As a communist who endorses the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism it is very important to insist that, whenever I refer to myself as a "maoist" (as often happens when I find myself enmeshed in theoretical arguments), that what I mean by "maoism" is something that goes beyond Mao Zedong the person. Similarly, I believe in a leninism that stands over V.I. Lenin and a marxism that stands over Karl Marx. Simply put, I treat marxism as a living science and not a set of religious texts codified by genius prophets whose words and actions are sacrosanct representations of a divine law of history. Although years back, during the first few posts of the interblog dialogue I shared with BF of Workers Dreadnought, there was a discussion of the concept of a living marxism and a maoism beyond Mao, I want to reemphasize this position.
Just as there are many Trotskyists who treat Trotsky as a prophet––who see themselves as guardians of a pure theory that emerged after the October Revolution––there are also a lot of self-proclaimed maoists who imagine Mao Zedong as some sort of super-human genius who was incapable of error. Rather than treat the name as a cipher of the theory, there is a tendency to make the person the theory and the theory the person. Thus, whenever the actions of the person whose name the theory bears are critiqued, there is the knee-jerk reaction to explain away these actions: once the person and theory are made identical, upholding the latter requires the defense of the former.
A critical communist, however, needs to understand the names are nothing more than indicators of important theoretical ruptures, only named so to indicate those theorists who produced universal concrete analyses of concrete situations that further developed revolutionary science. Similarly, when we speak of Einsteinian physics today we are not speaking of Einstein the person, nor are we even speaking of a science limited only to Einstein's theories and research; there is an Einsteinianism beyond Einstein since physicists who work within this paradigm have developed the science further within the the theoretical boundaries he conceptualized, some even correcting mathematical errors.
Critical communists, therefore, do not doubt that Marx was wrong about certain things within the boundaries he conceptualized; it's the theoretical landscape he opened (along with Engels) that is important. And Marxist-Leninist-Maoists hold that the structure of these boundaries was further conceptualized by Lenin and, after Lenin, Mao––the theoretical insights of each world historical revolution re-universalizing the territory in a dialectic of continuity-rupture. Continuity because the initial universalization is accepted as possessing the germ of further historical insights; rupture because these insights break with certain ways of practice, challenge dogmatic mummery, and produce new questions. A science is open to the future and the chain of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism argues that we have to imagine that new world historical revolutions, beginning from the standpoint of the previous position on the scientific chain, will produce a further moment of continuity-rupture, re-universalizing revolutionary communist theory. As Marx was never tired of reminding us (and a point echoed often by radical theorists like Samir Amin), we can only answer those questions presented by history.
Moreover, although these developments bear the name of a person since it was that person who theorized these moments of re-universalization, it must be emphasized that these names are simply ciphers for a world-historical progress. Marx and Lenin and Mao were smart people, obviously, and great revolutionaries, and yet there were other brilliant revolutionary intellectuals in their respective epochs––the entire notion that they were more "genius" than anyone else, that they possessed some supernatural insight, or that "genius" is something that is not utterly social, is idealist and anti-materialist. These figures were simply people who had the privilege to be at the right point of history at the right point of time, the privilege to have the socialization and training that allowed them not only to become revolutionary leaders but also have the intellectual/social resources to theorize the concrete circumstances of the revolutionary situations they were partially organizing. In this way they are symbols of a process, individuated personae in a collective reality where people make history as a species and, at the same time, are made by this history.
Returning to my initial point, I get somewhat annoyed when critics of maoism assume that I somehow endorse Mao's actions during the last part of his life: shaking the hand of Nixon, allowing China to support some pretty messed up regimes, etc. A very simplistic and knee-jerk reaction to these criticisms is to point out a host of concrete realities: there was real-politik involved where China needed to be recognized by the UN (did it?); there was the fact that Mao's political line was already defeated and Deng's camp was already in charge of China. But these explanations, even if they do possess some historical truth, make the mistake of celebrating Mao Zedong the person over Maoism as a theory.
Mao was a great revolutionary leader and theorist but he was also a person and people are not angels, not pure representatives of a divine order––they are messy, covered in the filth of history. If we understand that Marx's errors can be critiqued by his own theory, then we should also understand that Mao's errors can be critiqued by maoism. So as a critical maoist I do not endorse Mao's political dealings with the Nixon-led US at the end of his life and I think that is completely in line with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Similarly there is no possible way I endorse Marx's erroneous positions on colonialism, nor do I endorse Lenin's erroneous positions during the management of the Soviets… This in no way, obviously, condemns the fact that the theoretical boundaries defined by these revolutions are incorrect.
