los verdaderos objetivos del segundo." -Pablo Iglesias
Art. 1.º España es una República democrática de trabajadores de toda clase, que se
organiza en régimen de Libertad y de Justicia.
And?
It's a great piece of work either way. We shouldn't censor out works because someone who wrote it is not 'ideologically pure'. We should look at what they wrote. See whats good about it, and what isn't. In this case i didn't find many wrongs, meaning that in my opinion it remains a good piece of work whether he is a Maoist or not.
“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.” - Mao Tse-Tung
| NCPN | Voorwaarts! | WFDY |
It sets impossible goals to the CP members, so that they are always short of being "good communists" - that is to say, that they are "bad communists". So the members of the CP are always "in debt"; they cannot ever criticise the leadership, for fear that their non-compliance with these guidelines will bring themselves under criticism.
It is a tool for dictatorship.
And the goals are impossible because they are completely unmaterialistic; they call for human beings that have no material needs, no social class, no gender, no sexual preferences, no language, etc. And because it is anti-materialist, it is not Marxist.
Luís Henrique
The world is not as it is, but as it is constructed.
Falsely attributed to Lenin
Bull-shit, thats just points to work on, or as Mao stated:
"Anyone should be allowed to speak out, whoever he may be, so long as he is not a hostile element and does not make malicious attacks, and it does not matter if he says something wrong. Leaders at all levels have the duty to listen to others. Two principles must be observed: (1) Say all you know and say it without reserve; (2) Don't blame the speaker but take his words as a warning. Unless the principle of "Don't blame the speaker" is observed genuinely and not falsely, the result will not be "Say all you know and say it without reserve"."
Which is merely one example.
They are just said goals that one should work towards, and i think it is not even impossible to reach.
Errr... no self-improvement based on an ideology is perfectly possible. They never asked them not to have a social class, on the contrary. And i don't understand where you got the whole, sexual preference, gender and language part from. But it just doesn't make any sense...
“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.” - Mao Tse-Tung
| NCPN | Voorwaarts! | WFDY |
Wow, that's quite the bag of BS you've gathered there. Maoist reforms? And why the fuck would being rehabilitated by Deng Xiao Ping (the man responsible for China's current imperialist phase) be anything good?
BTW, statements of Luis' remind me of the massive uproar from the right-wing media when that actress, whatshername, showed up at some stupid thing in Latin America with a Maoist-style bag that said "Serve the People" on it... because like those right-wing nutjobs, to people like Luis, the message is completely meaningless. It's all about the perception of who said it.
Anyway, as for criticizing the actual text, it does seem rather far-fetched and a little bit idealist. But the message that revolutionaries should strive to be good, responsible people is not a bad message.
Haha. If the revolution is not one borne personally, it will never be revolutionary. Why would I want a new era where "my personal" self is merged solely with The Glorious People's Democratic Centralist Party of Workers?
i'm bored. can we cut the bullshit and revolt already?
Like I said, it exaggerates subordination to the party. Personal life and the party are two different things.
What about the other points (bravery, honesty, etc)?
"El ideal del P.S.O.E. es la completa emancipación de la clase trabajadora; Es decir, la abolición de todas las clases sociales y su declaración y conversión en una sola clase de trabajadores, dueños del fruto de su trabajo, libres, iguales, honrados e inteligentes." -Pablo Iglesias (founder of PSOE and UGT)
"Quienes contraponen liberalismo y socialismo, o no conocen el primero o no saben los verdaderos objetivos del segundo." -Pablo Iglesias
Art. 1.º España es una República democrática de trabajadores de toda clase, que se
organiza en régimen de Libertad y de Justicia.
He's talking about personal fame and the likes. Which is something that should fervently be opposed. You should struggle for the masses not for your own personal fame.
Then don't join the party. It's simple as that, if you don't want to make sacrifices in order to build the revolution you should just not join the party. It's simple as that. Or don't you understand the entire principle behind the vanguard party?
“We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.” - Mao Tse-Tung
| NCPN | Voorwaarts! | WFDY |
And who decides who is a hostile element making malicious attacks?
They are, according to Liu Shaoqi, features of the "good Communist". So tell me, those thousands of rank-and-file Communist Party members that fall short of these standards are "bad" Communists? "Evil" Communists?
