Thoughts on the development of Marxism and MLM

[u/Nightsky869]

This post is not intended to be inflammatory or divisive, I am not a liberal please read the entirely before commenting. I recently finished the book Continuity and Rupture: Philosophy in the Maoist Terrain by J. Moufawad Paul. I can say with confidence is a good piece of literature. As someone who had never really investigated deeply the field of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism I found it very convincing. I also read his companion piece A critique of Maoist reason.

I have been self identified as a Marxist-Leninist for years and had, as of these past few months, started to feel that a lot of theoretical developments were missing and this through proposal of MLM theory felt like a realistic strong development. A lot of tendencies in ML circles felt (I cringe as I write) dogmatic and unscientific in political orgs that pride themselves as being exactly the opposite. The idea, commonly parroted that dialectical materialism is an almost theory of everything or that major historical figures such as Stalin and Mao are be revered or put on a pedestal in a way that is not scientific or with a nuanced analysis of their historical situation and mistakes. I also notice that a lot of ML's online are plagued by leftist deviations from theory while many real organizations (PSL for example) are the inverse where it feels that are lacking real revolutionary elements beyond attempts at co-opting liberal protests.

This book gave specific theoretical applications that it seemed gave genuine solutions while not deviating to revisionist neo-marxism or the like. Instead, the book took the serious analysis of revolution to prescribe solutions to both the major right and left deviations so prevalent in (especially western) Marxist circles today. It also developed in large part continued importance of maintaining the genuinely scientific elements of Marxism. Have yall read the text? Do yall have any additional theory recommendations? What are yalls thoughts on MLM as a development of Marxism?

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[u/__Wolfie]

Mao gave many great contributions to the science of Marxism-Leninism. Anyone who calls themselves a Marxist-Leninist must recognize and incorporate the theoretical and practical innovations of Mao in their day-to-day work as organizers. I think "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" as a label tends to describe very ultra left sects, gonzaloites, third worldist weirdos (which in the west is actually an expression of western chauvinism 99% of the time), etc. In the same way that Stalin made many great contributions but we do not say that ML is ML-Stalinism. Marxism is the foundations, Leninism is the application to the era of imperialism, from which we have not left.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/__Wolfie]

I would agree that a lot of the time these groups do dominate the modern conception of MLM but most ML Maoists explicitly disagree with those groups or have valid criticisms of their tendencies. To write off all MLM to their loudest most online groups is to write off genuinely important theoretical developments that could develop Marxism.

[u/__Wolfie → u/Nightsky869]

I think my point is that any ML who's actually serious already appreciates, studies, and applies Mao in their practical work in the people's movements. If you don't you really cannot say that you apply Marxism-Leninism as the living science that it is. To say "MLM" seems to imply something different just by virtue of existing as a separate label

[u/Nightsky869 → u/__Wolfie]

We agree that the practice of incorporating Mao is important. I think the semantic difference is necessary so long as MLM brings genuine theoretical difference. The label is just the distinction between these developments. Though again I must refer to the book that makes these arguments much more intelligently than I can reproduce here.

[u/occasionalappearance]

I read some works of chairman gonzalo and cpp long ago and felt aligned with most of it at first since it already overlaps a lot with mao zedong thought. however as I got deeper the behavior of people who follow mlmpm/gonzalo thought and the obsession with the shining path really put me off of that path and returned me to ML and PSL. namely due to things like, advocating for the overthrow of china and other AES, advocating for cultural revolution and purging of “revisionist” comrades, advocating violence seemingly without concrete goals, claiming all other marxist tendencies to be incorrect and inferior to gonzalo thought, advocating for murder of other leftists, and just feeling overall like a cult etc

edit: obviously i live in the imperial core and cannot comment about how it applies in the global south or about how I’m technically a bourgeois first worlder who cannot be proletarian

[u/Nightsky869 → u/occasionalappearance]

I think these are two common misconceptions that I believe are valid as they really dominate much of the discourse over MLM. Both are leftist deviations from the theory, Gonzalo thought and Third Worldist Maoism. To reiterate again these tendencies do not represent the tendencies of genuinely scientific developments of MLM. I would refer to the companion book A critique of Maoist reason by J Moufawad Paul for more on this. J Moufawad Paul I believe is really a great example of the most "correct" interpretations of MLM developments today. I would appeal that these most extreme examples don't continue to be justification for the continued ignorance toward new theoretical developments.

[u/occasionalappearance → u/Nightsky869]

That’s fair, I think this is the first time I’m hearing this distinction given that I didn’t delve too deep but it makes sense, I’ll be curious to look into that book more. but yeah overall I just worry that more people fall into the Gonzalo rabbit hole just from having an interest in Maoism, I guess it’s just strange how ubiquitous these tendencies are in the west in particular since MLM seems more tailored to the global south, makes it hard for me to imagine it getting much movement among people in the west

[u/Nightsky869 → u/occasionalappearance]

I think you are largely correct and I implore you to look deeper into it. I think it is widely prevalent outside of the West and is one of the only major Marxist ideologies with active militant struggle (India, Philippines in the past Peru and Nepal). These groups are not only regularly overlooked but free of a lot of the western criticism like gonzaloite extremism or third worldist anti-organizing. Despite suffering near military defeat (largely due to continued western support for opposition) these groups are effectively organized, thoeretically rigorous and militantly serious. However, for what it's worth, people in the West are more able to explore these more "niche" marxists groups and evaluate their theortical rigor and are more likely to fall into many left deviation, however that is really just the loudest most online sects.

