This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

Review of the Trotskyist reactionary line on China "China on the Brink: Workers political Revolution or Capitalist Enslavement?" From Spartacist, Summer 1997, number 53 (Available from the Spartacist Publishing Company, Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116) This long article goes into most of the Trotskyist arguments against Maoism and so it is a useful basis for taking on the debate between Trotskyism and Maoism. MIM devotes space to this issue not because we are under the illusion that Trotskyism is an important ideology. On the contrary, Trotskyism is practically non-existent in the Third World where revolutionary struggles are most successful today. But unfortunately, Trotskyist idealism has a certain appeal to First World chauvinists who see the evils of imperialism and want a nice neat solution to the problems that does not require them to take responsibility for real world revolutionary struggle. Trotskyism also carries with it a history of incorrect ideas that must continuously be struggled against as they unfortunately could not all be defeated by Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Deformed workers vs. state capitalism The Spartacist upholds the typical Trotskyist line that China is a deformed workers state: something that is not capitalism but is also not socialism. MIM does not believe that there is such a netherworld between capitalist restoration and socialist society and we see the creation of this category as one of the Trotskyists' reactionary contributions to so-called communist ideology. By calling countries like China "deformed workers states" they then insist on defending these countries against imperialist aggression as if these countries were not capitalist or imperialist or were somehow progressive themselves. Such blind defense of openly capitalist countries only serves to make "communists" look like idiots because they are openly and objectively aiding imperialism. In fact, this article in the Spartacist does a good job of describing many of the conditions in China that distinguish it as a state capitalist country, and many of the changes that were implemented under Deng Xiaoping to change the production relations from socialist to state capitalist. MIM wonders which Marxist book it was that left the Spartacist believing that if a country calls itself socialist and if it maintains some state ownership it must not be capitalist. This is the same misunderstanding of socialism and capitalism that leads people to say that Canada or even the u.s. is a socialist country because the state runs some of the industry (and after all, Canada has nationalized health care). Clearly we can not accept such simplistic definitions. Instead we have to look at who controls the means of production and who the means of production are serving. Under some fascisms the state owns the majority of the means of production, but they do not use this in the interests of the people and the people have no control. The Spartacist article details some of the evidence that the people in China have no control over the means of production and that in fact a few people are benefiting from the state control. This is what MIM calls state capitalism. MIM does not defend China as somehow more progressive than U$ imperialism. To do so would be to defend one imperialist against another. There is no basis for saying that state controlled imperialism is more progressive than free market imperialism other than blind adherence to Trotsky's idea that socialism can not be overthrown or can only be overthrown by violent means (as he wrote regarding Thermidor "can anyone believe that power can pass from the hands of the Russian proletariat into those of the bourgeoisie by peaceful means?" p100 Mavrakis "On Trotskyism"). "It is on the basis of China's collectivized economy--a prerequisite for socialist development--that we Trotskyists have always called for the military defense of the Chinese deformed workers state against capitalist forces--including defending its right to a nuclear arsenal." Even on its own terms this sentence does not make sense. MIM agrees that a collectivized economy is a prerequisite for socialist development but this does not mean that a collectivized economy automatically makes a country socialist. It is dogmatic to insist that a country must be fully free market capitalism before we can call it capitalist. Even bourgeois economists have picked this up faster than the Trots as many of these supporters of imperialism have recognized China as capitalist for years. "The aims of China's would-be exploiters--centrally to secure the right to buy and sell property and hand it down to their offspring--can only be achieved through smashing the existing state apparatus by one means or another and replacing it with a new one based on the principle of private ownership off the means of production." From this sentence we can gather that there are no exploiters in China today. Leaving aside the question of the multinational corporations now operating in