Klassenstandpunkt: “Maoism – what it is and what it is not”
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
We are publishing one of two articles from the January 2021 issue number 18 of the in Germany published review “Klassenstandpunkt”, “Maoism – what it is and what it is not”, including the preface of the Klassenstandpunkt editors. This article is a polemic with a Hoxhaist German circle on the question of the ideology of the international proletariat on the basis of the three component parts of Marxism – Marxist philosophy, Marxist political economy and scientific socialism, plus special remarks on the New Democratic Revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We consider this contribution of the comrades from Germany to be quite correct and important in relation to the discussions currently taking place within the International Communist Movement.
Preface
As a part of the ideological struggle inside the revolutionary movement we publish a critique on an article written by Communist Construction (KA). This critique, as well as the article subject to it, should be understood as a part of the struggle to unify the revolutionaries in Germany on a solid and crystal-clear ideological basis.
As staunch champions of dialectical materialism we uphold that political parties, organizations and groups, are expressions of the objective reality of class struggle. The communists are the expression of the class struggle of the proletariat. That the communists in formation today are advancing ahead in the struggle for the reconstitution of the glorious Communist Party of Germany (CPG) is not an expression of chance or due to the personal abilities of some genius, but in its essence of the clamour of the class for its vanguard. The main contradiction in Germany is the one between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the leaderless proletariat can not organize its struggle and is chance-less without its general staff. Hence, the main need of the class struggle of the proletariat is the reconstitution of its Party. Accordingly the main task for everyone who wants to serve the interest of the proletariat is to struggle for this cause.
Alongside the proletariat there exists classes and strata of classes, who stand in relative opposition to finance capital and have different kinds of contradictions with it. One of these are the petty bourgeoisie. This wavering class also generates its different forms of political expressions. One of these are the almost countless number of artisan circles of the “radical left”. These circles sometimes raise the need to “reconstruct the CPG”. With all their differences these circles generally put forward a concept of “constructing the Party from below” and centre on the need of “unity” of as many circles as possible in different forms of “alliances”. What they all have in common is that they reject the need of construction the Party “from the top”. Therefore they all clash with the fundamental principles confirmed in the theory and practice of the international proletariat, established by Lenini, over and over again.
These circles do not constitute as such an enemy of the proletariat in the current moment of the development of the class struggle in this country, and it is possible and necessary to unite with many of them in particular struggles, but their ideological opportunism, and not rarely blunt revisionism, must be combated with fierce ideological struggle accompanied with practical actions that hammer in the truth of the proletariat. Since in almost all of these circles there are sincere elements who really want to serve the class, in some cases even a clear majority, it would be a big mistake for the communists in formation to declare “all-out war” on them, such an approach would currently only lead to isolation and further fragmentation of the revolutionary movement. Politics in command and the correct handling of the contradictions among the people are what is needed. Today we do not have the Party, and even when we do have it, it is only with the victorious development of the class struggle in it highest form that it becomes the recognized vanguard. This demands having a correct understanding of the front.
The front is one of the three instrument of the revolution (the Party and the revolutionary army being the two others). The front must be under the absolute hegemony of the proletariat, even more so given that it is both the leading and the main class of our socialist revolution. The construction of the front demands the Party, without the reconstituted CPG and the revolutionary army under its absolute leadership, we cannot build the front that is needed for the victorious development of the socialist revolution. The Party constructs the front, it does not construct itself.
The front is a class front and its purpose is to unite all the classes and strata possible under the leadership of the proletariat, through its Communist Party, for the socialist revolution; that is for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat through the armed revolution, which means through People’s War. This is the strategic perspective to bear in mind. The front is not an “alliance”, it is a tool of revolution mastered by the Party. Since we currently do not have the reconstituted CPG, we still have a long way to go until we have a such a front as an organic reality. But still, the struggle for constructing the three instruments is a process that must take place simultaneously, in the midst of the class struggle and the two line struggle. Hence, in a moment in which the main necessity of the proletariat is the reconstitution of the Party, the front politics of the communists in formation must strive to develop the work in this regard so it serves the reconstitution. Today, this very much requires the need to handle the Leninist formula of “Unite, differentiate and lead”, which must be understood as: unite on basis of fundamental principles and joint decisions; differentiate clearly what is points of unity and what are not and what are the issues of the two line struggle, and; lead in the way Lenin taught in “A letter to a comrade” “not by virtue of having the power, of course, but by virtue of authority, energy, greater experience, greater versatility, and greater talent.” – as always starting from our basic tactic of struggle (with advantage, reason and limit). This must be done, currently, with the objective of generating a favourable political space or environment for the struggle for the reconstitution of the Party. Fulfilling our duties to the class and the revolution we of course must develop our struggles on many issues, may it be the anti-imperialist, anti-fascist and proletarian feminist struggles or the economical struggle and the struggle for revindications in general, but they all must be canalized to serve the struggle for the reconstitution of the Party in its current period and the tasks set.
It is in this context we must view the statement of the KA that the maoists are a “valuable alliance partner”.
It is true that still the main maoist forces in Germany are not the ones struggling for the reconstitution of the CPG. The main maoist forces in this country are still the Parties from Turkey. The TKP/ML, the MKP of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, and others, are still more present in the revolutionary movement then anyone else who claims Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to be their guiding ideology. To ignore this fact would be simply ridiculous. So when speaking about “alliances with maoists” in the German panorama, it naturally means in the first instance in this country the “alliances” with the parties from Turkey. But, the KA is not a primarily anti-imperialist organization, but an organization that have as its proclaimed objective to “reconstruct the CPG” and therefore they are in a way “colleagues” in the same buisiness as we. So lets us not play stupid.
There can by no “alliance for the reconstitutionii of the CPG”, such an “alliance” corresponds to the anti-Leninist criteria of the petty bourgeois circles. The two-line-struggle among those who, in one way or another, claim to be working for the reconstitution of the Party, must centre on its ideological foundations, because that is what determinate its character. Which standpoint, conception and method is to be followed to guarantee that the Party corresponds to the development of the theory and practice of the international proletariat and the needs of the world proletarian revolution, this is the core question.
The main positive aspect of the article of the KA is that it raises ideological issues of decisive importance. The main negative aspect is that by doing so they mix things up, confuses positions and instead of a clear cut criticism of the position of the maoists who struggle for the reconstitution of the CPG – positions that the colleagues know very well and which are not a secret to anyone in the revolutionary movement – try to pick “weak flanks” by claiming that there are “many kinds of maoism”; this method is not useful for the debate, there is one relevant maoist force in Germany struggling for the reconstitution of the CPG and nowadays, let’s say any fool knows that.
According to our understanding it is good and necessary to work together with forces like the KA inside our general concept of the framework for the front in the current period. Tactical alliances are important and should be struggled for with this type of forces. Even if our ideological contradiction with them is antagonistic, we should treat it with none-antagonistic means, centring on promoting a comradely and constructive debate. At the end of the day we are sure that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism will be taken up by all honest proletarian revolutionaries, how long it takes depends on us and the development of the world proletarian revolution.
The following article is written by a collective of comrades at our request. That the text have many authors can be seen in the style and form. Some aspects of the critique are way more developed then others, particularly regarding philosophy. The issues in this article that has not been so worked out, generally have been dealt with extensively in earlier issues of this magazine and for the interested reader we strongly recommend to have a look at those.
iMost notably in “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”, a document that everyone who seriously wants to discuss about the construction of the Communist Party should have studied very carefully.
iiWe insist on the term “reconstitution” because only the Communist Party can lead its own construction, we consider it to be a negation of the principles established by Lenin to claim that some other organization can “reconstruct the Party”.
– Editorial staff of Klassenstandpunkt
Maoism – what it is and what it is not
In the current 18th issue of the review “Kommunismus”, the friends wrote an article on Maoism with the premise of taking a “more differentiated look at an important revolutionary ally”i. Similar to the Klassenstandpunkt article “People’s War – The Only Way to Liberation”ii, we use the supposed criticism to clarify some essential theoretical points. The article of Communist Construction (“Kommunistischen Aufbau”, sometimes referred to as ‘KA’, ci-ic translator’s note) is divided into the sections: “A revolutionary ally”, “What we can learn from Maoism – and what not” and finally a “Summary”. The second part is the main part and thus accordingly contains most of the errors and misunderstandings about what Maoism is.
The friends of KA divide the section “What we can learn from Maoism – and what not” into three subsections: 1. philosophy, 2. political economy and 3. scientific socialism, known to be the three components of Marxism, as the friends correctly demonstrate with reference to Lenin.iii Furthermore, they have added additional sections on the New Democratic Revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) and give special space and importance to these developments of Chairman Mao. Accordingly, we will follow them on these topics.
First, however, let us look at what they are considering and aiming at in their article. The friends write:
“In practice, it quickly becomes clear to every political activist that neither the communist or revolutionary movement, and even less the political resistance movement, form a unified whole. Rather, they are not only divided into numerous organisationally separate groups and organisations, but they also differ in terms of their respective ideologies. Historically, a whole series of different currents have emerged whose ideological standpoints differ and dissent from each other to a greater or lesser extent.”iv
First of all, the friends quite correctly note that different revolutionary and communist organisations and parties with different ideological standpoints exist. However, it is already noticeable that the friends speak quite vaguely of “respective ideologies”, as if there is a multitude of ideologies, as many as there are differences between parties and organisations. The friends should be aware that there are not different ideologies but two main ideologies that are in struggle with each other: the proletarian and the bourgeois.v But the friends do not say a word about this.
Further, the friends write: “Where they made up a social force, some struggle under the banner of ‘Marxism-Leninism-Maoism’ (in short ‘MLM’ or ‘Maoism’).”vi Here, too, the friends remain vague and unspecific. Indeed, they do not explain which Maoist forces they think they see, and this is not incidental but central with regard to the question of ideology mentioned earlier by the friends. As a result, they begin to note differences between those “who refer to Mao Tse-tung-Thought, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism.”vii
The first thing to note is that KA, in its presentation in the text, negates the class character of ideology. As written, each class also has its ideology – for example, the proletariat has its and the bourgeoisie has theirs. Chairman Mao says that every idea (an ideology consists of systematised ideas, criteria, stanpoints etc.) bears a the stamp of a class. This class character of ideas and hence ideologies is ignored or negated by the friends of KA in the given presentation. The only proletarian ideology in the world is Marxism and today’s Marxism is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism. This is because Marxism is not a dogma, but is always been devolvep in theory and practice towards a higher truth. It is as Lenin has already described it:
”The sole conclusion to be drawn from the opinion of the Marxists that Marx’s theory is an objective truth is that by following the path of Marxist theory we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); but by following any other path we shall arrive at nothing but confusion and lies.”viii
Consequently, there are struggles over which is the correct ideology. However, there are no (several) equal ideologies side by side. Either they are revisionist and thus bourgeois or they are the ideology of the proletariat.
Consequently, it is also necessary to have the respective scientific terminologies clear and to understand what “Mao Tse-tung-Thought” or Maoism means. For this is what the ideology expresses itself by name. Let us look at an excerpt from the article “Regarding the thought of Lenin” in “El Maoista”:
“It is necessary to define the terms we use to handle the development of Marxism, so we have a look at what is the difference between line, guiding thought and “-ism”.
A line is a structure system of positions – we differentiate between ideas, criteria, attitudes and positions. Positions are attitudes (taking a position) in face of concrete problems. Decisions, which define the acting, in our case of the communists and revolutionaries, in the areas of ideology, politics and organizational, economical, military matters and so on. Every position is an expression of a world view, of an ideology and therefore it has a class character. When a series of positions is systematized in a complete system, it is a structured line (before the sum of the positions are systematized, it is a non-structured line).
By applying the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism to a concrete revolution, be it in a specific country or the world revolution, its establishing the program of the revolution in its general political line, the communist struggle to establish the laws that rule the class struggle in the particular context.
[…]
So, we see: a system of structured positions is a line. A general line in the program of a Communist Party must correspond to general laws of the revolution. A guiding thought comes to be when, in the process of a Communist Party and a particular revolution, through the struggle of the Party and the proletariat, in the midst of two line struggle and class struggle, new specific and concrete problems which are faced are being resolved, and with this, contributions are made to the development of Marxism, with new elements. This process takes shape, materializes in the struggle in the Partyand its leadership, which is being exercised by a group of leaders, among which – as a consequence of the law of contradiction – one will come forward, who becomes the great leader of the party and the revolution.