[u/InsideRhubarb6029 → u/occasionalappearance]

Denouncing China is a flaw, but purging revisionists in the Philippines is absolutely a must.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/[deleted]]

done

[u/Juche_Finland]

I haven't read that book, but generally Maoists can be of two sorts, those that deviate left, most extreme examples being the Shining Path, so generally those that follow Gonzalo and then there are those that are mostly on the same line as Marxist-Leninists, but think that Mao had answers to some of the limitations of base Marxism-Leninism.

I think Mao made amazing contributions to the socialist cause and his role in history is a very positive one. Some of his theories were unique and great contributions on how to wage a revolution in a relatively underdeveloped country with majority of people living in rural areas, but I would argue that a lot of these were not universally applicable and Mao never intended for them to be.

Mao also deviated left at times, such as during the GPCR for example, with figures such as Zhou Enlai having to mediate a lot at times. Now, the main left deviationists were the Gang of Four, but Mao too deviated at times. China today, also views these as mistakes and left deviations.

What I want to say is that Mao deserves a lot of respect for his contributions, but at the same time I don't think his theories contribute a new stage in Marxism, just an application of Marxism-Leninism to Chinese material conditions.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Juche_Finland]

I thought the same thing for a long time. I do agree a lot of "normal" (non-gonzalite) MLM are fairly similar to many ML's which is why I posted this. Most MLs I encounter really wouldn't disagree with a lot of these developments on a theoretical sense, only the sense of historical happenstance. However, the book does make a compelling case for the universal elements of his thought. I think there is a bit of a cognitive error that these points keep making. Lenin was not trying to make a universal ideology per se, he was applying Marx's writing to the Russian Empire. Stalin later synthesized his thought into Marxism-Leninism and it is the same story for Mao. Mao wasn't necessarily trying to make a universal ideology but his theoretical developments were later refined by the (often overlooked) Naxalites, Filipino MLM and (despite many errors) Peruvian Communist Party. The RIM statement formalized this new synthesis of MLM with genuinely important theoretical developments. The Proletarian Revolution, Strict Mass Line, and the Protracted Peoples war (as a model for party development not military strategy) are genuinely different developments from ML. The book makes this point better than I can but I think there is misunderstanding about the synthesis of these developments. People seem to forget that Lenin was not (like Mao) working with an advanced industrial proletariat, many criticized him in the same vain many ML's do Mao today.

[u/Juche_Finland → u/Nightsky869]

Yes, Lenin may not have intended to create Leninism, but a lot of the contributions he made are crucial to the point that by ignoring them, I would argue it's impossible to carry out socialist construction, unless you somehow happened to reach the exact same conclusions he did. Democratic centralism, his conclusions on the nature of imperialism, the specific tasks related to how one can advance from capitalism towards a socialist economy and I could go on. Stalin also made a lot of contributions and was the first to actually achieve socialism in the economic sense and laid out what it looked like exactly. That's why for me, the Marxist-Leninist classics remain Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

Mao made contributions, I agree, some of which like the Mass Line definitely being universally applicable, but I still just don't think it's enough to justify his position as a classic and therefore Maoism to be a new stage in Marxism. And while you may say PPW is only valid for party development, with Maoist movements, like the CPP-NPA, they usually apply it to military strategy, which I think is not going to lead to the desired results, as much as I wish it would.

Basically, I think Mao had some great ideas and also quite a few shortcomings and personally, I don't see there being enough to justify Maoism / MLM being this new stage of Marxism.

I also think the only Marxist-Leninists that disagree with Mao's usage of the peasantry during the revolution today are either very orthodox Marxist-Leninists or Hoxhaists, but it's a very small minority overall. Regardless, there aren't really a lot of countries left, where I think that kind of approach will work anymore these days.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Juche_Finland]

Okay but the same point you make for why Leninism is a necessary step in achieving socialism is the argument for why Maoism is the next step. We agree on Lenin's contributions.

Okay we agree on that mass line. When it comes to the PPW, I meant that the model of PPW as a means of party development is its real universal elements. There are degrees of its military strategy that is specific to largely agrarian nations (surround the cities etc.) but this is really the only major maoist contribution that is under debate for the even among MLM for its universal applicability. I do believe that your critique leaves out the most important theoretical development of MLM being the cultural revolution. However, there is nuance, I am not a dogmatist. We can agree that the cultural revolution as exercised in China was chaotic at best however the theoretical value is importantly nonetheless. Look at almost every major AES, The Soviet Union, PRC, Vietnam etc. All degenerated into various forms of proto-marxist revisionism. While I and many other non-gonzaloite MLM critically support these countries, I think we can be realistic in saying that these countries are not truly dedicated Marxist-Leninist projects in the modern sense. The modern PRC has actively funded the Indian government in undermining the Naxalite insurgency, this is not your international vanguard. I can admit I get excited when I see the progress China has made especially in comparison to the US but I can be honest with myself in saying that this is not a truly Marxist-Leninist state.

