Chairman Gonzalo[1] has proven
himself to be a major Maoist theoretician. Unlike other great ones, such as Marx,
Mao and Ho Chi Minh etc. Gonzalo is still living. Gonzalo's leadership of the
Communist Party of Peru (PCP or as the press called them, Shining Path) has
proven to be one of the most successful revolutionary movements of the later
half of the 20th Century. -សតិវ អតុ
Hail Chairman Gonzalo on 38th anniversary of peoples war in
From Democracy
and Class Struggle:
I. ON MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM
In the furnace of class struggle, the ideology of the international proletariat emerged as Marxism, afterwards developed into Marxism-Leninism and later Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Therefore, the scientific ideology of the proletariat, all-powerful because it is true, has three stages or landmarks in its dialectical process of development: 1) Marxism, 2) Leninism, and 3) Maoism. These three stages are part of the same unity which began with the Communist Manifesto one hundred and forty years ago, with the heroic epic of the class struggle, in fierce and fruitful two-line struggles within the communist parties themselves and in the titanic work of thought and action that only the working class could generate. Today, three unfading lights are outstanding: Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse-tung who, through three grand leaps have armed us with the invincible ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which today is principally 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 Tse-tung Thought.” In essence, both positions, with the obvious differences between them, deny the general development of Marxism made by Chairman Mao Tse-tung. 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.
As an INTRODUCTION, in order to better understand Maoism and the necessity to struggle for it, let us remember Lenin. He taught us that as the revolution advanced to the East it expressed specific conditions that, while they did not negate principles or laws, were new situations that Marxism could not ignore, upon the risk of putting the revolution in danger of a defeat. Notwithstanding the uproar against what is new by pedantic and bookish intellectuals, who are stuffed with liberalism and false Marxism, the only just and correct thing to do is to apply Marxism to the concrete conditions and to solve the new situations and problems that every revolution necessarily faces. In the face of the horrified and pharisaic “defenses of the ideology, the class, and of the people” that revisionists, opportunists and renegades proclaim, or the furious attacks against Marxism by brutalized academicians and hacks of the old order who are debased by the rotten bourgeois ideology and blindly defend the old society on which they are parasites. Lenin also said clearly that the revolution in the East would present new and great surprises to the greater amazement of the worshipers of following only the well-trodden paths who are incapable of seeing the new; and, as we all know, he trusted the Eastern comrades to resolve the problems that Marxism had not yet resolved.
Furthermore, we must keep well in mind that when Comrade Stalin justly and correctly stated that we had entered the stage of Leninism as the development of Marxism, there was also opposition by those who rend their garments in a supposed defense of Marxism. There were also those who said that Leninism was only applicable to the backward countries. But, in the midst of struggle, practice has consecrated Leninism as a great development of Marxism, and thus the proletarian ideology shone victoriously in the face of the world as Marxism-Leninism.
Today, Maoism faces similar situations. All new things, like Marxism, have always advanced through struggle, and similarly, Maoism will impose itself and be acknowledged.
As for the CONTEXT in which Chairman Mao Tse-tung developed and Maoism was forged, on an international level it was on the basis of imperialism, world wars, the international proletarian movement, the national liberation movement, the struggle between Marxism and revisionism, and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Three big historical landmarks must be emphasized in the present century: first, the October Revolution of 1917, which opened the era of the world proletarian revolution; second, the triumph of the Chinese Revolution, in 1949, which changed the correlation of forces in favor of socialism; and third, the great proletarian cultural revolution, which began in 1966 as the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship in order to maintain the revolutionary course towards Communism. It is enough to emphasize that Chairman Mao led two of these glorious historical feats.
In China, as the center of world revolution, Maoism was concretely expressed within the most complex convergence of contradictions, and the intense and ruthless class struggle which was marked by the pretensions of the imperialist powers of tearing and dividing up China after the collapse of the Manchurian Empire (1911), the anti-imperialist movement of 1919, the revolts of the great peasant masses, the twenty-two years of armed struggle of the democratic revolution, the great contest for the building and development of socialism and the ten years of revolutionary storms for carrying forward the Cultural Revolution, as well as the sharpest two-line struggle within the Communist Party of China, especially against revisionism. All this was framed within the international situation described above. It is out of this aggregate of historical deeds that we have to extract four events of extraordinary importance: The founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921; the Autumn Harvest uprising which initiated the path from the countryside to the city, in 1925; the founding of the People’s Republic, 1949; and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), from 1966-1976; in all of which Chairman Mao was a protagonist and the acknowledged leader of the Chinese Revolution.
We can say from Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s biography that he was born on December 26th 1893, opening his eyes to an agitated world scorched by the flames of war; son of peasants, he was seven years old when “Boxer Rebellions” began; a student at a Teachers’ Training College, he was in his eighteenth year when the empire collapsed and he enlisted himself as a soldier, later to become a great organizer of peasants and of the youth in Hunan, his native province. Founder of the Communist Party and of the Red Army of workers and peasants, he established the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside developing People’s War as the military theory of the proletariat. He was the theoretician of New Democracy and founder of the People’s Republic; a promoter of the Great Leap Forward and of the development of socialism; the leader of the struggle against the contemporary revisionism of Khrushchev and his henchmen, leader and head of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. These are landmarks of a life devoted thoroughly and solely to the revolution. The proletariat has seen three gigantic triumphs in this century: Two of them belong to Chairman Mao, and if one is glory enough, two are even more.