If we fail to have this understanding of a living science of revolution then we risk becoming dogmatic purists and will never be able to apply revolutionary theory to our concrete circumstances. While I agree that it is dangerous to reject the universal developments of the theory for an "anything goes" movementist approach, it equally dangerous to imagine that we can safeguard a theory's purity as if it exists outside of time and space, beyond history and society, and are thus never able to comprehend our particular concrete circumstances. The application of the universal requires and understanding of the concrete particular; the dialectic between universal and particular is vitally important––and this is what is meant by revolutionary communism as a living science.
Just as there are many Trotskyists who treat Trotsky as a prophet––who see themselves as guardians of a pure theory that emerged after the October Revolution––there are also a lot of self-proclaimed maoists who imagine Mao Zedong as some sort of super-human genius who was incapable of error. Rather than treat the name as a cipher of the theory, there is a tendency to make the person the theory and the theory the person. Thus, whenever the actions of the person whose name the theory bears are critiqued, there is the knee-jerk reaction to explain away these actions: once the person and theory are made identical, upholding the latter requires the defense of the former.
A critical communist, however, needs to understand the names are nothing more than indicators of important theoretical ruptures, only named so to indicate those theorists who produced universal concrete analyses of concrete situations that further developed revolutionary science. Similarly, when we speak of Einsteinian physics today we are not speaking of Einstein the person, nor are we even speaking of a science limited only to Einstein's theories and research; there is an Einsteinianism beyond Einstein since physicists who work within this paradigm have developed the science further within the the theoretical boundaries he conceptualized, some even correcting mathematical errors.
Critical communists, therefore, do not doubt that Marx was wrong about certain things within the boundaries he conceptualized; it's the theoretical landscape he opened (along with Engels) that is important. And Marxist-Leninist-Maoists hold that the structure of these boundaries was further conceptualized by Lenin and, after Lenin, Mao––the theoretical insights of each world historical revolution re-universalizing the territory in a dialectic of continuity-rupture. Continuity because the initial universalization is accepted as possessing the germ of further historical insights; rupture because these insights break with certain ways of practice, challenge dogmatic mummery, and produce new questions. A science is open to the future and the chain of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism argues that we have to imagine that new world historical revolutions, beginning from the standpoint of the previous position on the scientific chain, will produce a further moment of continuity-rupture, re-universalizing revolutionary communist theory. As Marx was never tired of reminding us (and a point echoed often by radical theorists like Samir Amin), we can only answer those questions presented by history.
Moreover, although these developments bear the name of a person since it was that person who theorized these moments of re-universalization, it must be emphasized that these names are simply ciphers for a world-historical progress. Marx and Lenin and Mao were smart people, obviously, and great revolutionaries, and yet there were other brilliant revolutionary intellectuals in their respective epochs––the entire notion that they were more "genius" than anyone else, that they possessed some supernatural insight, or that "genius" is something that is not utterly social, is idealist and anti-materialist. These figures were simply people who had the privilege to be at the right point of history at the right point of time, the privilege to have the socialization and training that allowed them not only to become revolutionary leaders but also have the intellectual/social resources to theorize the concrete circumstances of the revolutionary situations they were partially organizing. In this way they are symbols of a process, individuated personae in a collective reality where people make history as a species and, at the same time, are made by this history.
Returning to my initial point, I get somewhat annoyed when critics of maoism assume that I somehow endorse Mao's actions during the last part of his life: shaking the hand of Nixon, allowing China to support some pretty messed up regimes, etc. A very simplistic and knee-jerk reaction to these criticisms is to point out a host of concrete realities: there was real-politik involved where China needed to be recognized by the UN (did it?); there was the fact that Mao's political line was already defeated and Deng's camp was already in charge of China. But these explanations, even if they do possess some historical truth, make the mistake of celebrating Mao Zedong the person over Maoism as a theory.
Mao was a great revolutionary leader and theorist but he was also a person and people are not angels, not pure representatives of a divine order––they are messy, covered in the filth of history. If we understand that Marx's errors can be critiqued by his own theory, then we should also understand that Mao's errors can be critiqued by maoism. So as a critical maoist I do not endorse Mao's political dealings with the Nixon-led US at the end of his life and I think that is completely in line with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Similarly there is no possible way I endorse Marx's erroneous positions on colonialism, nor do I endorse Lenin's erroneous positions during the management of the Soviets… This in no way, obviously, condemns the fact that the theoretical boundaries defined by these revolutions are incorrect.
