Real talk

Why do Maoists still exist in the 21st century? Yes, Mao "won" a revolution, but this in itself says little about his actual theory (which was mostly terrible, to be perfectly honest). We all know of the Naxals and the Shining Path but besides them and a few other armed groups here and there Maoism is dead. Most parts of the world no longer have a significant peasant class plus Mao's dialectics were utter shit overall. No other part of the world has the same conditions as China in the 1940s. So yes, we need to discard Maoism or MZT once and for all and come up with better theory that's more relevant to the current day. Even "Maoism Third Worldism" doesn't break from all the bullshit truisms.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=MeM_hXwWaDQ
marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1962/overdetermination.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=o57X9jHPnbc
chuangcn.org/journal/one/sorghum-and-steel/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

I'm sending that meme to Roo.

tbf there is still a huge peasant population in certain countries like India for example but your right, and urbanization is doing away with the peasantry worldwide anyways.

I was about to say. Most of India's rural population is being urbanized.

Face it: Maoism is useless today.

this is not a real criticism

Bad theory begets bad practice.

Mao is incredibly important to our current situation for, I think, a pretty clear reason: his China is the last serious manifestation of the communist Idea. We can criticize his regime as much as possible, as we should, but always under a very specific paradigm: what we are criticizing is why someone who was, inarguably and ethically, committed to the communist project could produce a failure, and then utilizing the elements which allowed for his success while simultaneously integrating the cause of his inevitable fallout.

Being a "Maoist" I'm pretty sure means one of two things: you either (by some perverse logic) think that the Maoist project is a legitimate manifestation of the communist Idea which is to be reinterpreted rather than critiqued, or that Mao is simply the last true communist to cause a rupture within the Real of global capitalism. Mao has some truly insightful interpretations of diamat, however i think his real function is to provide a historical example that a political engagement with the Real isn't just a fantasy, that we are capable of acting in favor of what we actually desire.

this is not a real criticism

Is this pasta or legit?

just wrote it my guy

China today isn't socialist. In fact, modern China has very good relations with Israel.


How can Maoism be reinterpreted for today? It seems incredibly outdated.


What? Explain without speaking PoMo.

But I never said that I'm talking about modern-day China, I'm talking about communist, Maoist China, which has all but disappeared since (at least) the 80's. What Xiaoping put in place past this moment has little to do with Mao as a political/ideological force.


The point isn't, for me, that we need to refer back to exclusively Mao's model, but rather the fact that he is the last observable communist mobilization of a given nation. That is no small matter. Clearly there aren't any circumstances within the newly global capitalism which allow for a Maoist type of uprising, however we should understand our current predicament insofar as how it is not compatible with the Maoist project. Maoism is the most recent manifestation of the political Real, which means that we need to articulate our predicament as a continuation of the Maoist project as it is the most recent reproduction of the communist Idea.


I'm going to be pedantic about this: Lacan and psychoanalysis in general is not a postmodernist or poststructuralist discipline, even though you seem to be implying this.

What Mao stands for is an engagement with the reality of capitalist society by means of directly and violently confronting its ideological manifestations in the form of its reactionary counterparts, a la Confucian religion or whatever it may be. In other words, Mao was able to manifest the communist Idea outside of any contingent (stupid) historical context in the form of some kind of religion/spirituality. Instead, he his supporters chose to act without the guarantee provided by the big Other of their time, and made a social transformation without a symbolic guarantee of what their actions would produce, which is to say that they circumvented the "wise" logic of Chinese society at their current epoch; they ruthlessly modernized their nation. I'm drunk and ranting at this point, but the main idea is that Maoism is the last time a collective acted as a collective and simultaneously produced global consequences

This kills the Maoist:
youtube.com/watch?v=MeM_hXwWaDQ

What is Chiapas?

My understanding of Maoism (MLM, MZT, whatever, I don't know the difference) is basically (Marxism-Leninism +) New Democracy + Mass Line + PPW + Cultural revolution. If you live in India or something I can definitely see why you would turn to Maoism. But New Democracy and PPW aren't really relevant in first world countries, and the Mass Line isn't actually an original Maoist idea (it's just what the bolsheviks did but made into a neat little formula). Cultural revolution, and the recognition that class struggle continues during the early stages of socialist society, might still be relevant ideas in the first world, but that's not enough for me to start calling myself a Maoist.