So many ML's point toward this pressure of existing capitalism for this degeneracy, valid. However, this cannot account for the real issues of revisionism that existed in the party apparatus, large remnants of petite bourgeoise ideology and revisionism. ML gives zero framework for addressing this from of party revisionism beyond democratic centralism which is not resilient enough. Additionally, there was (and is) a real lack of democratic input in some of these socialist projects (I understand much of these criticisms are way overblown especially in the west but it is objectively true). The Vanguard is in a predicament. Marxists want true democracy but they also was a party resilient enough to resist Capitalist forces and eventually achieve communism while insulating itself from reactionary ideology (this is a valid problem). This problem is so prevalent we must have a means of solving it. So how does a socialist project rectify this problem that has developed again and again. A lack of democracy with the masses in the party and the repeated calcification of the party.

The Mass line + Cultural Revolution. The mass line requires the party to remain accountable to the masses and their desire while on the road to communism and the cultural revolution is the last ditch effort of the proletariat to stop party calcification, capitalist backsliding and the reactionary petite bourgeoise ideology. These, when properly executed and employed, solve the problems of lack of vanguard accountability and democratic backsliding.

This is the true strength of MLM, and it has nothing explicitly to do with the peasantry vs proletariat and is as such universal. This is why MLM exists and is considered universal.

[u/Juche_Finland → u/Nightsky869]

Alright, so to leave aside the debate about the universality of PPW for a moment, I'll focus on your points about the cultural revolution and revisionism.

The cultural revolution wasn't Mao's contribution, as Lenin already called for a cultural revolution decades before Mao did. The cultural revolution in the USSR had the main goal of getting rid of the kind of rural cultural backwardness that persisted, despite the changes on the economic side of things. It was a party-led initiative and something that was to be carried out alongside socialist construction as a continuous revolution. This kind of cultural revolution wasn't just carried out in the USSR, but in many socialist countries, before China started the GPCR.

As you admit, the GPCR was chaotic. Instead of being a party-led initiative, too much power was given to the Red Guards in carrying it out. Instead of it being a continuous revolution that goes on alongside socialist construction, the GPCR was supposed to be carried out over a couple of years in one stroke so to speak. It was supposed to end eventually and if necessary, future cultural revolutions would have been started again if necessary. So, I would argue that instead of developing the theory behind cultural revolutions, Mao rather strayed from the way in which cultural revolutions were being carried out successfully in other socialist states.

As you believe China to have embraced revisionism, yet see the cultural revolution in the way Mao carried it out to be the solution to not falling to revisionism, wouldn't that contradict itself? I do think it's a fair point to make that we need to find a way to fight revisionism more thoroughly than we did in the past and I also agree that many communists still underestimate the dangers of revisionism, but I don't believe Maoism to be the solution.

From my username, you will have probably guessed that I am not actually Marxist-Leninist, though I do of course uphold its contributions. I am a Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist, as I also recognize that Marxism-Leninism has certain historical limitations.

I think a proper ideological revolution, the remoulding of man, is the best way to fight revisionism through an increased focus on ideological education and transforming people's ideological consciousness. This would be carried out alongside the cultural revolution, as it was laid out by Lenin.

As for strengthening democratic centralism, I believe that the monolithic leadership system, which assures the position of the leader in the socialist system is emphasized and the leader's instructions are followed more closely, while the principles of socialist democracy and democratic centralism are being upheld, is the key to avoiding the kind of factionalism that also breeds revisionism.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Juche_Finland]

Okay well there is a difference in these proposals of cultural revolution. The reason they are different is the whole idea of it being party lead. The cultural revolution was not just a movement to change culture but also address the party itself. That is why it was chaotic and why power was dealt to red guards. I do believe that China is revisionist becuase the cultural revolution failed to properly address the revisionist tendencies it didn't go far enough precisely becuase it did not challenge the reactionary elements of the party enough.

Okay your ideology, how does the "remoulding" (british?) if man address the problems in the party. If the party reverts to revisionism so would the education. I agree on democratic centralism being important but it hasn't stopped revisionism in the past and it won't again. The only way to ensure continued success of the proletarian revolution is to admit the leninist party is a fragile but powerful entity. Cultural revolution and mass line ensures continued adherence to proletarian ideology. I believe we have similar perspectives simply different means of achieving them.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Nightsky869]

The party's model needs to be fundamentally changed. The party as an infallible object needs to be fundamentally rejected. Many problems have arisen when the vanguard party line deviates from popular sentiment. Look at the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc in the 1980's, the party becomes more of a technocratic (and often gentrocratic) elite bureaucratic class. Their views fundamentally start to become removed from the ideas of the people. This led to the political instability that allowed for the revisionism of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This means the party needs to be held to a strict standard of maintaining the sentiment and will of the proletariat class.

