Maoism

Mao Zedong, first president of the People's Republic of China.

Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (in simplified Chinese, 毛泽东思想; Chinese Traditional, 毛澤東思想; pinyin, Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng) is the theory of the extreme left developed by Mao Zedong (1893-1976).

In the People's Republic of China it is the official doctrine of the Communist Party of China. However, after the reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, aimed at a market economy, socialism with Chinese characteristics has been the policy applied in the country, and the official definition and role of Thought of Mao Zedong in this country has been radically modified, although his image still presides over Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The term Maoism has never been used officially by the Communist Party of China, except as a derivative word. The preferred term has always been Mao Zedong Thought. Similarly, some Maoist parties outside of China sometimes refer to themselves as Marxist-Leninists, reflecting their view that Mao did not substantially modify Lenin's approaches, but instead developed and adapted them to the Chinese Revolution.

However, other Maoist parties consider that Mao made theoretical and practical contributions that meant a substantial development of Leninism, which is why they are called Marxist-Leninist-Maoists or simply Maoists. For example, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) differs from other organizations, such as the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), with this adjective. There are Maoist parties that maintain that today it is impossible to defend the theory of Marx and Lenin without studying the contributions of Mao and the experience of the Chinese Revolution regarding the continuation of the class struggle, under new forms, within the framework of the construction of the socialist society.

Flag of Maoism.

Outside China, the term Maoist was used since the 1960s, generally in a hostile manner ^{[citation needed]}, to describe the parties and people who supported Mao Zedong and his form of communism, as opposed to the form applied in the USSR (considered, to from the death of Iósif Stalin, revisionists by the Maoists).

Definition

Differences with classical Marxism

Maoism and Marxism differ in the ways the proletariat is defined and in the political and economic conditions that would initiate a communist revolution.

1. 

   The Communist Party mobilizes all its members to practice agriculture.
   For Karl Marx, the proletariat was the urban working class, which was determined in the revolution by which the bourgeoisie overthrew feudalism. For Mao Zedong, the proletariat was the millions of peasants, to which it referred as masses of people. Mao based his revolution on the peasantry. They possessed, according to him, two qualities: (i) were poor and (ii) were a blackboard; in Mao's words, [a] blank paper leaf has no stains, so the newest and most beautiful words can be written on it.
2. For Marx, the proletarian revolution was domestically fed by the capitalist mode of production; that as capitalism developed, "a tension between the productive forces and the mode of production rises." The political tension between the productive forces (the workers) and the owners of the means of production (the capitalists) would be an inevitable incentive for the proletarian revolution that would lead to a communist society. Mao did not adhere to Marx's theory of inevitable cyclicity in the economic system. Its goal was to unify the Chinese nation and thus achieve a progressive change for China in the form of communism; therefore, the revolution was necessary immediately. In The Great Union of the Popular Masses (1919), Mao wrote that the decay of the state, the sufferings of humanity and the darkness of society have come to an extreme.

People's War

Upholding that political power arises from the barrel of a gun, Maoism emphasizes the revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of the people against the exploiting classes and their state structures, which Mao called a people's war. Mobilizing large parts of the rural population to rebel against established institutions through participation in guerrilla warfare, Maoist Thought focuses on surrounding the cities from the countryside.

Maoism sees the industrial-rural divide as a major divide exploited by capitalism, identifying capitalism as involving developed First World urban industrial societies ruling over developing Third World rural societies. [29] Maoism identifies peasant insurgencies in particular national contexts that were part of a world revolution context, in which Maoism sees the global countryside as overwhelming global cities. Because of this urban capitalist First World imperialism towards the rural Third World, Maoism has supported national liberation movements in the Third World.

Organization of the masses

Contrary to the Leninist vanguard model used by the Bolsheviks, the Maoist theory of the mass line maintains that the party should not be separated from the popular masses, neither in politics nor in revolutionary struggle. In order to carry out a successful revolution, the needs and demands of the masses must be communicated to the party so that the party can interpret them with a Marxist vision.

