mosfeld wrote: Social-Imperialism is a reactionary concept. Proof of this is the PRC's support of the Taliban and UNITA. ![]()
Pretty sure that the PRC wasn't concerned with the ideas of Mao, especially Social-imperialism under Deng Xiaoping.
Wikipedia article doesn't say anything about support for UNITA besides "Savimbi's early training in China."
Doesn't matter. They used the guise of social-imperialism to 'oppose Soviet Imperialism' in Afghanistan and Angola. Fighting on the side of mujahideen is unforgivable. But again the whole social-imperialism concept was reactionary from the get-go so it's not surprising China ended up supporting reactionary movements.
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Nice try but Mao's China != post-Mao China unless you want to say that special economic zones, one child policy, and privatization of state enterprises are all Maoist too.
I'm not talking about Maoism but about the Social-Imperialism theory, which was used for decades after Mao's death to support all types of reactionary foreign policy decisions.
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Yeah they couldve said that they are helping the mujahadeen because they wanted to personally see Brezhnev get really angry with them, and Dick Cheney could say that he wants to see Iran invaded so that the Tudeh party rises to triumph, it doesn't matter. In the 1980s the PRC was still rivals with the USSR and wanted to weaken it. It really doesn't matter how they guised their doing this politically.
It does because Social-Imperialism fit perfectly as an excuse. To use your example of Dick Cheney, the neo-con concept of 'bringing democracy to Iraq/Afghanistan' was a reactionary concept from its inception, hence its ability to be used to justify these reactionary invasions. The same can clearly be said of Social-Imperialism. There are parts of Mao I like, attacking other worker states you don't like isn't one of them.
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It doesn't fit perfectly though. For it to fit perfectly, China would have to be Maoist and actually interested in spreading its Maoist ideology across the world, as they did during the Cultural Revolution. In this case it's just an excuse to pursue aggressive foreign policy.
The Social-Imperialism theory excuses it because they're combating 'imperialism'. I'm not saying the PRC at this point was fully maoist. In fact all they seemed to keep was the reactionary parts.
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Well the theory itself is not that social-imperialist states should be attacked, it's about the complex way a socialist state functions when it's leadership becomes an elite more interested in expanding its own authority rather than Marxist ideology and thereby becoming more ideologically revisionist to justify its methods. There have been some examples of when during the Cultural Revolution reckless and overzealous foreign policy supported leftist movements just because they were not aligned with the USSR, such as in Guinea-Bissau, but I don't see how this is relevant to Deng's support of the Mujahadeen...?
It's relevant because the concept of a worker's state being 'imperialist' is absurd. They whole theory is a rationalization of anti-Soviet attitudes.
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Sorry Mr. Trotsky, but at that point it ceases to be a workers' state because it is ruled by the interests of the party elite and not the working class.
The Party Elite were proletarian. I special group of workers but still workers.
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Economically they were petty-bourgeois or bourgeois considering their incomes and due to this they as individuals had politically a weakened allegiance to the working class, which their revisionism severed completely.
Soviet cogitations: 4955
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 13 Feb 2008, 15:25 Ideology: Other Leftist Politburo
Kirov is right about one thing, Mao's China =/= China post Mao. There are commonalities in policy, but there is a good reason modern China has backed the Americans a lot. It's necessary to maintain a cordial relationship with the West in order to trade and get technology transfers. I don't agree with this policy, but the point is, it's not Maoist.
You seem to be in the same boat as Kirov in thinking that my statements are an attack on Maoism or that my argument has anything to do with these actions being pursued for the advancement of Maoism. I never stated either, and I certainly don't think they were. My point from the beginning was that the social-imperialism theory was, and is, reactionary from the start and this led to reactionary systems of support in the latter half of the 20th. Again this is entirely an issue of the theory of Social-Imperialism, which as far as I know is only a small part of Maoism and one of Mao's stupider ideas.
Kirov wrote: Not until Gorbachev. Also you should know that income is not an indicator of class. The Soviet bureaucracy was entitled, but not bourgeoisie. ![]()
No, it was the case since Khrushchev decided to denounce Stalin.
And yes, income does indicate class in this case because it came purely from careerist political activity which was limited to those individuals. And I mean if you have a problem with Social-Imperialism, you might as well start having a problem with the whole idea of imperialism, because: J. V. Stalin wrote: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archi ... m/ch06.htm Quote: The PRC's support for the Mujahideen is completely irrelevant at this point since the counter-revolutionary coup happened way back in 1976. Simplifying matters by dumping all the Mujahideen factions into the "Taliban" category is completely inaccurate. There were, for example, Maoists who fought against the Soviet imperialists in Afghanistan, as well. Quote: It actually does matter, because post-socialist China furthered its own agenda under the guise of "opposing Soviet social-imperialism", just like the Soviet revisionists justified their reactionary, imperialist actions under the guise of "Marxism-Leninism". Just because they say their opposing social-imperialism, doesn't mean they are. Quote: And siding with the Soviet social-imperialists, when there were uprisings in every single province of Afghanistan against their occupation, is the legitimate "Marxist-Leninist" position?
No, as either position strengthens imperialism, just as in WWI. Is that the right answer?
mosfeld wrote: It wasn't Maoists who instituted extreme anti-woman policies, or won the war against the Russians. It was the Mujahideen, who came together to form the taliban. mosfeld wrote: Fair enough but anti-Soviet attitudes had more to do with this than anything. mosfeld wrote: No the Afghanistan situation was entirely bungled by Soviet authorities trying to make the DRA into just one more Moscow-run Soviet puppet. I don't agree with the Soviet response, or their interference in Afghani affairs (which legitimized anti-communist anti-russian sentiments), but I certainly do not support the anti-communist forces that collapsed the DRA leading to one of the most barbaric governments of the twentieth century. ![]()
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