On the CONTENT of Maoism, of its substance, we must point out the following basic issues:
1. Theory. 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. Let us highlight this with the following points:
In Marxist philosophy he developed the essence of dialectics, the law of contradiction, establishing it as the only fundamental law; and besides his profound dialectical understanding of the theory of knowledge, whose center are the two leaps that make up its law (from practice to knowledge and vice versa, but with knowledge to practice being the main one). We emphasize 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.
In Marxist political economy, Chairman Mao applied dialectics to analyze the relationship between the base and superstructure, and, continuing the struggle of Marxism-Leninism against the revisionist thesis of the “productive forces”, he concluded that the superstructure, consciousness, can modify the base, and that with political power the productive forces can be developed. By developing the Leninist idea that politics is the concentrated expression of economics, he established that politics must be in command, (applicable on all levels) and that political work is the life-line of economic work; which takes us to the true handling of political economy, not just a simple economic policy.
Despite its importance, an issue which is often sidestepped, especially by those who face democratic revolutions, is the Maoist thesis of bureaucratic capitalism; that is, the capitalism which is being developed in the oppressed nations by imperialism along with different degrees of underlying feudalism, or even pre-feudal stages. This is a vital problem, mainly in Asia, Africa andLatin America , since a good revolutionary leadership
derives from its understanding, especially when the confiscation of
bureaucratic capital forms the economic basis for carrying forward the
socialist revolution as the second stage.
But the main thing is that Chairman Mao Tse-tung has developed the political economy of socialism. Of the utmost importance is his criticism of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, as well as his theses on how to develop socialism in China: Taking agriculture as the base and industry as the leading economic force, promoting industrialization guided by the relationship between heavy industry, light industry and agriculture; taking heavy industry as the center of economic construction and simultaneously paying full attention to light industry and agriculture. The Great Leap Forward and the conditions for its execution should be highlighted: One, the political line that gives it a just and correct course; two, small, medium, and large organizational forms in a greater to lesser quantity, respectively; three, a great drive, a gigantic effort of the masses of people in order to put it in motion and to take it through to success, a leap forward whose results are valued more for the new process set in motion and its historical perspective than its immediate achievements, and its linkage with agricultural collectivization and the people’s communes. Finally, we must bear well in mind his teachings on the objectivity and the subjectivity in understanding and handling the laws of socialism, that because the few decades of socialism have not permitted it to see its complete development, and therefore a better understanding of its laws and its specification, and principally the relationship that exists between revolution and the economic process, embodied in the slogan “grasp revolution and promote production”. Despite its transcendental importance, this development of Marxist political economy has received scant attention.
In scientific socialism, Chairman Mao further developed the theory of social classes analyzing them on economic, political, and ideological planes. He upheld revolutionary violence as a universal law without any exception whatsoever; revolution as a violent displacement of one class by another, thus establishing the great thesis that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”. He resolved the question of the conquest of political power in the oppressed nations through the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside, establishing its general laws. He defined and developed the theory of the class struggle within socialism in which he brilliantly demonstrated that the antagonistic struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the socialist road and the capitalist road, and between socialism and capitalism continues. That in socialism it was not concretely determined who would defeat whom, that it was a problem whose solution demands time, the unfolding of a process of restoration and counter-restoration, in order for the proletariat to strongly hold political power definitely through the proletarian dictatorship; and, finally and principally, the grandiose solution of historical transcendence, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as the continuation of the socialist revolution under the proletarian dictatorship.
These basic questions, simply and plainly stated but known and undeniable, show the Chairman’s development of the integral parts of Marxism, and the evident raising of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third and superior stage: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.
Continuing with this brief synthesis, let us look at other specific points which, although deriving from the above, should be considered even if only enumeratively, to emphasize and pay due attention to them.
2. The New Democratic Revolution. Firstly, it is a development of the Marxist theory of the State, establishing three types of dictatorships:
1) Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, in the old bourgeois democracies like the United States, a type in which the dictatorships of the oppressed nations such as the Latin American ones can be assimilated;
2) Proletarian dictatorships, like the ones in the Soviet Union or in China before the usurpation of power by the revisionists; and
3) New Democracy, as a joint dictatorship based on the worker-peasant alliance, led by the proletariat headed up by the Communist Party, which was formed in China during its democratic revolution, and which is concretely expressed in Perú today through the People’s Committees, in the base areas and in the People’s Republic of New Democracy in formation. It is fundamental to emphasize, within this development of the theory of the state, the key differentiation between a state system as a dictatorship of a class or classes that hold political power, which is principal, and a system of government, which is understood as an organization for the exercise of political power.
On the other hand, New Democracy, one of the extraordinary developments made by Chairman Mao, masterfully materializes for us the bourgeois revolution of a new type, which only the proletariat can lead. In synthesis, it is the democratic revolution within the new era of world proletarian revolution in which we evolve. The New Democratic Revolution implies a new economy, a new politics, and a new culture, obviously overthrowing the old order and upholding the new one with arms, the only way to transform the world.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that New Democracy is a democratic revolution. Although it mainly fulfills the democratic tasks, it also complementarily advances in some socialist tasks, so that the question of two stages, democratic and socialist, which corresponds to countries like ours, is thoroughly solved by guaranteeing that once the democratic stage is concluded, it will be continued as a socialist revolution, without any intermissions or interruptions.