[ … ]
What we have to do is to define the difference between a guiding thought in its most developed form, which is the case with Gonzalo thought and a “-ism”. To handle this definition correctly, we take as a starting point what the PCP established in the document “On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”:
“Nevertheless, while Marxism-Leninism has obtained an acknowledgment of its universal validity, Maoism is not completely acknowledged as the third stage. Some simply deny its condition as such, while others only accept it as “Mao Tsetung Thought.” In essence, both positions, with the obvious differences between them, deny the general development of Marxism made by Chairman Mao Tsetung. The denial of the “-ism” character of Maoism denies its universal validity and, consequently, its condition as the third, new, and superior stage of the ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, that we uphold, defend, and apply.
Marxism has three parts: Marxist philosophy, Marxist political economy, and scientific socialism. The development of all these three components gives rise to a great qualitative leap of Marxism as a whole, as a unity on a superior level, which implies a new stage. Consequently, the essential thing is to show that Chairman Mao, as can be seen in theory and practice, has generated such a great qualitative leap.
…it is with the GPCR that it intensely spread out and its prestige rose powerfully and Chairman Mao was acknowledged as the leader of the world revolution and originator of a new stage in Marxism-Leninism.”
So, the difference between a guiding thought, particularly in its most developed form, as Gonzalo thought, which means “a great qualitative leap of Marxism as a whole, as a unity” and “-ism” is not, that the first only is of a very particular importance, specific to the concrete reality in one country –
because by solving new problems, it gives contributions to the treasury of Marxism in general – but that it has not made “a great qualitative leap of Marxism as a whole, as a unity”, this means a development in its three integral parts, which will mean, that we face a new stage of development of Marxism.
When a thought makes this great quantitative leap, it takesthe character of “–ism” so to point out the universal valor of it altogether as a new level of Marxism.
Again, in what we just explained, can we see, that the key to differentiate between guiding thought, Gonzalo thought and “-ism” or a new stage of the universal ideology of the proletariat, is to understand the leap, and the leap is the key in the contradiction. Because every solution of a new problem of the proletarian world revolution means a contribution to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, whatever guiding thought does so, otherwise, it is not as such, in its most developed form, it gives important contributions, which is the case of Gonzalo thought, which are important contributions to the universal ideology of the proletariat, and therefore, these contributions also have a universal character and, being solutions to new problems, contribute to a new development of Marxism, and therefore to a new stage, but still is not a “-ism”, because these contributions of universal validity have not meant a new development in every of its three integral parts and therefore in its whole, that has raised Marxism to a new stage. As we will see in the parts that we quote later in the exposition of Chairman Gonzalo regarding Gonzalo thought
in the I. Congress (the non-public document):
“But it is important, that in this last part (Regarding Gonzalo thought), in which it says: ‘key point is to see how, in this great class struggle on the world level, Gonzalo Thought considers that a third stage of the proletarian ideology arises: First, as Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought; then Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought; and later, it is defined as Maoism, understanding its universal validity; and in this way reaching Marxism-Leninism- Maoism, principally Maoism, as the present expression of Marxism.’”
Chairman Gonzalo further explains, breaking down some expressions that can be expressed regarding this relationship, as follows: “its absurd to compare historic figures, historic persons; everyone of us develops in a different and precise historic context. We could never counter-pose ourselves to our glorious founder Marx or Lenin or Chairman Mao, and not these two with the first, and not one against another, never, I speak about facts; because counter-posing the one who speaks (Chairman Gonzalo) with Chairman Mao, please!, it seems to me as a bad joke and stupid taste. How could you counter-pose the specification to one country with the highest peak of the universal ideology, how? That makes no sense, comrades, that is not even really worth thinking about.”ix
So we see that the different terms with which the friends of KA operate are not “matters of taste” of one group, but have scientific meaning and exact definitions. There is thus an essential difference between Maoism and Mao Tse-tung-Thought.
The phrase “mainly Maoism” here is a part of the understanding that emphasises Maoism as the today’s highest of the three stages. In the course of asserting Maoism as the new, third and higher stage, it is necessary to emphasise the main side of the struggle, in this case Maoism. Because principally we orient ourselves on Maoism, as the higher truth, in order to reach the goal of communism by initiating the protracted people’s war. Not understanding this leads to problems, as are expressed in the text partially.
According to Communist Construction, this process of the development of the ideology takes place in this way:
“At its VII Congress in 1945, the Communist Party of China (CPCh) had for the first time spoken of the ‘Mao Tse-tung ideas’ as a further development of Marxism-Leninism. The Chinese party leader Mao Tse-tung himself had positioned himself against this at that time. Nevertheless, the formulation was included in the Party’s statute. Yet, the theory of the ‘Mao Tse-tung ideas’ was a purely Chinese phenomenon.”x
They do not substantiate the claim that Chairman Mao took a stand against this statement. Contrary to this, Chairman Mao himself talks about the line taken at the VII Party Congress:
“We firmly believe that the Chinese people, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and guided by the line of the VII Party Congress of the Communist Party of China, will achieve full victory, while the counter-revolutionary line of the Kuomintang is certain of defeat.”xi
So he says the line is correct and does not oppose it. Contrary to the statement of Communist Construction, we do not discover a positioning of Chairman Mao against the further development of the definition as Mao Tse-tung-Thought.
In this connection, the Friends of KA also bring forward in a footnotexii an alleged quotation from Chairman Mao taking a stand against the use of the term Maoism. What the friends leave aside here is the actual origin of this alleged quotation. It appears for the first time in a Chinese article from 1981, i.e. already five years after the revisionist coup in China.xiii This means that KA takes at this point an alleged quotation from Chairman Mao, which was published and disseminated under the rule of the revisionist rat Deng Xiao-Ping, and takes this at face value. To proceed in this way is in fact to follow Deng’s logic, namely that it does not matter whether “a cat is black or white, the main thing is that it catches mice”. In order to attack Maoism, KA does not seem to shy away from consulting even the biggest revisionists and traitors to the working class, the principal being to achieve the aim.xiv This cannot be the method of the Marxists.
Continuing:
“In 1963 the CPCh puplisched their ‘Proposal concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement’ in which they defended Marxism-Leninism against the revisionist deviations of CPSU.”xv
Here they already show one of the frequent tricks used to negate Chairman Mao’s further development of Marxism. They say that he only defended Marxism-Leninism, not developed it.However, the only way to actually defend the ideology is to apply it in practice, for solving current concrete problems. As a result, however, ideology continues to develop because it is creatively applied to new problems and thus produces new solutions. Ideology advances in its development. To make the matter clearer, one can study the struggles Lenin waged in defence of Marxism, two of his most famous writings – “Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism” and “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky” – written in defence of Marxism against Kautsky’s revisionist attacks. The two writings were struggle writings in which Lenin defended Marxism and subsequently applied it to new problems or summarised the practical experiences from the application of Marxism. Thus, important contributions to the development of Marxism into Marxism-Leninism were made precisely in the active defence of Marxism. The defence of Marxism is not an academic debate, but an active struggle, and can only be carried out successfully through the application of Marxism. To believe that such a great ideological struggle as that against Khrushchev revisionism has been waged and no contributions to the development of Marxism-Leninism have been made in the process would be completely alien to any reality.
In the following, the Friends of KA consider the development of Maoism regarding the GPCR:
“In the course of the Cultural Revolution, ‘Mao Tse-tung-Thought‘ were massively propagated as a further development of Marxism-Leninism. Thus, in the preface to the second edition of ‘Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung’ (16 December 1966), Lin Biao introduced the term ‘Mao Tse-tung-Thought’ in a central place: ‘Comrade Mao Tse-tung (. . . ) has brought it (Marxism-Leninism; note by ci-ic.org)to a higher and completely new stage. Mao Tse-tung’s thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to worldwide victory.’ In ‘Concerning Questions of Leninism’, Joseph Stalin had defined Leninism as ‘Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution’. Now Lin Biao deliberately used the epoch concept to present Mao Tse-tung-Thought as a qualitative higher development.”xvi
As we have seen in Chairman Mao’s quotation regarding the line of the VII Party Congress, the development towards Mao Tse-tung-Thought is not only the understanding of one Lin Biao, but of the whole Party, accepted in the line of the Party Congress. The conscious use of the term “epoch” is in no way opposed to the understanding of the further development of Marxism. This question was explained at length in a document, which was, however, only published after the KA text appeared:
“Here it becomes clear why the deduction that Leninism is for the whole stage of imperialism is false. And it clarifies, in the manner previously explained, the fundamentals of Maoism and how to locate it historically. From the latter a problem arises in relation to a new stage of the ideology of the proletariat, one can say “yes, but here they are avoiding the problem that we are in the epoch of imperialism”; until today it is difficult to understand what the reason is or what it means that we are in the epoch of imperialism, what does that
have to do with a new stage of our ideology and why? It has been read so many times – from many organizations who state there can’t be a third stage – because we are in the era of imperialism, is that reason enough? No, what is that reason, it has no foundation whatsoever. Where does this come from? From two sources:
First: what Comrade Stalin said in 1924 at the Sverdlov University. Don’t forget how many years ago, a lot of years. It is a short time, if we count up the years that have passed since the First Congress of the CPP. It is ninety six years that he said that, but what does Comrade Stalin say? We must not only read this little work of comrade Stalin, we must read everything that follows and is developed by the comrade; he says, for example, that Marx and Engels were in the pre-revolutionary era and what happens is that we have entered an era in which the revolution is already mature. That is what Lenin said in essence about imperialism. That is what he says, he does not say more; where does he say there cannot be another thought or another new stage? Where does he say so? He does not say so anywhere, nor can it be derived from that statement by comrade Stalin. Then, it is 96 years old and comrade Stalin said it, but he does not say that there won’t be another stage. He is placing Leninism within imperialism, but it cannot be derived from that in all imperialism it is Leninism, it does not correspond, it is a false deduction. If you read Stalin’s lecture – you can read it, it is in “The Foundations of Leninism”, we all know the text, – you have to read it completely.
“What, then, in the last analysis, is Leninism?
Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. Marx and Engels pursued their activities in the pre-revolutionary period (we have the proletarian revolution in mind), when developed imperialism did not yet exist, in the period of the proletarians’preparation for revolution, in the period when the proletarian revolution was not yet an immediate practical inevitability. But Lenin, the disciple of Marx and Engels, pursued his activities in the period of developed imperialism, in the period of the unfolding proletarian revolution, when the proletarian revolution had already triumphed in one country, had smashed bourgeois democracy and had ushered in the era of proletarian democracy, the era of the Soviets.
That is why Leninism is the further development of Marxism.
It is usual to point to the exceptionally militant and exceptionally
revolutionary character of Leninism. This is quite correct. But this specific feature of Leninism is due to two causes: firstly, to the fact that Leninism emerged from the proletarian revolution, the imprint of which it cannot but bear; secondly, to the fact that it grew and became strong in clashes with the opportunism of the Second International, the fight against which was and remains an essential preliminary condition for a successful fight against capitalism. It must not be forgotten that between Marx and Engels, on the one hand, and Lenin, on the other, there lies a whole period of undivided domination of the opportunism of the Second International, and the ruthless struggle against this opportunism could not but constitute one of the most important tasks of Leninism.”
