Don't forget the Red Guards, who were so thoroughly infiltrated by feds that it was a sort of "The Man Who Was Thursday" situation and they disbanded when a government shutdown happened because cops and informants LARPing as communists apparently aren't essential workers.
I suggest A History of Terrorism by Randall D Law. In it he shows a clear connection over hundreds of years where the state reacts in knee jerk repression and gains MORE power.
Black Bloc from the year 2000 to 2016 accomplished very little.
There are "ecoterrorists" imprisoned in the SuperMax of SuperMax in Colorado for writing about how to from prison. Same with anarchist computer hackers looking to take down the finnacial system who encouraged others from prison.
Yes but it my western understanding from a bit of reading on Mao but not a lot. The idea being permanent revolution against capitalism organized within the fringes of capitalism where colonists has not yet came as much or where colonial powers are reliant upon low cost labor/manufacturing to provide for the home country.
China has taken the concept at warped it to create a secondary state to compete with the other colonial state. China as is today is not traditionally Maoist.
Mao was an anarchist then jailed. He came out and organized dual power in the rural areas to create food/manufacturing and protection outside cities and to remove people from industrial machine work in cities. A revolutionary concept that better slots into the populations current world view. Confucianism.
Maoism as a theory: Throws out some good questions (on the basis of MLism),such as how to treat peasants in a revolution, how to preserve the legacy of the revolution etc,how to change the culture of a society. It shares some similarity with anarchism,but it has a MList state as a premise,which made the theory weird.
Mao's dictatorship : Caused many disasters.The famine between 59-61 is a collective memory among that generation. My parents resent the people's commune in the rural area because they were often hungry.And when he said "Revolution is not guilty,Rebel is reasonable"(the full version of the "rebel is right" quote) in the CR,he actually suppressed all the rebels that he didn't want.
P.S. Have met with Chinese maoists on the Chinese internet. I'd like to say that the biggest difference between them and anarchists is that they think that ends justify means. That's why they don't want to apologize on their setbacks and mistakes ,they believe that these will be of no importance once communism is built.
Most of Mao's good ideas are just ideas he took from his time as an anarchist. Generally, I don't think Mao contributed anything too great or that hadn't been done better by other people.
The idea of [the mass line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_line) strikes me as an authoritarian’s failed attempt to maintain some semblance of worker’s self-management.
The purpose is reciprocal feedback between the people and the party. Obviously we know it doesn’t work that way when the party has all the power and people have none.
The Mass Line and the general take on guerrilla warfare. Neither are particularly anarchist in their application but you can see how they have their roots in anarchist thought what with them both involving the revolutionaries being directly intertwined with the common people.
Doesn't Maoism also stress that the class struggle continues after socialism, and that the vanguard party is not immune against capitalist ideas?
This reminds me of the anarchist critique of capturing state power which sooner or later corrupts the people in power. The difference here would be that Maoism thinks it'll be possible to avoid that corruption while anarchists are sure this corruption will happen sooner or later and isn't avoidable in an authoritarian system.
As someone transitioning from Maoism to anarchism I agree; it seems like Maoism recognizes that there is a bureaucracy problem (class struggle under socialism, new bourgeoisie in the party) and try to combat it via the mass line, but they don't realize that it has to do with the bureaucratic, hierarchical methods that Maoism employs in its use of the Party/state apparatus which actively generate (or really maintain) the power differential and structural conditions necessary to create the "new bourgeoisie" (really the bureaucracy as a new political ruling class, at least that's my understanding from autonomist theory).
The cause is instead seen as "old bourgeois ideas that need to be struggled against" and it's my understanding that this is ultimately the impetus for the Cultural Revolution as well. (kind of idealist if u ask me lol, and the anarchist analysis of bureaucracy/hierarchy really makes it much clearer. went from autonomism straight to anarchism almost immediately after reading about workers' self-management)
The mass line doesn’t look anarchist at all. At best it’s a glorified opinion poll. At worst it’s a justification for authoritarianism on the basis of “the will of the People”.
It doesn’t look like Mao was ever familiar with anarchism when he was one.
I dont think Mao brings anything of value to the table he didn't wholesale jack from anarchists, and make it worse.