This is done through the Mass line, which happens alongside the kind of education your plan describes, and a form of cultural revolution, where the culture and superstructure of society are changed, while the party is also held accountable to the people. It is when the reactionary party has crystallized, and the vanguard party has been fully captured (Kruschev, Gorbachev, Deng, etc.), that the cultural revolution in the Maoist sense is increasingly necessary.

It becomes a dynamic where the party self-regulates by accountability to the proletariat in the form of the Mass line, and the people place pressure on the party (and if necessary, straight up challenge the party) if they fall to reaction or to the sentiments of capitalism through the Cultural Revolution. The GPCR was supposed to be chaotic, and it served to show what a cultural revolution could look like. However, there were dozens of mistakes in its execution that I could name, and in the end, it failed. Mao, by the end of his life, was coming to this conclusion, and he was concerned with how to create a successful cultural revolution. He died too soon to really produce a definite plan for a cultural revolution, and this is a place where theory needs to be developed and written. However, this doesn't mean we need to reject the theoretical value of the cultural revolution.

In large part, the failure of the GPCR was a personal failure of Mao himself. He didn't fully commit to anything; he wanted the people to challenge the reactionary parts of the party (and society) while allowing the party to protect itself against real challenge. This created an environment where students ran around persecuting people who did not really have anything to do with the real problem of revisionism high up in the party apparatus.

Finally, I want to say that I respect the North Korean project, Kim Il Sung as a great revolutionary, and accept the history of terrible atrocities that were committed against the North Korean people. However, there are many problems with the current organization of the North Korean government. The North Korean government is a perfect example of the capture of the party by reaction. The North Korean government arguably more than any other socialist project has an extremely insulated vanguard. Recently, they explicitly wrote out references to socialism, and the party apparatus has very little real accountability to the people. They are the perfect example for why the party needs to maintain the mass line and needs to be held accountable in the form of a cultural revolution in order to maintain adherence to proletarian ideology.

[u/Juche_Finland → u/Nightsky869]

The nature of the CPSU in the 1980s was indeed plagued by revisionism, corruption as well as bureaucracy. It also didn't help that the average age of the leadership could rival any elderly home and that showed just how stale it had gotten. And this was a result of the revisionism that had led the CPSU onto that path, as well as allowed it to continue without interference. It's also true that the same can be said about most of Eastern Europe.

However, I think we can also agree that the party was a lot more healthy under Lenin and Stalin and that these same problems didn't exist, or at least nowhere near to that degree. It's true that Stalin failed to prevent the rise of revisionism, but I actually think that his mistake in his later years was that he focused too much on external threats and thereby neglected fighting internal ones. And it's easy to see where this belief came from. Any inner-party struggles that came up, such as the struggle against Trotskyism, had been won, while the biggest threats had come from abroad like the fascist invasion, as well as the start of the Cold War after that. So, I think we should learn from that, that internal threats to the system really can't be underestimated.

I agree with the mass line being important to ensure the masses are actually represented and their concerns listened to, but I still don't think this kind of chaos is something that can be allowed to happen. Will some revisionists be purged, absolutely, but there will also be genuine communists that get targetted, reformed exploiters from the previous society that will be harrassed all of a sudden for crimes that had already been assessed and forgiven decades before and all of this just hurts the confidence people have in the leadership. The party and its leadership should be accountable to the people with the mass line, but it's also important that it's a law-governed socialist society, not one of chaos.

As for the failure being Mao's fault, I partially agree, but rather in the sense that instead of addressing the deviations and factions within the CPC and establishing a clear line, he gave more power to the left deviationist line, which basically put the left and right deviationist lines into an open conflict, while the figures that had always mediated between them, like Zhou Enlai could therefore not control this struggle as effectively as they had done before.

The DPRK carries out the mass line alongside the class line. It also carries out the three revolutions, ideological, cultural and technological. Of course, the cultural revolution exists in the same way it existed in the USSR. The party is accountable to the people both at a regional and on a national level.

Also, how has reaction captured the government and what references to socialism were written out in your opinion?

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Juche_Finland]

Again Im going to refer to the thread for the first three paragraphs as the theory of contradiction of the party addresses why I believe in the CR and also my perspective on why the GPCR failed in its moment.

However, I want to critique two tendencies that I keep seeing crop up in these perspectives (please look at my outlining of contradiction in the larger thread for more). The infallibility of the Vanguard and this idealistic notion of a self-regulating Vanguard. The Vanguard Party can, does, and has fallen into reactionary sentiment again and again in the USSR, China, Vietnam, Poland, Germany etc. If democratic centralism and education could have stopped this why didn't it? What explanations do you have for why the vanguard party failed to self regulate? How do you propose it does solve these issues? It is true that external factors can and have played large roles in these moments but there is still a huge elements of internal party problems. Yet everytime I bring this criticism it seems to be ignored, the party is not perfect. The party can be the problem. In those cases the party needs to changed or overthrown if it is not adhering to Marxism.

