cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3023016

Took part in an RGS and the head people all push that Maoism is scientifically the best form of Communism. Can anyone explain this view? Also, the group seems to want everyone to hold this view. Isn’t splitting into sub-ideologies hurting the potential for a larger movement?

-a confused newbie.

  • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
    20·
    2 years ago

    It makes sense where there hasn’t been a revolution yet because it appears to work. But it’s not MLM that works, it’s the ML bit. Trying to apply the Maoist bit outside of twentieth century China will go about as well as trying to recreate 1917 in Russia.

    The problem with MLMs is a misunderstanding of the trajectory. They think it goes M&E > ML > MLM. But it’s M&E > ML. The MLM stage is not it’s own path. Like Stalin, Mao wasn’t creating something new.

    This is why MLMs tend to dislike China. They think Deng and Xi betrayed Mao. But they were faithful to Mao’s adaptation of ML. Because they realised that Mao’s approach was suitable for securing a revolution but not so much for socialist construction. It would be anti-Mao to treat him dogmatically.

    Maoism is not a ‘form of communism’ but an ML framework adapted to seizing power, expelling imperialists, and consolidating a dictatorship of the proletariat. Regis Debray talks about a similar problem with assuming that Castro’s approach to Cuba can be rolled out across the Americas like a flat pack, ready-to-assemble revolution.