Re: Stalin, Mao, idealism and voluntarism

[Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pat for MIM continues:

"The correctness or otherwise of the ideological and political line
decides everything. When the Party's line is correct, then
everything will come its way. If it has no followers, then
it can have followers; if it has no guns, then it can have guns;
if it has no political power, then it can have political power."
(S. Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People, p. 290)

This quote is what causes some to call Mao "idealist," but it's
a really simple-minded critique. Mao didn't say just wanting the
revolution made it happen. He was talking about a science of
revolution and how science is decisive.

It is really fatuous for Trotskyists and academics to be
criticizing Mao for idealism when what he did worked in practice.
The science of revolution is definitely one of those sciences
where we require worldly proof. (Scientific) practice is principal
even in this science. It is a failure of science that
Trotskyists and academics cannot recognize what works in
history and what doesn't and instead they assume irresponsible
nihilist positions.

For those who want more of a sense of Mao on this, I suggest his
military writings. Proyect just quoted Castro on why theory
is not so necessary and action is. Well the Cuban people will
know I mean no harm when I say that there is a lot of action
in China's history to derive revolutionary science from!
While revolutionary battles in Cuba may have been decided by
a few hundred at key moments in the revolution, in China over
a period of decades it involved hundreds of millions. It was
Mao 's grasp of military science that allowed him to start
from an inferior position in terms of people, money and
technology and win over entire batallions of the enemy to his
side as the struggle progressed. For people who want the
institutional violence of imperialism ended at the lowest
human cost, studying Mao is absolutely essential.




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