3. The three instruments. The problem of the construction of the instruments of the revolution presents the Party with the problem of understanding the interrelationship between the Party, the army and the united front; and to understand and correctly handle the interconnected construction of the three instruments in the midst of war or in the defense of the new State based on the power of the armed people, expressing in that way a just and correct task of leadership. Their construction is guided by the principle that a just and correct ideological line decides everything, and it is on this ideological-political basis that the organizational construction is simultaneously developed in the midst of the struggle between the proletarian line and the bourgeois line and within the storm of the class struggle, mainly in war, as the principal form of current or potential struggle.
Regarding the Party, Chairman Mao starts from the necessity of the Communist Party, a new type of party, a party of the proletariat. Today, we would say a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party: a party whose aim is to conquer political power and to defend it, and therefore it is inextricably bound to people’s war in order to initiate it, develop it or wage it to defend itself. A party sustained by the masses of people, be it by way of people’s war which is a war of the masses, or by the united front which, being a front of classes, is based on the broad masses. The Party develops and changes itself according to the stages of the revolution and the periods that these stages may have. The driving of its development is the contradiction which materializes in its heart as the two-line struggle, the proletarian line and the bourgeois or in general non-proletarian line, which is in essence and mainly a struggle against revisionism. This leads to the decisive importance of ideology in the life of the party and to the development of rectification campaigns that serve a greater adjustment of all the systems of party organizations and the membership to the just and correct ideological and political lines, guaranteeing the predominance of the proletarian line and keeping the Party leadership in its iron grip. The Party serves the establishment of political power for the proletariat as the leading class of the New Democracy, and principally for the establishment, strengthening and development of the proletarian dictatorship, and through cultural revolutions the conquest of the great, final goal: Communism. Because of this, the Party must lead everything in an all-around way.
The revolutionary army is of a new type. It is an army for the fulfillment of the political tasks that the Party establishes in accordance with the interests of the proletariat and the people. This characteristic is concretely expressed in three tasks: To combat, to produce in order to pose no parasitical burden, and to mobilize the masses. It is an army based on the political development of the proletariat’s ideology, from Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (today), and from the general political line as well as the military one that the Party may establish. It is an army based on people and not on weapons, an army that surged from the masses with whom it has always been linked, serving them wholeheartedly, which allows it to move among the people like fish in the water. Without a people’s army the people have nothing, said Chairman Mao, at the same time he taught us the necessity of the Party’s absolute leadership over the army and his great principle: The Party commands the gun and we will never permit it to be otherwise. Besides having thoroughly established the principles and norms for the construction of a new type of army, the Chairman himself called for preventing the use of the army for the restoration of capitalism by usurping the leadership through a counterrevolutionary coup d’etat and, developing Lenin’s thesis on the people’s militia, he carried out farther than anyone the general policy of arming the people, thus opening a breach and pointing out the path towards the armed sea of masses that will lead us to the definite emancipation of the people and the proletariat.
It was Chairman Mao who for the first time developed a complete theory on the united front and established its laws. A front of social classes based on the worker-peasant alliance as a guarantee of the proletariat’s hegemony in the revolution, which is led by the proletariat represented by the Communist Party; in synthesis, a united front under the leadership of the Communist Party, a united front for the people’s war, for the revolution, for the conquest of power for the proletariat and the people. In synthesis, the united front is the grouping of the revolutionary forces against the counter-revolutionary forces in order to wage the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution mainly through the armed people’s war. The united front, obviously, is not the same in every stage of the revolution and, furthermore, it has its specifications according to the various historical periods of each stage; likewise, the united front in a concrete revolution does not equal the one on a world level, although both follow the same general laws. Apart from this, it is important to emphasize the relation between the front and the State that Chairman Mao established when the war of resistance againstJapan
4. The People’s War is the military theory of the international proletariat; in it are summarized, for the first time in a systematic and complete form, the theoretical and practical experience of the struggles, military actions, and wars waged by the proletariat, and the prolonged experience of the people’s armed struggle and especially of the incessant wars in China. It is with Chairman Mao that the proletariat attains its military theory; nevertheless, there is much confusion and misunderstanding on this issue. And much of it springs from how the People’s War inChina
We must fully bear in mind that subsequently, Chairman Mao himself, aware of the existence of atomic bombs and missiles and with China already having them, sustained and developed people’s war in order to wage it under the new conditions of atomic weapons and of war against powers and super-powers. In synthesis, people’s war is the weapon of the proletariat and of the people, even to confront atomic wars.
A key and decisive question is the understanding of the universal validity of people’s war and its subsequent application taking into account the different types of revolution and the specific conditions of each revolution. To clarify this key issue it is important to consider that no insurrection like that of Petrograd, the anti-fascist resistance, or the European guerrilla movements in the Second World War have been repeated, as well as considering the armed struggles that are presently being waged in Europe. In the final analysis, the October Revolution was not only an insurrection but a revolutionary war that lasted for several years. Consequently, in the imperialist countries the revolution can only be conceived as a revolutionary war which today is simply people’s war.
Finally, today more than ever, we Communists and revolutionaries, the proletariat and the people, need to forge ourselves in: “Yes. We are adherents to the theory of the omnipotence of the revolutionary war. That it is not bad thing; it is good thing. It is Marxist”; which means adhering to the invincibility of people’s war.
5. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in a historical perspective is the most transcendental development of Marxism-Leninism made by Chairman Mao; it is the solution to the great pending problem of the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship: “It represents a more profound and wider new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country.”