Second source: what is written in the first part of Stalin’s quote, is the same thing as what the 10th Congress of the Communist Party of China states, or not? That is what it says: “We are still in the era of imperialism […] Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism […] the era has not changed.” But what is the 10th Congress? Isn’t it the return of the right, isn’t it the return of Teng? It is the return of Teng to the Central Committee and why did they return? Did the right wing have weight, or not? They recovered positions, in the intricate class struggle they recovered positions. So why then should what the 10th Congress says weigh more, should the 10th Congress be measured in any case? Looking at the 10th Congress, one thing is what Chou En-lai said presenting the Political Report and another thing is what Wang Jun-wen specifies presenting the Statutes, one sees that there is struggle and contention, one cannot forget that. Then, the agreement of the 9th Congress, which established Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, separated by dashes, formerly separated by a comma, which is different, begins to be questioned. To put Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought is one thing, the form it first was enunciated, then the form changed, separated by dashes. The right-wingers’ congress of return is being invoked, where there is a sharp struggle. Remember that comrade Chiang Ching was a consistent standard-bearer of Maoism. The trial that this miserable Teng has given to her proves it, could they have broken her? No. While Wang Jun-wen, who was considered as the future champion, the one that should follow Mao, miserably bowed his knee, while that Yao Wen-yuan bowed his knee and asked for mercy, comrade Chiang Ching did not bow, neither did comrade Chang Chun-chao, but it was comrade Chiang Ching who kept the flag, that is what has to be understood. Without denying the role of comrade Chang Chun-chao, it is not the same as the role of comrade Chiang Ching in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, facts are facts, they cannot be denied with words. The role of comrade Chiang Ching in the GPCR is extraordinary! And she has kept the flag without kneeling, facing Teng and her revisionist gang in the “trial”, who has called them fascists, who has called them revisionists, who has said: You are faithless and lawless? Who? Wasn’t it her? We must remember this.
Back to topic, Chairman Gonzalo tells us, it is not sufficient to invoke imperialism to deny, nor can it be said that there is no room for a new stage. Why? On capitalism: Is capitalism a mode of production, is it the last one or not? Or is imperialism another mode of production? It is clear that capitalism is the last mode of production. What happened is that a pre-monopolist and a monopolist have been specified. That is imperialism, nothing else. See how what was a unit – capitalism – is differentiated in two parts, or not? Now, will imperialism always be the same or will it have a process of development? In short, is the decomposition of imperialism increasing or has it always been the same? Then it is to define the moments of the process of imperialism, or will it not have a process? There is nothing on earth that does not have its process. So, as it is, there is no reason why this process of decomposition should not generate a new stage. Therefore, it is not a question of not fitting into the same stage, because this is not solid. Moreover, no foundation has ever been given, it is only said that it does not fit in a single stage but it is not said why, because it is only a statement based on what comrade Stalin said in 1924 or repeating what the 10th Congress said and it has no foundation whatsoever. Moreover those who uphold this would have to prove first that there is no room for a new stage of the scientific ideology of the proletariat in the whole stage of monopoly capitalism or imperialism.”xvii
In the course of the question of the development of Marxism, the friends of the KA now raise the role of the GPCR as a blow against revisionism:
“The Cultural Revolution appeared to many revolutionaries as a concrete conclusion in response to the revisionist degeneration in the Soviet Union. It made Mao and the CPCh the symbolic vanguard of the struggle against revisionism and the new leading force of the International Communist Movement. At the same time, the development of a ‘new ideological stage’ served the Chinese leadership to underline its own position in contrast to the Moscow revisionists. Conversely, the latter had been using the label of ‘Maoism’ since the late 1960s to slander the revolutionary opposition to the revisionist positions of the CPSU as alienation from Marxism-Leninism. All over the world, new revolutionary organisations emerged at the end of the 1960s. Some of them whom did not follow the path of the revisionist Soviet Union, split off from the ‘Communist Parties’ loyal to Moscow, and others founded new organisations. Almost all anti-revisionist parties and organisations adopted the Chinese formulation of ‘Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung-Thought’ as the current ideology of the international proletariat in the early 1970s, in demarcation from revisionism.”xviii
After the death of Chairman Mao, then:
“A part of the Marxist-Leninist movement began – also under the influence of the Party of Labour of Albania with its Chairman Enver Hoxha – to question the theory of ‘Mao Tsetung-Thought’ and discarded this terminology. Particularly influential in this was the dispute over the ‘Three Worlds Theory: which was rejected as counter-revolutionary by the so-called ‘Hoxhaite’ section of the ML movement.”xix
The earliest Hoxha talks about the “three worlds theory” is dated 28.12.1976xx, just over three months after Chairman Mao’s death. After that, he claims (e.g. in “Imperialism and Revolution”):
“Many of the states which the Chinese leadership includes in the “third world” are not opposed to American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. To call such states “the main motive force of the revolution and the struggle against imperialism”, as Mao Tsetung advocates, is a glaring mistake that stands out like the Himalayas.”xxi
Hoxha claims that the “theory of the three worlds” negates revolution as the main political and historical tendency and that there is a socialist camp, or that only revolution in imperialist countries is necessary. Hoxha mixes the Maoist theory of “the three worlds take shape” with the revisionist lies of Teng Hsiao-Ping about this theory. In fact, however, these understandings have nothing in common. Chairman Gonzalo states:
“Lenin says that the revolution is not going to be simply the revolution in the advanced countries, that is senseless, it has to be combined with the revolution in the backward countries, because that is how imperialism is going to collapse; he lays down lines, concrete, long-term, masterly lines. If one reads Lenin carefully, one sees that he turns his eyes towards the backward countries, not because he does not want revolution within imperialism, no, that is not the problem, but because he sees the reality and the perspective of the world.
Chairman Mao, in the other circumstance where the revolution is already developing, has, in our opinion – this is what we think – moved on to the problem of equilibrium and has entered into the question of the strategy of the world revolution, the strategic offensive of the world revolution, that is what we think.
…
For this, what is Chairman Mao’s starting point: “the revolution is the main trend as the decomposition of imperialism is greater every day, the role of the masses more immense year by year, who make and will make their uncontainable transforming force felt and in the great truth, reiterated by him, that: we all enter communism or no one enters”; that is why he focuses again on seeing the world revolution as a unity, but I insist, already feasible, as a concrete perspective.
In Marx it is there as a principle and in Lenin as a need to promote it: for the Chairman the problem is that this situation has opened up and that is where we are going to develop.
Revolution, the main trend in history, yes. It is the main trend in the world, historically and politically; that is what we must emphasise, it is not simply the historical perspective but it is political, it is already the order of the day, that is to say, and that is what we must strive for. This fits in with the 50 to 100 years, otherwise why did the Chairman give us a masterly calculation: 50 to 100 years, because in that period imperialism and reaction must be wiped off the face of the earth, and that is the world revolution.
Now, the problem of the oppressed nations: Are they or are they not the ones that house the immense masses of the earth? Two thirds or seventy percent, huge masses, more or less. In the end, I think that is not the problem because some situations can change, yes, because the revolution is not straight, it is in zigzags, but that does not deny that the oppressed nations have the immense masses of the earth; Moreover, the growth of the masses is immensely greater than the increase of the oppressors in the oppressor nations, of the oppressor countries, of the imperialisms, even considering that they themselves oppress their own peoples; just look at the growth rates, which is 70% of the new children born in the backward world and that will continue to increase more and more. For me, of course, in good time, because the weight of the masses in history has begun to express itself more and more, and that is fundamental; if the masses make history, and that is a very great truth, then the weight of the masses will decide the revolution in the world, and where is that weight, then, in the oppressed nations? There I don’t think there is much to discuss, if they are material realities, facts; to close one’s eyes is foolishness.”xxii
So: the theory of “three worlds take shape” has nothing to do with the lies of the Chinese revisionists. The revisionist distortion negates the revolution in the imperialist nations and does not see the revolutionary struggle in its concatenation with the main force of revolution taking place in the oppressed nations. Since the masses make history and since the weight of the masses lies in the oppressed nations, that is where the weight of the world revolution lies, they are the storm centres of the revolution, as Chairman Mao says. This theory sees the world proletarian revolution as a whole and so does not negate the need for revolution in the imperialist countries, in the first and second world. On the contrary, it is about developing the revolution in these countries, as part and in the service of the world revolution. For the struggle in the imperialist nations has a direct (complementary) effect on the struggle in the oppressed nations.
Furthermore, the question remains open which bloc should be the supposed “world-level socialist bloc” (Hoxha) after of the usurpation of power by revisionism in China, or today. We consider that there was no “socialist bloc”xxiii after 1976, because socialism (the dictatorship of the proletariat) was replaced by revisionism in all so-called and self-proclaimed socialist states, by the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This means a “socialist block” did not exist after 1976, the last socialist state (China) fell to revisionism through the revisionists around Teng Hsiao-ping. The left in the party (the by the Chinese revisionists called the “Gang of Four”) was liquidated or put behind bars, and revisionism took over.
But back to the conceptual definition. Further regarding the development towards Maoism, the friends of KA write:
“Mao himself is said to have repeatedly opposed the notion of ‘Mao Tse-tung-Thought’ or even the construction of Maoism during his lifetime. Maoism is a new creation of those who see themselves in Mao’s tradition. In doing so, however, Maoists often go far beyond what Mao himself said or advocated.”xxiv
We have already touched on Chairman Mao’s alleged struggle against a definitional development of Marxism. At this point, however, it should be noted that, contrary to the understanding of some comrades, Maoism was not synthesised by Chairman Gonzalo, but defined. In the document “On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, the components and content of Maoism are defined, there is no “new-creation” which would correspond to a synthesis.
The friends misunderstand the implementation of Maoism as a higher stage of ideology. In their article, they refer to the different definitions of Maoism, referring to the RIM. However, what they fail to realise is that we have no disagreement with them at all. At present, the problem exists that there are different ideas about what exactly constitutes Maoism. However, this is a problem of two-line struggle of which we are fully aware. In concrete terms, this means that the problem lies in the fact that the correct definition has not been accepted in practice until today, and therefore different definitions coexist. However: there is only one correct definition and not several. A definition is right or it is wrong. But a truth cannot exist many times, it is single. Therefore, it is necessary to advance the implementation of the correct definition of Maoism (that of the Communist Party of Peru).
Thus, the friends write on this issue:
“At the same time, the 1993 Declaration does not constitute the unified basis of all Maoists. Rather, in the course of time, almost every major Maoist organisation has produced its own interpretation of Maoism. In some cases, these ideologies are named after the leaders of their parties: ‘Gonzalo-Thought’ in the PCP, the ‘Pachandra-Path’ in the CPN(M), the ‘New Synthesis’ in the RCP USA. The Turkish TKP/ML, the Indian CPI (Maoist) as well as the Philippine CPPh have also presented their own views on Maoism in documents. Furthermore, the discussion between the Maoists has intensified in the last 5 to 10 years. In some cases, widely divergent positions can be discerned. We are therefore faced with the analytical problem that there is not one ‘Maoism’ to which everyone refers to.”xxv
Consequently, there is “Maoism”, it has just not yet finally asserted itself in struggle and is not yet recognised by all. The development of Maoism, its implementation and acceptance can be researched impressively in the history of the RIM:
“In 1984, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement was founded, grouping together the nucleus of the Maoist revolutionaries the world over who were determined to carry forward the fight for a world without exploitation and oppression, without imperialism, a world in which the very division of society into classes will be overcome — the communist world of the future. Since the formation of our Movement we have continued to advance and today, on the occasion of the Mao Tsetung Centenary, with a deep sense of our responsibility, we declare to the international proletariat and the oppressed masses of the world that our guiding ideology is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Our Movement was founded on the basis of the Declaration of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement adopted by the Second Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations in 1984. The Declaration upholds the proletarian revolutionary ideology and on that basis in the main it correctly addresses the tasks ofthe revolutionary communists in different countries and on a world scale, the history of the international communist movement, and a number of other vital questions. Today we reaffirm the Declaration as the solid foundation of our Movement upon which we are building a new clarity and deeper understanding of our ideology and the more solid unity of our movement.”
The Declaration correctly stresses that “Mao Tsetungs qualitative development of the science of Marxism-Leninism” and affirms that he raised it to “a new stage.” However, the use of the term “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in our Declaration reflected a still incomplete understanding of this new stage. In the last nine years our Movement has been engaged in a long, rich and thoroughgoing discussion and struggle to more fully grasp Mao Tsetung’s development of Marxism. During this same period the parties and organisations of our Movement and RIM as a whole have been engaged in revolutionary struggle against imperialism and reaction. Most important has been the advanced experience of the People’s War led by the Communist Party of Peru which has succeeded in mobilising the masses in their millions, sweeping aside the state in many parts of the country and establishing the power of the workers and peasants in these areas. These advances, in theory and practice, have enabled us to further deepen our grasp of the proletarian ideology and on that basis take a far-reaching step, the recognition of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the new, third and higher stage of Marxism.”xxvi
The friends of KA are therefore wrong and ignore the two-line struggle on this question. It should also be noted here that they do not pay attention to the difference between ideology and the application of this ideology to concrete revolution, and thus do not differentiate from the revisionism of people like Prachanda or Avakian. With this overview of KA’s understanding of the history of Maoism, we move on to their understanding of the content.