The class struggle in socialism

A key concept that distinguishes Maoism from other communist ideologies is the assertion that after the seizure of power social classes subsist and therefore class struggle continues during socialist rule (as a result of the fundamental antagonistic contradiction between the capitalist and the communist path). Even when the proletariat has achieved state power through a socialist revolution, the bourgeoisie has the potential to restore capitalism.

According to Maoist analysis, the Soviet experience showed how the bureaucracy entrenched in the state apparatus could become a new type of bourgeoisie and restore capitalism. Preventing this from happening in China was the main reason why the Cultural Revolution was organized, in which Mao called for deepening socialism and exposing revisionists within the party. For the Maoists, it was a huge struggle for power under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a struggle between the socialist path and the capitalist path.

Maoism and the Soviet Union

Mao analyzed the changes produced in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death, and stated that after the XX Congress of the CPSU, not only Stalin's flags had been abandoned, but also those of Lenin and Marx, thus beginning the process of restoration capitalist in what had been the homeland of socialism. Mao claimed that the Soviet Union had become a "social fascist" country inwardly (ie: socialist in word but fascist in fact) and social-imperialist outward (socialist in word, imperialist in deed); and that the CPSU and all the communist parties aligned with it had become revisionists and instruments of imperialist domination by the Soviet Union. Thus began a long history of tension between China and the Soviet Union that would lead to the Sino-Soviet split.

For Mao, Stalin was a defender of Leninism, and he made great strides in building socialism. However, he considered that he had made mistakes. Such an assessment of Stalin clashed both with the opinions of the CPSU and the Communist Parties that depended on it, as well as with those of Trotskyism and capitalist liberalism and social democracy, dividing waters on the international left.

History

Birth of the Chinese Communist Movement

President Mao is the Red Sun in Our Hearts, People's Republic of China, 1968, Lithography

In the early 20th century, certain members of China's traditional elite began to show some discontent with Confucianism. looking for new philosophical and political models, generally Western-inspired, with the intention of refloating the decadent Qing Empire, devastated after the failed Boxer Rebellion and submissive to Western and Japanese imperialism. The crisis situation was such that voices calling for the end of the monarchy began to appear, the most notable case being that of statesman Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Tongmenghui secret society, a direct predecessor of the Kuomintang and architect of the Xinhai Revolution. that in 1912 he managed to oust Puyi, the last Qing emperor, from power, ushering in the republican period. The fall of the last Chinese imperial dynasty marked in many respects the end of the Confucian moral order, making Confucianism synonymous with political and social conservatism, at least within intellectual circles. The rejection of Confucianism was defended by the ideologue Chen Duxiu during the Movement for the New Culture that took place between 1915 and 1919, proposing the total destruction of the traditions and values of the past. The New Culture Movement was spearheaded by New Youth, a magazine published by Chen Duxiu and was profoundly influential on the young Mao Zedong, whose first published work appeared in the magazine's pages.

In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending the First World War and granting the Japanese Empire control of the former German concessions in the province of Shandong, something that caused great unrest among the Chinese population, leading to the outbreak of the protests of the May Fourth Movement, the seed of the Chinese Communist Party. The party would be officially founded in 1921 by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao with Soviet advice. During the interwar period, which in China was characterized by great instability, with the country divided into factions in what would become known as the Warlord Era, the ideological differences between the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Party were few. In 1935, during the Long March, the flight of the Chinese communists from the Jiangxi Soviet towards the north in the context of the Chinese Civil War, Mao was elected party leader. It is from this moment, with the Chinese communists established in Yan'an, when the first ideological differences with respect to the Soviet model begin to be noticed.