What was the situation that presented itself? As stated in the Decision of the Communist Party of China on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution states: “Although overthrown, the bourgeoisie still tries to avail itself of the old ideas, culture, habits and ways of the exploiting classes in order to corrupt the masses and to conquer the minds of the people in its endeavors to restore its power. The proletariat must do exactly the opposite: It must deal merciless, frontal blows to all the challenges by the bourgeoisie in the ideological arena and change the spiritual composition of the whole society using its own new ideas, culture, habits and ways. Our present aim is to crush, through struggle, those who occupy leading posts and follow the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois ‘authorities’ in the academic fields, to criticize and repudiate the ideology of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes, and to transform education, literature, and art and the rest of areas of the superstructure that do not correspond to the economic base of socialism, in order to facilitate the consolidation and the development of the socialist system.”
It was in these conditions that the most Earth-shaking political process and the greatest mass mobilization the world has ever seen broke out, and whose objectives were thus outlined by Chairman Mao: “The present GPCR is completely necessary and very timely to consolidate the proletarian dictatorship, to prevent the restoration of capitalism, and to build socialism.”
We also emphasize two questions:
1) The GPCR implies a landmark in the development of the proletarian dictatorship towards the proletariat’s securing political power, concretely expressed in the Revolutionary Committees; and
2) The restoration of capitalism in China after the 1976 counter-revolutionary coup is not a negation of the GPCR but is plainly part of the contention between restoration and counter-restoration, and, on the contrary, it shows us the transcendental historical importance of the GPCR in the inexorable march of mankind towards Communism.
6. World Revolution. Chairman Mao emphasizes the importance of the world revolution as a unity, on the basis that revolution is the main trend while the decomposition of imperialism is greater each day, and the role played by the masses grows more immense each year, masses that make and shall make their transforming and unstoppable strength be felt, and reiterates the great truth: Either we all reach Communism or nobody does. Within this specific perspective in the era of imperialism, the great historical moment of the “next 50 to 100 years”, and within this context the opening period of struggle against Yankee imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, paper tigers that contend for hegemony and threaten the world with an atomic war, in the face of which, firstly we must condemn it, and secondly, we must prepare ourselves beforehand in order to oppose it with people’s war and make the revolution. On the other hand, starting from the historical importance of the oppressed nations and, furthermore, from their perspective both in the economic and political relationships that are evolving on account of the process of decomposition of imperialism, Chairman Mao stated his thesis that “three worlds delineate themselves”. All of which leads to the necessity of developing the strategy and tactics of world revolution. Regrettably, we know little or almost nothing about Chairman Mao’s writings and statements on these transcendental questions; nevertheless, the very little that is known shows the grand perspectives which he watched closely and the great outlines that we must follow in order to understand and serve the proletarian world revolution
7. Superstructure, ideology, culture, and education. These and other related issues have been subtly and deeply studied by Chairman Mao. For that reason, this is also another basic question that deserves attention.
In conclusion, the contents seen in these fundamental issues show clearly to whoever wants to see and understand that we have, therefore, a new, third, and superior stage of Marxism: Maoism; and that to be a Marxist in these days demands to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and mainly Maoist.
All that has been explained in the contents leads us to two questions:
What is fundamental in Maoism? Political Power is fundamental in Maoism. Political power for the proletariat, power for the dictatorship of the proletariat, power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party. More explicitly:
1) Political power under the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution;
2) Political power for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the socialist and cultural revolutions;
3) Political power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party, conquered and defended through people’s war.
And, what is Maoism? Maoism is the elevation of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third, and superior stage in the struggle for proletarian leadership of the democratic revolution, the development of the construction of socialism and the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship as a proletarian cultural revolution; when imperialism deepens its decomposition and revolution has become the main tendency of history, amidst the most complex and largest wars seen to date and the implacable struggle against contemporary revisionism.
On the STRUGGLE AROUND MAOISM. Briefly, the struggle inChina
On an international level, it acquired influence from the 1950s onwards; but 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; thus, a great number of Communist Parties assumed the denomination of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought. On the world level, Maoism confronted contemporary revisionism openly unmasking it profoundly and forcefully, and likewise it did so in the CPC’s own ranks, all of which raised the Chairman’s great red banner still more: The new, third, and superior stage of the ideology of the international proletariat. At present (1988), Maoism confronts the triple attack of Soviet, Chinese and Albanian revisionism. But today, even among those who acknowledge the Chairman’s great contributions, including the development of Marxism, there are some who believe that we are still in the stage of Marxism-Leninism, and others who only accept Mao Tse-tung Thought but by no means Maoism.
In this country, obviously, the revisionists who follow the baton of their diverse masters, Gorbachev, Teng, Alia or Castro have continuously attacked Maoism; among them one must condemn, unmask, and implacably combat Del Prado’s callous revisionism and his gang, the so called “Peruvian Communist Party”; the abject deviousness of the self-proclaimed “Communist Party of Peru, Patria Roja” who, after raising themselves up as “great Maoists” became Teng’s servants, after having condemned him when he was defenestrated in 1976, as well as the anti-Maoism of the so called “Izquierda Unida” (United Left), in whose heart swarmed all the revisionist and even anti-Marxist positions passed off by false Marxists and opportunists of many kinds. We must raise Maoism as a revealing mirror for revisionists in order to combat them implacably, working for the development of the People’s War and the triumph of the democratic revolution underway, which is an unavoidable and unrenounceable task of a strategic character.
The Communist Party of Peru, through the fraction led by President Gonzalo, who propelled its reconstitution, took up Marxism-Leninism- Mao Tse-tung Thought in 1966; in 1979 the slogan “Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought!”; in 1981: “Towards Maoism!”; and, in 1982, took Maoism as an integral part and superior development of the ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It is with the People’s War that we have understood more deeply what Maoism implies and we have taken up the solemn pledge to “Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninism- Maoism, principally Maoism!” and to work relentlessly in helping to place it as leader and guide of the world revolution, the always red and unfading banner that is the guarantee of triumph for the proletariat, the oppressed nations, and peoples of the world in their inexorable, combative march of iron legions towards the golden and always brilliant goal of Communism.