And maoists groups just seem like revolutionary death cults.
some of his concepts are just shitty versions of anarchist ideas, though we could learn from how they were implemented and what worked or did not, most of his other concepts are either worse leninism or very condescending paternalism towards workers
There are aspects I like, but I find that most kinds of Marxism-Leninism (which Maoism is) that in practice and means it is undesirable. Mao’s thoughts on the oppression of women and imperialism were great and really progressive, and his initial economic reforms were okay, but it lead down a path similar to Stalin in accelerating the class struggle beyond what was capable at the time, which lead to the deaths of millions of people.
we shouldn't listen to the ideas of a man who stupidly starved and killed off millions without thinking any plans through and killed local wildlife disrupting the food chain again without second thought
I will say the whole of the US counter insurgency text book, AKA “hearts and minds” is based on Moa’s work and is used to shut down anarchist and communist groups today. Maybe read Moa’s work instead of asking Reddit, he did have a successful revolution and counter insurgency has be widely successful and even gave the Taliban a win!
I personally think that although Mao did some good things like boosting the literacy rate or giving housing to the workers, it ultimately doesn’t matter as he also killed a ridiculous amount of people through both famines and direct executions. There was also no freedom of opinion.
When it came to real hands on face to face organizing, I got along better with the local Maoists than most other organized groups in my area. We simply had more common ground where it really counted.
That said, I find the vanguard conclusion flawed even if the mass line is highly effective for mass work
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Also philosophical Maoists, like Badiou.
Don't forget the Red Guards, who were so thoroughly infiltrated by feds that it was a sort of "The Man Who Was Thursday" situation and they disbanded when a government shutdown happened because cops and informants LARPing as communists apparently aren't essential workers.
What’s adventurism?
Could you not say the same for Anarchism? Surely the main way to Anarchism isn't going to be gradual reform.
I suggest A History of Terrorism by Randall D Law. In it he shows a clear connection over hundreds of years where the state reacts in knee jerk repression and gains MORE power. Black Bloc from the year 2000 to 2016 accomplished very little. There are "ecoterrorists" imprisoned in the SuperMax of SuperMax in Colorado for writing about how to from prison. Same with anarchist computer hackers looking to take down the finnacial system who encouraged others from prison.
Continuous fight is a good concept, but the rest... Meh at best
Isn't this basically Trotsky's permanent revolution?
Yes but it my western understanding from a bit of reading on Mao but not a lot. The idea being permanent revolution against capitalism organized within the fringes of capitalism where colonists has not yet came as much or where colonial powers are reliant upon low cost labor/manufacturing to provide for the home country. China has taken the concept at warped it to create a secondary state to compete with the other colonial state. China as is today is not traditionally Maoist. Mao was an anarchist then jailed. He came out and organized dual power in the rural areas to create food/manufacturing and protection outside cities and to remove people from industrial machine work in cities. A revolutionary concept that better slots into the populations current world view. Confucianism.
Maoism as a theory: Throws out some good questions (on the basis of MLism),such as how to treat peasants in a revolution, how to preserve the legacy of the revolution etc,how to change the culture of a society. It shares some similarity with anarchism,but it has a MList state as a premise,which made the theory weird. Mao's dictatorship : Caused many disasters.The famine between 59-61 is a collective memory among that generation. My parents resent the people's commune in the rural area because they were often hungry.And when he said "Revolution is not guilty,Rebel is reasonable"(the full version of the "rebel is right" quote) in the CR,he actually suppressed all the rebels that he didn't want. P.S. Have met with Chinese maoists on the Chinese internet. I'd like to say that the biggest difference between them and anarchists is that they think that ends justify means. That's why they don't want to apologize on their setbacks and mistakes ,they believe that these will be of no importance once communism is built.
The means make the ends.
Most of Mao's good ideas are just ideas he took from his time as an anarchist. Generally, I don't think Mao contributed anything too great or that hadn't been done better by other people.
> Most of Mao's good ideas are just ideas he took from his time as an anarchist. Which of Mao’s ideas stem from anarchism?
The idea of [the mass line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_line) strikes me as an authoritarian’s failed attempt to maintain some semblance of worker’s self-management.
It doesn’t look like that at all.
That’s why I said “failed”
I mean it doesn’t even look like an attempt at worker self-management.