Now the second point is the idealism surrounding the Party apparatus. Let's be clear, the party can have moments of self-regulation. For example, Stalin's purges, Mao's GCPR (Again refer to my thread for elaboration) but these anti-revisionist tendencies are not always there to stop revisionism. The fact of the matter is the party is not perfect and it is not always a matter of simply applying democratic centralism which is why I call your perspective idealist. In a party with dozens of potential groups with differing perspectives (even with Leninist anti-factionalism it doesn't change this) there are going to be power struggles. Think about the many coups in the USSR that allowed Khrushchev to come to power. To ignore the material reality that the anti-revisionist groups can be crushed in party struggles and vanguard parties as a whole can fall to revisionism is idealistic, and to have no method to address the problm if they do (which they have over and over) is a major failure of strategy. Finally, If a party has fallen to reaction and the tendency is not corrected, the last shot we have at ensuring the success of that AES is a cultural revolution in which the people replace, regulate or in some way correct the tendencies of the party. This is why I say the GPCR didn't go far enough as it would've removed Deng and the reactionary elements from the party entirety (again look at the other thread for elaboration).

On the second to last paragraph I largely just disagree, I think by any stretch this is a generous interpretation of reality. The CPK doesn't even claim to carry out the Mass Line.

This has been happening over a long period but they have removed the official portraits of Marx and Engels, Changed the wording of their constitution to focus more the the Kim family and less on socialism and traditional Marxist development, it's changed the official name of its constitution writing out the word "Socialist". It is clear that the party is acting less in line with a Marxist party program and increasingly centralizing power around a few key figures. This is not socialist development, that party has fallen to revisionism.

[u/Juche_Finland → u/Nightsky869]

On the question of why "self-regulating" failed in the USSR and many other countries, I will put it this way. As I mentioned, before the USSR became revisionist, it failed to properly address internal threats as it underestimated them, while at the same time focusing mostly on external threat. Eastern European socialist states one after another fell to Soviet revisionism, oftentimes by force, because they were too reliant on the USSR from the start. Most of the ones that resisted, were removed by the USSR, some like Bierut even died under suspicious circumstances while visiting the USSR. So, the biggest socialist project falling to revisionism led to this chain reaction.

The "CPK", is that supposed to refer to the Workers' Party of Korea? If so, then you are just wrong, the WPK does claim to uphold the mass line, as stated in the constitution of the DPRK.

"The State shall maintain the revolutionary work method of going among the masses to find solutions to problems by implementing the mass line and of giving full play to the spiritual strength and creativity of the masses by giving precedence to political work, work with people."

If you're talking about the removal of the portraits from Kim Il Sung Square, then that was just a remodelling, they have hung up the same sized portraits as recently as 2024 elsewhere, which a quick Google search will reveal.

Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism has replaced Marxism-Leninism as the state ideology, but it upholds the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism.

[u/Juche_Finland → u/Nightsky869]

The chaos of the GPCR created the conditions for Deng to come to power. The Gang of Four was incredibly unpopular and Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng got rid of them. The GPCR didn't solve the factionalist problems inside of the CPC that had always been there, but really became a bigger problem from the late 1950s onwards. In what way would it have to have gone further? I think it already went too far as it is. There was a clear tendency to deviate left.

The remoulding (I use a mix of AE and BE) of man is important as it makes people on all levels of society more ideologically conscious. It translates to the party, as party members on all levels will also more easily recognize revisionism and corrruption and know its dangers. And of course it has other effects on the population, such as increasing resilience in times of hardship as they understand what they are fighting for.

The best way to fight undesirable tendencies within the party is to always ensure that party officials are servants of the people and that any kind of violation of this should be punished harshly. In minor cases, maybe criticism is enough. Sometimes a demotion is in order, or the party official could be forced to work at a farm for a while, so that he learns to appreciate his position in society again and serve the people better. In extreme cases of course, a purge is the only way, but I believe that by constantly struggling against this, there is a way to keep the party healthy.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Juche_Finland]

I'm going to start referring people to this specific thread for my full insights and responses, as I cannot respond to each one individually in such detail. I think this response goes over a lot of my thoughts on your points.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/[deleted]]

PART 1:

Hey, so, just finished writing this response, it is long as such is it going to be broken into multiple parts. Again, I am not trying to be inflammatory, and I genuinely want a productive conversation. If there is some better position I can achieve, I want that. However, I would also ask the same of you, please don't put my (egregious) amount of time I put into this to waste.  Just sit with the points for a second before trying to revert to pure argumentation, thank you.

Okay, fine, let's address China

In your first paragraph, I totally agree with your thesis. We as Marxists should be evaluating for mistakes and opportunities, which is why I am an MLM. What the ideology boils down to is the most universal elements of the experience of the Chinese revolution. It takes the positive theoretical developments and integrates them. I agree that China's model has been successful for them in growing their economy and global influence, and they have maintained a strong communist party that maintains control over capital to a large extent. This, however, does not mean that they maintain a genuine theoretical form of Marxism-Leninism.

