• @SovietIntl
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    4 years ago

    Despite being a Marxist Leninist myself and tend to disagree with Maoists on multiple fronts, I cannot deny as an American that a revolution in America would be Maoist in nature. America is a colonized country, and it’s history and nature is one that it’s consistently failed to address. The closest America came to a dual structure was with the Black Panthers and they were a Maoist type of front. Also America is a federated republic not s unitary one. There’s no shared identity and history for people to get behind for revolution, just fragments here and there. An American Socialist Republic would most likely be very fragmented one after a very long protracted struggle; the union would not survive.

  • Makan ☭ CPUSA
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    04 years ago

    Struggle Sessions is a Maoist website and therefore I’m not sure I’m willing to trust it.

    • @ImARabbit
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      24 years ago

      Like you think they are going to straight up lie about facts?

      The Maoist position is that success comes from having a correct political line, which comes from struggling with ideas and self critisism a la dialectical materialism. You don’t get power by trying to manipulate people through lies: you get power by demonstrating integrity and challenging yourself and others to arrive at an accurate political assessment that come from clear and correct principles.

      • Makan ☭ CPUSA
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        -14 years ago

        The Maoist position is revisionist. They do not believe in what you said. That is the Marxist-Leninist position. Maoists do not support AES and derive their ideology from Gonzalo in the 1980s some time after Mao died.

        IMHO.

        • @ImARabbit
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          14 years ago

          Huh? Marxist-Leninist-Maoists just add to Marxism-Leninism. Just because something is ML doesn’t mean MLMs don’t uphold it also. But the focus on having a correct political line, the necessity of ideological struggle, and self critisism are emphasized much more clearly in Mao than what I’ve read from Lenin in my experience. It might be in Lenin, I’ve only read a few of his books.

          Plus, ML was synthesized by Stalin after Lenin’s death, so I don’t see what your point about MLM being synthesized after Mao’s death has to do with anything.

          MLM upholds AES but probably differ from what you consider to be AES. They think China under Deng is revisionist, but support the USSR and China under Mao. That’s a small difference and one that should be resolved through ideological struggle, not just dismissal IMO.

          From Gonzalo they get (as I understand) the universality of protracted people’s war (which comes from Mao’s take on dialectical materialism), concentric construction (basically a formalization Lenin in What Is to be Done) and I think “excellent leadership” which I only have a vague idea of.

          So what do you mean by revisionist? I have always understood revisionist to mean basically stripping Marxism of it’s revolutionary essence or anti-capitalist essence. MLM doesn’t do that.

          To say Maoists uphold lying in order to manipulate people… That’s a hefty claim I’ve never seen any evidence of before. And honestly it sounds like an unprincipled accusation that comes from not wanting to engage with thinking/writing.

          • Camarada ForteA
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            3 years ago

            But the focus on having a correct political line, the necessity of ideological struggle, and self critisism are emphasized much more clearly in Mao than what I’ve read from Lenin in my experience. It might be in Lenin, I’ve only read a few of his books.

            Before I comment on this, here is a quote by Lenin:

            A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfills in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people. Frankly acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analyzing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing out the means of its rectification—that is the hallmark of a serious party; that is how it should perform its duties, and how it should educate and train its class, and then the masses.
            Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder

            A political line and theory should not be chosen based on their word usage and emphasis. The theory that guides action should be chosen when it is in accordance with objective reality, most importantly. If the theory is not in accordance with objective reality, then it is imperative to reevaluate the theory being used.

            I will now comment on the question of Maoism, and will use as a reference Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!, the text produced by a Maoist organization in the 80’s.

            The problem with Maoism is that Mao Zedong did not present anything new to the analysis of reality because we still live in the imperialist stage of capitalism, which was a qualitative difference to the monopolist capitalism as analyzed by Marx and Engels. Marxism-Leninism is therefore a necessary development to the understanding of our reality, adding to the contributions of Marxism. Imperialist capitalism hasn’t changed qualitatively, only quantitatively.

            The historical context of the development of Maoism (or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism) was born out of the Sino-Soviet split, when communist parties around the world were profoundly disappointed by Soviet downfall spiral into revisionism and reactionary bullshit with Khrushchev’s secret speech.

