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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
In all our threads on Marxism vs. Capitalism, none of our Marxist friends has ever painted a picture of Marxism that even remotely resembles what we see today in China. Is this Marxism at all? |
The best answer I can give you is, maybe, but probably not. I’ll give you the maybe first.
It could be Marxism if this is a Chinese version of the NEP, i.e., the New Economic Policy advocated by Lenin in Russia following the destruction of the country’s infrastructure during seven years of brutal war. China may have decided that the best way to develop the country is to let tightly controlled capitalists do it for them. This way they have access to Western technology. I do not, however, believe this to be the case, simply because they have now decided to allow capitalists into the CCP.
More likely, the Communist Party leadership, having strangled, innovation and efficiency, realized that they were coming up against a dead end. As with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc states, there were only two ways out: move-forward to real socialism, losing the perks and privileges that come with absolute power, or restore capitalism in such a way that they retain perks, privileges, and power. They chose the latter at Tiananmen Square.
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Originally posted by Boshko
Reasons why Maoism =! Marxism (even in theory)
1. Marxism is a materialistic philosophy that bascially says that material conditions determine what people think and are the only things that really matter. |
Materialist, not materialistic, one is a philosophy, the other a personal trait. That quibble aside, that is a vulgar definition of Marxist materialism. Materialism simply posits that the material world is the extent of reality and that the world of ideas is a product of this world. Mind is a function of the brain; ideas do not exist without brains to think them.
Marx was an historical materialist. For Marx, what was key were the social conditions. It is our social reality that determine our ideology, and thus we can have all sorts of ideas and views in our heads that have no relationship to the material world; say for example, religion. Engels later wrote:
According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure—political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas—also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (that is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is so remote or so impossible of proof that we can regard it as non-existent, as negligible), the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary.
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Mao never liked this much and there is a strong Voluntarist strain in his philosophy which basically said what was most needed was strong collective Will, which isn't a typically Marxist concept at all. |
This is correct. In addition, according to Mao thought, proletariat does not refer to one’s relationship to society, but whether or not one agrees with Mao. One is a proletarian if one is a Maoist, not if one has nothing to sell but his/her labor-power. This is a most decidedly un-Marxist concept, as it says that ideology determines what you are, not your social relations. See my previous comment above about Marx.
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2. After getting thumped badly in the cities in the Nationalists the CCP went rural in a big way and based itself on the peasantry for well over a decade. |
This is not exactly true. Despite the massacre in Shanghai and the betrayal of the KMT, the Communist Party continued to work in the cities. There was even a commune in Canton for a while. There was a split in the party between those who followed Mao, and rest. In one of the great ironies of history, Mao, a Stalinist, disobeyed the dictates of Stalin, while the regular party, who were lead by Trotskyists, obeyed his orders. In any even, the Trotskyists remained in the cities and continued organizing there up until the Maoists conquered the cities and executed them.
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(which would make Marx, or Lenin for that matter, roll over in their graves since for them urban industrial workers were the only group a proper communist revolution could be based on). |
This is not exactly true. Marx, in his introduction to the Russian edition of The Communist Manifesto, stated that the peasant communes of Russia could serve as a basis from which to begin the creation of a socialist revolution, provided the revolution served as the spark to light the torch of revolution in the capitalist countries. Marx, here, opened the door for non-proletarian elements being the vanguard force in making a socialist revolution under very limited circumstances.
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Also in Maoist theory there is the idea of proletarianized nations (ie that by having imperialistic nations exploiting third world nations whole nations become bourgeoise and proletariat respectively) which is completely at odds with traditional Marxism. |
This is not true. To the extent that Maoist theory took it, it is un-Marxist. The general concept, however, is as old as the Leninist theory of imperialism. Marx had no real theory of imperialism because it had not fully developed during his lifetime.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by Boshko
Right, that was before "getting thumped badly in the cities." |
The CCP never had any controls of cities during the First Civil War (IIRC, 1927 - 1939), all the way up till 1946. They briefly controlled major cities in Manchuria as the Red Army retreated, but eventually the KMT army arrived, and they moved to the countryside and secondary cities.
quote:
Originally posted by Boshko
There wasn't much of anything in the way of cities in the Yan'an region (or in the southern Soviets from which the Long March was launched). |
That's Jiangxi.
