When it comes to "maoism" I think a lot of people are unaware that those of us identify as marxist-leninist-maoist are only speaking of a theoretical tradition that crystallized around 1990. To be sure, the term goes back to the 1960s and the Chinese communists' split from Soviet hegemony, but then it was simply short-hand for a dominant current of anti-revisionist communism.
Before 1990, and especially in the 1960s and 1970s, "maoism" simply meant a type of marxism-leninism that identified with the ongoing Chinese Revolution rather than Soviet revisionism. Beyond this, it had no coherent and/or consistent theoretical content. The maoists pre-1990 were generally anti-revisionists, concerned with upholding the revolutionary line of marxism-leninism. The maoist, in this context, was only a maoist insofar as s/he argued that the Chinese Revolution (specifically the Cultural Revolution) was carrying forward world revolution and that Mao Zedong was just the most advanced revolutionary leader. Hence "Mao Zedong Thought".
This understanding of maoism, which never really conceived of itself as maoism (as a moment of continuity-rupture with the chain of marxism-leninism that produced new universalizable theory), could only find itself in crisis when China also chose the path of revisionism. Like those who were certain that the Soviet Union, regardless of Khrushchev, was still the command centre of world revolution, the maoists of yesteryear were shattered by the crisis of China's collapse into state capitalism. Tied to a place, to a particular rather than universal moment, the marxist-leninists labelled "maoist" were, by the mid-1980s, incapable of explaining why their "maoism" was any different from the Soviet revisionism that happened earlier.
The claim that the theoretical developments produced by the Chinese Revolution under Mao Zedong represented a development in universal revolutionary theory, a new stage in revolutionary communism, was only articulated by the Peruvian Communist Party [PCP, known as the Sendero Luminoso] at the end of the 1980s. And, following the early assertions of the PCP, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement [RIM] would finally declare "Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!" in 1993. This is the moment, moving into the 1990s, that maoism crystallized as an actual theoretical current.
Now what is most interesting about the fact that a "new stage" of revolutionary communist theory was declared around 1990 is that it was declared in the very moment we were told that capitalism was victorious and the end of history. The Berlin wall had fallen; the former Soviet Union was being avidly free-marketized; China was descending further into state capitalism; Cuba had retreated into siege stagnation. But here, in the midst of this historic defeat, a new revolutionary stage is proclaimed! This was not supposed to happen: capitalism was triumphant, the imperialists had won the cold war, and communism was passé––"good in theory but bad in practice" was the banal refrain of the liberals, "terrible totalitarianism" was the chorus of the reactionaries.
We must remember, however, that what would eventually be called leninism was also wrested from the jaws of historic defeat. The SPD in Germany––the supposed leader of the international proletariat at that time––had capitulated to imperialism; the Second International imploded; World War One was unleashed amidst the ruin of communist failure. But then, against all odds (and in Russia of all places!) there was the Bolshevik Revolution. Decades later there was the Chinese Revolution. Smaller revolutions and global anti-imperialism were rampant.
None of this is to say that the historic defeat now isn't much greater than the defeat from which the Bolshevik Revolution emerged; indeed, it is much greater––actually existing socialisms failed, giving capitalism the supposed right to declare itself superior. What I find interesting, though, is that these moments of communism have always emerged when they were not supposed to emerge, when communism was supposedly crushed and capitalism was triumphant.
Go back before the Bolshevik Revolution to the Paris Commune: what would eventually be known as marxism was fully theorized, and emerged as the prime ideology of the international proletariat, only after this historic and tragic defeat. Nearly seventy years later, a longer period of time between now and the last gasp of the Chinese Revolution, the Soviet Union emerges. So is it really that strange that a new stage of revolutionary communist theory crystallizes in 1993 of all times? Only the cynics at the centres of capitalism, or the anti-communist anarchists, would call this emergence anachronistic.
But those who refuse to view history in this manner are often those who will declare, when it comes to maoism, that "the maoist project died in the 1980s." The thing is, the maoist project didn't really exist until 1993 and has been slowly developing, sometimes in great upheavals, since that time. Marxism, after all, did not fail because it did not come to fruition in the time of Marx: it was proved through the Bolshevik Revolution through the operationalization of Lenin––this opened the door to theorization of something that would be called leninism, something that emerged through that world historical moment but was not fully theorized, with ups and downs, until later. And so later, in the early days of the Chinese Revolution, marxism-leninism was operationalized by Mao––another door was opened, another theoretical terrain breached. The Chinese Revolution wasn't maoist anymore than the Russian Revolution was leninist: these were the theoretical crystallizations resulting from judging and assessing what operationalizations succeeded after the fact.