I really wanna call myself a Maoist though. It sounds really cool and Maoism has top tier aesthetics. But I'm not that much of a LARPer.

What the fuck?

Or over a dozen US military bases in Syria.

*Ro-ja-va

Stop this meme.

Explain why not.

tbh as an anarchist i gotta say Mao is incredibly useful as a guide to emerging victorious in asymmetric warfare, Mass Line is brilliant and so is Cultural Revolution, along with his attitude toward hardship as counterrevolution and reactionary retards have you beat on numbers and guns, "we are against it, we are not afraid"

Even southern France has a large peasant population, albeit one that's modernized. Look up the Ariège department: something like 19% of the population lives below the poverty line and the bulk of the region is still highly, highly rural. Plus, Occitan-speakers were the first victims of French colonialism and, as you can see by this map, overwhelmingly vote for leftist candidates.

This map even hides the fact that those who didn't vote for Melenchon were voting largely for Le Pen and vice versa. Basically, besides young professionals in a few cities and the petty landlords on the cote d'azur, everyone around the Mediterranean coast was overwhelmingly in favor of Melenchon and Le Pen and said fuck you to the establishment candidates.

I remember my father was extremely confused by the national result because "Everyone I talk is for Le Pen or Melenchon! How is that possible?"

Where in Occitània do you live? You have a beautiful land BTW.

Nimes/Montpellier, can't really decide which city is more significant for me. Languedoc in any case.

I've been to both cities and think it's telling how the downtowns are always super-polished with everything catering to the tourists (there's a reason why the Montpellier tram takes you from downtown to the mall). Leave the tourist traps and the cities' peripheries look almost as bad as American cities.

Yeah. Nimes is much worse than Montpellier, everything is terribly decrepit besides the few monuments. The countryside is nice enough but I'm a city boy sadly.

Roo isn't a Maoist, he even said himself that his Third Worldism has nothing to do with Maoism. He shares not a single stance with most MLMs.

Roo hates Röjava, Maoists support it, Roo thinks Cuba and the DPRK are socialist, Maoists don't, Roo has a mechanistic understanding of DiaMat, Maoists don't even believe in DiaMat, Roo thinks economistic, Maoists don't. Jason Unruhe is a Maoist only in name.


Because that is just minor practical aspects specific for China and similar places that has nothing to do with the ideology. That's like saying "hey, why do Marxists still exist? Marx focused on the industrial worker in steel factories, but we barely have steel workers anymore".

pdf is what you need to know. I'm not a Maoist by the way, but the constant ignorance about Maoism on this board kinda triggers me.

Its established fact that Mao was a gangster boss who ran a Cigarette Mafia during the last days of the Qing. The revolutions goal was to free up and consolidate land previously owned by Private landlords and create Dazhais which were nothing more than labour camps. A third, and very important, reason for Maos allignment with Marxism was to protect his interest against the Chinese Nationalists (and their US/Euro allies) and as a bonus tap into the burgeoning industrial might of the Soviets.
Furthermore, the Mao Triad sought to destroy his rivals the Qing Bang (nothing to do with the Qing Dynasty). Some estimates put the number of Triads executed during Maos reign at upwards of 180'000 with less conservative estimates placing the figure closer to 1 Million.
Tobacco production increased dramatically within years if the establishment of the PRC. As a result China became (and remains) the largest producer of leaf tobacco in the world.
The actual name of the Triad which Mao controlled was Bang Ding Ow Mai Wang which translates roughly to Chinese Freemasons however as far as I know there is no direct relation to the traditional Masonic orders. It was founded by two Kuomingtang Warlords Chen Jiongming and Tang Jiyao in the 1920's. It is this organisation which has ruled China up until today. Officially the Chinese Freemasons (who now operate under the guise of a political party known as the Zhi Gong Party) have had no affiliation with the CPC but the Communist Party simply serves as a front.

You are correct but it should be added that orthodox Marxist-Leninist adhere to dialectical materialism, while Maoists are usually very critical of it, even though they don't reject it completely. Maoists are basically ultras, they often talk like anarchists who read too much postcolonial theory.

I could definitely tell with Nimes. I got lost and ended up walking through a neighborhood only a few blocks away from the amphitheatre and Gare, encountered dirty sidewalks, unpolished buildings, basically looked like a Mediterranean version of Lawrence, Mass. Tons of poor white people too, which is something you don't see very often in an imperialist country like France.

