Soviet Empires anti Maoist undertone

I often sense hostility to Maoism as an ideoligy and to Mao Tse Tung personally on this webstite
Do you think there is one ? Are you disturbed by it or are you anti Maoist ?

Most of us reject Maoism but I'd be surprised if there are many explicitly anti-Maoists around. Really I think it boils down to the sino-soviet split and the fact that most of us come down on the side of the USSR and against Mao's application of his Social-imperialism theory.

Personally I see Mao as a leader who moved faster than his own ideas.

Yeah nobody here really hates Mao. For example I like alot of his ideas, it's just I think 90% of the cultural revolution was pretty daft and that he was himself not a particularly brilliant statesman. I mean - Great Sparrow Campaign? Really?

Loz wrote:

Everyone knows that Trotskyte-Nazi gangs trained millions of sparrows to steal grain and obstruct the goals of the Great Leap Forward!
Death to sparrows,Sichuan swallows and Yang-Tze dolphins,agents of revisionism!

New sig quote ftw.

But more to the point, the sparrow campaign is one of history's most ridiculous bits of government policy. Of all time.

No, it's just that you keep reviving shitty and/or old threads without making substantial contributions. I mean, come on, you really expect me, whose family lived through the Cultural Revolution, to believe that it was overall "good" and that China was in the purest state of Communism in human history based on some heavily biased Youtube video? When people needed money and ration tickets to get basic consumer products like food, and sometimes it's still not available; when people could have been imprisoned for being "reactionaries" or "counter-revolutionaries" for telling jokes; when both high-ranking Party members and the average citizen disagree with Mao's policies by simply demanding for improvements without being anti-revolution or anti-Party; when artists are misinterpreted, publicly censured, and even imprisoned for being "counter-revolutionaries"; when opportunistic Party members took advantage of the constant purges to get rid of competitors; when important historical artifacts and relics were wantonly destroyed... the list goes fragging on and on! Seriously, that doesn't sound like there was a lot of communism, liberation, or revolution. The Cultural Revolution had some positive aspects in theory, and there were definitely instances where corrupt local politicians were brought down. On the other hand, the sheer number of wrongful imprisonments and the stifling of cultural development to adhere to a strict politically and ideologically correct line hardly makes it a real "Revolution" and more like constant purges and cultural destruction and setback backed by masses in the streets doing what they thought was the right thing because Mao told them so but it really wasn't.

Of course, I still respect him for what he did in leading the Chinese Revolution against Japanese imperialism and KMT rule, but he should not have tried to carry out some of his policies so rapidly and forcefully when material conditions were not right, and no amount of forcing was going to help. I'm not anti-Maoist, just as I'm not pro-Stalin or pro-Soviet necessarily, and criticizing someone's mistakes doesn't mean being against someone in general.

Majority of this site believes in Marxism or Leninism; furthermore, the majority of us are from developed countries. i.e. places that don't really have a large peasantry class. Mao's contributions don't apply (in many aspects) to the majority of us.

Yes I to am a Marxist Leninist but i find that The idea that only the Proletariat can lead a socialist revolution limits the struggle to the 1st world when the majority of revolutionary activity around the world is done in the 3rd world

Mrshanghai is correct in that the revolution will come from the 3rd world. However, I disagree with the idea that emphasizing the "proletariat" means emphasizing the FW struggle. According to Leading Light Communism, there is no social group that forms a significant proletariat. The proletariat is almost entirely located within the 3w. So true proletarian revolution will come from the 3rd world. Does make sense comrade Mrshanghai?

If you would like to read more go to the Leading Light Communist Organizations website, or ask me any questions you may have.

Im not a leading light like comrade morning sun.
but the modern revolutionary struggle is centered in the 3rd world. Maos theories work well in the 3rd world this means that Maoism is currently extremely relevant

Mrshanghai wrote:

Im not a leading light like comrade morning sun.

Ideology is a fluid process

Mrshanghai wrote:

but the modern revolutionary struggle is centered in the 3rd world.

LLCO advocates this

Mrshanghai wrote:

Maos theories work well in the 3rd world this means that Maoism is currently extremely relevant

LLCO advocates this

How do you differ from LLCO?