            When Maoists claim Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the highest stage of development of Marxism, they usually claim protracted people’s war as an universal development of Marxism. It is definitely a creative development of military strategy by the Chinese communists, and was admired by many military strategists, including reactionary ones. However, I’ve never seen a Maoist explain why it is an universal appliance. Based on China’s material conditions of semi-feudality, waging a war against imperialist aggression on the countryside is an exceptional strategy.

            Currently, there are 3 major Maoist parties which use a strategy openly based on Mao’s protracted people’s war; in Philippines, India and in Peru. Each of these communist parties are participating in a struggle which has been happening for more than 40 years, which they have been unfortunately losing. For reference, the Chinese people’s war took around 25 years, with very clear political and military gains. Their endurance is admirable, and it doesn’t seem they are abandoning their efforts anytime soon, but we must remind ourselves that we won’t win any war without the support of the people. This is the most important aspect of our struggle. Any military strategy may be adequate when the majority of the people is in our side.

            While I have doubts of the universality of this strategy, I nonetheless hope they face a final victory. A victory for these communists is a victory for all of us.

          • @celine
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            14 years ago

            Huh? Marxist-Leninist-Maoists just add to Marxism-Leninism.

            Not the user you are responding to but I disagree. MLM ruptures with fundamental positions of ML as synthesized by Stalin (the notion that class struggle existing under socialism, for instance.)

            • @ImARabbit
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              23 years ago

              Which do you think says that class struggle doesn’t exist under socialism? Your wording isn’t clear. The State is an instrument of class oppression and so the existence of a socialist state implies class struggle exists. Mao also held that class struggle continues to exist in socialism and I’ve never heard any ML or MLM reject this. Can you point me to something to read?

          • Makan ☭ CPUSA
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            -24 years ago

            Gonzalo was a revisionist though.

            Mao Zedong Thought > Maoism

  • @some_random_commie
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    4 years ago

    So many words to say nothing at all.

    Hidden underneath a lot of political discourse (Marxist or otherwise) is the relevance of the distinction between race and nation. It is no accident that “Maoism” principally gets adherents in places where there are a number of different nations which could be reasonably said to belong to the same nebulous concept of ‘race’. China itself is very diverse, despite the overwhelming majority being the putonghua speaking Han, though nearly everyone in China could be said to belong to the same nebulous Asiatic ‘race’. The Philippines is even more diverse, and has around 185 languages (meaning 185 different nations), though again, most would say everyone there is the same ‘race.’

    It is no secret Gonzaloism sought out indigenous groups that have not been assimilated into the larger Spanish-speaking mestizo/indigenous population, though one would have to look far and wide within “Left” circles to see this fact plainly stated. Gonzalo himself studied Quechua while at university, and the Shining Path would begin their military operations from the Ayacucho region, where over 63% of the population are native Quechua speakers.

    In other words, Gonzaloism is/was an attempt to weaponize the Quechua-speaking Amerindian population against the Spanish-speaking majority and their government in Peru. This is why Spanish-speaking writers have long accused the Shining Path of being a creation of the CIA, as was done quite convincingly in the book CIA, Sendero Luminoso: Guerra Política. When the rest of Latin America was dominated by pro-US regimes, Peru alone a few years before the Shining Path got big would be the only pro-Soviet government in all of South America, under the Juan Velasco Alvarado government (aka “President of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces”).

    “Maoism” becomes attractive to groups when they want to play on the internal divisions within a country, presenting themselves as the Savior of the entire country and simultaneously playing into the larger national identity fostered by the State. This is why the Naxalites in India called themselves the “Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)”, even though their base was the Bengali-speaking population in the Indian state of West Bengal. This nation within India would itself go through their own nationalist revolution in Bangladesh around the same time, and was opposed by the Naxalites (and Mao’s China, I might add!).

    This should immediately reveal why “American” “Leftists” are attracted to “Maoism.” The white “Left” doesn’t have a vision of “America” splintering from internal Balkanization into different Nation-States, they have a vision of a “Communist Party of America” ruling the entire population. They want the phony State-induced identity themselves to play with, while simultaneously playing on internal divisions to bring them to power, all the while presenting their ideology as ‘above’ the fray of competing petty nationalisms.