Maoism vs Marxism

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis:

"Vice-chairman Lin is the comrade in arms of our great leader
Chairman Mao. He is Chairman Mao's best pupil, his best successor.
He is the deputy chief of staff of the entire nation. He has appreciated
the value of the thought of Mao Tse-tung in the most complete, the
most rigorous and the most scientific way. In the most loyal, the most
resolute and the most fearless of ways he has always upheld Chairman
Mao's position as supreme leader. He has defended the thought of Mao
Tse-tung as well as the revolutionary line of Chairman Mao. With the
greatest penetration and dynamism, he has led and organised the
movement for spreading the thought of Mao Tse-tung throughout the
entire nation...Vice-chairman Lin has brandished the great red
standard of the thought of Mao Tse-tung the highest, highest, highest.
He understands the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung in the deepest, deepest,
deepest way and he applies them in the best, best, best way. Vice-
chairman Lin gives the entire party the highest example of the
thoroughness, the spread and the defense of the thought of Mao Tse-
tung and he will forever be our brilliant example in this study."

(Peking Daily, November 18, 1967)

This is the type of garbage that typified the "Cultural Revolution".
This is the type of communist thought that Dan Axtell, Quispe and the
other Maoists holds up as exemplary and want us to follow.

Meanwhile, Chris Burford tries to mediate between the ultra-Maoism
of these folks and most of the rest of us on the list who will have
nothing to do with cult worship.

Cult worship of this kind has nothing to do with Marxism. People who
give it any kind of credibility at all weaken Marxism. In the era of
capitalist decay, all the working-class has is its power of critical
thought and its ability to use its collective power to confront the
capitalist class. Maoism defeats critical thought. It is a way to avoid
thought. I suggest that those who are too lazy to think can find this
sort of thing appealing.

Unfortunately, we confront a powerful ruling-class in the imperialist
centers like the USA, Great Britain, Germany, etc. We have to be much more
intelligent than the CIA, the FBI and other institutions of class rule.
Therefore, our survival depends on our ability to think clearly and
critically. Maoism invites you to leave your brains at the front-door.
This might be satisfactory to cultists like Axtell and Quispe, but bad
medicine for the rest of us trying to change society.


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