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Originally posted by Boshko
The simple fact that is when the PRC was established the fast majority of the communist cadres were from rural backgrounds. |
That's correct, but only if you look in terms of number, not in ranking and where they were (major cities as compared to towns and villages).
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Originally posted by Boshko
If he was an orthodox Marxist he would have known that China had no business having a communist revolution (ie the Menshevik line). |
Marx was never against unorthodox ways of seizing power AFAIK.
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Originally posted by Boshko
Hell even in Russia were the proletariat were a distinct minority there were enough of them to provide the backbone of the communist strength, while they were nothing of the sort in China. |
No, that's why most of the [Worker-Farmer] Red Army was composed of farmers. However, as Mao saw it, they needed training in Communist doctrines and thoughts to improve their awareness.
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Originally posted by Boshko
Which didn't happen. |
Mostly did. The only ironic thing was Mao himself came from a well-off peasant family.
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Originally posted by Boshko
In a girl's school in the International Concession, I know. But even then the Japanese weren't too popular (1895) and the communists only started gathering real strength when anti-Japanese ideas became really central and this remained a central thing right on through (Second United Front etc.). |
Probably up till the end of the First Civil War (i.e. sometime after the Marco Polo Bridge incident), Nationalistic sentiments was a secondary though important factor in CCP recruitment. The poor farmers - there were several classes of them, some where quite rich - were truly exploited badly and needed little encouragement to join in the uprisings. In the liberated areas Mao conducted land reforms, taking land from the landlords and rich farmers and distributing them among the poor peasants. This alone attracted a lot of supporters.
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Originally posted by Boshko
I was not aware that Marx ever advocated anything other than internationalism. |
As I noted in the reply to Kid, above.
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Originally posted by Boshko
Basic Maoist idea. The colonial nations exploit the colonized nations en masse making it a sort of bourgeoise/proletariat relationship on a national scale. However, from what I've seen non-Chinese Maoist movements concentrate on these sorts of ideas more, specifically the Maoist International Movement whose newspaper I recommended above as a good source of humor. But this sort of thinking was definately present in Mao's own thinking, I can dig up some quotes if you want. |
Okay. That seems to be a natural extension of Marxist thinking.
quote:
Originally posted by Boshko
Right, but Mao never trusted the party to nearly the extent that, say, Lenin did. Too much meglomania and primitive populism in Mao's makeup. |
Agreed. I would say more of paranoia instead of meglomania, however. He was also deeply influenced by his upbringing.
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Originally posted by Boshko
Quantity =! quality. I've read a collection of his works, the stuff that had anything to do with guerilla warfare were excellent and very insightful the rest weren't of much use and didn't display any really deep thinking. |
I guess it depends on what you mean by "really deep." But yes, if you are saying that Mao is less theoretical than Marx, then definitely.
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Originally posted by Boshko
And keep in mind that I don't have that much more use for orthodox Marxism than I do for Maoism. |
You will never know how this or that other bit of knowledge will be useful.  Anyway, "use" is a relative term and a lot of people just do knowledge because they want to do knowledge.
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Originally posted by Boshko
7. All that ridiculousness about proper class backgrounds in which people were discriminated against according to the class of their parents (although China didn't take this to anywhere near the extent that North Korea took it, where its become almost a quasi-caste system). |
Marx would have no use for people coming from capitalist and landlord backgrounds in the party, either.
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Bosh
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Taehan Mingook
Jan 1970
time: 00:32
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Materialist, not materialistic, one is a philosophy, the other a personal trait. |
I know. Too simplify, he took the basic system of Hegel's Idealism and substituted Materialism.
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There was a split in the party between those who followed Mao, and rest. |
Right, Mao's enemies wanted to concentrate on the cities while Mao realized (correctly) that that wouldn't work and decided to concentrate on rural areas.
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Marx, in his introduction to the Russian edition of The Communist Manifesto, stated that the peasant communes of Russia could serve as a basis from which to begin the creation of a socialist revolution |
Right, but this is a pretty isolated thought (I think it was only mentioned there and then in one letter) and not really incorporated into the general body of this theory (which definately classifies peasantry as a non-progressive element).