I. ON MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM
In the furnace of class struggle, the ideology of the international proletariat emerged as Marxism, afterwards developed into Marxism-Leninism and later Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Therefore, the scientific ideology of the proletariat, all-powerful because it is true, has three stages or landmarks in its dialectical process of development: 1) Marxism, 2) Leninism, and 3) Maoism. These three stages are part of the same unity which began with the Communist Manifesto one hundred and forty years ago, with the heroic epic of the class struggle, in fierce and fruitful two-line struggles within the communist parties themselves and in the titanic work of thought and action that only the working class could generate. Today, three unfading lights are outstanding: Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse-tung who, through three grand leaps have armed us with the invincible ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which today is principally 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 Tse-tung Thought.” In essence, both positions, with the obvious differences between them, deny the general development of Marxism made by Chairman Mao Tse-tung. 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.
As an INTRODUCTION, in order to better understand Maoism and the necessity to struggle for it, let us remember Lenin. He taught us that as the revolution advanced to the East it expressed specific conditions that, while they did not negate principles or laws, were new situations that Marxism could not ignore, upon the risk of putting the revolution in danger of a defeat. Notwithstanding the uproar against what is new by pedantic and bookish intellectuals, who are stuffed with liberalism and false Marxism, the only just and correct thing to do is to apply Marxism to the concrete conditions and to solve the new situations and problems that every revolution necessarily faces. In the face of the horrified and pharisaic “defenses of the ideology, the class, and of the people” that revisionists, opportunists and renegades proclaim, or the furious attacks against Marxism by brutalized academicians and hacks of the old order who are debased by the rotten bourgeois ideology and blindly defend the old society on which they are parasites. Lenin also said clearly that the revolution in the East would present new and great surprises to the greater amazement of the worshipers of following only the well-trodden paths who are incapable of seeing the new; and, as we all know, he trusted the Eastern comrades to resolve the problems that Marxism had not yet resolved.
Furthermore, we must keep well in mind that when Comrade Stalin justly and correctly stated that we had entered the stage of Leninism as the development of Marxism, there was also opposition by those who rend their garments in a supposed defense of Marxism. There were also those who said that Leninism was only applicable to the backward countries. But, in the midst of struggle, practice has consecrated Leninism as a great development of Marxism, and thus the proletarian ideology shone victoriously in the face of the world as Marxism-Leninism.
Today, Maoism faces similar situations. All new things, like Marxism, have always advanced through struggle, and similarly, Maoism will impose itself and be acknowledged.
As for the CONTEXT in which Chairman Mao Tse-tung developed and Maoism was forged, on an international level it was on the basis of imperialism, world wars, the international proletarian movement, the national liberation movement, the struggle between Marxism and revisionism, and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Three big historical landmarks must be emphasized in the present century: first, the October Revolution of 1917, which opened the era of the world proletarian revolution; second, the triumph of the Chinese Revolution, in 1949, which changed the correlation of forces in favor of socialism; and third, the great proletarian cultural revolution, which began in 1966 as the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship in order to maintain the revolutionary course towards Communism. It is enough to emphasize that Chairman Mao led two of these glorious historical feats.
In China, as the center of world revolution, Maoism was concretely expressed within the most complex convergence of contradictions, and the intense and ruthless class struggle which was marked by the pretensions of the imperialist powers of tearing and dividing up China after the collapse of the Manchurian Empire (1911), the anti-imperialist movement of 1919, the revolts of the great peasant masses, the twenty-two years of armed struggle of the democratic revolution, the great contest for the building and development of socialism and the ten years of revolutionary storms for carrying forward the Cultural Revolution, as well as the sharpest two-line struggle within the Communist Party of China, especially against revisionism. All this was framed within the international situation described above. It is out of this aggregate of historical deeds that we have to extract four events of extraordinary importance: The founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921; the Autumn Harvest uprising which initiated the path from the countryside to the city, in 1925; the founding of the People’s Republic, 1949; and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), from 1966-1976; in all of which Chairman Mao was a protagonist and the acknowledged leader of the Chinese Revolution.
We can say from Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s biography that he was born on December 26th 1893, opening his eyes to an agitated world scorched by the flames of war; son of peasants, he was seven years old when “Boxer Rebellions” began; a student at a Teachers’ Training College, he was in his eighteenth year when the empire collapsed and he enlisted himself as a soldier, later to become a great organizer of peasants and of the youth in Hunan, his native province. Founder of the Communist Party and of the Red Army of workers and peasants, he established the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside developing People’s War as the military theory of the proletariat. He was the theoretician of New Democracy and founder of the People’s Republic; a promoter of the Great Leap Forward and of the development of socialism; the leader of the struggle against the contemporary revisionism of Khrushchev and his henchmen, leader and head of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. These are landmarks of a life devoted thoroughly and solely to the revolution. The proletariat has seen three gigantic triumphs in this century: Two of them belong to Chairman Mao, and if one is glory enough, two are even more.
On the CONTENT of Maoism, of its substance, we must point out the following basic issues:
1. Theory. 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. Let us highlight this with the following points:
In Marxist philosophy he developed the essence of dialectics, the law of contradiction, establishing it as the only fundamental law; and besides his profound dialectical understanding of the theory of knowledge, whose center are the two leaps that make up its law (from practice to knowledge and vice versa, but with knowledge to practice being the main one). We emphasize 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.