Maoism, then, is just over two decades old, far younger than Marxism was at the time of the Russian Revolution, and already there have been significant attempts to pursue its operationalization: Peru, Nepal, India… There will be more attempts, and the RIM will rear its head again, and the 21st century will not only be a century of great rebellious upheaval––as is every period of crisis––but it will be for anti-capitalists, in many ways and despite banal movementist claims, the maoist century, just as the 20th century, regardless of the tiny counter-currents of anarchism and reformism, the leninist century.
Before 1990, and especially in the 1960s and 1970s, "maoism" simply meant a type of marxism-leninism that identified with the ongoing Chinese Revolution rather than Soviet revisionism. Beyond this, it had no coherent and/or consistent theoretical content. The maoists pre-1990 were generally anti-revisionists, concerned with upholding the revolutionary line of marxism-leninism. The maoist, in this context, was only a maoist insofar as s/he argued that the Chinese Revolution (specifically the Cultural Revolution) was carrying forward world revolution and that Mao Zedong was just the most advanced revolutionary leader. Hence "Mao Zedong Thought".
This understanding of maoism, which never really conceived of itself as maoism (as a moment of continuity-rupture with the chain of marxism-leninism that produced new universalizable theory), could only find itself in crisis when China also chose the path of revisionism. Like those who were certain that the Soviet Union, regardless of Khrushchev, was still the command centre of world revolution, the maoists of yesteryear were shattered by the crisis of China's collapse into state capitalism. Tied to a place, to a particular rather than universal moment, the marxist-leninists labelled "maoist" were, by the mid-1980s, incapable of explaining why their "maoism" was any different from the Soviet revisionism that happened earlier.
The claim that the theoretical developments produced by the Chinese Revolution under Mao Zedong represented a development in universal revolutionary theory, a new stage in revolutionary communism, was only articulated by the Peruvian Communist Party [PCP, known as the Sendero Luminoso] at the end of the 1980s. And, following the early assertions of the PCP, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement [RIM] would finally declare "Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!" in 1993. This is the moment, moving into the 1990s, that maoism crystallized as an actual theoretical current.
Now what is most interesting about the fact that a "new stage" of revolutionary communist theory was declared around 1990 is that it was declared in the very moment we were told that capitalism was victorious and the end of history. The Berlin wall had fallen; the former Soviet Union was being avidly free-marketized; China was descending further into state capitalism; Cuba had retreated into siege stagnation. But here, in the midst of this historic defeat, a new revolutionary stage is proclaimed! This was not supposed to happen: capitalism was triumphant, the imperialists had won the cold war, and communism was passé––"good in theory but bad in practice" was the banal refrain of the liberals, "terrible totalitarianism" was the chorus of the reactionaries.
We must remember, however, that what would eventually be called leninism was also wrested from the jaws of historic defeat. The SPD in Germany––the supposed leader of the international proletariat at that time––had capitulated to imperialism; the Second International imploded; World War One was unleashed amidst the ruin of communist failure. But then, against all odds (and in Russia of all places!) there was the Bolshevik Revolution. Decades later there was the Chinese Revolution. Smaller revolutions and global anti-imperialism were rampant.
None of this is to say that the historic defeat now isn't much greater than the defeat from which the Bolshevik Revolution emerged; indeed, it is much greater––actually existing socialisms failed, giving capitalism the supposed right to declare itself superior. What I find interesting, though, is that these moments of communism have always emerged when they were not supposed to emerge, when communism was supposedly crushed and capitalism was triumphant.
Go back before the Bolshevik Revolution to the Paris Commune: what would eventually be known as marxism was fully theorized, and emerged as the prime ideology of the international proletariat, only after this historic and tragic defeat. Nearly seventy years later, a longer period of time between now and the last gasp of the Chinese Revolution, the Soviet Union emerges. So is it really that strange that a new stage of revolutionary communist theory crystallizes in 1993 of all times? Only the cynics at the centres of capitalism, or the anti-communist anarchists, would call this emergence anachronistic.