The consolidation of Maoism

At the end of the 1930s, Mao wrote several texts in which the ideological drift of Chinese communism began to be defined. In 1937, the year in which the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, interrupting the civil war, Mao wrote two essays that over the years would become the basis of Maoism: On the practice and On contradiction. Both are philosophical texts through which Mao seeks to continue the contributions of Lenin and Stalin in the field of Dialectical Materialism, analyzing and treating the contractions of capitalism focusing on the material reality of a China recently immersed in a bloody war against Japan.. That same year he published a military manual titled On guerrilla warfare , to which in 1938 he added On prolonged warfare . Both texts analyze the correct way of fighting when facing an enemy that is superior in number and, above all, in material, as was the case with the Japanese Imperial Army. However, these two texts would exceed the end of the Second World War, becoming the guideline to be followed by both the Chinese communists in the second phase of the civil war and by many other Maoist movements around the world. It was during the Yan'an Rectification Movement between 1942 and 1945 that the main deviation from the Soviet line took place, reinforcing the ideas put forward by Mao in his essays and stressing the importance of the peasantry. as a revolutionary subject. In disseminating Mao's ideas, both politically and in the military, the role of the Yenan Anti-Japanese Military and Political University was fundamental. This study center, opened in 1931, would remain open until 1945.

Once in power, the Chinese Communist Party will define Mao Zedong Thought as Marxism-Leninism applied in a Chinese context. During the post-revolutionary period, Mao would come to the conclusion that the class struggle continues even if the proletariat has already overthrown the bourgeoisie, due to the existence of capitalist restorationist elements within the Communist Party itself, something that will be fundamental when it comes to understand the purges of the anti-right Movement but above all of the Cultural Revolution

Maoism in China after Mao's death

Beijing, 1978. The poster says: Long live Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong's Thought!

Since Mao's death in 1976 and Deng Xiaoping's reforms in 1978, the government of the People's Republic of China has effectively abandoned Maoism, although Mao Zedong Thought remains nominally the state ideology. The party's statutes have been rewritten to give Deng Xiaoping's ideas greater prominence than Mao's. In China, it is allowed to question and criticize particular actions of Mao, but there is a ban on publicly questioning the validity of Maoism and the present actions carried out by the Communist Party of China in the name of Maoism. According to Alexandre Garcia Turcan, author of the book In Defense of the Chinese People, "If by Maoism we understand the fanaticism and dogmatism of the Cultural Revolution, then yes, Deng was an anti-Maoist. On the other hand, if by Maoism we understand all the theoretical legacy left by Mao Zedong until the 1960s, then we can affirm that Deng was a Maoist".

Mao is officially recognized by the Communist Party as a great revolutionary leader for his role in the fight against the Japanese and the creation of the People's Republic of China, but Maoism is currently considered by the Communist Party as an economic and political disaster. In Deng's day, support for orthodox Maoism was considered a form of left deviance and a manifestation of personality cult, although such manifestations are attributed to the Gang of Four rather than to himself. Mao. Deng, in an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, stated "We have to make a clear distinction between the nature of Chairman Mao's mistakes and the crimes of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four. For most of his life, Chairman Mao did some very good things. He many times saved the party and the State from crisis. Without him, the Chinese people had, at the very least, spent much more time fumbling in the dark'. Deng also stated that they would not do to Chairman Mao what Khrushchev did to Stalin.

Successful economic reforms have made 95.5% of Chinese citizens support the Communist Party of China. Mao Zedong is considered the father and founder of the People's Republic of China, but criticism of the Cultural Revolution has faded.

Maoism in the world

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center) in February 2013.