China, according to the dogmatic Sparts, the Chinese individuals and corporations are getting rich (which they admit is happening) from some mysterious source of wealth that does not come at the expense of the exploited workers. It appears the Sparts have discovered a source of wealth that the capitalists have been searching for for years: one that is so pure it does not come from the exploitation of the workers, perhaps there is hope for peaceful capitalist revolution after all! The second half of this ludicrous sentence gets at what the Sparts believe needs to happen in order for China to become capitalist: "smashing the existing state apparatus" which they say must happen from the scientifically defined method of "one means or another." With this much science in one sentence it is hard to stay on track and follow all the Trotskyist logic. No wonder the Sparts are still defending China's right to nuclear arms: this knowledge of the secrets of non-exploitative wealth alone should be defended with military might. It is not worth repeating all the evidence provided in this article supporting the view that China is already capitalist. There are other better sources of information that provide a less dogmatic and more dialectical analysis of the process of change. But it is worth noting that the facts on this topic only support MIM's position and undermine that of the Spartacist. "In its pursuit of capital investment, the Beijing regime has even rolled out the red carpet to the same bourgeois forces which were overthrown by the 1949 Revolution and who have since that time accumulated enormous wealth in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and elsewhere in the Pacific Rim." The backward peasants take power in China This article also takes the opportunity to attack the Chinese revolution of 1949. They write: "The seizure of power by Mao's peasant-guerrilla army over the Guomindang Nationalist regime of Chaing Kai-shek shattered capitalist rule and liberated the country from subservience to Japanese and Western imperialism." This statement reveals the complete lack of historical analysis of the Trotskyists. First, the revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people can not be reduced to a power grab by a bunch of "peasant-guerrilla[s]". The Communist Party of China was built from the alliance of workers and peasants, drawing support from many sectors of Chinese society. The Sparts are just upset because a revolution succeeded in a primarily agricultural country when Trotsky said this would not be happening. The above by the Sparts is also a nice acknowledgment of Maoism's accomplishments (shattered capitalist rule; liberated the country...) vs. Trotskyism's (issuing carping criticisms from the sidelines). The second part of the above statement clearly reveals the Sparts' lack of historical analysis by focusing on the victory over the Guomindang as the blow that liberated the country from imperialism rather than talking about the anti-Japanese war that the Chinese people won in 1949. The victory over the bourgeois nationalists of the Guomindang was not the principal victory nor was it the principal struggle won in 1949. Japan occupied China for many years and the Chinese people fought a long hard war to kick out the imperialists and win control of their country. Trotskyism frequently like to pretend that capitalist struggles within countries are more important than imperialist struggles which lead to the subservience of nations. And this reveals the bankruptcy of this ideology. Without recognizing the principal contradiction in the world: between imperialism and the nations oppressed by imperialism, organizations calling themselves communist are never going to be able to take on the most important battles and succeed. The Trots would have focused on the struggle within China *before* the war against Japan was won and they would have gotten themselves killed. In fact, the Trotskyists in China before liberation supported Japan as bringing a more advanced mode of production to China. This is just one more reason why Trotskyism enjoys no support in the Third World and has never achieved a successful revolution anywhere. The Sparts go on to say "the Chinese working class had been repeatedly and grievously betrayed by Stalinism, most notably in the defeat of the 1925-27 Revolution." First the Sparts admit here that the working class was a part of the revolutionary struggle in spite of their attempts to deny it elsewhere. But this statement is still incorrect. They are referring to Stalin's advice that the Chinese communists make an alliance with the Guomindang, an alliance that led to the massacre of many revolutionaries. Mao correctly summed up this experience by pointing out the importance of communist leadership over bourgeois nationalists in order for such a United Front against imperialism to be successful (something he led the Communist party to successfully accomplish later in the war). Mao also pointed out that the Chinese Communists know the conditions of China better than Stalin and it was they who chose to take