Hey comrades, this is an article I’ve written in response to DashRendar’s essay on Maoism, which you can find here: https://dashthered.medium.com/yo-dawg-the-maoists-have-a-point-9024983ee56a

Consider this the “full” version of a response I made here on Lemmygrad just a few days ago. I realised that I had way too much to say to fit into a well-formatted post here, so I made an account on Medium and wrote an entire article instead :D Hope you comrades enjoy.

  • T34 [they/them]@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 years ago

    Yeah, the Cultural Revolution doesn’t make sense to me.

    Socialism will eventually have to outproduce capitalism in order to overthrow it. I’d have nothing against a cultural revolution that just went after landlords and other parasites. But to kill scientists and shut down universities is to shoot yourself in the foot at the start of the race.

    • Rafael_Luisi@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 years ago

      The CR and the GLF where some very big Ls on Mao goverment, even if he haved good intentions. And the biggest cause of those radical measures was that China needed some very big reforms so it could be compared with the USSR and the west, but without losing their independence to the USSR and keeping out of revisionism and staying socialist. The thing is, there was no sistem at the time that could do all of this, lots of people tried, but it eventually was just an version of the USSR model or the Maoist China model, that where both very flawed. Thats why Deng is so important, he invented an sistem that could do all of that. If he whent on power 15-20 years earlier and did his reforms as succesfully as he did on the normal timeline, we could still have an much bigger socialist influence on the world.

    • DashRendar@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 years ago

      Socialism will eventually have to outproduce capitalism in order to overthrow it.

      This was part of Nikita Khrushchev’s Peaceful Coexistence.

      • Comrade AppleDash@lemmygrad.mlOP
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        3 years ago

        Khrushchev saying it doesn’t automatically make it wrong.

        Also, I’m pretty sure Stalin had basically the same idea with the way he rapidly industrialised the USSR. So I’m not sure why it’s suddenly bad in your eyes when Khrushchev points it out.

        • InvertedMussolini@lemmygrad.ml
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          3 years ago

          It is sometimes asked whether it is not possible to slodow he tempo somewhat, to put a check on the movement. No, comrades, it is not possible! The tempo must not be reduced! On the contrary, we must increase it as much as is within our powers and possibilities. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the workers and peasants of the USSR. This is dictated to us by our obligations to the working class of the whole world.

          To slacken the tempo would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten. But we do not want to be beaten. No, we refuse to be beaten! One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered because of her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol khans. She was beaten by the Turkish beys. She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was beaten by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French capitalists. She was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her because of her backwardness, military backwardness, cultural backwardness, political backwardness, industrial backwardness, agricultural backwardness. They beat her because to do so was profitable and could be done with impunity. Do you remember the words of the prerevolutionary poet: “You are poor and abundant, mighty and impotent, Mother Russia.” Those gentlemen were quite familiar with the verses of the old poet. They beat her, saying: "You are abundant; so one can enrich oneself at your expense. They beat her, saying: “You are poor and impotent '” so you can be beaten and plundered with impunity. Such is the law of the exploiters-to beat the backward and the weak. It is the jungle law of capitalism. You are backward, you are weak-therefore you are wrong; hence, you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty-therefore you are right; hence, we must be wary of you. That is why we must no longer lag behind.

          In the past we had no fatherland, nor could we have one. But now that we have overthrown capitalism and power is in our hands, in the hands of the people, we have a fatherland, and we will defend its independence. Do you want our socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its independence? If you do not want this you must put an end to its backwardness in the shortest possible time and develop genuine Bolshevik tempo in building up its socialist system of economy. There is no other way. That is why Lenin said on the eve of the October Revolution: "Either perish, or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries.

          We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall be crushed.

          — Stalin, Speech to Industrial Managers, February 1931

      • Muad'Dibber@lemmygrad.mlM
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        3 years ago

        Get down to business, all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them. Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running the economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build up a communist republic. Since we must necessarily learn quickly, any slackness in this respect is a serious crime. And we must undergo this training, this severe, stern and sometimes even cruel training, because we have no other way out.

        You must remember that our Soviet land is impoverished after many years of trial and suffering, and has no socialist France or socialist England as neighbours which could help us with their highly developed technology and their highly developed industry. Bear that in mind! We must remember that at present all their highly developed technology and their highly developed industry belong to the capitalists, who are fighting us.

        We must remember that we must either strain every nerve in everyday effort, or we shall inevitably go under.

        https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/17.htm