If we fail to have this understanding of a living science of revolution then we risk becoming dogmatic purists and will never be able to apply revolutionary theory to our concrete circumstances. While I agree that it is dangerous to reject the universal developments of the theory for an "anything goes" movementist approach, it equally dangerous to imagine that we can safeguard a theory's purity as if it exists outside of time and space, beyond history and society, and are thus never able to comprehend our particular concrete circumstances. The application of the universal requires and understanding of the concrete particular; the dialectic between universal and particular is vitally important––and this is what is meant by revolutionary communism as a living science.
Who talks about Einsteinian physics? I've rarely heard that term. It's more common to hear "Newtonian physics" which encapsulates classical physics. Post-classical physics is referred to as quantum physics.
ReplyDeleteI'm of the opinion that Mao's contributions (not denying them) should be referred to as revolutionary communism.
What I really am finding less tasteful is the invocation of the aesthetic of Mao. I think we should leave that behind. Certainly, reading On Practice and On Contradiction, going through Combat Liberalism, etc. etc. are important. But so are the contributions and works of other theorists, whom we must refer to (Fanon, etc.) as part of our communist practice.
The MaoMaoMaoMaoMaoMaoMaoMao, to paraphrase Eldridge Cleaver, can be distracting from the point: Revolution. Revolution. Revolution.
n
Actually people do talk about Einsteinian physics, or the "Einsteinian paradigm", in counterpoint to Newtonian physics and as a general bounded area of physics... This is common in the philosophy of science and Kuhn definitely uses "einsteinian" as a stand-in for a certain section of quantum physics as its main named area.
ReplyDeleteWell yes we should call M-L-M revolutionary communism but we always do end up qualifying this when others who reject Mao's contributions also refer to themselves as revolutionary communists and this does come up in every discussion.
I agree that the work of other theorists are important but still I think these do contribute to the broad brushstrokes of the science of revolution. I don't spent most of my time going MaoMaoMao except to explain *why* we have to understand the prime questions of a revolutionary overthrow – and this is important.
This is such a good post, Josh. I don't have anything to add, so feel free to "censor" this comment! Just wanted to applaud the lucidity and importance of what you are saying, as it is *so often* misunderstood or forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThanks: sometimes I am capable of lucidity.
ReplyDeleteJosh, let me try to be clearer.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is a reference to Einsteinian physics, it exists.
However, if you go into any introductory physics course, or chemistry course, or biology course, even, rarely if ever will they refer to the science as Einsteinian, Rutherfordian, or even Darwinian (this latter is probably a lot more common).
We can talk about Maoism as shorthand in our own debates and discussions, but my problem is with revolutionary propaganda that stresses the aesthetic of Mao (or of Marx or Lenin, for that matter). Time to move past that. The aesthetic is distracting.
MaoMaoMaoMaoMaoMaoMaoMao.
n
And let me be even clearer: if you study the philosophy and theory of science which attempts to cognize these movements, *every* text from Kuhn to Young uses "Einsteinian" to refer to the paradigm. There is a difference between an introductory course in a discipline that no longer stresses critical reflection (and this is both Sapp and Young's criticism, both scientists) to those texts that do use this terminology. So get hung-up on the metaphor I chose, but even your chosen red herring is a little off the mark.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what you mean about the aesthetic because I feel this is a strange distractionary conflation. It is *not* time to move past Marx, Lenin, or Mao when we speak of theoretical developments *unless* you want to go to the trouble of renaming the short-hand for these developments. I'm all for that, but what sort of vocabulary are you going to use, and what do you mean when you short-hand these developments.
In my every day life I will refer to myself as a communist, or revolutionary communist, and my understanding of this is MLM and I won't bother to say that because I think those developments go without saying. But the reason these names are used is because unfortunately they are raised in response to other names that mean different "revolutionary communisms" that aren't so revolutionary. So what do you mean when you say revolutionary communist? Do you mean Marx-Lenin-Trotsky? Marx-Lenin-Stalin? Marx-Kautsky-whatever? Blanqui???