In Marxist political economy, Chairman Mao applied dialectics to analyze the relationship between the base and superstructure, and, continuing the struggle of Marxism-Leninism against the revisionist thesis of the “productive forces”, he concluded that the superstructure, consciousness, can modify the base, and that with political power the productive forces can be developed. By developing the Leninist idea that politics is the concentrated expression of economics, he established that politics must be in command, (applicable on all levels) and that political work is the life-line of economic work; which takes us to the true handling of political economy, not just a simple economic policy.
Despite its importance, an issue which is often sidestepped, especially by those who face democratic revolutions, is the Maoist thesis of bureaucratic capitalism; that is, the capitalism which is being developed in the oppressed nations by imperialism along with different degrees of underlying feudalism, or even pre-feudal stages. This is a vital problem, mainly in Asia, Africa and
But the main thing is that Chairman Mao Tse-tung has developed the political economy of socialism. Of the utmost importance is his criticism of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, as well as his theses on how to develop socialism in China: Taking agriculture as the base and industry as the leading economic force, promoting industrialization guided by the relationship between heavy industry, light industry and agriculture; taking heavy industry as the center of economic construction and simultaneously paying full attention to light industry and agriculture. The Great Leap Forward and the conditions for its execution should be highlighted: One, the political line that gives it a just and correct course; two, small, medium, and large organizational forms in a greater to lesser quantity, respectively; three, a great drive, a gigantic effort of the masses of people in order to put it in motion and to take it through to success, a leap forward whose results are valued more for the new process set in motion and its historical perspective than its immediate achievements, and its linkage with agricultural collectivization and the people’s communes. Finally, we must bear well in mind his teachings on the objectivity and the subjectivity in understanding and handling the laws of socialism, that because the few decades of socialism have not permitted it to see its complete development, and therefore a better understanding of its laws and its specification, and principally the relationship that exists between revolution and the economic process, embodied in the slogan “grasp revolution and promote production”. Despite its transcendental importance, this development of Marxist political economy has received scant attention.
In scientific socialism, Chairman Mao further developed the theory of social classes analyzing them on economic, political, and ideological planes. He upheld revolutionary violence as a universal law without any exception whatsoever; revolution as a violent displacement of one class by another, thus establishing the great thesis that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”. He resolved the question of the conquest of political power in the oppressed nations through the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside, establishing its general laws. He defined and developed the theory of the class struggle within socialism in which he brilliantly demonstrated that the antagonistic struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the socialist road and the capitalist road, and between socialism and capitalism continues. That in socialism it was not concretely determined who would defeat whom, that it was a problem whose solution demands time, the unfolding of a process of restoration and counter-restoration, in order for the proletariat to strongly hold political power definitely through the proletarian dictatorship; and, finally and principally, the grandiose solution of historical transcendence, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as the continuation of the socialist revolution under the proletarian dictatorship.
These basic questions, simply and plainly stated but known and undeniable, show the Chairman’s development of the integral parts of Marxism, and the evident raising of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third and superior stage: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.
Continuing with this brief synthesis, let us look at other specific points which, although deriving from the above, should be considered even if only enumeratively, to emphasize and pay due attention to them.
2. The New Democratic Revolution. Firstly, it is a development of the Marxist theory of the State, establishing three types of dictatorships:
1) Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, in the old bourgeois democracies like the United States, a type in which the dictatorships of the oppressed nations such as the Latin American ones can be assimilated;
2) Proletarian dictatorships, like the ones in the Soviet Union or in China before the usurpation of power by the revisionists; and
3) New Democracy, as a joint dictatorship based on the worker-peasant alliance, led by the proletariat headed up by the Communist Party, which was formed in China during its democratic revolution, and which is concretely expressed in Perú today through the People’s Committees, in the base areas and in the People’s Republic of New Democracy in formation. It is fundamental to emphasize, within this development of the theory of the state, the key differentiation between a state system as a dictatorship of a class or classes that hold political power, which is principal, and a system of government, which is understood as an organization for the exercise of political power.
On the other hand, New Democracy, one of the extraordinary developments made by Chairman Mao, masterfully materializes for us the bourgeois revolution of a new type, which only the proletariat can lead. In synthesis, it is the democratic revolution within the new era of world proletarian revolution in which we evolve. The New Democratic Revolution implies a new economy, a new politics, and a new culture, obviously overthrowing the old order and upholding the new one with arms, the only way to transform the world.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that New Democracy is a democratic revolution. Although it mainly fulfills the democratic tasks, it also complementarily advances in some socialist tasks, so that the question of two stages, democratic and socialist, which corresponds to countries like ours, is thoroughly solved by guaranteeing that once the democratic stage is concluded, it will be continued as a socialist revolution, without any intermissions or interruptions.
3. The three instruments. The problem of the construction of the instruments of the revolution presents the Party with the problem of understanding the interrelationship between the Party, the army and the united front; and to understand and correctly handle the interconnected construction of the three instruments in the midst of war or in the defense of the new State based on the power of the armed people, expressing in that way a just and correct task of leadership. Their construction is guided by the principle that a just and correct ideological line decides everything, and it is on this ideological-political basis that the organizational construction is simultaneously developed in the midst of the struggle between the proletarian line and the bourgeois line and within the storm of the class struggle, mainly in war, as the principal form of current or potential struggle.