Stalin's advice and it is they who bear responsibility for their own mistakes. Mao praised Stalin's aid to the revolution and did not hold him responsible for mistakes of the CCP, as if Stalin had some power over them which kept them from making their own decisions. It is only the mysticism of idealist Trotskyism that could wish for such a leader who could command parties around the world to obey with only a few words. The Trots' disdain for the peasantry is further demonstrated in the following quote: "it was all the more absurd to claim that China on its own could achieve the advanced state of development necessary for creating a socialist society as the country groaned under the weight of an impoverished peasantry making up three-fourths of its population." No wonder Trotskyism is not popular in China: the peasants are not a potentially productive force but instead a "weight," presumably one that the workers will be forced to shoulder alone since they can't count on those backward peasants for anything. Fortunately in this case we have history to provide the Trots with some lessons. Between 1949 and 1976 China was able to industrialize, feed its entire population, provide the people with housing, health care, education, and a tremendous opportunity for participation in the politics of the country. The Sparts are caught in an embarrassing situation when they on the one hand admit the amazing gains of the revolution but on the other hand try to claim that none of this was possible in a backward country. Their economist view of revolution which is totally dependent on advanced productive forces *before* revolution can begin leaves them with no way out but to create the mystical category of "deformed workers state." A revealing quote from Spartacist on the nature of socialist society describes their view of Maoism: "Modeling itself on the USSR under Stalin's bureaucratic regime, Maoist rule followed the Stalinist dogma of building 'socialism' in a single country. Denying the fundamental Marxist understanding that socialism can only be built at the highest level of technology and economy, requiring the extension of socialist revolution to advanced industrial countries, this nationalist schema expressed the material interests of the bureaucratic caste which usurped power in the Soviet Union in 1923-24." This is characteristic of Trotskyism: the belief that revolution can only succeed in advanced industrial countries. The logical extension of this ideology is seen in the Trotskyists practice: call for revolution in the First World and pretty much ignore the Third World (the majority of the world's population). This economist view of revolution places the productive forces above the production relations in importance. The Trots believe that what is necessary for socialism is an advance in the productive forces, the more advanced the better. This dogmatic interpretation of Marxism is an embarrassment to dialectics which was the method of analysis used by Marx when he wrote to Engels on 10 Dec 1869: "I long believed that it would be possible to overthrow the Irish regime through English working-class ascendance more thorough study has now convinced me of the exact opposite. The English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland." (p39 Mavrakis On Trotskyism) Revealing their worship of machinery and all that is industrial, the Sparts write: "The problems of Chinese agriculture are truly intractable short of the integration of China into an international planned economy, which would provide the machinery, electric power and other ingredients necessary for modern, large-scale farm production. On its own, China could not possibly achieve such a level of technique." So while they admit that under Mao the people were able to become self-sufficient and provide enough food for everyone, they are at the same time saying that it is impossible for the Chinese people to overcome "the problems of Chinese agriculture." Good thing the Chinese people did not believe this. Instead they mobilized to overcome problems through self-reliance. The Cultural Revolution through the eyes of the New York Times From this article is appears that the Sparts used as their source for information about Maoist China such publications as the New York Times as they ignore the Cultural Revolution in favor of pretty sounding criticisms such as "Mao's Stalinist regime defended the interests of the CPP/PLA [Chinese Communist Party/Peoples Liberation Army] bureaucracy which ruled from the inception of the People's Republic of China." The Sparts should explain just how it is that the Maoist government defended the interests of the CPP and PLA by opening them up to criticism during the Cultural Revolution. Perhaps it was when so many of the leaders of the CPP and the PLA who were taking advantage of their positions to gain some personal power and luxuries were criticized and removed from their positions by the people? In a sleight of hand intended to condemn the Maoists and the Deng Xiaoping regime all in one breath the Sparts state "Opponents of the Stalinist regime [under