Since 1962, criticism of Soviet policy by the Communist Party of China caused various divisions in the communist parties throughout the world. At first, the Albanian Party of Labor supported China, as did many communist parties in Southeast Asia, such as the Communist Party of Thailand, the Communist Party of Indonesia, etc. Some Asian parties, such as the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Workers' Party of Korea tried to take a middle ground. In Japan, the Japanese Communist Party has also had a Maoist-oriented faction. In the West and South, a number of parties and organizations maintained contacts with the Chinese Communist Party, taking names such as the Communist Party (Marxist- Leninist Party) or Revolutionary Communist Party to distinguish itself from the traditional pro-Soviet communist parties. Maoist movements were, in most cases, shaped mainly by the waves of student radicalism during the 1960s and 1970s. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, a parallel international communist movement emerged, although it was never as homogeneous and formalized as the tendency prone to Moscow.

Following Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, the Maoist movement came to denounce the new leadership as betrayal of the cause of Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought.

The current international Maoist movement brings together those who confronted Deng, and considered that he was distancing himself from Maoism, and other more modern ones. Although there are not many parties that claim to be strictly Maoists, in numerous countries on almost all continents there are parties that defend Mao's contributions to Marxism-Leninism, already considering themselves Maoists or “Mao Thought”.

During the 1980s two parallel regroupment movements arose, one involving the Communist Party of the Philippines (which gave birth to the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity and Struggle)), and the Internationalist Movement Revolutionary (in which the Communist Party of Peru-SL participates). In the Honduran context, the Communist Party of Honduras was divided between pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese members, to the point of separating between the traditional Communist Party (PCH) and the Maoist-oriented Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Honduras (PCMLH). Both tendencies They claimed Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, although the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement later came to use the term Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Today the Maoist organizations, grouped in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, have their main foci in South Asia, with armed struggles taking place in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Parallel to this international, a regional structure has been founded, the Coordination Committee of the Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia.

In all South American countries there are Maoist or Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tse Tung Thought parties.

Some of the parties or organizations that are considered Maoists or Mao Thought in South America and Europe are the following:

• Revolutionary Communist Party of Argentina
• Marxist Maoist Party of Argentina
• Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action)
• Revolutionary Communist Party (Chile)
• Communist Party of Bolivia (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)
• Independent and Revolutionary Workers Movement (MOIR) (Colombia)
• Communist Party of Colombia - Marxist Leninist
• Colombia Labour Party
• Popular Revolutionary Movement Paraguay Piahurá
• Communist Party of Peru - Red Cross
• Peruvian Communist Party - Advanced October
• Communist Party of Peru-Sendero Luminoso
• Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay
• Agricultural and Maoist Sector
• Maoist Marxist Communist Workers Union (Colombia)
• Communist Party of Spain (reconstituted)
• Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers / Reorganizational Movement of the Proletarian Party
• Liberation Party / Former Communist Vanguard
• Communist unification of Spain

There is a Maoist group, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), based in the United States, with its own interpretations of Maoism. He opposes the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, mainly because of the leadership exercised over him by the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States, a party with which the MIM has repeatedly and harshly argued.

Notable among Western Maoist theorists is Frenchman Charles Bettelheim, who influenced the rebel movements in France in the 1960s and 1970s, and published essays on the transition to the socialist phase.

Differences with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

The three most notable differences between Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Mao Zedong Thought are as follows:

1. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is considered a higher stage of Marxism-Leninism, just as Marxism-Leninism is considered a higher stage of Marxism. However, Mao Zedong's thought is simply Marxism-Leninism applied to the particularities of the Chinese revolution.
2. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is considered to be universally applicable, while Mao Zedong's thinking aspects are generally not.
3. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism completely rejects the Theory of the Three Worlds of Thought Mao Zedong, considering it part of the right turn in the Communist Party of China led by Deng Xiaoping near the end of President Mao's life and a deviation from Marxist-Leninist theories of imperialism.

Canadian writer J. Moufawad-Paul discusses the importance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in his 2016 work Continuity and Rupture. Moufawad-Paul takes the commonly accepted Marxist-Leninist-Maoist perspective on the historical development of philosophy, stating that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as it has developed contemporaneously did not emerge until the 1980s with its synthesis by the Communist Party of the Peru - Shining Path.