Re: [A-List] RE: A reformulation (only five?)

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's typical of an Indian communist to accuse Mao of being a
revisionist. Indian communists are like its colonial masters, the
British communists, disillusioned and ineffective and remain masters
only of the Queen's English, except that Indian communists are more
concerned with learning the correct grammer. The ICP is totally
irrevelent given their support of India-Soviet geopolitical alliance
after the Sino-soviet split through the Cold War.

HenryC.K. Liu

See an old exchange below:




From:     Jim
To:       marxist-leninist-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:  [M-L L] Re: extract 2: upon Chairman Mao
Date:     Saturday, February 06, 1999 5:19 PM

1



In message <36BCC4B1.F6F6A07F@x> , "Charles F. Winston"
<-x-> writes
> Comrades
>
> "Henry C.K. Liu" wrote:
>
> > Hari Kumar wrote:
> >
> > > "THE USA WOULD FIND US MORE COOPERATIVE THAN THE KUOMINTANG. WE WILL NOT
> > > BE AFRAID OF DEMOCRATIC AMERICA INFLUENCE, WE WILL WELCOME IT.. AMERICA
> > > DOES NOT NEED TO FEAR THAT WE WILL NOT BE COOPERATIVE. WE MUST COOPERATE
> > > AND WE MUST HAVE AMERICAN HELP". MAO ZE DONG TO US DIPLOMAT JOHN
> > > SERVICE, POLITICAL ADVISER TO AMERICAN FORCES SECOND WORLD WAR;
> > > J.SERVICE: "LOST CHANCE IN CHINA"; NEW YORK; 1974; P.303-307
> --------------------------
> >
> > It is important to make clear that this statement by Mao related exclusively
> to the prosecution of the war against Japanese aggression between 1941- 46, a
> period when global communism was
> > cooperating with global capitalism against Fascism.
> >
> > Henry C.K. Liu
>
> I must agree with Henry C.K. Liu that this assurance of cooperation which
> Chairman Mao gave John Service was exclusively in relation to the prosecution of
> war against Japan.
>    To condemn Mao for this is to condemn Stalin for making a pact with Britain
> and the United States against Hitler and smacks of Trotskyism.
>
> Fraternally
>
> Charles


2



At the heart of the Alliance's critique of Mao is the charge that he was
a revolutionary, but at the same time a revisionist. The same line has
been argued over a long period by Bill Bland here in Britain.


3



I do not think we will get very far in this debate unless we confront
this central concept.


4



Lenin defined revisionism in a number of ways, emphasising different
aspects at different times. Central, though, to his analysis was that
revisionism preserves the form of Marxism in certain respects, but
strips it of its revolutionary content. He expressed this very clearly
in the introduction to "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade
Kautsky". Speaking of the revisionists, he wrote:


5



"By means of obvious sophistry they rob Marxism of its revolutionary
living spirit; they recognize everything in Marxism except revolutionary
methods of struggle, preaching and preparing them, training the masses
precisely in this direction."


6



Again, in "State and Revolution", the same theme is stressed:


7



"During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes
constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage
malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of
lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them
into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their
names with a certain halo for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes
and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time
emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its
revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. At the present time, the
bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement
concur in this "doctoring" of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort
the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul."


8



Revisionism is an anti-revolutionary current. For Lenin, this was
paramount. It explains why he was so forceful in his critique and
condemnation of it.


9



The idea that there could be such a thing as *revolutionary* revisionism
is completely alien to Lenin's writings on the question. And yet for
Bill Bland and Hari Kumar, this new concept of revolutionary revisionism
is presented as the key to a Marxist-Leninist analysis of Mao.


10



Now, it is possible in the imperialist epoch to be a revolutionary
without being a Communist. Examples abound. It is also possible to be a
revolutionary who has been influenced by Marxism to a certain extent,
without being a Communist. Again, examples abound. Further, it is
possible to be a Communist revolutionary while making certain mistakes
on the theoretical and strategic plain. Once more, there is no shortage
of examples. But Bland and Kumar are not saying either of these: they
want to treat Mao, and Maoism, under the definition of revisionism. And
this we cannot except without doing great violence to the meaning of the
term itself within Leninist discourse.


11



Bland and Kumar argue that Mao could be a revolutionary revisionist
because the bourgeois ideas and interests which he represented within
Marxism were those of the Chinese bourgeoisie, which itself had a
contradiction with imperialism and was prior to 1949 a revolutionary
class. What this amounts to saying is that Mao was a bourgeois
revolutionary, not a communist at all.