But those who refuse to view history in this manner are often those who will declare, when it comes to maoism, that "the maoist project died in the 1980s." The thing is, the maoist project didn't really exist until 1993 and has been slowly developing, sometimes in great upheavals, since that time. Marxism, after all, did not fail because it did not come to fruition in the time of Marx: it was proved through the Bolshevik Revolution through the operationalization of Lenin––this opened the door to theorization of something that would be called leninism, something that emerged through that world historical moment but was not fully theorized, with ups and downs, until later. And so later, in the early days of the Chinese Revolution, marxism-leninism was operationalized by Mao––another door was opened, another theoretical terrain breached. The Chinese Revolution wasn't maoist anymore than the Russian Revolution was leninist: these were the theoretical crystallizations resulting from judging and assessing what operationalizations succeeded after the fact.
Maoism, then, is just over two decades old, far younger than Marxism was at the time of the Russian Revolution, and already there have been significant attempts to pursue its operationalization: Peru, Nepal, India… There will be more attempts, and the RIM will rear its head again, and the 21st century will not only be a century of great rebellious upheaval––as is every period of crisis––but it will be for anti-capitalists, in many ways and despite banal movementist claims, the maoist century, just as the 20th century, regardless of the tiny counter-currents of anarchism and reformism, the leninist century.
Good article. If MLM is truly a living science as we proclaim it to be, then we need to grasp the dual nature of defeat and setbacks -- i.e., we need to learn from them, and sum up all the mistakes. The post-MLM current thinks that in this conjuncture this means repudiating all of our principles (*cough* kasama *cough*) On the contrary, I think this is a good time to reaffirm our most basic principles.
ReplyDeleteThe setback in Nepal, the post-MLM current, the Avakianite sell-out, etc, have all been met with fierce reactions by Maoists across the globe and have given the anti-parliamentarist and anti-revisionist aspects of the movement a great upper hand -- two "hardline" and "traditionalist" elements. This is a positive aspect of the setbacks.
Thanks, oskar, I knew you'd like this one. As an aside, it is always telling whenever the aforementioned revolutions fail, or stagnate for a while, and people who never cared about them to begin with use these as examples to say why "maoism is wrong" (as if revolutions are easy and will be successful simply because the theory is correct). Just as how people who don't realize that maoism really only emerged as a coherent theory at the last decade of the 20th century have all sorts fo weird notions about maoism ("it's about organizing peasants!").
DeleteIn our country had a quite influential ml-movement in the 70's, so people still tend to associate maoism with them. I think the struggle for imposing maoism within the rim was a great accomplishment, with the millenium-resolution as its crown. Too bad some already have "moved beyond" and some want to turn the clock backwards.
ReplyDeleteIf your country is the same as mine (Canada), then I know what you mean. If it's not, then we had a similar situation: we had a very important explosion of m-l groups in the 70s that collapsed in the 80s, most significantly the WCP, which are judged "maoists" by people simply because many of these groups, being anti-revisionists, aligned with China––I had them in mind when I was writing this.
DeleteI agree that the RIM experience was a great accomplishment, just as I agree that the "moving beyond" or "turning the clock backwards", as you put it, is a problem. We really haven't seen much of the emergence of MLM and what we have seen, such as Peru (regardless of its failure) and Nepal (despite the fact that the party is being run by revisionists now), has been extremely exciting.
Re: the notion that maoism is "all about organizing peasants"--how often have I heard that? Why is it that maoism is always reduced to this one historical organizing principle when other (European) communist movements also--in different ways--relied on the organization of the peasantry in some form? This association--maoism = peasant rebellion--is usually brought up as a means of dismissing maoism as an anachronism, belonging to a time and place further distant from us than Russia in early C20. It is as though maoism was the Chinese equivalent of "Munsterism," as far removed from the centres of capitalism as the millenarian ideology of the German Peasant Wars. The Chinese Revolution was the most recent world-historical revolution, and yet we are told it is also the furthest removed from us in time. Perhaps this is because the most recent trauma (for capitalism) is the one that must be most vigorously repressed.
DeleteThere is also perhaps a reflexive orientalism implicit in much anti-communist ideology--China now is always imagined as though it existed 2 or 3 centuries in our past, aping European history in the present. This might explain the baffling arrogance of those prophetic seers who proclaim that the end or telos of every maoist movement is already foreordained since it has already happened, "and we know where that leads to."