Deng] face not only imprisonment but the state terror of the death penalty--a barbarity also applied with racist vindictiveness by the 'free world's' top cop, U.S. imperialism." In spite of the many facts in this article pointing out the advances for the people of China achieved under Mao and the retreats under Deng's state capitalist regime, it is useful for the Sparts to stick in criticisms of Deng next to those of Mao in an attempt to make the reader believe that there is no difference. But this quote is even more slippery coming from Trotskyists who defend Trotsky's leadership in putting down the uprising at Krondstadt where some anarchists were attempting armed revolt against the Soviet Union. Trotsky correctly put down this uprising with force, and further was clear that deserters in the Soviet army during the war should be killed for this crime. Trotsky ordered "a local Commissar was executed, as were twenty-six men who had deserted, and he accompanied the executions with an order that in case of mass desertion or unauthorized withdrawals it would be the commissar who would be shot first."(p7 MIM Stalin pack) So the Trots try to look the other way when Trotsky correctly advocated the need for armed force in a revolutionary country and condemn the death penalty as if such purist idealists as themselves would never have use for that kind of barbarity! "But while Mao called on the CCP to 'serve the people' and Deng pronounced, 'To get rich is glorious,' the two represent no more than different poles of the same anti-proletarian bureaucracy." These quotes alone demonstrate the fundamental difference between Maoism and capitalism. But according to the Sparts, these two ideologies are really both just anti-proletarian. The basis for this criticism of Mao comes back to the Trots' hatred for the peasants: "Mao gave Chinese Stalinism a particularly peasant-nationalist cast which barely paid lip service to even formal Marxist concepts." Their one example of Mao's practice of ignoring Marxism was his statement in 1960 "Lenin said: 'The more backward the country, the more difficult its transition to socialism.' Now it seems that this way of speaking is incorrect. As a matter of fact, the more backward the economy, the easier, not the more difficult, the transition from capitalism to socialism." The Sparts are aghast that someone could analyze the words of Lenin and conclude that conditions had changed and that what Lenin said was no longer true. But they forget that this is exactly what Lenin did with Marx's ideas about capitalism when he wrote the book Imperialism which describes the features of the highest stage of capitalism which had not developed in Marx's day. This is exactly the dialectical reasoning that Marx used when he wrote to Engels about the English working class quoted above. But the Sparts claim that Lenin's statement showed his supposed understanding of the need for Trotskyist economism. "to achieve socialism scarcity must be eliminated, and this can only be done on the basis of the highest possible level of technology. In turn, this requires the combined efforts of many advanced, industrialized countries on the basis of socialist planning." So MIM asks the Sparts, how exactly do you explain what China was able to accomplish with all those backwards peasants in a semi-feudal country? They were able to provide for the needs of the people by mobilizing the people. The Sparts explain that when Deng took over party leadership "His initial program was to introduce 'market adjustment' to the centralized economy. Over the next several years, a cascade of measures was enacted, breaking up collectivized agriculture and establishing brutally exploitative 'special economic zones' for foreign capitalist investment." But still they can't admit that China went capitalist! Instead they say "The aim of Deng's market 'reforms,' which he dubbed 'socialism with Chinese characteristics,' was the same as Mao's: to turn China not only into a modern nation-state but into a world power." MIM would like to know what is wrong with wanting China to become an advanced country and a world power? Is this is the worst of Mao's motivations that the Sparts can make up? After all, as a Socialist country Mao should have been striving to industrialize and provide for the needs of the people, and the country most certainly should want to be a world power: a power on the side of revolutionary struggles around the world. This attempt to compare Mao to Deng once again shows the Sparts' willingness to accept bourgeois rhetoric, like Deng's claim that China is socialist, over scientific analysis. "The Stalinists have always been die-hard enemies of the only perspective capable of realizing this task: the extension of socialist revolution to advanced capitalist countries such as Japan, which in the framework of international planning can provide the technical resources necessary to modernize China." According to the Sparts, those stupid backwards peasants in China don't understand that they are not capable of modernizing China without the help of Japan. Good thing