Although, I'm planning to go hiking in the Pyrenees once I save up enough money from wagecucking to go back to Europe.

Holy shit, when?

/r/communism hates Ro-java too.

True.

This is what that Jewess called him out on.

They don't?

In his response video to Chaya (the Jewess).
Big difference between IRL commies and Internet commies. Many anarchists I see online are quite alright and smart, many I see offline are drunken retards, many ☭TANKIE☭s I see online are illiterate memelords but many I see offline are well-read and nuanced.
They have a rather ambigious relationship to it, they don't entirely reject it but think it's too mechanistic. pdf related. Mao developed his own dialectics (please don't watch the A.W. video about it, he is a conman). I would even go further than this book and claim that most Maoists reject it entirely but havn't done so historically because Mao was dependent on Stalin, who was the main proponent of dialectical materalism. Maoists have a weird relationship to Stalin, they think he was correct and that Kurshchev was a revisionist but also critique his theories a lot, as Maoists want to move further than Stalin, beyond commodity production.

That being said I forgot to mention to a succinct presentation of Mao's dialectics Althusser's article is probably a good start:
marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1962/overdetermination.htm

youtube.com/watch?v=o57X9jHPnbc

Mao doesn't view contradiction in a Hegelian/dialectical sense. For him, "contradiction" simply refers to conflict, and nearly all the examples Mao uses are all external contradictions.

Explain.

Well Mao did prioritize the peasants.

Why is Provence so right-wing compared to the rest of Le Sud?

...

And people tell me merica is reactionary

jesus….

France is going through a lot of shit concerning austerity and labour laws.

Look at the guy though

Because that's where old people go before dying.

Sauce on this?

Don't tell Roo.

France and America have very similiar styles of anti-democratic electoral systems. The "extremes" are filtered out before they can pose a threat to the system.

Basically yeah.

This could just as well be said about the manson family, or any monster committing atrocities that shock their society.

Mautists answer me this: how the fuck is national liberation not just reformism, since it never posits to destroy capital and makes Nostradamus-tier guarantees about class struggle following *immediately* after it? When the fuck has this ever happened? It didn't happen in Algeria, didn't happen in Indonesia, didn't happen in Iran once the Shah was kicked out, didn't happen in Zimbabwe after Mugabe failed to implement socialism, didn't happen in Syria since the Assad family ran the country like the fucking mafia, didn't happen in South Africa when the ANC sold out and didn't do a land reform, etc. What the fuck makes you think supporting Hamas is a prerequisite for a socialist Palestine, or supporting black fascists in AmeriKKKa is good for black socialism? All of you just pull this shit for kicks.

To add: social democracy AKA capitalism in a white dress in Venezuela is somehow good because Chavez stuck it to the US, yet social democracy in any western country is "social imperialism"? Go fuck yourselves.

you seem upset

Of course.

if you want socialism, communism worldwide
you need to win people
only way to do that is to adapt to their conditions
that means going against something in one country, while supporting it in another, depending on what the people need
every country will be different

you need to know what they believe in and what they really need

Mao is indeed important to our current situation for, the reason stated: his China is the last serious manifestation of the communist Idea. We might criticize his regime as much as possible, but always under a rather specific paradigm; what we are criticizing is why someone who was, arguably and morally, committed to the communist project could produce a, debatbly, failure, and then, utilizing the elements which, allowed for his successes while simultaneously, integrating the cause of his inevitable, fallout.
Being a "Maoist" I'm pretty sure means one of two things: you either (by some twisted logic) think that the Maoist project is a illegitimate manifestation of the communist idea which, is to be reinterpreted rather than critiqued, or that Lmao is simply the last real gommunist to cause a rupture within the Real of global cabitalism. Mao had some truly insightful and profound interpretations of diamat, however i think his real function was to provide a historical example that a politically correct engagement with the Real isn't just a fantasy, that we are actually capable of actually acting in favor of what we actually desire actively in actuality.

Wat does that have to do with anything?

I don't get it.

Thoughts on Chuang?

chuangcn.org/journal/one/sorghum-and-steel/

Israel is an apartheid state and illegitimate entity. No one who has relationships with Israel is socialist.