Philosophy
First a couple of introductory words on our part on Marxist philosophy. Lenin separated Marxism to its three sources and three components in philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism. Dialectical materialism is the philosophy of the proletariat and it was developed by Marx in struggle against incorrect positions, among others against those of Hegel. Lenin and Mao Tse-tung have further developed all three components of Marxism, and so also the philosophy. In the following some aspects of dialectical materialism are presented in order to refute the criticism of Kommunistischer Aufbau. The statements of the Communist Party of Peru on this question in the document “On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, where Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is defined as the third and higher stage of the ideology of the proletariat, it is kept quite concise:
“In Marxist philosophy he [Chairman Mao] developed the core of dialectics, the law of contradiction, establishing it as the only fundamental law; and beyond his deep dialectical understanding of the theory of knowledge, whose centre is the two leaps that makes up its law (from practice to knowledge and from knowledge to practice, where the leap from knowledge to practice is the main one), it should be emphasized that he masterfully applied the law of contradiction in politics; and moreover he brought philosophy to the masses of people, fulfilling the task that Marx left.”xxvii
Four points are made here: 1. The establishment of the law of contradiction as the fundamental law; 2. A deep understanding of the theory of knowledge, especially the contradiction between practice and theory; 3. The application of the law of contradiction in politics; 4. A philosophy for the masses. Communist Construction quote part of this paragraph, but leave out a fundamental struggle with these four points.
As we will see in several points, the KA states, that Chairman Mao has defended and popularized Marxist philosophy, but not developed it. To prove this, they proceed in a pedantic and eclectic manner instead of a scientific one with philosophy. The friends write:
“Dialectical materialism is the philosophical foundation of the communists. Also Mao Tse-tung has defended this as the foundation of the communist world view. He has expressed himself in various writings on philosophical questions. However, according to his own declarations he did not pursue the goal of fundamentally developing philosophy.”xxviii
To the last sentence of the quoted paragraph we must ask the friends, if Lenin aiming to defend dialectical materialism also pursued to develop it? But further in the text we see, as we already stated, is it wrong, isolation of defence or development of the philosophy. The philosophy develops by defending it, in the concrete application on questions and problems. It develops in struggle, its development is hence understood dialectically and not metaphysically (isolated, only development, or only defence). For communists the defence of Marxism is not an abstract discussion, especially not, when applying it in the leading of a Party, and the People’s War, or leading a socialist state. It goes therefore, the principles to apply to the current and thereby new problems. This also carries on to the further development of Marxism. We can also see this in the examples given by KA, in their article they themselves recognizes further development. Lenin’s theory of imperialism originated from refuting the attacks of Kautsky against Marxism. According to their understanding, “On Practice” and “On Contradiction” are also “essentially popular representations of dialectical materialism with a certain emphasis on the basis of the concrete historical situation. In fact, it was only the later Maoists who assumed that Mao had further developed philosophy in these writings in particular. The most important core points, which are often described as further developments, will therefore be discussed below.”xxix They do not go into the developments mentioned and thus try to cover them up. In the following we will look at them individually.
Core of dialectics and only fundamental law
In the first question, that of contradiction as the only fundamental law, the friends in KA claim that understanding contradiction as the “core of dialectics” is the same as understanding it as the “only fundamental law”. Yet these are elementarily different levels of understanding. The core of dialectics means understanding the contradiction only as central to dialectics, whereas the only fundamental law means exactly that, namely understanding dialectics as the only fundamental law of the world. The one means the essence (of dialectics), the other its generality (a law that is valid everywhere and always in the world). The following is an excursus on the core of dialectics and the only fundamental law.
Dialectics is the teaching of the contradiction in things. This is opposed to metaphysical thinking. Dialectics assumes that a thing is a unity of opposites. Everything changes and nothing remains as it is. Everything is in motion. As Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher once said – everything flows. Whereas metaphysics says everything remains as it is, nothing changes.
Engels summarised the contradiction between dialectics and metaphysics in this way:
“To the metaphysician, things and their mental images, ideas, are isolated, to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, fixed, rigid objects of investigation given once for all. He thinks in absolutely unmediated antitheses. ‘His communication is ‘yea, yea; nay, nay’; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.’ For him a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis one to the other. At first sight this way of thinking seems to us most plausible because it is that of so-called sound common sense. Yet sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. The metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and even necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the object, invariably bumps into a limit sooner or later, beyond which it becomes one sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions, because in the presence of individual things it forgets their connections; because in the presence of their existence it forgets their coming into being and passing away; because in their state of rest it forgets their motion. It cannot see the wood for the trees.”xxx
Engels describes metaphysical thinking as one that can only understand things as different from one another, but is unable to understand how they transform into one another. Things become separate and rigid, and thus their connection and becoming cannot be understood. But life is not that simple. Thus, the true statement can be made about a human body that it is alive. At the same time, one can say about the same body that it dies. And at the same time. For in it new cells are continually born and old cells die, and its becoming is the movement of this contradiction, which in the course of its ageing shifts more and more towards dying until it is dead.
Mao Tse-tung summarises the core of metaphysical thinking like this::
“As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes. Thus materialist dialectics effectively combats the theory of external causes, or of an external motive force, advanced by metaphysical mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism.”xxxi
Chairman Mao here emphasises the inner contradictoriness of things, which the metaphysicians deny. This does not mean that something is related to something else, but what is related to something else is decisive. Chairman Mao illustrates this with the example of egg and stone. It is not the warmth that is decisive in the incubation process, but the egg. You can warm a stone as much as you want, but no chicken will come out. Thus, dialectics and metaphysics are already fundamentally differentiated, but this gross distinction is further elaborated.
The main thing about Chairman Mao’s contribution to dialectical materialism is that he defined it in a clear positive way, and defined the generality of contradiction as the only universal law of the world.
“The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end.”xxxii
“What is meant by the emergence of a new process? The old unity with its constituent opposites yields to a new unity with its constituent opposites, whereupon a new process emerges to replace the old. The old process ends and the new one begins. The new process contains new contradictions and begins its own history of the development of contradictions.”xxxiii
The text of Communist Construction reveals its authors’ lack of understanding of this point. They deny that Chairman Mao herewith developed dialectical materialism. Understanding the above sentence arms one against any metaphysics. In general, to understand that contradictions exist in the developmental processes of all things from beginning to end means being alert to any particular theory that wants to tell you that there is something monolithic, harmonious without contradictions, and to suspect the error, even if you cannot yet pinpoint it in its particularity. The generality of the contradiction is the only and fundamental law that applies absolutely. Conversely, this also means that all other laws are relative.
If one has understood the generality of the contradiction, this already excludes the grossest errors in the understanding of a particular object, nevertheless the occupation with the particular contradiction of the particular object remains necessary.
“First, the contradiction in each form of motion of matter has its particularity. Man’s knowledge of matter is knowledge of its forms of motion, because there is nothing in this world except matter in motion and this motion must assume certain forms. In considering each form of motion of matter, we must observe the points which it has in common with other forms of motion. But what is especially important and necessary, constituting as it does the foundation of our knowledge of a thing, is to observe what is particular to this form of motion of matter, namely, to observe the qualitative difference between this form of motion and other forms.”xxxiv
“Since the particular is united with the universal and since the universality as well as the particularity of contradiction is inherent in everything, universality residing in particularity, we should, when studying an object, try to discover both the particular and the universal and their interconnection, to discover both particularity and universality and also their interconnection within the object itself, and to discover the interconnections of this object with the many objects outside it.”xxxv
The contradiction is absolute and not relative because it exists in all things from beginning to end, but it does not exist apart from particular things. The generality of the contradiction always realises itself in a particular way in a particular object, and this particularity must be recognised. A practice that is based on a theory that denies this, necessarily remains template-like, dogmatic and mechanical.
Practice as a criterion of truth
Marxism holds the position that relative knowledge of an objective world existing outside the subjects is possible, and the relative truth of this knowledge is confirmed by practice. This position has been developed and deepened ever since Marx. Communist Construction considers it a refutation of the further development of Marxism, stating that the further development of Chariman Mao does not contradict Marx.
Communist Construction says that Chairman Mao has emphasised practice as the criterion of truth, and then say that this cannot be a further development of Marxism, because after all, Marx had already done that. Then they quote the popular final thesis from Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach:
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”xxxvi
However, this thesis is not at all about practice as a criterion of truth. It is about the fact that a theory that is merely analysis or interpretation and does not aim at practice is flawed because it does nothing to change the interpreted world. It is about the purpose of theory and not about its truthfulness.
It is true, however, that Marx deals with practice as a criterion of truth in Theses on Feuerbach. Namely in the second thesis:
“The question whether representational truth can be attained by human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. It is in practice that man must prove the truth, that is, the reality and power, the this-worldliness of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or unreality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.”xxxvii
Now it can be correctly stated that Chairman Mao’s remarks are nothing other than what is in this thesis, insofar as they uphold its content as a principle of Marxism. Yes, Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao, and also Engels, Stalin and every other Marxist are advocates of practice as the criterion of truth.
But if one therefore stands up and says that the further development of dialectical materialism and of the contradiction of practice and theory by Chairman Mao is not a further development because Marx has already established the principle, then this is like saying that the further development of political economy by Lenin’s theory of imperialism is not a further development because Marx has already established the principle. Here the refutation of further development is merely pretended. In order to meet the criterion of Communist Construction for further development, Chairman Mao would have to have broken with the principles of Marxism, he would have to be a revisionist. Otherwise, one can always argue that the underlying principle is already found in Marx. What Chairman Mao has done with regard to the contradiction of practice and theory is that he has analysed the movement of this contradiction more profoundly and dealt with its specificity more precisely, thus increasing the relative realisation of it.
“Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.”xxxviii
“As regards the sequence in the movement of man’s knowledge, there is always a gradual growth from the knowledge of individual and particular things to the knowledge of things in general. Only after man knows the particular essence of many different things can he proceed to generalization and know the common essence of things. When man attains the knowledge of this common essence, he uses it as a guide and proceeds to study various concrete things which have not yet been studied, or studied thoroughly, and to discover the particular essence of each; only thus is he able to supplement, enrich and develop his knowledge of their common essence and prevent such knowledge from withering or petrifying. These are the two processes of cognition: one, from the particular to the general, and the other, from the general to the particular.”xxxix
In this reference, the KA also explicitly uses a trick that runs through other parts of the text. This trick attempts to negate the further development of the Chairman Mao through flat forms of expression, for example, the friends write about the question of the Marxist theory of knowledge:
“What Mao already states here, it is not a totally new idea, but the ‘Marxist theory of knowledge’.”xl
Thus, the further developments of Maoism are to be denied by implying that “totally new ideas” are needed, but the contributions of Chairman Mao are then none. If KA’s construct is contradictory enough here, the understanding of Marxism on this question must be clarified. On this question, comrade Stalin summarised the correct position on Leninism, which faced similar attacks:
“I think that Lenin ‘added’ no ‘new principles’ to Marxism, nor did he abolish any of the ‘old’ principles of Marxism. Lenin was, and remains, the most loyal and consistent pupil of Marx and Engels, and he wholly and completely based himself on the principles of Marxism. But Lenin did not merely carry out the teaching of Marx and Engels. He was at the same time the continuer of that teaching. What does that mean? It means that he developed further the teaching of Marx and Engels in conformity with the new conditions of development, with the new phase of capitalism, with imperialism. It means that in developing further the teaching of Marx in the new conditions of the class struggle, Lenin contributed something new to the general treasury of Marxism as compared with what was created by Marx and Engels, with what could be created in the pre-imperialist period of capitalism; at the same time Lenin’s new contribution to the treasury of Marxism is wholly and completely based on the principles laid down by Marx and Engels. It is in this sense that we speak of Leninism as Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions.”xli
Here, the understanding of what it means to develop Marxism is once again brought to the point. And it becomes clear that any claim or assertion that “totally new ideas” need to be added to Marxism has nothing to do with the understanding of Marxism itself on this question. That is why this trick, used in different places and on different issues, is just that – a trick, and not a very good one at that.