for the peasants that they acted without this understanding: look at all they achieved under Maoism. It is not that Stalinists or Maoists oppose revolution in other countries: in fact it is the Stalinists and Maoists who gave aid to revolutions all around the world while the Trotskyists could only sit back and talk because they had failed to achieve a revolution and take state power anywhere after Lenin died in 1924. The Sparts criticize the Great Leap Forward by casually dismissing it: "The folly of this scheme was epitomized by the 'backyard steel furnaces' built throughout the countryside." It is convenient to be a sideline critic, never making revolution anywhere and only criticizing the flaws of other people's revolutions. In the case of the Great Leap, Mao himself wrote self criticisms for some of the errors of the Great Leap. This is a big difference between Maoists and Trotskyists: Maoists believe that self-criticism and learning from mistakes is a part of changing the world, while Trotskyists believe it all has to be done perfectly the first time. This is why the Trots are left sitting on the sideline waiting for the perfect opportunity for the perfect revolution which will never come. They go on to say: "In the aftermath of this 'Great Leap' backward, Mao lost leadership of the central bureaucracy to a more pragmatic faction led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping." Here we have the Sparts upholding the capitalist roaders (who openly advocated capitalist practices as more pragmatic!) over the communists. As it turns out the Chinese people were not so easily duped by pragmatism as they severely criticized both Liu and Deng for their attempts to reverse the gains of the revolution. When the Sparts get into the Cultural Revolution they are reduced to nothing more than bourgeois rhetoric, again revealing their lack of research. It is all portrayed as a grand power struggle by Mao who manipulated the people. "The Cultural Revolution was in fact nothing more than a giant faction fight between the Mao/Lin and Liu/Deng wings of the bureaucracy, neither of which merited the least political support from Trotskyists." Fortunately for the Maoists, we don't want or need the political support of the Trotskyists: we prefer the support of the people. Unable to provide political criticisms of the Cultural Revolution or Maoism beyond it's reliance on the peasants, the Sparts resort to psychology, calling the "Gang of Four" "rabidly pro-Mao" as if they were lunatics. In another embarrassing error for the Sparts, they claim that "An example of the backward nationalism that defined 'Mao thought' was his opposition to birth control." The facts are exactly the opposite. Wimmin in China were encouraged to practice birth control and family planning was taught throughout the country. There are many sources which explain this in detail including Ruth Sidel's "Women and Child Care in China" and only bourgeois rumor to support the Sparts claim to the contrary. Since there are few real references for the Sparts "facts" in this article, it is only possible for us to provide the truth and offer our sources to expose these lies. The most valuable part of this article is the information it offers about the Chinese people's support for Maoism and their understanding of the differences between Maoism and Deng Xiaoping restored state capitalism. They discuss the revival of support for old Maoist songs as one example of the people's reminiscence for the greater egalitarianism and "relatively corruption-free days of Maoist rule." Foreign policy Starting off their lies and misconceptions about China's foreign policy, the Spartacist League dives right in with Indonesia. They wrote: "the Chinese government signed on to a declaration of the 'peaceful coexistence' pledging ' non-interference' in the affairs of the neocolonial bourgeois states." "The most disastrous fruits of China's non-aggression pact with the bourgeois nationalists were seen in Indonesia in 1965. The Mao regime instructed the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI)--the largest Communist party in the capitalist world, with three million members and many times that number of supporters--to maintain at all costs a political bloc with the 'anti-imperialist' regime of Sukarno, an ally of Beijing."(p8-9) This is an example of how Trotskyists and bourgeois scholars alike like to claim that every bad thing that happened in the world was the fault of either Stalin or Mao. In the case of Indonesia, Maoists would expect the PKI to take responsibility for the leadership of their own revolution; although Maoists would certainly offer aid whenever possible. Just as Mao took responsibility for taking incorrect advice from Stalin, we would expect the same from the PKI. But in this case, it was not Mao who gave bad advice, but the PKI who took an incorrect line on the revolutionary struggle, a line that demonstrated the failures of revisionism in the blood of so many of their comrades. During the early 1960s there was a power struggle going on within the Indonesian government