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The general concept, however, is as old as the Leninist theory of imperialism. Marx had no real theory of imperialism because it had not fully developed during his lifetime. |
Haven't read Lenin's writings on imperialism (have only read Revolution and the State and What Is To Be Done by him).
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The CCP never had any controls of cities during the First Civil War (IIRC, 1927 - 1939), all the way up till 1946. |
They had considerable influence in Canton and in the Wuhan area during certain times and held a few cities very briefly. Basically early on the CCP concentrated on working in the cities, this didn't work too well so after that they mostly concentrated on the country. There's a Mao quote I can dig up about how the revolution (except for the last year or two whent he south was conquered) always proceeded from rural areas to the cities and was based on rural areas.
Right, were was also a few other rural communes at that time.
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That's correct, but only if you look in terms of number, not in ranking and where they were (major cities as compared to towns and villages). |
Right but (at least in the early years) you had a HELL of a lot more cadres from rural backgrounds running things in cities than vice versa.
How so?
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In the liberated areas Mao conducted land reforms, taking land from the landlords and rich farmers and distributing them among the poor peasants. |
Depends on the time period, during some time periods there was just rent-reduction without redistribution. Of course when Mao finally won the peasants lost almost all their land and got generally shafted.
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That seems to be a natural extension of Marxist thinking. |
Not really, because it basically implies that the proletariat of rich countries are the exploiters rather than the exploited which is distinctly unMarxist.
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You will never know how this or that other bit of knowledge will be useful. |
Oh, its definately useful stuff to know about, but that doesn't stop it from being bunk.
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Marx would have no use for people coming from capitalist and landlord backgrounds in the party, either. |
There's a massive difference between not allowing them entrance into the party and conducting active persecution against people who's only crime was having parents of the wrong class decades after the victory of the revolution.
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In Russia, the proletariat were only 5% of the population at the time of the revolution. China was not much less. |
But in Russia the commies were based in the cities while (after Mao took over) the Chinese commies were based in rural areas. A real massive difference, the Russian commies were basically an occupying force that set themselves over hostile or apathetic peasants while the Chinese based themselves on the peasants.
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As with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc states, there were only two ways out: move-forward to real socialism, losing the perks and privileges that come with absolute power, or restore capitalism in such a way that they retain perks, privileges, and power. |
Exactly. Although a lot of this comes out a long period of tention between relatively level-headed Soviet-style planers and Mao-style economic loonyness (ie "better a socialist train that runs late than a revisionist train that runs on time) with the level-headed faction winning out after Mao's death and then becomming gradually more capitalist.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Che, it is interesting that you think what is going on in China may only be a phase in the development of the communism: First, let the capitalists develop the country, then nationalize all the businesses and revert to socialism. |
I did not say that's what I think is happening, only what may be happening. As I said, by letting capitalists in to the party, it seems that this is not a Chinese NEP, but a Chinese Yeltsin, i.e., a counter-revolution.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:32
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quote:
I did not say that's what I think is happening, only what may be happening. |
It seems to me that if the only, or at least the most efficient, way to develop the country is to adopt capitalism, then moving away from capitalism would lead to decline.
On the other hand, this might not be a problem if the communists are more interested in a morally pure system than an efficient or wealthy one. However, if this is the case, and if they define morally pure as "communism" (and, by extension, say that capitalism is immoral), then they need to explain why they are adopting capitalism to get rich.
But, if capitalism ISN'T immoral (assuming the communists are consistent), and IS the most efficient way to make money and develop the nation (which our hypothetical "communists" obviously think, if they are going this route), then why revert to socialism at all? It can't be out of a sense of moral purity, and it can't be out of a wish to maximize money, so what is it?
So, either they are contradicting themselves, or they are setting themselves up for a huge fall.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:32
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quote:
Nobody said politics is consistent. Not in the real world, anyway. |
Oh, granted. But if that's the case, it'd be nice for the communists to admit that a)they know capitalism works better for generating wealth, b)they are willing to go against their ideals in order to generate wealth, and c)they know that once they establish their "perfect system", they won't generate as much wealth and will slide backwards. One wonders why they go through all the nonsense - they should just have established their dictatorship to begin with, and left out all of the wealth generation. It makes them appear more intellectually honest.
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04-12-2003 11:17
Free Trade creates a world system and facilitates the union of workers. 
You actually believe that? You're so cute.
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