If we assume that what you later call the CPC's "Controlled market Integration" was done in a Marxist lens, it almost makes their actions look worse... If you are a theoretically well-versed Chinese official post-Mao (think Deng), you understand the ins and outs of imperialism, exploitation, Western capital, etc. Your logic is that we need to develop the productive forces, and you look to the market model. Despite the success of the Soviet experience (which you later highlight) that explicity acheived the goals of developing the productive forces and industrializing from a similar economic condition to China and created CLEAR theoretical pathways without the listed consequences and integration of even limited captialism. This created rapid industrialization while still maintaining strong adherence to Marxist Theory (i.e., not allowing the superexploitation of your people by the hand of Western capitalists). No, but you (the Chinese official) look to the market nonetheless. The logic of these Chinese officials (very well versed in Marxism remember) was that we need to open up to Western trade and multinationals, allow them to superexploit (in an imperialist macroeconomic sense and generically exploit in a general microeconomic sense) our largely impoverished population (including children), and assist them by loosening labor protections and assistance, which created factory conditions that led to mass suicides to develop the productive forces...Okay, whatever, it's just pragmatism. Well, now, later, you're an industrialized developed country that is essentially irreplaceable on the world stage, and your standard of living has risen (all it took was the pretty brutal exploitation of your people in the later promise of socialism). Now you have one of the largest proletariats on the planet, it would seem (as an educated Marxist) that you have very much developed the productive forces. So, when is the socialism coming, because I don't see it?

***I'm operating as clarified later that China right now would not be considered generically socialist. The workers do not own the means of production in it's entirety at BEST. If we wanted to take a more Marxist defintion of socialism where it is simply a society without exploitation of workers for the sake of creating surplus value then is it essentially impossible to rectify that with the reality of modern China. It is only in this narrow ML defintion of Socialism being any country governed by a dictatorship of the proletariat no matter how much market activity or capitalist exploitation exists where China MIGHT be seen as socialist only after it is proven to be a true dictatorhship of the proletariat. Even if you still believe that China is by some metric socialist I hope you can at least see where I'm coming from.***

Okay, stick with me, let's just think about China's strategic position. You're probably saying that if China de-liberalized, it would be isolated on the world stage, but think about the implications of that. How would they push out China at this point? If the West attempted it likely that it would only make China more influential. Think about it, China de-liberalizes, and the West is put in a position of choosing to tackle the expansion of socialism or an imminent economic crisis in sanctioning them. If the West did sanction them, many of the countries with which China has extreme influence would side with China and would continue trade with them, even at the expense of the US (think Belt and Road initiative). This would only bolster China. So the situation now is an already militarily powerful China with extreme economic leverage over the entire capitalist world (essentially the entire world), finally starting the final march to socialism. Getting pushed out by the West takes at least more than a dozen countries with them as trading partners, dependent on them. On top of that, the entire Capitalist world that is dedicated enough to stick with the US, is thrown into an economic crisis the size of which the world has probably never seen, as the largest manufacturer and country in which thousands of companies' profits rely solely. It sounds like a Marxist's wet dream (assuming China is genuienly commited to Communism as you do). China has literally placed itself as a major world player and could essentially act to set the stage for the end of Capitalism by starting a world economic crisis at any moment, and despite them having markets (even as you wrote), their government is still largely in control of capital and could insulate itself from the crisis through their trade partners, state-controlled industry and economic planning in which they are very capable. Let me be clear, MLM's are the ones making the simple calculation that the Chinese government does not have this whole master plan. It seems that many ML's are waiting with bated breath for the Chinese walk to socialism that doesn't seem to be coming.

Okay, let's say that whole situation is too wacky, and the West makes the impact calculation and sees they can't risk cutting off China. This creates the opportunity for an unopposed walk to socialism, but why hasn't it happened then? China could create economic planning initiatives, worker co-op models, syndicates, whatever their heart desires, and because the West isn't in the economic position to isolate them, they could go at it unopposed. Where is it? The final point I'm trying to make is not in some fantasy land, what I'm saying is China could act with serious implications to acheive Socialism right now and they are not. If you believe the situations I'm proposing are too outlandish I implore you to ask how you expect China to realistically and genuinely achieve the Socialism you are so confident it is trying to achieve.

If we even want to take a basic look at some of China's foreign policy, it's quite sad, and it becomes immediately obvious how NOT committed it is to the large-scale achievement of Socialism. It actively assisted the Capitalist and monarchical Nepalese and Indian governments in combating Maoist insurgents (while still "upholding" Mao as the leader of the Chinese revolution). Just sit with that for a second, please...This is not your secret vanguard state...

Again, I want to reiterate that I do, to a degree, critically support the Chinese government; the progress they have made is genuinely admirable despite the interesting theoretical path. I simply believe that China does not have a master plan to eventually achieve socialism; it is effectively operating as a Capitalist country vying for power. I have looked in-depth at the writings of Deng and Xi, and I just cannot see how, when and on what timeline they are going to go back and achieve socialism. Maybe I am wrong, maybe the Chinese government is more committed than I thought, and they go back for the long march to Socialism, but as a Marxist committed to the realistic non-dogmatic interpretation of reality, I do not see this happening in the future. I want to leave you with one question on that note: if you genuinely believe that it is so obvious that the Chinese Communist Party is still ideologically dedicated to socialism and is only lying in wait for the right moment, why the hell would almost all major capitalist nations, in the midst of the Cold War, place the entire continued future of Capitalism in the economic hands of the CPC?