between the Suharto-Nasution military clique and President Sukarno. In 1965 Suharto, a faithful lackey of U.S. imperialism, staged a military coup and took power in Indonesia and unleashed a terror upon the population. In the early 1960's the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) incorrectly tailed after President Sukarno, declaring him the leader of the revolution and subjugating the party to Sukarno's will. This meant that the party took up the line of a "peaceful road" to socialism. This error came from an incorrect application of the Maoist concept of a United Front which is a uniting of classes under the leadership of the proletariat in the principal battle against fascism or imperialism. The PKI ignored the importance of the leadership of the proletariat: "By considering the national bourgeoisie the 'people's aspect' in the state power of the Republic, and President Sukarno the leader of this aspect, the Party leadership erroneously recognized that the national bourgeoisie was able to lead the new-type democratic revolution. This is contrary to historical necessity and historical facts."(From Self-Criticism by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Indonesian Communist Party in People of Indonesia Unite and Fight to Overthrow the Fascist Regime, Peking Foreign Languages Press.) What this means is that the PKI identified Sukarno as part of the national bourgeoisie, the people among the bourgeoisie who have an interest in overthrowing external imperialist control but who will then fight to establish a nationally controlled capitalist system in which they replace the imperialists as the exploiters of the people. The national bourgeoisie is an ally in the anti-imperialist struggle but must not be allowed to lead the United Front against imperialism. The Chinese Communist Party was very clear on this but the PKI, mired in opportunism and revisionism, was unable to grasp the importance of this point until after they lost so many people to the Suharto massacre. Because the Trotskyists think that an alliance with the national bourgeoisie is unholy blasphemy, they can not understand how Maoists could use this class to their advantage in the anti-imperialist battle. To them, it was the very existence of this alliance that led to the massacre of so many communists because there could be no correct application of the theory of the United Front. MIM hopes that Trotskyists reading this issue on the United Front will learn something about history, line and strategy so that, at the very least, they stop repeating these ludicrous criticisms of Mao. "Another example of the criminal results of Stalinist nationalism was seen in the Vietnam War, when Mao's China blocked passage to Vietnam for Soviet military aid." This is a good example of Trotskyists' accepting bourgeois press accounts wishfully searching for criticisms of Maoism. In fact, this myth of China blocking passage of Soviet aid to Vietnam is a lie created by Western correspondents in the Soviet Union, initiated by Marshal Malinowski (who admitted this on April 20, 1966). The Communist Party of Vietnam, on the other hand, recognized that China was instrumental in aiding their revolutionary struggle. On April 25, 1966, Pham Van Dong, the Prime Minister of Vietnam, thanked the Chinese for its "effective assistance as well as its devoted help in delivering aid sent by the Soviet Union and other fraternal European countries." The Vietnamese Information Agency, on June 19, 1966 sent out the following communication: "A certain number of Western Agencies have recently propagated the rumour according to which the military material provided as aid by the Soviet Union is at present meeting with difficulties hindering its passage across Chinathe said information is only a totally fabricated fable contrived with evil provocative intent."(p203 Mavrakis, On Trotskyism) The Sparts were apparently fooled by Mao's receiving Nixon in 1972 as they took this to mean Mao was now a friend of imperialism. Fortunately the Chinese people were not so foolish as to think that diplomatic dealings constitute a compromise of socialist principles. Mao never backed down from calling out the imperialists of the United Snakes for what they were. Those who are disillusioned with Maoism over a handshake between Nixon and Mao are not serious about studying the science of revolution. They go on to criticize China's foreign policy under Deng but this is something that MIM also condemns as the policy of a social-imperialist country: one that is socialist in name but imperialist in deeds. It is unfortunate that the Spart analysis does not allow for this depth of understanding and they are left defending the right to a nuclear arsenal of a country that is invading and exploiting other nations. Why no Trotskyist revolutions In analyzing the turmoil in China in 1989 the Sparts conclude "In both Hungary in 1956 and China in 1989, the key factor was the absence of a revolutionary leadership such as that provided by Lenin and Trotsky's Bolshevik Party in Russia in 1917." So MIM asks where were the Trotskyists?