Unfortunately the contribution of theorists mean something, and the combination of their theories leads to a multiple array of communisms. You can deny it all you want, but when you say revolutionary communist you are forced to explain what you mean... unless you want to just imagine that every type of possible communism is the same and equally accurate/scientific - and if that's the case we seriously disagree.
Furthermore, when we come to the emergence of a possible revolutionary party and its theoretical alignment this becomes even more important because it carves out a political line that has already been short-handed. You can call the "aesthetic" (but we're not talking about art) distracting, but in fact I would argue that it forces theoretical precision once we can say what "Leninism" and what "Marxism" mean.
Clearly every revolutionary communist movement since the October Revolution has accepted the Leninist ossification of Marxism, just as every revolutionary communist movement *pre-Lenin* accepted the theoretical name "marxism" as its starting point. If you choose to ignore the reasons for this, or what it meant in the concrete landscape worldwide, then you're guilty of historical amnesia. This theoretical ossification *meant* revolutionary theory. And the theory that emerged through Lenin, and was short-handed by his name, was raised as a battle-cry against multiple revisionisms in order to claim the meaning of revolutionary communism.
I'm all for losing the names, but this can only happen if there are no longer competing theoretical names. You speak of the division of classical and post-classical physics and yet you have to recognize, at the same time, that this division happens because of the acceptance of the Einsteinian paradigm... and *this* is why I used the terminology that is often used in texts of the history of science and philosophy of science – because they do make it clear that the terrain was contested and that the theory that accrued under these names, and was named such, was important.
to "MaoMaoMaoMao..." i reply,
"BlanquiBlanquiBlanquiBlanquiBlanquiBlanquiBlanquiBlanqui"
Also, Red Traveller, read what I wrote in the first sentence of this post in order to understand the context of this piece which is the thesis of the bloody post in the first place: "As a communist who endorses the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism it is very important to insist that, whenever I refer to myself as a "maoist" (as often happens when I find myself enmeshed in theoretical arguments)..."
ReplyDeleteThat is, I use the terminology of MLM only when I am in theoretical debates and this article concerns (as does my blog in general) the theoretical terrain. That was the thesis point. Otherwise, I'm in complete agreement with using the term "revolutionary communist."
Josh,
ReplyDeleteI am going to put this down one more time, and leave it at that. As a person who is ideologically oriented toward Maoist theory and Maoist movements, I recognize the necessity of engaging with the theoretical debates that are named after persons.
Like you, I agree that this is not a reference to the totality of that person's thoughts or actions ("Oh, but in 1932, Trotsky in this obscure publication said x, therefore everything Trotskyism stands for is inherently incorrect.") Yes, Marxism as a living science, Maoism as a developing ideology (minus Prachanda Path).
I think there can be multiple paths to revolutionary communism, that can make similar or even identical syntheses without going through the route of a particular theorist. For instance, there may be tendencies that reject revisionism, acknowledge the necessity of prolonged struggle, and so on, without naming it "PPW" or what have you. And I'm personally fine with that. I'm fine with calling it Maoism, too.
The point I am making about the aesthetic of Mao is not an accusation or charge against you (well, other than the CR background you've got on your site, which is nice socialist realism). But, for instance, and here I quote the Beatles, if we go around carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, or citing the brother in every other context, etc. it might become a bit onerous. Here, you have a fetishization of Mao which replaces the theoretical consideration of Maoism.
It's one thing to say, "revolutionary communism today, we argue, finds its most advanced theorist in Mao -- but we have to correct and advance upon that as well," and another to say, "Maoism, now" -- depending, of course, on who you are speaking to and how. (I recognize your site is directed at people who consider themselves revolutionary leftists, so, again the comments I am making are not about you.)
I also see this aestheticization in some places like coming up with pithy slogans at the end of each article, like:
LET US ADVANCE REVOLUTION NOW!
LET US OPPOSE IMPERIALISM NOW!
That's cool, but let's also recognize that translating Chinese sloganeering into English sloganeering may not be the best way to go about it.
That's my point about the aesthetics of Maoism. Better understood?
I'll return to the point about Einsteinian physics, or Darwinian biology. Yes, the epistemological rupture produced by Darwin is baseline in biology, except by obscurantists, and the discussion of whether you'd even start to, say, reconsider Lamarckian biology is something that occurs at a fairly advanced level. But that's precisely my point. If we start with a photograph of the history of shaving (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao -- or shortened to Marx, Lenin, Mao) rather than pointing out that what we have here, here, is our revolutionary synthesis based on some 160 years of theorizing, that, I think, is the distraction.