Principal contradiction
First of all, some introductory remarks on our part on the terms fundamental contradiction and principal contradiction.
A great deal of confusion is caused by Communist Constructions explanations of the principal contradiction, since they confuse this category of the theory of knowledge with that of the fundamental contradiction. Following the structure of Mao Tse-tung’s work “On Contradiction”, the concept of the fundamental contradiction will first be introduced in order to criticise Communist Constructions wrong understanding of the fundamental contradictions at the world level and, building on this, to explain the concept of the principal contradiction.
“The fundamental contradiction in the process of development of a thing and the essence of the process determined by this fundamental contradiction will not disappear until the process is completed; but in a lengthy process the conditions usually differ at each stage. The reason is that, although the nature of the fundamental contradiction in the process of development of a thing and the essence of the process remain unchanged, the fundamental contradiction becomes more and more intensified as it passes from one stage to another in the lengthy process. In addition, among the numerous major and minor contradictions which are determined or influenced by the fundamental contradiction, some become intensified, some are temporarily or partially resolved or mitigated, and some new ones emerge; hence the process is marked by stages. If people do not pay attention to the stages in the process of development of a thing, they cannot deal with its contradictions properly.”xlii
Chairman Mao here elaborates on the concept of fundamental contradiction, defining it as a contradiction by which the essence of the process is conditioned, and which does not disappear as long as the process is not completed. The example through which Communist Construction discusses this category of the theory of knowledge is the fundamental contradictions at the world level. The Communist Party of Peru defines them in its International Line as follows:
“When assessing the world in this era, we see that four fundamental contradictions are expressed: 1) the contradiction between capitalism and socialism, referring to the contradiction between two radically different systems, which will encompass this entire era. This contradiction will be one of the last to be resolved, and will endure after the seizure of power; 2) the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the contradiction between two opposed classes that will also persist after the taking of power, manifesting itself in multiple ideological, political and economic forms until its resolution with the arrival of Communism; 3) the inter-imperialist contradictions, the contradiction between the imperialists themselves for hegemony in the world, it occurs between the superpowers themselves, between the superpowers and the imperialist powers and among the imperialist powers themselves. This contradiction will be solved during the epoch of the next 50 to 100 years; 4) the contradiction between the oppressed nations and imperialism which is the struggle for the liberation of oppressed nations in order to destroy imperialism and reaction, whose resolution is also framed within the next 50 to 100 years. During this time, this is the principal contradiction, although any one of the four fundamental contradictions can be principal in accordance with the specific circumstances of the class struggle, temporarily or in certain countries.”xliii
The concept of the principal contradiction raised here and the criticism of Communist Construction of it will be discussed in the following section. It should first be noted that this quotation from the International Line is a deepening and further development of comrade Stalin’s analysis of the world situation as he presents it in “The Foundations of Leninism”:
“Lenin called imperialism ‘moribund capitalism.’ Why? Because imperialism carries the contradictions of capitalism to their last bounds, to the extreme limit, beyond which revolution begins. Of these contradictions, there are three which must be regarded as the most important.
The first contradiction is the contradiction between labour and capital. Imperialism is the omnipotence of the monopolist trusts and syndicates, of the banks and the financial oligarchy, in the industrial countries. In the fight against this omnipotence, the customary methods of the working class – trade unions and co-operatives, parliamentary parties and the parliamentary struggle — have proved to be totally inadequate. Either place yourself at the mercy of capital, eke out a wretched existence as of old and sink lower and lower, or adopt a new weapon — this is the alternative imperialism puts before the vast masses of the proletariat. Imperialism brings the working class to revolution.
The second contradiction is the contradiction among the various financial groups and imperialist powers in their struggle for sources of raw materials, for foreign territory. Imperialism is the export of capital to the sources of raw materials, the frenzied struggle for monopolist possession of these sources, the struggle for a redivision of the already divided world, a struggle waged with particular fury by new financial groups and powers seeking a ‘place in the sun’ against the old groups and powers, which cling tenaciously to what they have seized. This frenzied struggle among the various groups of capitalists is notable in that it includes as an inevitable element imperialist wars, wars for the annexation of foreign territories. This circumstance, in its turn, is notable in that it leads to the mutual weakening of the imperialists, to the weakening of the position of capitalism in general, to the acceleration of the advent of the proletarian revolution and to the practical necessity of this revolution.
The third contradiction is the contradiction between the handful of ruling, ‘civilized’ nations and the hundreds of millions of the colonial and dependent peoples of the world. Imperialism is the most barefaced exploitation and the most inhuman oppression of hundreds of millions of people inhabiting vast colonies and dependent countries. The purpose of this exploitation and of this oppression is to squeeze out super-profits. But in exploiting these countries imperialism is compelled to build there railways, factories and mills, industrial and commercial centres. The appearance of a class of proletarians, the emergence of a native intelligentsia, the awakening of national consciousness, the growth of the liberation movement – such are the inevitable results of this ‘policy.’ The growth of the revolutionary movement in all colonies and dependent countries without exception clearly testifies to this fact. This circumstance is of importance for the proletariat inasmuch as it saps radically the position of capitalism by converting the colonies and dependent countries from reserves of imperialism into reserves of the proletarian revolution.
Such, in general, are the principal contradictions of imperialism which have converted the old, ‘flourishing’ capitalism into moribund capitalism.”xliv
Also Comrade Stalin distinguishes more important contradictions that determine the world situation more essentially from others, even if the terms of the theory of knowledge in which he does so are not yet as developed as those of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
So the friends of KA raises:
“In fact, what is new is Mao’s development of the philosophical therms of ‘principal contradiction’ and the ‘principalaspect’ of contradictions. Let us look at these developments and how some Maoists have applied them in practice in more detail. On the term ‘principal contradiction’ Mao states in ‘On Contradiction’ (1937): ‘There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions’. Mao emphasized that one must give the largest effort to find the principal contradiction, Lenin and Stalin, equates it with the main chain link.”xlv
As stated in the quotation about the fundamental contradiction, the fundamental contradiction is not solved until the particular process is completed, but the circumstances may differ in the course of its development. Depending on how circumstances develop, one of the contradictions is the main contradiction. Chairman Mao, as correctly quoted by KA, defines this as follows:
“There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions.”xlvi
On the world level, the main contradiction is between imperialism and oppressed nations. Why? One of the reasons given by Chairman Gonzalo is that history is made by the masses, and the masses are mainly located in the oppressed nations. In order not to repeat ourselves in this question, we refer to the the above-mentioned remarks by Chairman Gonzalo on the “three worlds are delineated”. These contain a very simple, basic argument. The struggles of the masses in the oppressed nations against the imperialist bourgeoisie and its allied bureaucratic bourgeoisie and big landowners in their own country, the economic, political, and military action of the imperialists against them; this is the contradiction that most determines world events in the current circumstances.
Communist Construction opposes this with this passage:
“It [the main contradiction] can be understood both dialectically in the sense of the general and the concrete, as well as metaphysically as a dualistic antithesis, in which the dialectical identity of opposites is lost as the way of the category of contradiction. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that some Maoists today develop a dogmatic black-and-white scheme in their search for the ‘main contradiction’.
For example, the way most of today’s Maoists see the ‘main’ contradiction’ on the world level as the one between imperialism and oppressed nations is, by the way, in direct contradiction to Mao. The contradictions between capital and labour and between imperialist powers are simply downgraded to the ‘second’ or ‘third’ contradiction. The term ‘secondary contradiction’ is used for this purpose.”xlvii
This quotation is very difficult to understand because it deals with many issues at the same time. On the one hand, Communist Construction says that the main contradiction can be understood dialectically in terms of the general and the concrete. The general and the concrete were discussed above in the sections on the generality and specificity of the contradiction. How Communist Construction accommodates this in the question of main contradiction is unfortunately not comprehensible .The main contradiction is about the relationship between different particular contradictions in a process. The relationship between the general and the particular does not belong here. On the other hand, Communist Construction believes that the main contradiction can be understood metaphysically as dualistic opposition. The metaphysics has been criticised in the quotations from Engels and above on the basis of Chairman Mao. This position of Communist Construction becomes clearer in its comments on the PKK.
“If the USA, out of its own imperialist interests, is willing to cooperate with the PKK for a certain period of time and bomb the fundamentalists from above, is it correct to say: ‘No, we cannot go ahead with this tactical cooperation, because US imperialism is the main enemy’?”
Is this really the relationship between Yankee imperialism and the PKK? No, the PKK did not use the Yankees, but was used by them, was completely dependent on them. We can see this not least in the withdrawal of the US army, which was followed by the invasion of the Turkish army. An article on demvolkedienen.org describes it as follows:
“That Yankee imperialism in this way crosses the YPG does not come as a great surprise for many revolutionaries. […] Yankee imperialism is not concerned with the just struggle of the Kurdish people for their own nation, but follows its own agenda and, as the worlds sole hegemonic superpower, does not bow to any form of allegiance with the PKK, but violates truces and alliances as it sees fit to serve its interests.
In this regard, Yankee imperialism made the YPG serve a double purpose: First, as ground forces in Syria, covering their advance by means of air strikes, weapons and intelligence into the country while fighting the so-called Islamic State. Now, being set up in Syria, they are used as targets so that the Turkish army also has a pretext to go into Syria. Here one can see how cynical the treachery of US imperialism is. The quick transition from the withdrawal of Yankee troops towards the Turkish attack on Syria speaks volumes in this question: It did not even take the Turkish army a week to prepare their assault. Instead the US troops conveniently leave in a moment, when the Turkish army is not only already prepared but actually strikes within a matter of days, clearly highlight the level of Yankee collusion in this matter.”xlviii
Then Communist Construction makes an argument that one is more accustomed to from antideutsche, namely the template-like and mechanical imitation of the alliance of the Soviet Union with the imperialist allies against the imperialist Axis powers:
“It goes without saying that the imperialists will always act in their own interests. However, this does not exclude the possibility of short-term tactical cooperation. How else can Lenin’s trip to Russia in cooperation with German imperialism be assessed? How else is the cooperation of the Soviet Union with the other imperialists as allies in order to overthrow Hitler’s fascism be evaluated?”xlix
The above quotation from the article on Turkey’s invasion of Syria should already have sufficiently clarified the issue, Lenin’s trip to Russia has nothing to do with the development of the YPG into the ground troops of US imperialism. The use of the contradiction between the imperialists by comrade Stalin, the leader of a great and strong socialist country and the International Communist Movement in order to isolate and destroy the main enemy, German fascism, in the contradiction between socialism and imperialism, is in no way the same as the voluntary dependence of a guerrilla army on the supply of money and material, weapons trainers and air support by the only hegemonic imperialist superpower. Communist Construction accuses the Maoists of making the concept of the main contradiction permanent. But the only thing they prove with their criticism is that they themselves are completely mechanically and blindly unable to understand the particularity of the situation of historical decisions by recognised leaders of the International Communist Movement and instead break it down to empty abstractions like “one may cooperate with imperialists” to then justify any betrayal of the international proletariat and the peoples of the world.
While they are happy to let Kurdish organisations off the hook, they are all the more critical of the so-called Islamists:
“In our article on Islamic fundamentalism, we have already explained in our why it would be completely wrong to consider these movements as anti-imperialist – because they were co-created by western imperialism itself and used for it’s ends. Today, even where they are in temporary opposition to US imperialism, they are in opposition to other ruling classes.”
To describe all the organisations and movements that are summarised by bourgeois authors under catchphrases such as “Islamic fundamentalism”, “Islamism” and so on, as being produced by US imperialism and used for its purposes, seems a little abstract. It is all the more strange that this criticism is not made of the Kurdish organisations that follow Öcalan. The last sentence is confusing because it is not clear whether US imperialism is supposed to be a ruling class and who these other ruling classes would be. Presumably this means other imperialist countries or local ruling classes such as the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the semi-feudal big landowners. To eliminate confusion, it is often advisable to quote Comrade Stalin, who, in the Foundations of Leninism, formulated the criterion according to which national movements in nations are to be evaluated:
“’The various demands of democracy,’ writes Lenin, ‘including self-determination, are not an absolute, but a small part of the general democratic (now: general socialist) world movement. In individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole; if so, it must be rejected.’ […] This is the position in regard to the question of particular national movements, of the possible reactionary character of these movements – if, of course, they are appraised not from the formal point of view, not from the point of view of abstract rights, but concretely, from the point of view of the interests of the revolutionary movement.
