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September 28, 2006
"Mao has integrated the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of revolution, has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the political, military, economic, cultural and philosophical spheres, and has brought Marxism-Leninism to a higher and completely new stage. Mao Tsetung Thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory." Report to the 9th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China, April 1, 1969
"As we all know, the political report to the Ninth Congress was drawn up under Chairman Mao's personal guidance. . . . Lin Piao grudgingly accepted the political line of the Central Committee and read its report to the congress." Report to the 10th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China, August 24, 1973
October 1 marks the 57th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution in 1949. When we review the 20th century, it is clear that we live in the era of Mao Zedong, the great liberator of one quarter of the planet.
Many say we still live in the era of Lenin, because Lenin said we live in the era of imperialism. Lenin's lessons regarding imperialism hold true. Mao enriched Leninism in the fight against imperialism with sharpened explanations of the principal contradiction, protracted People's War and mass line based in the practice of hundreds of millions of people.
Imperialism is not dead yet, but we should not leave out the birth of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China in the 20th century. More than one quarter of the world's population had some experience in building socialism and also experience in defeat by the bourgeoisie bringing back capitalism in countries that used to be socialist.
It is not the case that an individual brought us to the era of Mao. The international proletariat brought the world widespread experience in building socialism. If we do not remember this, if we reduce this question to one of bitter disputes between Mao and others who proved less correct, we will be guilty of sectarianism. It is the international proletariat that led the world to the era of Mao, the era of socialist construction and the battle against capitalist restoration. That is why we have Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and not just Marxism-Leninism anymore.
It is the anarchists who have denied that Lenin, Stalin, Mao or anybody else made any socialist progress worth talking about. It cannot be true that Lenin is to blame for those echoing anarchists today. Those to blame are sectarians trashing the accomplishments of the international proletariat for the benefit of their favorite revisionist leaders.
Those who believe we live in the era of Lenin include some who call themselves followers of Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought. They ask why Mao did not say we live in the era of Mao. They quote Mao from the 1950s instead of the Communist Party of China's 9th Party Congress in 1969 or the 10th Congress of 1973 that upheld the line of the 9th.
Whether we live in the era of Mao or not was not up to Mao. When he died, China still had socialism. He had no way of knowing if his followers would triumph or how many times capitalism would be restored. From his individual point of view, perhaps Zhang Chunqiao would manage to carry forward socialism and bring 30 more years of positive experience in socialist construction. Perhaps Zhang Chunqiao or some other leaders would have celebrated in socialist China in 2000. Then with the lessons so learned, we would have to consider skipping from Marxism-Leninism to Marxism-Leninism-Zhangism. That is the difference class struggle makes: we could be celebrating different individual leaders today.
Likewise, Mao could not know that internationally someone else might not bring something forward more advanced. There could have been a revolutionary upsurge or coup in the social-imperialist Soviet Union. Perhaps people in or inspired by Albania would have changed their minds and taken up the struggle against the bourgeoisie in the party, just because they did see a Deng Xiaoping come to power for example. The difference between religious worship of an individual's authority and Marxism-Leninism is that Marxism-Leninism historically held that the class is more important than the individual. Just because Mao never said "Maoism" does not mean we should not say it now. Even so, in the years after the 9th Congress, all Mao's press said that the revolution in all countries depended on "Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought."
Alas, nothing that happened after Mao's death represented a more advanced class struggle than what Mao saw in his lifetime. The Soviet Union dissolved outright. Albania became openly capitalist and China is now a giant factory for imperialism.
There is another set of objections concerning alleged socialism in Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and northern Korea. The leaders of these countries all sided with the Soviet revisionists against Mao. None of them correctly carried out the struggle against the bourgeoisie in the party and all actively denied it. When they had the chance, they contributed to the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union.
Behind this question is the question of how far the class struggle has advanced in each of these struggles. How collective is the land and to what degree do these countries operate their economies without the profit mechanism, material incentives and other exchange-value oriented goals. Those wishing to point to Cuba, Vietnam, Laos or northern Korea should study carefully the conditions in these countries and compare the advances made in socialist construction globally. It is not an accident that the leaders in these countries sided with the Soviet revisionists against Mao. Their domestic class struggle is also at least as backward as the Soviets' had become after Khruschev.