To quote Cleaver now:
"...I'd like to leap the whole last mile and grow a beard and don whatever threads the local nationalism might require and comrade with Che Guevara, and share his fate, blazing a new pathfinder's trail through the stymied upbeat brain of the New Left, or how I'd just love to be in Berkeley right now, to roll in that mud, frolic in that sty of funky revolution, to breathe in its heady fumes, and look with roving eyes for a new John Brown, Eugene Debs, a blacker-meaner-keener Malcolm X, a Robert Franklin Williams with less rabbit in his hot blood, an American Lenin, Fidel, a Mao-Mao, A MAO MAO, A MAO MAO, A MAO MAO, A MAO MAO, A MAO MAO, A MAO MAO...."
n
I think the issue here is that there's a category mistake going on with this article and, because of this, we might be talking on different wavelengths. Generally I'm in agreement with what you're saying about the "aesthetic" of Maoism because, outside of discussions of theory, I generally myself as a communist and only start talking about MLM *when* there is a discussion of theory initiated by other communists.
ReplyDeleteSo I think that you're assuming that a discussion regarding a theoretical engagement which happens on a particular level is happening on the category of organizing, and I'm assuming that your comments about organizing are comments about theory. Of course the two are interlinked, but they are also separate categories. The point of one of my previous comments (which you did not address) was to indicate exactly that: look at the context in which this post was written explained by the very first sentence. ("whenever I refer to myself as a 'maoist'"… "as often happens when I find myself enmeshed in theoretical arguments")
Anyhow, to return to the point that this post was operating on a theoretical level, that was the reason for the Einstein analogy: much like how the philosophy of science operates in a epistemic dimension from the laboratory practice of science, and on this epistemic plane the terminology of "Einsteinian" is quite commonly used.
In fact, I can say I'm in complete agreement with most of the points you bring up except that I feel they are talking outside of the epistemic boundaries drawn by this article (which is why I mentioned the red herring fallacy above). This website has a particular audience and a particular community, and has gained this particular audience and particular community because of these types of blogs are such that they take place within a certain realm of rarified discourse. The vast majority of people do not read blogs; the writing in "the Partisan" for example (that I help distribute) is utterly different. Nor would I suspect that our academic papers would read like a blog or a newspaper.
Above you're saying that you recognize this point about audience, so I'm guessing that part of the debate here (which may be in itself a false debate itself its own red herring that we've both created) is that I'm misunderstanding a point you're making about organizing that is not a direct response to the theoretical arguments in this article but tangental, or that you're misunderstanding the epistemic dimension I mention above, or a bit of column A and a bit of column B.
So within this general audience (the fact it gets posted so that reactionaries and morons can comment on reddits and facebook notwithstanding) there are a lot of theoretical debates and discussions surrounding these things. You say that you agree this is important (though I totally disagree with the point about multiple paths because there were only two world historical revolutions this century - and this is very important for revolutionary communists to understand), and this article was precisely about a theoretical debate that was initiated by a spart who accosted me with a sectarian discussion on the weekend.
I always get dogmatic 'marxists' saying that mao was a mere state-capitalist nationalist and that china never saw socialism because it didnt "overthrow the law of value" and because the "working class" didnt lead the revolution. Sounds workerist.
ReplyDeleteThoughts?
Yeah, I would agree that this is workerist... It's usually a very specific Trotskyist position that misunderstands the revolution under Mao, along with how to do a class analysis for concrete circumstances (so they apply Marx's comments about European peasantry to China), and thus what class composition is in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial context.
ReplyDeleteAs for overthrowing the law of value, that is precisely *what* the Chinese Revolution under Mao was trying to do through its theorization of New Democracy connected with the GLF and the GPCR... It probably went further in this regard than any revolution, but yes it failed and it is when it failed that it became state capitalist, not before. The members of the Chinese communist party around Liu and Deng (who ended up victorious and hence China's choice of the capitalist road in the mid to late 70s) were the ones who didn't want to "overthrow the law of value" in that they saw the theory of New Democracy as enough.... It is thus interesting when dogmatic marxists read Maoism through Liu and Deng's ideology and always always always complain about New Democracy as if it is synonymous with Maoism. It's not, and it is historically counterposed with the GPCR by the revisionists in China so that the GPCR can be denounced as Mao's "great error"...