Regarding the Party, Chairman Mao starts from the necessity of the Communist Party, a new type of party, a party of the proletariat. Today, we would say a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party: a party whose aim is to conquer political power and to defend it, and therefore it is inextricably bound to people’s war in order to initiate it, develop it or wage it to defend itself. A party sustained by the masses of people, be it by way of people’s war which is a war of the masses, or by the united front which, being a front of classes, is based on the broad masses. The Party develops and changes itself according to the stages of the revolution and the periods that these stages may have. The driving of its development is the contradiction which materializes in its heart as the two-line struggle, the proletarian line and the bourgeois or in general non-proletarian line, which is in essence and mainly a struggle against revisionism. This leads to the decisive importance of ideology in the life of the party and to the development of rectification campaigns that serve a greater adjustment of all the systems of party organizations and the membership to the just and correct ideological and political lines, guaranteeing the predominance of the proletarian line and keeping the Party leadership in its iron grip. The Party serves the establishment of political power for the proletariat as the leading class of the New Democracy, and principally for the establishment, strengthening and development of the proletarian dictatorship, and through cultural revolutions the conquest of the great, final goal: Communism. Because of this, the Party must lead everything in an all-around way.
The revolutionary army is of a new type. It is an army for the fulfillment of the political tasks that the Party establishes in accordance with the interests of the proletariat and the people. This characteristic is concretely expressed in three tasks: To combat, to produce in order to pose no parasitical burden, and to mobilize the masses. It is an army based on the political development of the proletariat’s ideology, from Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (today), and from the general political line as well as the military one that the Party may establish. It is an army based on people and not on weapons, an army that surged from the masses with whom it has always been linked, serving them wholeheartedly, which allows it to move among the people like fish in the water. Without a people’s army the people have nothing, said Chairman Mao, at the same time he taught us the necessity of the Party’s absolute leadership over the army and his great principle: The Party commands the gun and we will never permit it to be otherwise. Besides having thoroughly established the principles and norms for the construction of a new type of army, the Chairman himself called for preventing the use of the army for the restoration of capitalism by usurping the leadership through a counterrevolutionary coup d’etat and, developing Lenin’s thesis on the people’s militia, he carried out farther than anyone the general policy of arming the people, thus opening a breach and pointing out the path towards the armed sea of masses that will lead us to the definite emancipation of the people and the proletariat.
It was Chairman Mao who for the first time developed a complete theory on the united front and established its laws. A front of social classes based on the worker-peasant alliance as a guarantee of the proletariat’s hegemony in the revolution, which is led by the proletariat represented by the Communist Party; in synthesis, a united front under the leadership of the Communist Party, a united front for the people’s war, for the revolution, for the conquest of power for the proletariat and the people. In synthesis, the united front is the grouping of the revolutionary forces against the counter-revolutionary forces in order to wage the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution mainly through the armed people’s war. The united front, obviously, is not the same in every stage of the revolution and, furthermore, it has its specifications according to the various historical periods of each stage; likewise, the united front in a concrete revolution does not equal the one on a world level, although both follow the same general laws. Apart from this, it is important to emphasize the relation between the front and the State that Chairman Mao established when the war of resistance against
4. The People’s War is the military theory of the international proletariat; in it are summarized, for the first time in a systematic and complete form, the theoretical and practical experience of the struggles, military actions, and wars waged by the proletariat, and the prolonged experience of the people’s armed struggle and especially of the incessant wars in China. It is with Chairman Mao that the proletariat attains its military theory; nevertheless, there is much confusion and misunderstanding on this issue. And much of it springs from how the People’s War in
We must fully bear in mind that subsequently, Chairman Mao himself, aware of the existence of atomic bombs and missiles and with China already having them, sustained and developed people’s war in order to wage it under the new conditions of atomic weapons and of war against powers and super-powers. In synthesis, people’s war is the weapon of the proletariat and of the people, even to confront atomic wars.
A key and decisive question is the understanding of the universal validity of people’s war and its subsequent application taking into account the different types of revolution and the specific conditions of each revolution. To clarify this key issue it is important to consider that no insurrection like that of Petrograd, the anti-fascist resistance, or the European guerrilla movements in the Second World War have been repeated, as well as considering the armed struggles that are presently being waged in Europe. In the final analysis, the October Revolution was not only an insurrection but a revolutionary war that lasted for several years. Consequently, in the imperialist countries the revolution can only be conceived as a revolutionary war which today is simply people’s war.
Finally, today more than ever, we Communists and revolutionaries, the proletariat and the people, need to forge ourselves in: “Yes. We are adherents to the theory of the omnipotence of the revolutionary war. That it is not bad thing; it is good thing. It is Marxist”; which means adhering to the invincibility of people’s war.
5. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in a historical perspective is the most transcendental development of Marxism-Leninism made by Chairman Mao; it is the solution to the great pending problem of the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship: “It represents a more profound and wider new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country.”
What was the situation that presented itself? As stated in the Decision of the Communist Party of China on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution states: “Although overthrown, the bourgeoisie still tries to avail itself of the old ideas, culture, habits and ways of the exploiting classes in order to corrupt the masses and to conquer the minds of the people in its endeavors to restore its power. The proletariat must do exactly the opposite: It must deal merciless, frontal blows to all the challenges by the bourgeoisie in the ideological arena and change the spiritual composition of the whole society using its own new ideas, culture, habits and ways. Our present aim is to crush, through struggle, those who occupy leading posts and follow the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois ‘authorities’ in the academic fields, to criticize and repudiate the ideology of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes, and to transform education, literature, and art and the rest of areas of the superstructure that do not correspond to the economic base of socialism, in order to facilitate the consolidation and the development of the socialist system.”