Geopoliticians object to Maoism. They think that condemning Cuban revisionism means we cannot have Cuba in the united front. In an odd way, they accepted what Trotsky said about united fronts with the national bourgeoisie.
Geopoliticians are guilty of lazy thinking about the mode of production. Not only Cuba should be in the united front but also Iran. This is actually a lesson going back to Lenin and Stalin who said not only the national bourgeoisie but even feudal lords might be partners in the united front to defeat imperialism.
Even though the imperialists attack countries with bourgeois leaders, we have to have our own proletarian agenda. That's why we have the vanguard party and the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. We have the united front to ally with various forces including the national bourgeoisie against imperialism. After defeat of imperialists, the proletariat and national bourgeoisie can fight again.
There is no saying how many times the international proletariat will have to shuffle or overturn its leaders, maybe 1000 times. What is important is to retain confidence in the international proletariat.
Internationally, there is a call for sectarian unity around the accomplishments of Lenin. The call for sectarian unity echoes the anarchists in denying the particular accomplishments in the building of socialism in the 20th century.
What this call for sectarian unity has behind it is nothing but numbers in already existing organizations. Because of the bitter disputes Mao had, the sectarian unity position says that we should forget all those disputes and unite around Lenin on the era of imperialism.
There is nothing in common between Marxism-Leninism as it historically existed before Mao and life as an ostrich. We cannot stick our heads in the sand, because the issue of capitalist comebacks is so ugly and bitter.
Instead of trashing the organizations and leaders on behalf of the advances of the international proletariat, the back-to-Lenin position--which coincidentally endorsed Gorbachev for a set of years--trashes the most advanced accomplishments of the international proletariat on behalf of leftover leaders of Brezhnev days, on behalf of people who were wrong in their disputes with Mao and cannot admit it now. That is why it is sectarian unity: it puts the existing organizations and leaders above the needs of the international proletariat. The international proletariat needs its greatest advances analyzed and celebrated by leaders who are taking the most successful road forward possible.
The back-to-Lenin position easily shades into post-modernism and identity politics. These post-modernists abusing the names of Marx and Lenin say we cannot offend the Cuban people by telling them the hard truth about Castro for example. They are afraid we should not offend the nationalist sensitivities of the Koreans too. They forget that Marx warned against ever "flattering" the workers, when they must be told a thousand times to overcome their backwardness in order to defeat the capitalist class.
It would be hard to name any people, any class that has suffered more on account of Soviet revisionism than the proletariats of Cuba and Korea! Yes, in their name we must criticize Castro and Kim!
At the same time we must defend against sectarians who believe we can do without united front for Cuba, Korea, Iraq, Iran etc. Mao's critics deride the concept of "Third World," but the whole Third World deserves our active united front struggle against imperialism.
So that these old parties do not have to change their ways, rewrite their mastheads and learn how to struggle anew, the sectarian unity position would rather inconvenience the international proletariat instead. Waiting in the wings are the Liberal post-modernists and anarchists.
The lessons of socialist construction and capitalist restoration have been paid for in blood. The people of the ex-Soviet Union are still paying in blood for the capitalist restoration-- with the mafia-like economy, ubiquitous body guards and the general all-purpose public health disaster we see now.
With the sacrifices that the international proletariat made for socialist construction, how dare the back-to-Lenin people and practitioners of identity politics say we should just forget about analyzing socialism. Lenin never said it was permissible for the vanguard party to abandon science, to abandon the struggle to find the best road to communism.
In the 30 years since Mao died, we have not done better than Mao's contributions for handling the questions of socialist construction and capitalist restoration. This also cannot change in the immediate future, because we will need another period of major upsurge in the class struggle, before we will know how to surpass what Mao did. For this period from 1976 to the future of the next socialist upsurge, we shall need to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
We live in the era of Mao, because the international proletariat decided to build socialism in the 20th century. In such an era it is the duty of the vanguard parties to take up Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.