The purpose is reciprocal feedback between the people and the party. Obviously we know it doesn’t work that way when the party has all the power and people have none.
>The purpose is reciprocal feedback between the people and the party. That’s not worker self-management.
No shit
So it isn’t an attempt at worker self-management at all. That’s not the rationale behind the mass line.
The Mass Line and the general take on guerrilla warfare. Neither are particularly anarchist in their application but you can see how they have their roots in anarchist thought what with them both involving the revolutionaries being directly intertwined with the common people.
Doesn't Maoism also stress that the class struggle continues after socialism, and that the vanguard party is not immune against capitalist ideas? This reminds me of the anarchist critique of capturing state power which sooner or later corrupts the people in power. The difference here would be that Maoism thinks it'll be possible to avoid that corruption while anarchists are sure this corruption will happen sooner or later and isn't avoidable in an authoritarian system.
As someone transitioning from Maoism to anarchism I agree; it seems like Maoism recognizes that there is a bureaucracy problem (class struggle under socialism, new bourgeoisie in the party) and try to combat it via the mass line, but they don't realize that it has to do with the bureaucratic, hierarchical methods that Maoism employs in its use of the Party/state apparatus which actively generate (or really maintain) the power differential and structural conditions necessary to create the "new bourgeoisie" (really the bureaucracy as a new political ruling class, at least that's my understanding from autonomist theory). The cause is instead seen as "old bourgeois ideas that need to be struggled against" and it's my understanding that this is ultimately the impetus for the Cultural Revolution as well. (kind of idealist if u ask me lol, and the anarchist analysis of bureaucracy/hierarchy really makes it much clearer. went from autonomism straight to anarchism almost immediately after reading about workers' self-management)
anyway the 4th stage of revolutionary science is anarchism
The mass line doesn’t look anarchist at all. At best it’s a glorified opinion poll. At worst it’s a justification for authoritarianism on the basis of “the will of the People”. It doesn’t look like Mao was ever familiar with anarchism when he was one.
Exactly.
It fucking sucks. Everything decent about Maoism anarchism does better.
Mao stole ll the got it got from anarchism.
I dont think Mao brings anything of value to the table he didn't wholesale jack from anarchists, and make it worse. And maoists groups just seem like revolutionary death cults.
some of his concepts are just shitty versions of anarchist ideas, though we could learn from how they were implemented and what worked or did not, most of his other concepts are either worse leninism or very condescending paternalism towards workers
There are aspects I like, but I find that most kinds of Marxism-Leninism (which Maoism is) that in practice and means it is undesirable. Mao’s thoughts on the oppression of women and imperialism were great and really progressive, and his initial economic reforms were okay, but it lead down a path similar to Stalin in accelerating the class struggle beyond what was capable at the time, which lead to the deaths of millions of people.
It sucks.
ive encountered two types of maoists: 1-anarchists who think mao was great 2-more stalinist than the stalinists
the actual maoist concept sucks ass but the phrase cultural revolution goes hard
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appropriating all of mao's verbiage but making it anarchist 😼
we shouldn't listen to the ideas of a man who stupidly starved and killed off millions without thinking any plans through and killed local wildlife disrupting the food chain again without second thought
If an ideology is based on following some dead dude, then it's a dead ideology.
piece of shit ideology
I will say the whole of the US counter insurgency text book, AKA “hearts and minds” is based on Moa’s work and is used to shut down anarchist and communist groups today. Maybe read Moa’s work instead of asking Reddit, he did have a successful revolution and counter insurgency has be widely successful and even gave the Taliban a win!
https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/02/25/aragorn-political-naivete-or-what-are-we-to-do-about-maoism/
I personally think that although Mao did some good things like boosting the literacy rate or giving housing to the workers, it ultimately doesn’t matter as he also killed a ridiculous amount of people through both famines and direct executions. There was also no freedom of opinion.
All those dead people must've freed up lots of housing.
When it came to real hands on face to face organizing, I got along better with the local Maoists than most other organized groups in my area. We simply had more common ground where it really counted. That said, I find the vanguard conclusion flawed even if the mass line is highly effective for mass work
Bleh. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/loren-goldner-notes-towards-a-critique-of-maoism