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Title: Maoism vs. Libertarian Socialism? Author: Wayne Price Date: July 30, 2019 Language: en Topics: maoism, libertarian socialism, Chinese Revolution, book review Source: http://anarkismo.net/article/31495
This small book is about the ideology of Maoism and its development out
of the Chinese Revolution. As the author says, that revolution shook the
world. The world is living with its aftermath today. And it is possible,
as there is a regrowth of U.S. radicalism, that Maoism may have an
influence on a revived U.S. Left. So it is important to understand Mao’s
legacy.
Most works on this topic are either academic (and implicitly
pro-capitalist) or pro-Maoist (or sometimes Trotskyist). Unusually,
Elliot Liu claims to “offer a critical analysis of the Chinese
Revolution and Maoist politics from an anarchist and communist
perspective.” (2)
It may not be entirely clear what that means,. The term “communist”
includes everything from anarchist-communism (the mainstream of
anarchism since Kropotkin) to Pol Pot’s auto-genocide. However Liu
writes that he is “in line with many anarchist and anti-state communist
critics of Marxism-Leninism….” (105) He is identifying with the
libertarian, autonomist, humanist, and “ultra-left” trends in Marxism—in
opposition to mainstream social-democratic or Leninist versions of
Marxism.
This is demonstrated by the theorists he cites and the theories he
uses—which he integrates with anarchism. Liu never quite spells this
out, but rather demonstrates it in the course of the book. I am in
general agreement with this anarchist/libertarian-Marxist approach—often
summarized as “libertarian socialism.” (See Price 2017.) This makes me
especially interested in how he applies it, which is sometimes
problematic.
While presented as an “introduction” to Maoism, this book covers a great
deal of material. The conclusions Liu reaches are these: “The Chinese
Revolution was a remarkably popular peasant war led by
Marxist-Leninists….The Chinese Communist Party acted as a surrogate
bourgeoisie, developing the economy in a manner that could be called
‘state capitalist’….[This] transformed the party into a new ruling
class, with interests distinct from those of the Chinese proletariat and
peasantry….Mao and his allies repeatedly chose…beating back the
revolutionary self-activity of the Chinese proletariat and ultimately
clearing the way for openly capitalist rule after Mao’s death….I
consider Maoism to be an internal critique of Stalinism that fails to
break with Stalinism.” (2-3)
In places, Liu refers to Maoist China as “state socialist” without
explaining what this means. Perhaps he means that the regime calls
itself “socialist” due to its nationalization of industry, even though
it is really not socialist but state capitalist. I agree with a “state
capitalist” analysis of Maoism and the Chinese state Mao built. (For
“state capitalist” theory as developed in the analysis of the Soviet
Union, see Daum 1990; Hobson & Tabor 1988.) Liu supports his “state
capitalist” view in several ways: by examining the history of Maoism, by
considering its theory, and by a political-economic analysis of the
Chinese economy.
This little book covers a great deal of dramatic history in a short
span, and does it well. At times Liu leaves things out, probably due to
this limitation of space. For example, he does not mention how Stalin,
preferring to make a deal with Chiang Kai-Shek, tried to hold back the
Chinese Communists from taking power after World War II—and how Mao
rejected Stalin’s “advice”. Nor does it mention the Korean War and its
effects in speeding up statification of industry. But he covers the
development of the party and its armies, the conquest of power, the
Hundred Flowers, the Great Leap Forward and its concomitant famine
(perhaps 35 million died due to Mao’s mismanagement), the Sino-Soviet
split, and so on.
Politically problematic is Liu’s coverage of the Maoist “turn to the
countryside.” In the twenties, the Communists were driven from the
cities and the urban working class. Stalin and his agents in China had
told the Communists to ally with the capitalist Nationalists
(Koumingtan), to trust them, and in no way to oppose them. This strategy
left them open to terrible massacres when the Nationalists turned on
them. They abandoned the urban working class, instead building armies
based in the peasantry.
Liu describes the historical events but does not analyze their class
meaning. According to classical Marxism, the modern working class is
collectivized by industry, forced to work cooperatively, and living
largely in cities. This creates a tendency (not an inevitability but a
tendency) for workers to self-organize and rebel, to fight for their
self-emancipation. The peasantry, however, has a scattered existence,
away from the centers of power and knowledge. Therefore the peasantry,
Marx concluded, has the ability to rise up in fierce revolutionary wars,
but it needs to be led by some urban grouping—if not led democratically
by the working class than by an authoritarian elite.