The same must be said of the revolutionary character of national movements in general. The unquestionably revolutionary character of the vast majority of national movements is as relative and peculiar as is the possible reactionary character of certain particular national movements. The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement. The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism; whereas the struggle waged by such ‘desperate’ democrats and ‘socialists,’ ‘revolutionaries’ and republicans as, for example, Kerensky and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan, Henderson and Clynes, during the imperialist war was a reactionary struggle, for its result was the embellishment, the strengthening, the victory, of imperialism. For the same reasons, the struggle that the Egyptian merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of the Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British ‘Labour’ government is waging to preserve Egypt’s dependent position is for the same reasons a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin and the proletarian title of the members of that government, despite the fact that they are ‘for’ socialism. There is no need to mention the national movement in other, larger, colonial and dependent countries, such as India and China, every step of which along the road to liberation, even if it runs counter to the demands of formal democracy, is a steam-hammer blow at imperialism, i.e., is undoubtedly a revolutionary step.”l
These remarks of comrade Stalin are very clear, and it would certainly be very helpful for a further debate if Communist Construction could explain what they find wrong with comrade Stalin’s remarks in order to understand their position on the PKK and the so-called Islamists.
“A contradiction involves the struggle between the old and the new, between the dying and the developing. Their unity is only temporary, relative, while the struggle is absolute. This struggle of opposites is the driving force of all development. In this sense, it is true that in every contradiction there is a driving force, a propelling side – that is the new. Mao’s remarks in ‘On Contradiction’ suggest that he wanted to call this the ‘principalaspect’ – an unnecessary new term for something that had already been developed by Engels and Lenin.”li
Obviously, the text in question has not been read very carefully. It is true that identity is relative, struggle is absolute. But that is not the point. On the other hand, that the new would automatically be the main side of the contradiction is not true. This is a very dogmatic, abstract and false position that does not appreciate the specificity of a process and its development in time.
Chairman Mao writes:
“Of the two contradictory aspects, one must be principal and the other secondary. The principal aspect is the one playing the leading role in the contradiction. The nature of a thing is determined mainly by the principal aspect of a contradiction, the aspect which has gained the dominant position.”lii
They also treat the question of the principal aspect within a contradiction in a similar way. In the last quoted excerpt of their text, they claim that it was already the concept of Engels and Lenin that determines the principal aspect of a contradiction, but in doing so they negate the actual content:
As an example of the “problems of application” they cite the attitude of the CPI (Maoist) regarding the “Islamists”:
“The General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) states that the contradiction – the Islamic jihadist movement – has two aspects, two sides. An anti-imperialist, progressive one and a reactionary one on an ideological level. The ‘main side’ on the philosophical level, however, is the anti-imperialist character, since the fundamentalists would be against imperialism, especially US imperialism. For this reason, it is necessary to ‘mainly’ work with them, while at the same time fighting ‘secondarily’ its ideology. In our article on Islamic fundamentalism, we have already explained why it is would be completely wrong to classify these movements as ‘anti-imperialist’ – after all, they have been massively used for its purposes. Today, even where they stand in temporary opposition to U.S. imperialism, they serve other ruling classes.”
On the one hand, the friends in KA see only the allegedly anti-imperialist side of the PKK and demand cooperation even with Yankee imperialism. However, they do not have the same standard for other movements, such as the Taliban (again, for the friends of KA, we refer to comrade Stalin’s quotation concerning the Emir of Afghanistan, see above). The friends in KA thus apply double standards: where they want to see them, they see anti-imperialist organisations that are allowed to cooperate even with imperialists; on the other hand, objectively anti-imperialist organisations, which, when considered by Maoists in their expediency, are seen as red rags and denied the anti-imperialist aspect.
Political economy
As KA correctly points out, the PCP considers bureaucratic capitalism as a form of capitalism in the backward countries:
“The PCP, with its Chairman Gonzalo, goes even further: “By applying these theses, he [Chairman Gonzalo, author’s note] defines bureaucratic capitalism as the capitalism that imperialism produces in the backward countries, a capitalism tied to feudality, which is historically obsolete, and subjected to imperialism, which is the last stage of capitalism, and which does not serve the interests of the majority, but of the imperialists, the big bourgeoisie and the big landowners.”liii
However, they do not understand that, as described here, bureaucratic capitalism is a form of capitalism, and so they argue that in the semi-feudal countries serfdom of the peasants would no longer be the main mode of production. In doing so, they do not understand that they are preaching to the converted, because that is why the nations are semi-feudal and semi-colonial. For the major mode of production is bureaucratic capitalism on a semi-feudal basis:
“Even the one-dimensional view of the economic significance of agriculture makes it clear: we cannot speak of feudalism, which is based on the exploitation of serf peasants by feudal lords, being the predominant mode of production in these countries. These are capitalist countries. […] Today, therefore, there is almost no region in the world in which capitalism has not become the dominant mode of production.”liv
For the friends of KA, bureaucratic capitalism is a dogmatic transposition of a concrete analysis:
“And indeed, today leading Maoist organisations in countries such as India, the Philippines, Turkey or Brazil define them as ‘semi-feudal/semi-colonial’ countries in which a bureaucratic capitalism tied to feudality prevails. By dogmatising a concrete assessment of Mao at a concrete time, the comrades begin to misrepresent objective reality. Consistently taken to its logical conclusion, the thesis of bureaucratic capitalism means denying the uneven development of capitalism in its imperialist phase, which we can observe today more obviously than we have for a long time.”lv
They later describe this development as follows:
“This development of productive forces necessarily led to the development of the societies there – a brutal development, to be sure, a one-sided development, an uneven development, but a development nonetheless.”lvi
No one negates this development either. However, these are not independent developments, but those that only deepen the dependencies on the respective imperialist countries. That they do not understand it in this way leads to convergence with MLKP to MLPD [the revisionist legalistic “Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany” that is the head of the “ICOR”; note by ci-ic.org] and is thus, in the final analysis, Kautskyanism:
“It means denying what has been going on before our eyes for decades – the development of semi-feudal/semi-colonial countries into neo-colonial capitalist countries, dependent capitalist countries with regional hegemony claims or even imperialist countries.”lvii
Now the friends of KA add the notion of neo-colonial countries to bureaucratic capitalist countries. They justify this above all with rash adoption of bourgeois economic categories and statistics. They also use Brazil and Turkey, among others, as justification, and later they even call India imperialist:
“But where in countries like Turkey or Brazil the proportion of workers in agriculture is already less than 20%, it must also be clear that the organisation of the working class must become the focus of attention.”lviii
In contrast to these figures quoted, let us look at what the comrades in the respective countries themselves analyse. In Turkey, which the KA friends also call “new-imperialist”, the comrades of the TKP/ML, write as a criticism to the Third Congress of the MKP:
“The reality of the country is that there is a backward and unbalanced capitalist economy there. Its industry is underdeveloped and comprador, chained to international capital. And the socio-economic structure is still predominantly surrounded by the semi-feudal economy. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there is a developing capitalism in the country, albeit closely linked to imperialism and its growth needs. We have to take it seriously that, proportional to the development of capitalism, there is a numerical increase in the exploitation of labour and consequently of the working class in the constellations of social relations. Accordingly, their importance and degree of organisation is increasing. Although it has a comprador character and is a cornerstone of the government’s economic restructuring plan and integration into the European Union, the National Programme, for example, gives further impetus to the capitalist development of the country. The vanguard must reckon with this reality and determine its tactics accordingly.
But it is exactly here that we have to open a big bracket. In Turkey and in countries that fall into the same socio-economic category, capitalist development has been limited and hindered from the beginning by two major breakwaters. These two dampening barriers in the path of capitalist development are imperialism and the suffocating oppression of pre-capitalist conditions. For imperialism, countries like ours, areas for the consumption of their products, are a source of cheap labour and cheap raw material. If we question this from this perspective, we will see that these vital interests of imperialism also form insurmountable obstacles in the path of capitalist development in countries like ours. In countries like ours, a certain level of capitalist development cannot be seen as the result of the general policy of imperialism. It is rather a side element, product and jact of imperialist plunder and enslavement, which are the core of imperialist policy. A different perspective would result in pinning hopes on the imperialist robbery system that they call economic restructuring and applauding the unlimited and unfettered looting attempts aimed at opening up even the smallest hamlet of the country for the exploitation of the international capital monopoly. Ultimately, this economy is based on the consumer economy model. The way towards the productive economic model is blocked, which is the core of genuine capitalist development. The process here is carefully outmanoeuvred by foreign capital. Besides, there is always the risk of exaggerating the level of development of capitalism. Just as capitalist development in Russia in the early 1900s was exaggerated and the existence and strength of pre-capitalist economic relations were underestimated and treated as unimportant details. The changes that will eventually emerge in urban and rural areas as a result of the economic restructuring programme must be analysed without losing sight of these parameters of capitalist development. It is true that we are moving in a process from the domination of land to the domination of money. It is true that this “direction” of development implies a process in which the market prevails over the producer, towards the predominance of the commodity. Nevertheless, it is also a fact that the “moment” of development is characterised by the semi-feudal economy.”lix
The comrades on the spot thus describe and prove impressively why Turkey is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, whose mode of production is bureaucratic capitalism and not a neo-colony, as the friends of KA think. The Turkish comrades show how the historical development to the present economic situation is and was.
In the following, we will show with the Indian comrades why India is also a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. The comrades of the CPI (Maoist) write:
“The domination and control of the imperialist finance capital in every sphere of our life-economic, political, military and cultural-continued to increase further and further. Actually, the imperialists control the key sectors of the Indian economy and even the administration. The all-round penetration and control of imperialist finance capital is reflected in a phenomenal increase in the total quantum of imperialist capital, in thousands of collaborations for technology and capital, in unequal and humiliating agreements and dependence on imperialism for ‘aid’, grants and loans, capital goods, technical know- how, agricultural inputs, military supplies and armament industries. Recently, the stranglehold of imperialist finance capital over agricultural sector also continued to tighten along with other sectors because of WTO and imperialist globalization. All these are made possible because of the subservience of the comprador capitalist and feudal classes to imperialism. Hence, India continues to be a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country under the neo-colonial form of imperialist indirect rule, exploitation and control. […] Its vast majority is peasantry and there are vast backward rural areas where the class contradictions are relatively sharp, where the democracy is actually absent and where the enemy and his state machinery are comparatively weak.”lx
Clearly visible, India is still dependent on imperialist finance capital. Still the USA is the only hegemonic superpower at the world level and India too is particularly dependent on them.
The comrades in Brazil have also defined Brazil as semi-feudal and semi-colonial at several points and are showing great success in working with the peasants in the “Liga dos Camponeses Pobres”.
On questions of the political economy of socialism, the friends in KA again claim that Chairman Mao merely defended Marxism against revisionism, but did not develop it. In particular, they cite Stalin’s document “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” as evidence that Comrade Stalin almost anticipated the struggle against revisionism in his last years. The friends write:
The Maoists also note, that Mao has subjected the ‘revisionist theory of the productive forces to a profound critique.’ But this too is nothing fundamentally new. Stalin, too, devoted his attention to this question shortly before his death. His discussion paper on the ‘economic problems of socialism in the USSR’ can only be understood as an open ideological attack on the growing influence of the revisionist line.”lxi
Chairman Mao wrote a critique on this document, which in many ways raises the developments of Marxism on this question, to which we refer here. Introducing the document, he describes it thus:
“Stalin’s book from first to last says nothing about the superstructure. It is not concerned with people; it considers things, not people. Does the kind of supply system for consumer goods help spur economic development or not? He should have touched on this at the least. Is it better to have commodity production or is it better not to? Everyone has to study this. Stalin’s point of view in his last letter is almost altogether wrong. The basic error is mistrust of the peasants.
Parts of the first, second, and third chapters are correct; other parts could have been clearer. For example, the discussion on planned economy is not complete. The rate of development of the Soviet economy is not high enough, although it is faster than the capitalists’ rate. Relations between agriculture and industry, as well as between light and heavy industry, are not clearly explained.