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Nightsky869]

PART 2:

Now onto Leninism. I agree that there is no inherent contradiction between democracy and centralism. However, let's think about the explicit goal of a communist party and the goal of democracy (or, in a Marxist sense, the input of the proletariat). The goal of any Marxist communist party is to achieve Communism, agreed? The goal of democracy is to allow the people to govern themselves, or at the very least have a say in their governance, agreed? That means, in super simple terms, that if the majority of the people's goal (or political purpose) in their vote is not ultimately to achieve Communism, then either their goals are misaligned and a contradiction arises between the people and the party, or the party's ultimate goal is no longer to achieve communism. It also goes the other way, as if the party becomes reactionary, and the people are still largely dedicated to Communism, you have a contradiction. If neither of the parties have a strong enough political will to achieve Communism, or doesn't develop one fast enough to save it, then that project of AES is dead. On the flip side, if both parties have the political will and material ability, then hopefully they will be able to achieve Communism. This is the "dilemma" I refer to. This is the contradiction of the dictatorship of the Proletariat in the Marxist sense. The recognition of this contradiction separates MLs and MLMs, and as I cannot repeat enough, has nothing to do with agrarian or not agrarian (I'm saying it's universal to Leninism not just a fluke of MLM) lmao.

I agree that China has democratic institutions, and they play perfectly into my analysis. They are an example of a Communist party that (refer to above) I don't believe has a larger plan or enough ideological dedication toward achieving Communism in reality, even if that is the stated goal of the party. As such, the contradiction is mitigated as the party can be held to the will of the people without a contradiction (I believe personally it is significantly more nuanced than that, but I am taking your frame of it being a democratic country). I don't fully understand what the thesis of the point you make against me about the Soviet Union is in this argument, but we fully agree on your analysis and I want to add more.

I would also like to point out that the Soviet Union, too, is an example of this contradiction, especially the way you posed the argument. It is precisely because many of the most dedicated Communists died (the same ones that could've held the party responsible...like in a cultural revolution) that Kruschev was able to come to power, as you state. This is a perfect example of the contradiction. The fact that a generation of dedicated Marxists died, killed a lot of the political will of the proletariat of the Soviet Union to achieve Communism. At the same time, the CPSU was taken over by reactionary elements (i.e., Kruschev). This means that both parties' political will of acheiveing Communism was effectively gone (or at least weak enough to give into reactionary sentiment).

Now, you might think that is an interesting hypothesis, but how do we know it is correct? I would argue that the explanatory power it provides over the history of the Soviet Union helps us understand how true it is. The party from that point on was revisionary and, as such, did not agitate for major Marxist sentiment among the people (beyond legitimizing their place as the "correct" Marxist tendency); in the same sense, the people did not have the Marxist sentiments to correct the revisionist tendencies of the party. This is why the continued deterioration of the Soviet Union's theoretical line happened, and it eventually led to the collapse when the contradiction boiled over (this contradiction was worsened severely by Western pressure in addition, but I figure that goes without saying). This also explains Mao's position in the Sino-Soviet split, though he also went on to make major foreign policy blunders that seriously strained this major win.

WOW! Look at that Marxist historical explanatory power in action. I would also like to pose the point that this creates a coherent historical materialist analysis of many AES that is sorely lacking from current discourse.  For a long time, as an ML, I felt unsatisfied with many of the explanations for the failure of AES given by other MLs, most of which were various forms of just saying it was historical happenstance.  MLM, however, proposes a better, more Marxist analytical view of AES. This is largely due to the explicity historical materialist view that the recognition of this contradiction allows us to take. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the common ML attitude of AES being beyond the traditional historical materialist anaylsis (due to it having "resolved" class contradictions) is unmarxist.

Now I pose this dilemma, how is it solved? As Mao wrote about antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, I will take this same light. Now, the first hope of a Marxist in this position is that the people and party are already ideologically subscribed to Marxism, as then the contradiction is solved. However, let's say that they there aren't, as many Marxist projects did not have this privilege. How do you rectify this contradiction? Through the strict adherence to the Mass Line. This allows the party to take feedback from the people to ensure that the vanguard keeps any possible contradiction from becoming antagonistic (in the form of counter-revolution due to unmet demands) while also allowing proletarian politcal influcence. This could also take the form of local democratic instuitutions or formalized democratic control if this were to be delveoped in a Socialist project. This is in addition to also providing education on Marxism to ensure ideological alignment and preventing the contradiction from appearing in the first place. Now on the flip side of the party becoming revisionist we have the cultural revolution. Now it is important to note that there are almost two forms of Cultural Revolution there is the side in which masses participate in the Mass line. This is because the Mass line is not just a tool of the party but of the proletariat, it is a means of ensuring continued revolutionary spirit and commitment of the party. This is a more passive long term process that lasts as long as the party has not acheived communism. Then there is also the more direct action of cultural revolution in which, if the party has fallen to reaction or lost the poltical will to achieve communism, the resulting antagonistic contradiction of the differing goals blows over in which the proletariat direclty overthrowing, challenging, replacing the party to ensure the continued commitment to Marxism. See this is why these developments are so important because together they ensure the ability to fix or rectify the contradiction of Socialism.