Thanks for the insightful reply. I laughed out loud at the "Munsterism" comment. What I find interesting about this comment is that it dovetails neatly with a post I have written but haven't posted yet (I line them up ahead of time, lol) that is about –– just in contradiction with all my complaints with the fetishism of the new because I'm beginning to sound like a grumpy old man –– the obsession with the "good old days" of marxism, before 1917 when it was primarily European that simply pretends nothing worthwhile came out of the global peripheries in a marxist sense.
DeleteNow, I should probably get back to organizing the secret and substantial Canadian peasantry...
Also, I was meaning to add but I hit "publish" too quickly, I really liked this quotation of yours: "perhaps this is because the most recent trauma (for capitalism) is the one that must be most vigorously repressed." Very interesting and thought-provoking; I never thought about it like that before.
DeleteI look forward to reading it, JMP.
Deletei think it will be the Avakianist century.
DeleteAlthough Poe's Law makes it difficult for me to tell whether or not you are an actual member of the RCP-USA or just a troll who thinks impersonating them is amusing for some reason, I'm going to assume the latter due to the fact that an Avakianist would never use the term "Avakianist" themselves, since it's a slur. I'm going to go further and guess that, due to the traffic back-links, you've come from that left-in-form troll site, "rhizzone", which is filled with a whole host of unprincipled, pseudo-leftist, want-to-be academic (because none, it seems, have even reached graduate school) brocialists. Since these kind of comments do not contribute to any thoughtful conversation, and are thus anti-intellectual in the truest sense of the term, all other such comments will be deleted.
DeleteHi JMP, been following your blog since I began organizing a few years ago and I just wanted to say that I've drawn a lot from the pieces that you put up on here. That being said, I'm curious to learn what you think of the People's Democratic Revolution of the Philippines. As many know, the Maoists in the Philippines have been engaged in a Protracted People's War in the country steadily for the last 47 years and have been (in the recent years,) establishing People's Revolutionary Governments and other organs of political power in the countryside and are gradually gaining strength both quantitatively and qualitatively.
ReplyDeleteIn the history of the Philippine revolutionary movement, we can more or less trace a transition from MLMZT to MLM through the history of the First and Second Great Rectification Movements respectively. Now being that the Maoists of the Philippines did NOT join RIM (come to think of it, neither did the PW Group in India,) where would you place the Philippine Maoists--closer to MZT or MLM? Also, RIM and RIM affiliated organizations seem to uphold the Philippine revolution as a Maoist revolution, what is your own opinion on its development?
Hello Julia. These are things I address in my upcoming book, actually. Well not the development of the revolution in the Philippines (which it is not about) but the questions about why I trace MLM to the PCP and RIM experience. I completely support the CPP/NPA revolution in the Philippines and have done joint organizing work with Filipinas/Filipinos who support the CPP in Canada. No, they did not join RIM but this was just because they believe that there should be no international communist body attempting to set up a new International; their perspective is that it would be doomed to Cominternism. This is not an antagonistic contradiction with the former RIM, though, and they did attend its founding conference as observers and have agreed with many of the perspectives that came through the RIM at the height of its importance. The RIM is significant in that, following (and because of) the PCP, it crystallized the programmatic claim of Maoism being the third stage of revolutionary science which nobody significant was claiming before the PCP claimed it: this inspired other groups like the CPP to eventually do the same, just as the CPP's perspective did contribute to the perspective of the RIM groups. So I think they're closer to MLM now and have made comments that they are, though sometimes they're a little bit disingenuous IMHO with Sison claiming that there was never any difference between MZT and MLM which, as he should know, there really was a serious rejection in the ICM in considering Maoism a third stage of the science. Still, yes I uphold the people's war in the Philippines, though I have mixed feelings about its international work such as the ILPS: not that I oppose it, of course not, just that I feel that some of the statements it puts forward aren't necessarily correct and it seems in some ways to contradict the CPP's work in the Philippines when I don't believe that Joma Sison should be trying to influence the movement anymore, particularly since he is no longer in the Philippines. None of this changes, though, his significance as a revolutionary and the work he did in building the party, it's programme, and the analysis of the Phillipines.
Delete