It looks as if they have had serious losses. The relationship between long- and short-term interests has not seen any spectacular developments. They walk on one leg, we walk on two. They believe that technology decides everything, that cadres decide everything, speaking only of “expert,” never of “red,” only of the cadres, never of the masses. This is walking on one leg. As far as heavy industry goes, they have failed to find the primary contradiction, calling steel the foundation, machinery the heart and innards, coal the food . . . For us steel is the mainstay, the primary contradiction in industry, while foodgrains are the mainstay in agriculture. Other things develop proportionally. […]
They speak only of the production relations, not of the superstructure nor politics, nor the role of the people. Communism cannot be reached unless there is a communist movement.”lxii
Essential here is the conclusion to pay attention not only to experts and cadres, but especially (mainly) to the correct line, to whether the comrades are red. Because, as Chairman Mao correctly says, the line decides everything. Comrade Stalin, in his work, focused mainly on developing the productive forces. Chairman Mao, on the other hand, always put the correct politics (in command) at the same time. Red and expert, that is what matters, and that is the only way to fight revisionism.
Scientific Socialism
In this section, they tackle the question of the two-line-struggle. They come to the following conclusion:
“The representatives of the ‘two-line-struggle’, however, proceed differently: Either the existence of ‘two lines’ is emphasised even more and thus ultimately factions are created where perhaps only similar views, but by no means sophisticated lines, are to be found. This then tends to split the organisation unprincipled. Or else, a line categorised as ‘bourgeois’ is left within the party, since there must always be two lines in the party. This condemns the party to infirmity.”lxiii
They do not substantiate this conclusion that a bourgeois line is always deliberately left in the party throughout the section. They do not accept the universality of contradiction, do not see that one always divides into two. Thus they try to negate that there is always contradiction in the party as well. Contradiction means movement and also progress. When there is no more movement, death occurs. There will always be contradictions in the party. However, since there are only two ideologies, there will always be a struggle between proletarian and bourgeois ideology as long as the party exists. This does not mean that the Maoists would indulge in unprincipled peace. On the contrary, Maoists always seek active ideological struggle. However, Maoists are aware that as long as imperialism exists in the world, bourgeois influences will always enter the party, and as long as we are not in communism, this contradiction will be resolved in struggle. Consequently, the friends of KA have a wrong understanding about the contradiction and misunderstand that as long as imperialism exists, one cannot eradicate the wrong views completely and forever, but advance through the active ideological struggle against it.
Subsequently, they try to defame the two-line-struggle with Khrushchevite methods such as the personality cult. In this context, Chairman Mao in particular rejected the cult of a person, nevertheless knowing that the correct line is represented by a person.
“[…] the tying of the proletarian line to a person – which opens up the door to the cult of personality […] Here, in fact, there is talk of only two lines, with the ‘proletarian line’ being tied to Mao’s person. But it does not help us to artificially declare people to be ‘representatives’ of the bourgeois or proletarian line.“lxiv
On the one hand, we ask ourselves why they themselves speak of Marxism-Leninism if they are not representatives of the proletarian line. On the other hand, we cannot explain how they come to the conclusion that the supposed cult of personality is an invention of the Maoists, when we consider how Stalin speaks about Lenin, or Engels about Marx. Engels writes about Marx as one of many examples:
“Marx, the man to whom the whole working class of Europe and America owes more than to anyone else, […] The basic thought running through the Manifesto – […] the basic thought belongs solely and exclusively to Marx. I have already stated this many times; but precisely now it is necessary that it also stand in front of the Manifesto itself.”lxv
In another example, let us look at how Stalin spoke about Lenin:
“Lenin was born for revolution. He was, in truth, the genius of revolutionary outbreaks and the greatest master of the art of revolutionary leadership. Never did he feel so free and happy as in a time of revolutionary upheavals. I do not mean by this that Lenin approved equally of all revolutionary upheavals, or that he was in favour of revolutionary outbreaks at all times and under all circumstances. Not at all. What I do mean is that never was the genius of Lenin’s insight displayed so fully and distinctly as in a time of revolutionary outbreaks. In times of revolution he literally blossomed forth, became a seer, divined the movement of classes and the probable zigzags of the revolution, seeing them as if they lay in the palm of his hand. It was with good reason that it used to be said in our Party circles: “Lenin swims in the tide of revolution like a fish in water.”
Hence the “amazing” clarity of Lenin’s tactical slogans and the “breath-taking” boldness of his revolutionary plans.”lxvi
If necessary, or if friends of KA like to, we can also use more quotations from Stalin on Lenin to show what his opinion was on this subject. On the question of People’s War, we refer mainly to our article “People’s War – The Only Road to Liberation’”, which refutes almost their entire paragraph if read in its entirety and not fragmentarily taken out of context. There are, however, a few other points to note.
The friends of KA write:
“The basis for this strategic concept – which was quite different from the path of the October Revolution – was Mao’s concrete analysis of the material conditions of China.”lxvii
This is partly true; the strategic understanding in the Chinese revolution was different from that in the Russian. Nevertheless, the October Revolution was a People’s War. It was a protracted struggle that began in 1905 with a bourgeois revolution and ended in 1917 with the proletarian revolution, from then on the defence of the power of the proletariat through war became necessary, against the Russian counter-revolution and the intervention of 14 imperialist states. It was not a revolution that lasted only a few weeks or months, but one that lasted for years and went through different phases. As a result, they say:
“[…] the PCP directly contradicts itself, because how should Mao have developed something, which was ultimately already practised by the Bolsheviks?”lxviii
They do not understand that the understanding of military strategy also by the experience of the Russian revolution, analysed by Chairman Mao, was precisely raised to a higher level. Secondly, on questions of the October Revolution, they do not take into account the imperialist character of Russia when they later claim:
“In the imperialist countries, no socialist revolution has yet triumphed.”lxix
Further, they claim about the Chinese revolution:
“The growth of the Red Army was, so to speak, the natural result of the concrete conditions of this war and, in a certain sense, ‘turned itself out’.”lxx
This comment is not only false but cynical, negating the mass work of the CPCh and disregarding the price heroically paid by the Chinese people. In particular, we see this ignorance in the context of a claim they make in their section on the militarised party:
“The supporters of the ‘militarised Communist Party’ completely neglect open mass work and the cultural ideological front, which must also create as public instruments as possible to reach masses of hundreds of thousands and millions. They are under the illusion that the army (or its embryo) can serve as a ‘principal form of organisation for mobilising, politicising, organising and arming the masses’. Thus they are subject to a great error.”lxxi
A clear counter-example, which they even mention themselves, is obviously the Communist Party of Peru, which, as a militarised Communist Party, did not neglect mass work at all. Had they done so, they would not have been able to win the victories in the People’s War that they have. The PCP without mass work is a baseless assertion. How else do the KA friends explain the open People’s Committees that existed in the New Power areas in the early 1990s?
On the universality of people’s war, they claim again that this is an invention of the Maoists and not part of Chairman Mao’s line. For rebuttal, we refer to Lin Biao’s document on the universality of the People’s War, a document unrelated to his later betrayal and written on the direct orders of the Party.lxxii The Friends, in a summation of a lengthy quotation from Chairman Mao in 1938, say:
“We consider these remarks by Mao to be very one-sided, almost a revisionist stage theory. In the final analysis, Mao reduces the tasks of the communists in the capitalist countries for a ‘long period’ to the ‘protracted legal struggle’ whose forms of struggle are ‘bloodless (non-military)’.”lxxiii
With the comment made here by KA, the friends are shooting themselves in the foot, because in the extracted quoted from Chairman Mao’s works, Chairman Mao reproduces the position and decisions of the Communist International and Comrade Stalin. If the friends have a criticism of the position of the CI in this period, they should also please formulate it in this way and not let Chairman Mao take the rap who, according to the discipline of the proletariat, reproduced these resolutions and applied them to the reality in China.
As described earlier, the universality of People’s War is part of Maoism. The Communist International led by Comrade Stalin, on the other hand, partially propagated possibilities such as “workers’ governments with non-communist forces” for the imperialist countries. The paragraph written by KA not only fails in its attempt to refute Maoism but as a result, figuratively speaking, manages to cut its own leg. For in attempting to refute Mao they also show that they are (presumably unintentionally) turning against Leninism:
“We would like to agree in the main with the Canadian comrades on the points they mention in relation to a revolutionary strategy (although we would formulate some points somewhat differently). The necessity of revolutionary violence, the importance of the masses in war, the necessity of establishing a dual power even before the revolution, the necessity of partisan groups – all these are essential elements of communist military strategy.”lxxiv
A “dual power” is not the same as the New Power. Nor is your understanding of “dual power” the same as Lenin’s, in which this is a transitional existing situation, not the way of revolution, to smash the old state in certain areas and build the New Power. Going further on the question of the militarised party, they impute parallels with Focoism to Maoism, as in their previous text “1917- 2017: One Hundred Years of Revolutionary Strategy”. This time they justify it with statements like this:
“Unions or soviets explicitly play no role in this concept.”lxxv
How wrong the friends are and how mass labour actually behaves we see, for example, in the “May Directives for Metropolitan Lima”, which give clear indications of how to deal with the respective unions and which states, among other things, that the unions are to be led by the party:
“The so called “free trade unions” follow the false concept that political parties must not lead workers’ unions, which is contrary, opposed to Marxism.”lxxvi
Maoists are by no means Focoists and are certainly not disregarding masswork. Here, too, the accusations are baseless as soon as one digs a little deeper into the sources. We refer at this point also to issue #17 of “Klassenstandpunkt”, in which precisely with regard to this question approaches for programmes of the mass organisations under the leadership of the vanguard of the proletariat in the FRG were published, which shows how Maoism in the FRG is also applied to the mass organisations.