12



But is it true that the Chinese bourgeoisie was revolutionary between
1911 and 1949? Is it true that Mao represented no more than a modern Sun
Yat Sen? What is the basis of this argument? Leaving aside tearing war-
time quotes about US imperialism out of their true context - a dishonest
and un-communist method in my opinion - the only basis seems to be the
argument by Mao that the New Democratic revolution was to be carried out
by the block of four classes (including the national bourgeoisie) and
that the national bourgeoisie can play a role in the construction of
socialism.


13



The first was nothing other than the position adopted by Stalin. There
are no grounds for establishing Mao's alleged lack of Leninism on this
terrain.


14



The second aspect, the role of the bourgeoisie in the construction of
socialism, is of little use to those who want to dismiss the Chinese
revolution as no more than a bourgeois revolution, for the simple reason
that whatever Mao stated in his writings, the Chinese bourgeoisie was
completely expropriated in the course of the 1950s. If there was a
threat of capitalist restoration after this, it did not come from the
already liquidated internal traditional bourgeoisie, but from genuinely
revisionist trends within the party itself. But these trends arose in
opposition to Mao and Maoism, not in alliance with them. Private capital
in China was gradually squeezed out of existence. The worst you could
castigate Mao's practice for on this terrain was that he did not proceed
to expropriate the bourgeoisie all at once. But that would be an ultra-
left critique, and not a Marxist-Leninist one. Even in the Communist
Manifesto, Marx and Engels, clearly writing about revolutions in the
advanced capitalist nations, wrote that the proletariat had to seize
power first in order to wrest control over the means of production by
degrees. Even for the proletariat of England, France and Germany, Marx
and Engels did not advocate nationalisation and expropriation "all at
once".


15



I am no Maoist, though I recognise in the Chinese revolution the second
most important working class-led revolution of the century, and I
recognise in Mao the chief strategist of this revolution. That does not
make his writings some kind of bible to be studied in a religious way,
nor would Mao have wanted such an un-scientific approach. But neither
should he be the subject of what amounts to a slanderous attack from
certain quarters.


16



I will finish with two related observations.


17



In the anti-revisionist movement, up until Mao died, the PLA and Enver
Hoxha openly praised the CCP and Mao on many occasions. In 1978, they
published attacks, stating that they had long had reservations. As much
as I respect the Albanian communists for their heroism and steadfastness
in the war against fascism and nazi occupation and in the hard fight to
build socialism in a hostile environment internationally, I cannot
accept this as the Marxist way of conducting ourselves. No Marxist
leader should praise another when he secretly holds that the latter is
not even a Marxist but rather a bourgeois revolutionary. The PLA
repeatedly referred to China as socialist at a time when it must have
thought it was anything but, if the later writings are to be believed.


18



Secondly, we should not approach this debate on the basis of either Mao
or Hoxha must be right. It is possible that in certain respects, neither
were right. Great revolutionaries also make great mistakes sometimes.
Great revolutionaries also can fall into leftism or dogmatism, or
rightist and revisionism. But we must not read history backwards. People
change. We should honour past leaders in the only way that Marxists
*can*: namely by trying to overcome their errors, and to carry out
Marx's challenge in the 11th thesis on Feuerbach: we need to change the
world.


19



For communism


20



Jim Hillier
Communist Action


21



22



hari.kumar@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> "Within the culture of Arab politics Saddam is  a very good leader and politician, perhaps even a statemen.  He stands head and shoulder above
> many others and a promoter of pan-Arabism.  Modern Iraq owed a lot to his leadership, including liberation of women."
>
> RESPONSE:
>
> Tihs is an extraodrindary remark, and appears to acceptable to this mailing group as judged by Nestor's remark.
>
> Saddam was (no longer is) a representative of a certain progressive faction - which ML-ists woudl be happy to call a nascent national borugeoisie. In that capacity, he had a certain progressive stance.
>
> Within that capacity, it is not suprising that he butchered the worker, peasant, and (revisionist) Communist party stalwarts.
>
> The nuanced 'within the Arab world' - does not adequately rehabilitate this butcher.
>
> I have watched some of the dicourses here with some interest. From justifying present day China as 'socialist' - to supporting Saddam in his glory days.
>
> My eloquence does not match that of those who can parse the necessary distinctions between this type of 'socialism' from 'capitalism'.
>
> Hari Kumar