Listen: a Communist, whether "good" or not, is someone who is dedicated to proletarian class struggle. Being kind, tolerant, hard-working, selfless, etc, etc, etc, may be interesting traits of personality, but they do not a Communist make.
What Liu Shaoqi calls for is for automatons with no personality of themselves, mere tools of the Party.
And since no one, not even Stakhanov, is like that - Liu's text is a tool for making the Communist activist feeling always guilty for not fulfilling these impossible goals, so that his/her guilt can be manipulated by the dictatorial top of the degenerate party.
Luís Henrique
The world is not as it is, but as it is constructed.
Falsely attributed to Lenin
So, all of our merely human interests - music, comics, astrophysics, the girl next door - are only valid if the Party bureaucracy shares them. I fail to see how a person like that - if someone could be like that, which I doubt - can be an activist of a Party that puts critical thought as its higher value.
Here the Party is idealised as an end in itself, instead of being considered as a tool (yes, an important tool, but merely a tool and nothing more than a tool) of the working class in its way to power and abolition of capital. The good militant is not the class fighter, but the "selfless" guy whose only interests are the "aims of the party".
Not of the class, but of the party.
Unhappily, it is not up to our "selfless" hero to decide who are "comrades, ... revolutionaries and working people" and who are "the pernicious enemies of mankind"...
This is ridiculous and self-contradictory. You cannot have a competition to see who is less competitive.
But it means that our selfless hero is a worried (wo)man, and a sad one too.
This is evidently wrong; the absence of fear is not courage, and neither are logically connected to selflessness.
But how will s/he do this, if s/he must have no interests of his/herself, and if his/her aims must "harmonise" those of the Party?
This is again confusion. Intellectual acumen is not either result or cause of selflessness. And how will someone "test all theories" in the context of political practice, in which experiments cannot be repeated at will, and a mistake can put you in no position to make further experiments?
And so, if you are unhappy, you are not a good Communist. Smile, comrade!
Bad? No; worse. Because we have already seen that our Communist hero is worried and sad and should not enjoy him/herself! So our Communist hero must be able to be happy without enjoying... how so? Perhaps being a masochist?
The truth under those idealist statements is simple. The party is a competitive environment; comrades fight each other for greater power and status. To be a rank-and-file activist is not the same as being the Chairman. Against this material reality, Liu Shaoqi tries to build idealist barriers, which are doomed to fail. The personal will of one activist cannot stop the material logic of a top-down party, in which it is always better to be on top than to be on bottom. As such, calls to "selflessness", just like in any class society, are in fact calls to refrain from competing against the selfish, from fighting selfishness in a material way.
Or to put it otherwise, Liu Shaoqi's is a moral for slaves. No wonder it sounds so much "Christian".
Luís Henrique
The world is not as it is, but as it is constructed.
Falsely attributed to Lenin
I'm willing to make sacrifices to build revolution. In fact I have made some. But there are sacrifices that I am not willing to make, even for the revolution, because a "revolution" that asks for some sacrifices doesn't seem like a revolution at all.
Critical thought and autonomous personal life are things no one should sacrifice for any reason, even revolution.
Proletarian revolution is to make sure nobody will never again have to be a tool for the interests of others. It cannot be attained by tools, and it cannot be attained by glorifying a tool mentality.
Luís Henrique
The world is not as it is, but as it is constructed.
Falsely attributed to Lenin
Formerly dada
[URL="https://gemeinwesen.wordpress.com/"species being[/URL] - A magazine of communist polemic
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
Pale Blue Jadal
Really?
I thought it was a moralistic piece of crap.
If you liked that, then you'll certainly enjoy Confucianist indoctrination.
To be sure, Liu Shaoqi was undeniably correct in his writtings regarding the Chinese economic condition, but his "party-displine philosophy" is by no means Marxist.
Take into consideration his embarrassing praises for Mao Zedong, you can conclude that his "philosophy" is the following:
Selflessly follow the Party--->Chairman Mao is the greatest leader of the Party--->Selflessly follow Chairman Mao.
It's ironic, really. Without Liu Shaoqi's ass-kissing campign devoted towards Mao in Yan'an, Mao would have never attained so much power.
In the short term, Liu Shaoqi's ass-kissing made him rise from a insignificant union leader to a Party leader. But in the long run, Liu Shaoqi killed himself.
Do not say that we have nothing,
We shall be masters of all under heaven!