So the dogmato-revisionists who attack Maoism are usually misreading history, confusing Mao's line with Liu's, imagining that New Democracy is enough, and thus seeing the Chinese revolution as being nothing more than its first decade.
Is there anyway you can expand on this last argument, JMP? I encounter the Trotskyist argument about the Chinese Revolution not overthrowing the law of value quite frequently. In the main, I think it misunderstands that socialism is a dynamic struggle between dying capitalism and emerging socialist/communist social relations.
ReplyDeleteI understand New Democracy as a form of economic development which allowed certain smaller capitalists to operate under the dictates of the revolutionary state, but which were later expropriated as the revolution moved on to a higher stage. But the Trotskyist argument is that workers and peasants had no real agency because the Chinese state was in reality a state bourgeoisie that was using their labor for capital accumulation.
I guess my question is: how do you see the Chinese revolution as a process aimed at overthrowing the law of value?
My response to your last question was that at the height of GPCR the attempts at mass everything (i.e. transformations in education, in work relations, in medicine, in every sphere of life - all attempts to break from the capitalist law of value, the emergence of communes that were already breaking from wage labour) was the first time in history people were actually pursuing communism and not socialism, and thus attempting to overthrow––everywhere and chaotically––the law of value that remained under socialism.
DeleteAs you note, the Trotskyist argument misunderstands that socialism is a dynamic struggle. Furthermore, their claim that the Chinese Revolution did not overthrow the law of value is a red herring because no socialist society has overthrown the law of value, and the revolution most hard-line trotskyists adore (the Bolshevik Revolution when Trotsky was briefly a Bolshevik) didn't even come close to overthrowing the law of value either. Nor do Trotskyists have any well-grounded argument about *how* to overthrow the law of value except that if they were in charge and there was a world revolution, the law of value would be somehow overthrown overnight (one Trotskyist even told me, the other day, that there would be no line struggle in a proper communist party because democratic centralism would solve everything).
So the Chinese revolution did not succeed in overthrowing the law of value, but it did get further in that regard and further than every other revolution previous, so the question is: how did it get further. It got further by recognizing, for one, the necessity to continue class struggle under socialism; secondly, by recognizing that this class struggle is moved predominantly to the superstructure and that lingering bourgeois (and also pre-capitalist) ideology needs to be struggled against and accepted as still prevalent––that we need to break from our own socialization––in order to move forward; thirdly, by grasping that the bourgeoisie often ends up within the party and that the masses need to be unleashed; fourthly, by encouraging mass revolutionary movements against bureaucratized structures in every socialist institution.
So I take it you are in total disagreement with Alan Woods and the IMT on this then, since he refers to Mao - through his sympathies with Stalin/ism, as is cited by Woods - as having devolved into bureaucratic Bonapartism - another degenerated state. Given that the IMT appears to be kind of a big deal, and many members I've spoken to (including Woods himself), while acknowledging Mao's contribution to the "third world," find Mao just a variation of Stalinism, and somewhat convincingly so, what say you to this? For example, are there any criticisms made by Woods or, say, Ted Grant (an obvious target of yours, I would suspect), that you find valid? Because I certainly do acknowledge some of the early writings of Mao and never refused myself to being open to criticisms, regardless if they were Trotskyists or Leninists.
DeleteBy the way, I've met many Trotskyists that do understand socialism as a dynamic struggle, but stray from becoming Mao apologists, since they view Mao as having grown out of Stalinism as opposed to Marxism or Lenin, and are skeptical of Maoist groups today that they believe will be rehashes of the Chinese Revolution at best, thinking more along the lines of their taking after more Bonapartism and eventually degenerating, as was predicted so accurately by Trotsky in his "Revolution Betrayed," which many Maoists I've met shun (they can be some of the most orthodox, dogmatic people). I ask my questions out of utmost respect, by the way. I, too, was once a Maoist, and by no means an orthodox Maoist, but after flirting with it for a few years, abandoned it save for a few of his writings. Perhaps, were I in a "third world" country, I would be more inclined to consider it.
Yes, I'm in total disagreement with Woods, Grant and the IMT on this. I think they have zero understanding of the Chinese Revolution; they even cite the Sparts as a source, which is a joke as far as I'm concerned. Really, I find the IMT analysis of pretty much everything theoretically vapid and falls short of what qualifies as historical materialism (i.e. their analysis of the national question in Palestine, their analysis of womens liberation, and their entire theory of "bonapartism" they apply to everything). There are other Trotskyists and post-Trotskyists I respect, but I have zero respect for what passes as theory in the IMT where there is no understanding of opportunism, where LWCaID is focused on as if it is the only work of Lenin that counts (when it is really the tomb most revisionists find themselves in sooner or later… Really, I have more respect for many of the Trotskyist and post-Trotskyist theorists who have emerged from the ranks of the SWP (whatever my feelings about the SWP) then any theorist the IMT has produced.