I am not going to argue here whether this classical Marxist view is
correct—or, rather, to what extent it is correct, and under what
circumstances. But Mao’s withdrawal from the urban proletariat and
basing his movement on the peasants organized in an army, seems to fit
with this theory. In any event, Liu shows that Mao’s forces constantly
sought to balance their influence on the peasants: rousing them against
the landlords and rich, but then holding them back from overthrowing the
landlords and the rich. “Even at the height of the CCP’s victory, Mao
was unwilling to sanction agrarian revolution from below or worker
self-management in the cities.” (42)
This was in the service, supposedly, of building alliances with sections
of the ruling classes. This included a “United Front” with the
Nationalists against the Japanese imperialist invaders (which neither
Mao nor Chiang fully followed) and then the “New Democracy,” set up
during and after the Communists’ victory. Supposedly New Democracy was a
non-socialist, capitalist, stage of the economy and the state, which
came before socialism. It sounded like the old reformist, Menshevik,
two-stage theory—except that the Communists insisted that they, not the
capitalists, would be in charge as the ruling party, even during this
capitalist “stage.” “New Democratic strategy positions the party as an
alienated power in a given territory, standing above and mediating
between different classes, while laying the foundation for the future
emergence of a ‘red bourgeosie’.” (123)
The most interesting part of the book’s historical survey is its
coverage of the “Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (1965—1967). There was
a fight within the ruling layers (of the party, the army, the state, and
the economy—the nascent ruling class). For support for his side, Mao
roused the seething discontent of students and youth. Rebellion spread
to the army ranks, to peasants, and the workers. The aroused masses went
beyond what Mao had wanted. In Shanghai in 1966, workers from seventeen
factories formed a Workers’ General Headquarters.
“As in many cases throughout history, the social turmoil generated by
the movement compelled workers to begin managing daily life themselves.
Transport, water, and electricity…the WGH thus began coordinating
production and transportation of goods, as well as public transit,
through its own mass organizations. In many factories, worker-elected
committees supplanted managers and party committees….Full power seizures
eventually took place in twenty-nine provinces and municipalities.”
(84-85)
The Shanghai People’s Commune and the other communes were crushed by
force. So were all the “ultra-left” radical forces. But they had been
vulnerable due to their naive trust in Mao and his supporters.
The book covers Mao’s theoretical writings, such as his discussion of
dialectical philosophy. It looks at Mao’s “contributions” but criticizes
his perspective as Stalinist and bourgeois. Frankly, I think that Liu
takes Maoist theory a bit too seriously, as though it were a real part
of the development of philosophy. Whatever may be the strengths or
weaknesses of Hegel, Marx, and Engels in using dialectics, for Stalin
and then Mao it was no longer real philosophical discourse. “Dialectical
materialism,” in the hands of the Stalinists, had become simply what
Marx called “ideology”—not a system of ideas but rationalization to
cover up class reality. It can be analyzed as ideology in this sense and
Liu is best when he does that.
The book examines Mao’s concept of the “mass line.” This means that
Communists should find out what working people wanted and develop a
program which responded to these wants. As Liu shows, this concept may
be interpreted in a revolutionary or an opportunist manner. What he
leaves out is the underlying fact that the Communist’ program could not
tell the people the truth. It could not say that the Communists would
replace the landlords and capitalists with a bureaucratic capitalist
ruling class. It could not say that after the revolution the peasants
and workers would continue to be exploited and oppressed. So methods had
to be found which appeared to support the wants of the working people
but really was a lie. That was why “the mass line concept admits an
incredibly wide range of interpretations, many of them authoritarian in
character.” (118)
Liu correctly condemns the “substitutionist and idealist assumptions” of
Maoism. The party is not only one part of the working class and
peasantry but supposedly a separate and most important agency. The party
claims to know the true science of society, unlike the masses, and knows
what to do. It is the rightful leadership of society and should be
obeyed in all things. The “dictatorship of the proletariat” (which might
have once meant the rule of the actual workers and their allies) is the
rule of the party, which stands in for the workers and oppressed. And
what makes the party the stand-in for the people is that it has the
right ideas. Those who have the right ideas are “proletarian.” Those who
do not are “bourgeois”, “reactionary,” and “capitalist-roaders.” “In
common with manny Leninist interpretations of vanguard leadership, these
methods assume the validity of the party’s political line and obscure
proletarian self-activity.” (126)
Liu demonstrates that the Chinese economy is capitalist by showing how
it fits Marx’s analysis of capitalism (his “critique of political
economy”). He cites a prominent Maoist text on political economy and
shows how its description of China is that of a capitalist market
economy, following Marx’s categories. And he himself applies capitalist
descriptors to China. (Speaking as an anarchist, I find this one of the
main advantages of using aspects of Marxism.)
