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revised January 3, 2002 by MC5
Maoism. It does little to say that Maoism is the writings of Mao Zedong --or the doctrine which guided the first successful Third World peasant revolution that liberated China in 1949. Maoism is famous for land reform, collectivization of agriculture in what was then a poor country, ejecting both foreign occupiers and pro-landlord elements with the strategy of "People's War" against numerically, financially and technically superior enemies, abolishing China's huge drug addiction, ending pornography and prostitution, eliminating the practice of breaking wimmin's feet (footbinding) to make them smaller and supposedly cuter, establishing China's first law allowing divorce and eventually instituting worker-run industry without private property in the means of production.
Complete revolution is fundamental
to MIM's view of Maoism. This means that all social, cultural, political
and economic relations must be revolutionized and that people will not be
liberated by simply breaking the state or smashing capitalism. Groups, individuals
or ideologies which choose one issue -- imperialism, racism, capitalism,
sexism-- as central typically cede the other areas to the status quo. Maoism
dictates that while struggling against the state, the Party must establish
a new and revolutionary culture not based on ideologies of domination and
greed. The Party must lead a revolution against class, gender and national
chauvinisms within its ranks and against the state. Maoism accepts Lenin's
concept of a vanguard party. This means that MIM believes there is a best
way to do things given the options at hand and this must be struggled for.
Mao proved that it was possible to lead socialist revolution in a poor and backward
country with the main forces coming from the peasantry in the countryside
led by the political ideology from the city called "proletarian ideology" and this
point remains controversial in the imperialist country so-called communist movement.
Even more importantly and dividing supposed communists everywhere,
Mao was the first communist leader to argue that class struggle continues
under socialism and that such struggle must go on within the
the communist party and against the bourgeoisie inside that
party. Mao warned that without successful struggle against the bourgeoisie
in the party, there would be a restoration of capitalism done in the name
of socialism at first--as in fact happened in the Soviet Union and China. Since
much of Mao's writing merely continues previous Marxism-Leninism or because many of
the new parts of Marxism-Leninism contributed by Mao are now widely accepted, it is Mao's
doctrine on the bourgeoisie in the party above all which continues to separate Maoism from other
varieties of supposed communism to this day.
In a historical sense, Maoism as a doctrine liberated China, influenced
all the subsequent anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia and inspired
many other revolutionary movements including ones inside the United $tates.
MIM also draws on the history of other revolutions and other social movements
to form its analysis.
Read some biographical material about Mao
Some notes on the term "Maoism"
Capitalism. Capitalism exists where non-workers control the production
of wage-workers, even if private property is officially state property.
Under capitalism, democracy for the working classes is undermined through
people's lack of control of their own workplace and society as a whole.
Workers have little say in how their workplace is organized or what will
be produced. In the United States, people in the inner cities have little
control over their environment. They do not control the police or the spending
of their tax money. And certainly the "justice" system is out
of control.
Socialism. This involves organizing societies according to peopleÍs
needs, not what is profitable. MIM's vision of socialism involves the highest
amount of proletarian democracy possible. The
dictatorship of the proletariat, the system of power which maintains
democracy, means that all the people
will be able to control their own environments collectively rather than
having them dictated by a more powerful class. In the United States, the
rich (the capitalist class) dictate how the government runs and how work
and culture are structured. Under socialism, the capitalist class will be
disarmed in favor of a dictatorship of the proletariat (the people instead
of a few rich pigs).
State Capitalism. Under state capitalism, the state nominally owns
the means of production, but production is organized around the profitability
of individual enterprises or sectors, not the needs of the people. The Soviet
Union became state capitalist under Khrushchev, and China became state capitalist
under Deng. In both cases, a new bourgeoisie developed within the state
apparatus and the Communist Party itself.
Roughly speaking, within Maoism, "Liberalism" translates into "tolerance" for things that should not be tolerated. "Liberalism" in Maoist usage also has a strong undertone of "laziness" in the face of injustice, again as if individual tolerance extended to letting classes of people starve etc.
Labor aristocracy. "Labor aristocracy" refers to the working
class that benefits from the imperialist world's superexploitation of the
Third World. For example, white workers in the United States benefit from
the superexploitation of the Third World so greatly, that as a class, they
are no longer exploited at all and in fact benefit from imperialism.
This has gone on long enough and with enough intensity in the West that we should say these "workers"
are not workers anymore, but petty-bourgeoisie.
Political error--all Maoists make errors. Those who think they do not are probably not doing anything and counting that as not making an error. Another common cause of believing one makes no errors is Christianity or other forms of metaphysics. Those who take action realize that they are going to make errors. Our best leaders simply make the fewest.
Deviation--when there is no recognizable pattern underneath errors, they are just errors, but if we start to see a pattern, the next most serious problem is a "deviation." Underneath a deviation is usually a line that may not be well-expressed but which nonetheless causes a deviation, a pattern of errors. Recently in the Philippines there was an ultraleft deviation that favored urban insurrection. The underlying idea was that the cities have a larger role in the revolution than they do there, combined with some overly simplified copying from other political struggles. The process of deciding what is the correct line and what is a deviation can only be carried out through scientific summation of practice. Deviationists may be disgraced but not necessarily considered official enemy.
Opportunism--in the process of political struggle we find unprincipled people sometimes taking up the cause of communism. "Right opportunism" underestimates what the revolutionaries can accomplish, while "ultraleft opportunism" or "left opportunism," overestimates what can be accomplished in the given conditions. On the basis of both "right opportunism" or "left opportunism" it is possible to attack the correct road, the political path that yields the fastest way out of oppression and exploitation. Opportunism and deviationism may overlap, but deviationism may be more principled but wrong about the balance of forces and the fastest road out of oppression and exploitation.
There were two key breaks with opportunism in recent history. During World War I, Lenin decided that what he was calling "opportunism" was actually worse than "opportunism," thanks to the development of historical events. People he was willing to share parties and conferences with before became beyond the pale. They became known as chauvinist social-democrats while Lenin's followers became known as Bolsheviks. Of course, if people have been called "opportunists" for years, it becomes difficult to change terminology overnight, so sometimes we gather that "opportunists" are also enemies. Thus, there are shades of opportunism.
Likewise, in China, Mao decided that he had some people on his Central Committee that were not just "right opportunists" but wannabe Khruschevs, revisionists seeking to come to power and carry out counter-revolution. Thus he explained it was time to rename "right opportunism" "revisionism," which we explain below.
Revisionism. Revisionism refers to political views that claim to
be Marxist yet revise Marx's work fundamentally by failing to apply the
scientific method of dialectical materialism. Revisionists commonly downplay
class struggle, overplay the struggle to increase production and technical
progress compared with political matters, don't believe imperialism is dangerous,
advocate reformist means of change and don't uphold the dictatorship of
the proletariat. MIM also calls revisionists phony communists or state capitalists
if they are in power. Revisionism is bourgeois ideology, enemy politics.
It relies on Trojan Horse tactics and we seek to drive it into open bourgeois opposition to Marxism.
The most opportunist revisionism can be difficult to distinguish from outright bourgeois opposition to
communism and cops. The cops furthest undercover spout perfect Maoist rhetoric,
but there are also cases of revisionism where there is basically no difference in line
from the imperialists. Today for example, the revisionists of the so-called
"Communist Party USA" favor Bush's occupation government in Iraq and oppose violence against it.