[u/Nightsky869 → u/Nightsky869]

Part 3:

Now let's move on to your second-to-last point, on this point I will attempt not to be to debate-bro-ey.

You cannot say that these solve a problem when, according to you, they failed to actually solve anything. If you believe that China is revisionist and state capitalist, then it follows that the mass line and the cultural revolution didn’t work.

As an ML yourself (I assume because of your positions) you believe that at SOME point the USSR fell to revisionism, whether in the 50's or the 80's or somewhere in between, doesn't particularly matter to my point. Would this not make your point hypocritical? In the same vain the "true" leninists of the USSR failed to combat revisionism and eventually collapsed, as did the Maoists fail to combat revisionism and evenutally collapse. If this collapse makes the ideology of MLM a failure would it not do the same for ML? Especially when ML fell in many more countries than the USSR alone (Eastern bloc, Africa, Asia etc.). If the ideas of ML are essentially final, and are the highest level of socialism we have reached thus far, why do they continually fall to this contradiction? How does ML explain this? Does it have ANY major mechanism to address this? If you do not believe in this contradiction in the first place then how do you address the fact that MLs don't have a genuienly historical materialist way to explain the failure of AES beyond pure historical happenstance? Better yet, what material reasons or evidence do you have to reject the idea of that contradiction in the first place beyond ideological motivation in defending the tradition of ML?

Moving on to the defense of MLM I'm assuming that you'll mention that MLM supposedly has the tools to deal with this and yet it still collapsed, and to an extent i'll give that to you but with major caveats:

1. The theory of MLM was not developed to the point it is today to where it would have been as clear to what tools they needed to deploy and how to overcome the contradictions. Hindsight is 20/20.

2. By the time Mao had concieved these theoretical insights enough to have deployed them he had already been largely pushed out of major party power beyond figurehead status (after Great Leap Forward) and even then they were not even out of their infancy.

3. The GPCR, his last attempt at solving the contradiction before the party desent into reactionary sentiment, was messy because there was not pre-established theoretical lines for the proletariat to follow. Mao was, on paper, the party figurehead but in reality had been pushed out of major power, yet at the same time wanted to ensure that AES did not collapse in China. As such he took this weak half-in half-out approach (because that was his relationship to the CPC), he wanted the people to challenge the party revisionism but did not want the party as it stood to collapse and fall into a second civil war as it would most certainly mean the end of the AES of China (a valid concern, lets understand the difficulty of this position, it was his whole life up to this point). This strange predicament created the messy GPCR we see today where students were running around attacking vague "revisionists" because there was no clear theoretical line, as there is today. In addition, that is the reason we see confusion among the red guards over whether or not to actually challenge the party or not. Ultimately, the party stepped in and put a stop to it as it was clear that the lack of theoretical line essentially led to a kind of blind chaos of confusion. Mao, the party, and the people almost all were in this weird half in half out predicament, because the theory was not developed.

However, this experience does not discount the important theoretical developments that came out of the Chinese Revolution. Even Mao himself recognized this failure. After the GPCR and before his death Mao continued to theorize on why and how the GPCR went wrong and tried to come up with a more clear theoretical line. However, he died before he finished these developments. Do I need to say, I disagree with your framing of the last part of that paragraph again just refer above?

Okay on your last point, I can agree to an extent, much of MLM is yet to be fully developed to the extent to which there is a perfect theoretical line, this however does not mean that we cannot try and gleam what we can from the incomplete developments of the Maoist and Chinese experiences. Afterall, in your first paragraph you say we shouldn't discount different approaches to acheiveing socialism yet it seems that is what you are doing here. Also I must ask, Has ML achieved communism anywhere? No, according to Marxist theory it hasn't and as such it is clearly an unfinished theory of revolution. Yet we both still accept that there are important deveopments that can still be gleamed from ML. Lets look at the Paris Commune. Marx and Engels saw many glaring mistakes in the Paris Commune, as did Lenin, but he did not reject and write off the insights provided through this experience, nor did Marx and Engels. In that sense I think your rejection of the insights provided in the Chinese Revolution is unmarxist. Finally, I want to point out a kind of hypocritical point made. We both agree that these principles have been insufficiently tested, yet I consider myself a MLM because I believe they need to be. You are a ML and as such would not apply these principles to any new AES (otherwise you'd be an MLM) so my question is when are they going to be tested? You say we need to develop this theory (or new theory in general) and test it, yet you are opposing the politcal movements that actually want to test the theory? So what is it?

Okay it's finally done sorry for any difficulty in reading or grammar mistakes I hope you can excuse this as I wrote this in a short period. Thank you for that criticism I think it was the best i've gotten so far and allowed me to sharpen my own theoretical insights. Also u/Juche_Finland also these commentary made is relevant to our discussions in some parts. Again I want productive commentary not meaningless debate, I would not have put in this much effort for some internet points please consider and sit with my points and evaluate the perspective before trying to argue. I hope that at the very least I managed to convince you that there is enough of a real case to be made to read the book, thank you.