DeleteYes, there are Trotskyists who understand socialism as a dynamic struggle theoretically, but the fact that they are Trotskyists means they're akin to being a dedicated Newtonian who says, "hey I can see that science is open to the future but I really can't understand that whole General Theory of Relativity thing so I'm going to make up what it's about and just remain a Newtonian." Indeed, it's one thing to talk about the dynamic struggle of revolution and how a living communism is open to the future and develops through praxis, when you're still promoting a marxist ideology that belongs in 1917 and was probably one of the weakest theories of 1917 anyhow (so maybe Leibniz, a dead end in physics, instead of Newton is a better metaphor for Trotskyism). That being said, there are still Trotskyists and post-Trotskyists whose work I respect, but often it is harmed by what I see as a crudeness in theory. (Take, for example, Mieville's "Between Equal Rights" which is probably the best book written on a marxist theory of international law... When he starts talking about dialectics and theories of imperialism, though, he veers into some pretty sloppy theoretical territory.)
The critiques of Mao and the Chinese revolution vis-a-vis bonapartism is simplistic and demonstrates no awareness of what actually happened––the successes and the failures. The degeneration happens because class struggle continues under socialism, something even Trotskyists would realize had Trotsky, and not Stalin, been in charge of the Soviet Union and would probably end up doing pretty much the same thing Stalin did, with some different characteristics, since this was the first time the contradictions of socialism were encountered.
[cont.]
[cont.]
DeleteMaoism has nothing to do with being in a third world country but about the universal applicability of certain things won through a revolution that went further than the Russian revolution but met a different end. And no, it wasn't "bonapartism"... this is all contingent on the idea that Mao was in complete control of the party, which he was not. Rather he represented a political line that was always struggling against the line represented by people like Liu Shaoqi––people who also promoted the cult of Mao, it should be pointed out, but associated with their politics. The whole "bonapartism" thing substitutes a complex dialectical understanding of history (the unity of opposites in two line struggle) for a crude mechanical theory that provides no explanatory depth and still suppresses the complexity of history for a pat answer that is akin to reactionary propaganda about cults of personalities and evil dictators... Clearly you should note that the theory of bonapartism is close to the theory reactionaries have of the Chinese Revolution, but without the same reactionary content. It is a critique from the right and not the left.
We also have to take seriously the fact that Maoism did not emerge as Maoism-qua-maoism until 1988, crystallizing in 1993. I wrote about this somewhere else on the blog. But before then, "maoism" just meant an anti-revisionist communism that declared solidarity with China instead of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, however, was declared in 1988 and the previous type of maoism was classified as "Mao Zedong Thought" which was really just a Marxism-Leninism that liked Mao and the Chinese Revolution. So when I speak of maoism now I'm not speaking of the messy anti-revisionism that didn't have the ability, due to the time, to theorize the successes and mistakes of the Chinese Revolution. I'm talking about Marxism-Leninism-Maoism where maoism is a new stage of revolutionary communism after leninism, and clearly this stage could not have existed in Mao's time just as Leninism could not have existed (as we understand it today) in Lenin's time.
As an aside: can you please use some sort of commenting name, whether it be signed at the end or the name you post under, because I kind of have a rule about "anonymous" posting in my comment policy. I'm not looking for a real name, so you can still have anonymity, but just something you would use if you post regularly. Multiple anonymouses means I don't know if they're the same or different or what... I mean, for all I know you're the same anonymous who commented on this string a while back above, but I don't think so because it seems you have a different position.
Mao Zedong Thought is greater than your heretical "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism"! You don't get to learn from the Master in order to apply His genius to whatever you like! Do not use His genius for heretical and disrespectful purposes! Sailing the seas depends on the Helmsman! All growth depends on the Sun! Rain and dew make the seedlings strong! Revolution is made by Mao Zedong Thought! Fish can't be without water, nor can melons be separated from the vine! The revolutionary masses cannot be separated from the Gongchandang! Mao Zedong Thought is the Sun that never sets!
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