It was in these conditions that the most Earth-shaking political process and the greatest mass mobilization the world has ever seen broke out, and whose objectives were thus outlined by Chairman Mao: “The present GPCR is completely necessary and very timely to consolidate the proletarian dictatorship, to prevent the restoration of capitalism, and to build socialism.”
We also emphasize two questions:
1) The GPCR implies a landmark in the development of the proletarian dictatorship towards the proletariat’s securing political power, concretely expressed in the Revolutionary Committees; and
2) The restoration of capitalism in China after the 1976 counter-revolutionary coup is not a negation of the GPCR but is plainly part of the contention between restoration and counter-restoration, and, on the contrary, it shows us the transcendental historical importance of the GPCR in the inexorable march of mankind towards Communism.
6. World Revolution. Chairman Mao emphasizes the importance of the world revolution as a unity, on the basis that revolution is the main trend while the decomposition of imperialism is greater each day, and the role played by the masses grows more immense each year, masses that make and shall make their transforming and unstoppable strength be felt, and reiterates the great truth: Either we all reach Communism or nobody does. Within this specific perspective in the era of imperialism, the great historical moment of the “next 50 to 100 years”, and within this context the opening period of struggle against Yankee imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, paper tigers that contend for hegemony and threaten the world with an atomic war, in the face of which, firstly we must condemn it, and secondly, we must prepare ourselves beforehand in order to oppose it with people’s war and make the revolution. On the other hand, starting from the historical importance of the oppressed nations and, furthermore, from their perspective both in the economic and political relationships that are evolving on account of the process of decomposition of imperialism, Chairman Mao stated his thesis that “three worlds delineate themselves”. All of which leads to the necessity of developing the strategy and tactics of world revolution. Regrettably, we know little or almost nothing about Chairman Mao’s writings and statements on these transcendental questions; nevertheless, the very little that is known shows the grand perspectives which he watched closely and the great outlines that we must follow in order to understand and serve the proletarian world revolution
7. Superstructure, ideology, culture, and education. These and other related issues have been subtly and deeply studied by Chairman Mao. For that reason, this is also another basic question that deserves attention.
In conclusion, the contents seen in these fundamental issues show clearly to whoever wants to see and understand that we have, therefore, a new, third, and superior stage of Marxism: Maoism; and that to be a Marxist in these days demands to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and mainly Maoist.
All that has been explained in the contents leads us to two questions:
What is fundamental in Maoism? Political Power is fundamental in Maoism. Political power for the proletariat, power for the dictatorship of the proletariat, power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party. More explicitly:
1) Political power under the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution;
2) Political power for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the socialist and cultural revolutions;
3) Political power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party, conquered and defended through people’s war.
And, what is Maoism? Maoism is the elevation of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third, and superior stage in the struggle for proletarian leadership of the democratic revolution, the development of the construction of socialism and the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship as a proletarian cultural revolution; when imperialism deepens its decomposition and revolution has become the main tendency of history, amidst the most complex and largest wars seen to date and the implacable struggle against contemporary revisionism.
On the STRUGGLE AROUND MAOISM. Briefly, the struggle in
On an international level, it acquired influence from the 1950s onwards; but 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; thus, a great number of Communist Parties assumed the denomination of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought. On the world level, Maoism confronted contemporary revisionism openly unmasking it profoundly and forcefully, and likewise it did so in the CPC’s own ranks, all of which raised the Chairman’s great red banner still more: The new, third, and superior stage of the ideology of the international proletariat. At present (1988), Maoism confronts the triple attack of Soviet, Chinese and Albanian revisionism. But today, even among those who acknowledge the Chairman’s great contributions, including the development of Marxism, there are some who believe that we are still in the stage of Marxism-Leninism, and others who only accept Mao Tse-tung Thought but by no means Maoism.
In this country, obviously, the revisionists who follow the baton of their diverse masters, Gorbachev, Teng, Alia or Castro have continuously attacked Maoism; among them one must condemn, unmask, and implacably combat Del Prado’s callous revisionism and his gang, the so called “Peruvian Communist Party”; the abject deviousness of the self-proclaimed “Communist Party of Peru, Patria Roja” who, after raising themselves up as “great Maoists” became Teng’s servants, after having condemned him when he was defenestrated in 1976, as well as the anti-Maoism of the so called “Izquierda Unida” (United Left), in whose heart swarmed all the revisionist and even anti-Marxist positions passed off by false Marxists and opportunists of many kinds. We must raise Maoism as a revealing mirror for revisionists in order to combat them implacably, working for the development of the People’s War and the triumph of the democratic revolution underway, which is an unavoidable and unrenounceable task of a strategic character.
The Communist Party of Peru, through the fraction led by President Gonzalo, who propelled its reconstitution, took up Marxism-Leninism- Mao Tse-tung Thought in 1966; in 1979 the slogan “Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought!”; in 1981: “Towards Maoism!”; and, in 1982, took Maoism as an integral part and superior development of the ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It is with the People’s War that we have understood more deeply what Maoism implies and we have taken up the solemn pledge to “Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninism- Maoism, principally Maoism!” and to work relentlessly in helping to place it as leader and guide of the world revolution, the always red and unfading banner that is the guarantee of triumph for the proletariat, the oppressed nations, and peoples of the world in their inexorable, combative march of iron legions towards the golden and always brilliant goal of Communism.
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