In the next section on the New Democratic Revolution, the friends claim that the handling of the New Democratic Revolution in China led to the socialist revolution not being grasped because the contradiction of the bourgeoisie with the proletariat was not handled antagonistically, but was understood as a contradiction in the people. That is why the bourgeoisie was given democracy and freedom (for the most part). But if we look at the struggle on an ideological level, for example, we see the actual attitude of the Maoists:
“What should our policy be towards non-Marxist ideas? As far as unmistakable counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs of the socialist cause are concerned, the matter is easy, we simply deprive them of their freedom of speech.”lxxvii
On the economic level, they do not see the Great Leap Forward, its developments and successes, and so cannot understand the problems with the Right within the Party that existed and about which Chairman Mao made a self-critique. Similarly, KA friends do not see the role of the VIII Party Congress, where the Right had the upper hand, influenced by the Soviet revisionists. Instead, they negate the successes, do not analyse the existing problems and continue to research for the basis for their negation of “the three worlds take shape” on the one hand and for the revisionism of Prachanda on the other:
“The lack of self-criticism regarding Mao’s false theses has already had concrete fatal consequences in another case: For example, the CPN(M) waged a successful People’s War in Nepal between 1996 and 2006. At the end of this war, the monarchy was overthrown, but the Maoist leader Pachandra entered into a false alliance with the bourgeoisie and disarmed the liberation army. We hope that Maoist comrades will examine this experience for its theoretical roots and not stop at a mere condemnation of Pachandra as a ‘right-wing traitor’.”lxxviii
However, an examination of this experience for its theoretical roots leads precisely to the conclusion that Prachanda is a right-wing traitor who made peace with the bourgeoisie and took the road of parliamentarism. The line he is following is not on the ground of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism. The initiation of the People’s War in Nepal in 1996 happened under the influence of the Red Faction of the International Communist Movement, and was influenced by the campaign for the defence of the life of Chairman Gonzalo. The liquidation of the party, the army, the base areas, the People’s War is a result of revisionism. It will be started again. When this will be the case is a question of time, depending on the struggle of the communists. This revisionism of Prachanda is described by the comrades of the New Democracy Association as follows, denouncing and refuting a large number of positions that contradict Maoism:
“Since the moment, long ago, that the comrades of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – KPN (M) – started to talk about ‘ceasefire’ and ‘peace negotiations’, the communists and revolutionaries of the world have regarded it with concern as a threat to the development of the revolution in Nepal. Today, we see that our concern was not a misjudgement. Always the response of the leaders of the CPN (M) to our criticisms and questions has been that it is a tactical move to isolate the enemy and put them in a state of no way out. They have always repeated that people’s war is the only form to conquer power and make revolution. So they said, but now not only the tone is completely different, but the whole chant is divorced. now they have declared the people’s war over. They have disbanded the revolutionary base areas, disarmed the VBA and declared that they have eradicated feudalism when they overthrew the king. Comrade Prachanda declared that his revolution ‘has won about 60%’, that his aim is that after 10 to 20 years, thanks to foreign capital (i.e. imperialist capital), Nepal will become a country just like Switzerland. Comrade Prachanda and the other prominent leading cadres of the party keep repeating that the ‘old concept of communism’ is no longer useful, that the teachings of Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao, i.e. the teachings of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, have been overcome because of the development of the class struggle and the ‘new situations’. He himself declared to be able to take off the name of Maoist and party spokesmen have clearly shown that they are determined to leave the said ‘Prachanda way’ if necessary to form a united party with the open revisionists who were repressing against the people’s war with fire and blood at that time. About imperialism, he has stated that there is one ‘globalised state’ of imperialism. He considers the United Nations (UN) as the representative of the ‘international community’. And comrade Prachanda has asked that this organisation should ‘control the management of arms’ in Nepal. He has also stated that nowadays India is playing a positive role. The above-mentioned register is about facts that have been confirmed several times and, even more, theoretically proven in the public documentation of the CPN (M). There are still infinite things that could be named, but we think that the mentioned cases are already more than enough. [ … ]From 16 January, their weapons must be registered and locked in metal disposition containers’. (One World to Win News Agency, 15 January 2007) To lock up the VBA militants, to bring them and their weapons under the control of the UN (the organisation of imperialism), while the armed forces and police of the old state continue to take over ‘internal and external security’; to dissolve the people’s power in order to be able to enter the parliament, along with all the reactionary parties, in the interim government under the rule of the same reactionary parties and with the agent of India, Koirala, as the head of state. To have an interim constitution which is never in accordance with the constitution of a people’s republic and to participate in the spectacle of elections. That is the current policy of the CPN (M). If it is so, can the current policy of the CPN (M) be considered as ‘a concrete application’ of the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism? Who does not see that they are two opposing and Cultural Revolution without Masses? irreconcilable positions? Some have talked a lot about the negotiations in Tschungking so as to say that what the comrades of Nepal are doing right now is an application of the same policy of Chairman Mao. At this moment, we will not talk about the international situation, the national situation, at the historical moment in China in 1945 and in Nepal in 2007, the situations are different. But we will talk about the general principles, which the RIM as a whole also recognises, that the communists must never, under any conditions, surrender the main revolutionary bases and never must the revolutionary army be disarmed. Let us remember how Chairman Mao clearly said: ‘The people’s weapons -every rifle and every bullet- must be preserved; they must not be given out of hand.’ (‘On the Negotiations in Tschungking’, Selected Works, B. IV) Precisely, the current position of the CPN (M) is totally against this principle. We could go on like this about every point of the current position of the CPN (M), but we who defend Maoism in this situation and in this forum do not have to explain anything, it belongs to the tasks of those who have questioned Marxism- Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism.”lxxix
KA denies India the need for a new democratic revolution because India would be imperialist and directly a socialist revolution would be in the time to come:
“As we have explained above, we assume that the two countries are essentially capitalist countries, in the case of India even an imperialist country. In this sense, we are of the opinion that in such countries the socialist revolution is pending as a strategic orientation.”lxxx
In our view, by rejecting the new democratic revolution, the revolution in general is negated, because a country exploited by imperialism must first chase the imperialists out of the country and catch up with the democratic revolution under the leadership of the working class, and then shift directly to the socialist revolution. If one negates the necessities of the respective concreted revolution in a country, then one opposes it.
In the last section, that on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), they claim, on the one hand, that it is identical with the understanding of Marx, Engels and Lenin. In fact, it builds on this, but is a further development of Marxism on this question as well – a cultural revolution was not realised, not applied until 1966. The problem had not yet been solved. Chairman Gonzalo describes this process as follows:
“The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a basic issue for Maoism. If we don’t thoroughly grasp that Maoism is a new, third and higher stage we won’t understand anything – it’s that simple – because as we know very well, today to be a Marxist means being a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist. The theory of the Cultural Revolution is rooted in Marx himself, since it was he who pointed out that the transition from capitalism to communism would require permanent revolution throughout a period of proletarian dictatorship. He conceived of this indispensable and necessary revolution as a series of successive great leaps. It is also rooted in Lenin, who envisaged and encouraged a cultural revolution. But it was Chairman Mao who answered this great unresolved question of how to continue the revolution and carried it out in practice, who led it and developed it as the greatest political event humanity has ever seen. The problem was unresolved, though many great struggles took place, until 1966 when the Chinese proletariat and people found the way, under the personal leadership of Chairman Mao at the head of the glorious Communist Party of China. This was an earth-shaking event.‘”lxxxi
They further claim that the revisionist coup negates the cultural revolution, against which we reemphasise that the revolution does not develop in a straight line but in a zigzag movement. The struggle of the counter-revolution and the revolution does not negate the solution of the problem of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. They also emphasise that the rank and file must also be further developed, as if this would not be part of the understanding of Maoism. For it was the masses who made the GPCR, it was students and workers by the millions who formed the Red Guards. And it was the people who took the great leap and established the communes. The GPCR without the masses is a contradiction in itself.lxxxii
In summary, Maoism is advancing on its path to assert its leadership in the world proletarian revolution, so there is no way around it in this country either. The friends’ understanding of KA does not correspond to the Marxism of the time and most of it has already been refuted in various documents. It was nevertheless necessary to answer their text and make some remarks. For the text of the KA is a good example of the contradictions into which one gets entangled and that these, consistently further pursued, end up with positions which even directly contradict Marxism on some points, if one does not start from the present highest stage of the ideology of the proletariat, from a higher understanding of the laws of human society. The KA shows in an exemplary way where it leads to if one does not grasp Marxism as something living and constantly developing according to reality, but also errected on a principled basis. In its self-imposed task of refuting Maoism as a further development and new and higher stage of Marxism, it fails completely for this reason. And what would actually be necessary to achieve it, that is, the attempt to prove that Maoism is not based on the principles of Marxism, falls by the wayside. How could it be otherwise. Thus, KA creates a good lesson for the proletarian revolutionaries of the FRG and gives the possibility to progress in upholding, defending and applying Marxism, today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.
iReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p.1
iiKlassenstandpunkt, “People’s War – The only road to liberation”
iiiReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p.4
ivIbid, p.3
vThere is also the colourful ideology of the petty-bourgeoisie, as well completely opposed to proletarian ideology, even though its representatives partly and limited articulate a revolutionary claim.
viReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p.4
viiIbid, p.3
viiiLenin, “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Critical comments on a reactionary philosophy”, Collected Works Vol. 14, May 1909; highlights by Klassenstandpunkt
ixCommittee Red Flag – FRG, “Regarding the thought of Lenin” published in El Maoista No. 2; English translation published on demvolkedienen.org
xReview “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.5
xiMao Tse-tung, “The foolish old man who removed the mountains”, Selected Works Vol. 3, 11th June 1945
xiiCf. footnote no. 7 in Review “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p.6
xiiiSee the article “How to Define Mao Zedong Thought: Chanes Over Forty Years” in Peking Review No. 9, 1981
xivAn even more daring manoeuvre is performed in the book “Mao Tse-tung – Seine Verdienste, seine Fehler”, which is cited by KA as a source in their text and shows great consistency in some of their argumentation. It is true that in one section (from p. 523) the authors of this piece of work denounce Deng and his clique and indicate the origin of the alleged quotation. But then this and other alleged quotes from Chairman Mao are also taken at face value. How this is supposed to be consistent with the Marxist method remains questionable here as well.
xvReview “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.5
xviibid
xviiCommunist International – Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Internet Review, “Some Fundamental Questions on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, 2020, www.ci-ic.org
xviiiReview “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.5f
xixIbid, p.6
xxSee Hoxha’s Selected Works
xxiEnver Hoxha “Imperialism and Revolution”, 1979
xxiiChairman Gonzalo, “The World Revolution – Strategy and Tactics” (Chairman Gonzalo: On Chairman Mao‘s Thesis “Three Worlds Are Delineated”)
xxiiiIf one likes to use this term, it should be used within quotation-marks. The problem is the ambiguity of the term “bloc”, which is often used by some revisionists as a monolith term. This means there are no contradictions within the “bloc”, this assessment is, as we will see in the following, fundamentally wrong and has nothing in common with Marxist dialectics. Instead the term “socialist camp” should be used.
xxivReview “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.6
xxvIbid, p.7
xxviRIM, “Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, 26 December 1993; cited from “Revolutionary Worker”, No. 737
xxviiCPP, “On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, 1988
xxviiiReview “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.8
xxixIbid, S.8
xxxEngels, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1975
xxxiMao Tse-tung, “On contradiction”, Selected Works, Volume I
xxxiiIbid
xxxiiiIbid
xxxivIbid
xxxvIbid
xxxviMarx, “Theses on Feuerbach”, Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1976
xxxviiIbid
xxxviiiMao Tse-tung, “On practice”, Selected Works, Volume I
xxxixMao Tse-tung, “On contradiction”, Selected Works, Volume I
xlJournal “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.9, our underlining
xliStalin, “Interview with the first american labour delegation” J. V. Stalin, Works, Volume 10
xliiMao Tse-tung, “On contradiction”, Selected Works, Volume I
xliiiCPP, International Line, 1988
xlivStalin, “The foundations of Leninism”, J. V. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1976
xlvJournal “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.9
xlviMao Tse-tung, “On contradiction”, Selected Works, Volume I
xlviiJournal “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.7
xlviiihttps://www.demvolkedienen.org/index.php/en/48-nachrichten/asi/3637-on-the-invasion-of-the-turkish-army-into-syria
xlixJournal “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.10
lStalin, “The foundations of Leninism”, J. V. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1976
liJournal “Kommunismus”, #18 | 09/2020, p.10
liiMao Tse-tung, “On contradiction”, Selected Works, Volume I
liiiReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p. 12
livIbid, p.12
lvIbid, p.12
lviIbid, p.13
lviiIbid, p. 12
lviiiIbid, p. 13
lixPartizan, “Analysis of the economic structure”, Klassenstandpunkt No. 10; our translation, ci-ic.org
lxCentral Committee of the CPI(Maoist): “Party Programme”, 2004
lxiReview, “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p.14
lxiiMao Tse-tung, “Critique of Stalin’s Economic Problems Of Socialism In The USSR”
lxiiiReview, “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p. 16
lxivIbid, p. 15f
lxvEngels, “The Preface to the 1883 Edition of the Communist Manifesto”, Collected Works Vol. 26
lxviStalin, “LENIN A Speech Delivered at a Memorial Meeting of the Kremlin Military School”, January 28, 1924
lxviiReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p. 17
lxviiiIbid, p.24
lxixIbid, p.20
lxxIbid, p.20
lxxiIbid, p.26
lxxiiSee the document “Long Live Victory of the People’s War”
lxxiiiReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p. 21
lxxivIbid, p.24
lxxvIbid, p.26
lxxviPCP; “May Directives for Metropolitan Lima”, May 1991
lxxviiMao Tse-tung, On the correct handling of contradictions among the people”, Selected Works Vol. 5, 27 February 1957
lxxviiiReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p. 30
lxxixAssociation New Democracy, “Some Questions in Relation to the current ideological and political line of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)”, February 2007
lxxxReview “Kommunismus”, No. 18 | 09/2020, p. 30
lxxxiCPP, “On the Rectification Campaign with ‘Elections No! People’s War Yes!”‘ (speech by Chairman Gonzalo at a meeting of the rectification campaign with the document “Elections No! People’s War Yes!”), August 1991
lxxxiiWho actually wants to get into the history of the GPCR we advise to the series of articles regarding this topic in our review. This series of articles is described in numbers 8 to 14 of “Klassenstandpunkt”. It extendedly shows (although they do not claim to be absolutely complete) the conditions, the process, the work and the meaning of the GPCR. The article in #12 is worth highlighting, as it describes the development of political economy in the People’s Republic of China in the GPCR. The comrades of the blog “Red Press” made efforts to scan the issues of the “Klassenstandpunkt” and make them available in the internet, see rotepresse.noblogs.org