As for Maoism, I am an advocate of Maoism, so no, S-E is not hostile towards Marxism.

I meant Maoism. Sorry.

Well there's a fair few Maoists on this site (and I suppose quite a few who just support him in general as Marxist-Leninists). I however am not a fan of his theories or method. Admittedly I have not read his writings in detail but having studied the results of his experiments I don't believe we can learn much from him. Whilst he was a great revolutionary leader, I think he was somewhat out of his depth once he came to power and had some serious personality flaws.

Well I would suggest reading him before making your conclusions, and I'm not saying that to be a dick either. I disliked Mao until I read and understood him, and I found out that he was probably one of the best Dialectical Materialists out there. I do my best to read a person's body of work before I judge them, that is why I remain pretty neutral on Tito and Hoxha, because I haven't read much of them, but I plan to eventually. I think that being critical of Mao, like any other leader, is important, and I try to do my best to stay critical and not praise him unceasingly.

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Well I would suggest reading him before making your conclusions, and I'm not saying that to be a dick either. I disliked Mao until I read and understood him, and I found out that he was probably one of the best Dialectical Materialists out there. I do my best to read a person's body of work before I judge them, that is why I remain pretty neutral on Tito and Hoxha, because I haven't read much of them, but I plan to eventually. I think that being critical of Mao, like any other leader, is important, and I try to do my best to stay critical and not praise him unceasingly.

Well I might read On Contradiction at some point. However, having extensively studied the GLF and the CR I really have to question Mao's foresight and judgement. How on earth he thought the GLF had a chance of working is beyond me. He basically overruled the economic planners for the Second Five Year Plan and implemented his own ridiculous ideas. The First Five Year Plan worked pretty well. The second should have adhered to these lines; even though it would have been hindered by a withdrawal of Soviet aid.

"Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought" is a very clarifying document from the RCP-USA. It can be found at Marxists Internet Archive.

I don't uphold Mao, his theories were terrible. And yes, from what I have seen many members on this website are somewhat anti-Maoist.

I'm specificly against Maoist Third Worldism, not necessarily Maoism is general. In my personal experience, in my encounters with some on-line, they seem to me to be like an inverse of National Socialism, namely Strasserism. They will tend to villify white westerners, especially Jews. And instead of recognising the class struggle between the proletariat, and bourgeoisie, which exists in all countries, they instead believe in conflict between proletarian nations, and bourgeoisie nations. However this concept did not originate with them. It was actually first introduced by Enrico Corradini, whom stated this, "

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We must start by recognizing the fact that there are proletarian nations as well as proletarian classes; that is to say, there are nations whose living conditions are subject...to the way of life of other nations, just as classes are. Once this is realized, nationalism must insist firmly on this truth: Italy is, materially and morally, a proletarian nation." (Report to the First Nationalist Congress, Florence, December 3, 1919)

So in conclusion I consider MTWism to be a national bolshevism for non-white peoples.

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So in conclusion I consider MTWism to be a national bolshevism for non-white peoples.

All MTWists are middle-class White males.

There does seem to be less sympathy for Maoism on SE these days. When I joined (come and sit around the fire, folks), there weren't that many Maoists either, but the ones who were there were much more influential. Back in 2004-2005, you still had guys like Andrei Mazenov and Valdart/Sa'd-al Bari posting regularly. Andrei was active with the youth organisation of Avakian's RCP, which he later said goodbye to (http://kasamaproject.org/2008/02/10/its ... -brigader/).

It was very interesting to me at the time, because the war was still raging on in Nepal, and these RCP people, regardless of what you might think of Avakian, were at least rooted in a certain worldwide Maoist tradition that you had to respect. This was also relevant because of the high amount of people from the US on here.

What a difference 5-10 years can make: the RIM is apparently inactive, Nepal must be considered an illusion for the moment, the RCP isolated itself internationally and devoted itself to building up the Avakian cult (they always promoted him specifically, but the "new synthesis" stuff only came later, I think), so it's all a lot less interesting. Except for people who like all these third-worldist nuttybars, that has always been around in some form.