This is true even if we focus on the most “socialist” phases of Mao’s
China—after New Democracy (which was officially “state capitalist”) and
before the current, post-Maoist, period which is openly capitalist (if
still run by a “Communist Party”). The workers and peasants still worked
for wages. Ruled by the law of value, they produced commodities—goods
which sold on the market, inside China and internationally. Their labor
was alienated—working for someone else. There was a labor market, if a
controlled one. This is the capital/labor relationship at the base of
the economy. Enterprises competed with each other. The overall society
produced in order to accumulate, grow, and expand its mass of
commodities.
It has been argued that no society could immediately leap from
capitalism into socialism—especially not a poor, oppressed, exploited
nation such as China had been. Therefore there was bound to be
capitalist survivals in the economy, for a period, even an extended
period. So therefore the previous argument proves nothing.
Whether or not a partially-capitalist transitional stage is necessary
before socialism, this does not refute the evidence. China was not ruled
by workers and peasants and other oppressed people nor was it in
transition to a socialist (or communist) society. It was ruled by a
minority elite of bureaucrats who were agents of capital accumulation.
They were increasing capitalist trends not decreasing them.
At times, Liu seems to be (mistakenly) seeking a balanced critique of
Maoism, looking for both positive and negative aspects and bringing the
positive aspects into revolutionary theory. “Only when Maoism is
subjected to an immanent critique…will it be possible to effectively
re-embed elements of Maoism in a coherent political project….” (3) In
the concluding chapter, he states, “Today’s revolutionaries have much to
learn—positive and negative—from the struggles of the Chinese
proletariat and peasantry, party cadres and military units, and the
actions of the CCP leadership.” (105) But learning positive lessons from
the struggles of the Chinese popular classes is one thing; claiming that
there are positive lessons to learn from the CCP leadership is quite
another.
However, at the very end of this chapter, Liu clarifies his views, “For
revolutionaries who aim at a free anarchist and communist society,
Maoism as a whole must be rejected. It may be possible to extract
particular strategic concepts, work methods, or slogans from the Chinese
experience….But these elements must then be embedded in a set of
revolutionary politics far different from those developed by Mao….”
(126) This seems an appropriate attitude toward Maoism from the
standpoint of revolutionary libertarian socialism.
Although stating his “anarchist and communist” perspective, Liu seems to
base most of his argument on a libertarian interpretation of Marxism
(which he uses well). Unfortunately, Liu does not mention that Mao’s
authoritarian assumptions were not only rooted in Stalinism but even in
Marxism, or at least in aspects of Marxism. In particular, Marx proposed
that the working class could take power by creating a party and taking
over the state (either by elections or by insurrection). Anarchists
argued that for socialists to set up their own state (a
bureaucratic-military machine to rule over society) would result in
state capitalism and a new, bureaucratic, ruling class. (For further
discussion of the differences between anarchism and Maoism, see Price
2007.)
But at the very end, Liu summarizes his view, “Revolutionaries must
oppose the establishment of a state that will direct and reproduce
exploitation, and instead encourage forms of mass, federated, armed, and
directly democratic social organization. There is no alternative to the
anarchist thesis: the state must be smashed.” (128) This is indeed the
lesson of Maoism.
References
<biblio> Daum, Walter (1990). The Life and Death of Stalinism: A
Resurrection of Marxist Theory. NY: Socialist Voice.
Hobson, Christopher Z., & Tabor, Ronald D. (1988). Trotskyism and the
Dilemma of Socialism. NY/Westport CT: Greenwood Press.
Liu, Elliot (2016). Maoism and the Chinese Revolution; A Critical
Introduction. Oakland CA: PM Press; thoughtcrime.ink
Price, Wayne (2007). “A Maoist Attack on Anarchism; An Anarchist
Response to Bob Avakian.”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/wayne-price-a-maoist-attack-on-anarchism
Price, Wayne (2017). “What is Libertarian Socialism? An
Anarchist-Marxist Dialogue: A Review of A. Prichard, R. Kinna, S. Pinta,
& D. Berry (eds.). Libertarian Socialism; Politics in Black and Red".
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30411 </biblio>