Many rightists and pseudo leftists say that Mao was some horible dictator who dident do one thing right. But if thats was the case them why did the life rate grow from 30 to 60 and there was a population increase? Thats easy, becouse the burgeoi likes to portrait Mao's China like a living hell instead of a growing economy and a rising super power that it was.
Vídeo talking about Mao's achievements:youtu.be
There was never a dictator (or capitalist, or king) who didn't do some things "right".
Mao wasent a dictator.
he was
uphold Maoist Posadism
...
Mao didn't rule alone. All of his great plans and initiatives were horrid disasters, but meanwhile the CPC was also working to uplift the nation out of feudalism. Mao being incompetent doesn't mean every action undertaken by anyone in the CPC was a failure.
If your shitty system is only stable as long as you live then you are a failure.
…so basically every socialist society?
The USSR fell to revisionism after Stalin, Yugoslavia collapsed after Tito, Cuba has been becoming increasingly market-orientated since Raul got power in 2008, as well as Vietnam and Laos. Anarchists were so unsuccessful that if you put all the time an anarchist society existed, it would be less than 10 years. After Mao's death the Gang of Four could have taken over, but Deng Xiaoping overthrew them. Nowadays, most Maoists criticize Mao for stopping the Cultural revolution, as we think it could have prevented Deng from rising to power(he was actually purged twice), and preserve a socialist China.
Yes, seems like you get it. Maybe its time for something outside of Leninism derived bullshit.
Only dumb anarchkiddies hate Mao
fuck off
What alternative do you propose?
I'm not too educated on leftist movements other than the mainstream ones(leninism, luxemburgism and anarchism, which all basically failed in one way or another), and think that cultural revolutions may be the only thing to actually preserve a socialist society in a capitalist world.
This is the exact problem with states.Lenin was good, then they got progressively worse.
You need to trust the figurehead, during a revolution you can build this trust, once its part of a state mechanism it INEVITABLY AND ALWAYS goes to shit. Bar Cuba. Probably a couple other exceptions you can throw at me, but for big daddies its true. You Krushcheved into the dirt and now there are suicide nets on ipod factories in China. This is clearly not communism.
and Cuba only worked because Castro was fucking indestructible
What's the alternative though?
I am inclined to agree. Maotists and tankies tend to lose sight of the class-based nature of the revolution. The working class itself must be in control of the means of production; it cannot rely on an enlightened ruling party (which is by definition not working class) to do it for them. Of course, the problem there is that the counterrevolution inevitably undermines the proletariat. There must be a central authority during the war, but it must be subordinate to the proletariat in real terms.
Depends where you are. There are places on earth where I would favour armed revolution. For the west I'd prefer to build communal institutions inside capitalism, based around groups of co-operatives focused on providing community services. This combined with a constant non violent insurrection, focused on direct action to block and disrupt the most heinous functions of the state while using these instances as propaganda opportunities for the network.
The only reason I'd be against a violent overthrow of west minster is that you don't have even the smallest chance of holding it down.
In some other countries it is more of a pressing concern and there is potential to hold down a coup.
In military terms I favour pirate ship democracy. Leaders are elected on a utility basis and secede all powers once their mission is completed. Obviously you could be elected multiple times and act as a de facto captain, but the leaders would always be re callable by the troops. So you would operate like any army, only the leaders would be re-callable.
That sounds like a perfectly lovely military to be a part of up until it gets chased out of the production centers by a proper top-down military that is capable of achieving air supremacy and maintaining a constant supply line. After that, it is pretty much just starving in the mountains, isn't it?
People unfamiliar with Chinese history don't know in how much deep shit China was before him and how much Kai Shek was despised by the peasantry.
There has been no greater era of destabilization in the history of China (perhaps excluding the three kingdoms era), China faced a long century of abject humiliation from Japan and the Western Great powers, during the Qing dynasty. From the Opium wars to the Boxer rebellions, to Japanese imperialism against them, China was caught between a rock and a hard place. With a completely destitute peasantry, no industry, horrible bureaucracy, harsh feudalism and complete vulnerability to natural disasters.
Mao, even if he has his faults, was seen as a godsent by the Chinese, precisely because the previous era was so bad, and because China had to be catch up not only to the West, but create a new identity, beyond the fossilized imperial Confucian dogma and antiquated traditions.
Hence why the cultural revolution was so fanatical against tradition, the Chinese were so sick of this stifling environment, that they wanted a new history.
Is that also factoring in the end of the Chinese civil war?
The problem with China began even before Mao's death, when they tried to copy the soviet system of production.
Honestly that's just idealism. When I was a Trot I also used to believe that. My country(Yugoslavia) had it and literally no one cared when it got taken away. Basically all Yugonostalgics are just nationalists who like Yugoslav aesthetics, absolutely no fucks given regarding economics.
Sure it's nice and all but it could be hard to manage and has so far(in Yugoslavia at least) shown some pretty bad sides, but those could be attributed to its market side. Wait for automation or try to make it in periods of stability.
Not very promising. Stability in capitalism goes up and down and will at some point decline again enough for a revolution to start. And even now we have much potential in the third world, for instance India, a potential superpower. So far we learned much from previous revolutions, and know how to behave in the future - if we fail we will at least be able to be a lesson for further revolutions. Anarchism had such a short lifespan so far, and basically taught us nothing.
Essentially Marxism might be tripping over the same stone, but we're breaking it a little every time we trip on it. Anarchism tripped before it even reached the stone.