Most biographies have focused on making sense of Mao in his context over judging his character. There are literally dozens of scholarly biographies of Mao, most dating from the s and early s or from the last ten years.
The most important legacies of Mao and Maoism are in China itself. Mao Zedong remains an enduringly manifold figure in China today, loved and hated; used for political leverage, celebrity value, and even religious efficacy. Scholars now use Mao in most cases strategically to hammer home a point or to shield themselves from political criticism , but more importantly, Mao is often not used at all in intellectual debate and discussion of public issues.
In the fight over resources that deregulation, privatization, and uncoordinated development have created, farmers, workers, and urban residents have protested and struck back.
Mao has become a feature of popular culture. T-shirts, cigarette lighters, art pieces, and bric-a-brac of all sorts sport the image of the Chairman both as young revolutionary and older national leader. While for some these images are heartfelt, for others they are symbols of youth rebelliousness, and for many these commodified Maos signify celebrity interest rather than ideological commitment. Mao now joins the host of popular tutelary gods in popular religious temples across China.
This is an astonishing syncretism of twentieth-century ideological politics and long-standing Chinese religious folkways. They cannot cohabit a public space with the glorified Mao that gives legitimacy to the CCP. Thus, we rarely see the expression of these tales of suffering blamed on Mao himself published in China.
We do, however, see them published abroad, and they are increasing. Behind these meanings reside wider historical p. This essay stresses the different Maos of different historical moments but more so suggests that the important Mao and Maoism has been in the eye of the beholder, in the communities that chose Maoism, had it foisted upon them, or seek to draw from it today.
Nonetheless, there is a core to Maoism, usually referred to as revolutionary nationalism, the commitment to save China and then build up China and to do it radically, quickly, comprehensively.
This also came with a world view: modern in the sense of teleology and faith in science and technology, internationalist in the sense of an identity of interests among peoples subordinated to the imperial powers of the day, self-confident in the hearts and minds of various revolutionary elites who were sure they had the truth and were competent to save China. The Chinese case is in this sense a variant of the Leninist model. Jowitt argues, based on the case of Romania but with an eye to Soviet experience, that when a polity found itself under economic and cultural domination of Western powers in the early twentieth century, the Bolshevik model as articulated by Lenin and developed by Stalin worked in some countries as a way to throw off that dependency and achieve some degree of national independence.
This perspective echoes recent work on the Chinese revolution which tends to see a greater continuity and connection between the revolution of the s led by Sun Yat-sen, the Nationalist Revolution led from by Chiang Kai-shek, and the socialist revolution led by the CCP and, by the s, Mao. Other research on the social experience of the Chinese revolution in the s confirms the fluid identities of Chinese revolutionaries across these two main parties, and other smaller parties.
Not only in the s but also into the decades ahead individual Chinese and families moved between the revolutionary parties. The CCP, on the other hand, achieved a stunning success in their Rectification Campaign of —4 which did produce a coherent Maoist force and was merely lucky to avoid the brunt of the Japanese invasion in the late s.
Mao and Mao Zedong Thought have had an impact around the world. The core influence, however is pretty clear: political revolution on behalf of the working, largely agricultural or peasant, poor pursued through violent conflict under the direction of a unified ideology, party, and supreme leader. Despite the capitalist economic policies and ideological lassitude of the current Chinese government, Maoism lives on in China. This is mostly a social fact—structural and mental habits from High Maoism that continue to shape public and political behaviour in China today.
The Maoist orthodoxy set up important social institutions that shaped life on the ground and continue to do so today. The three most important are the local Party committee at each and every level of government and most large economic and residential organizations ; the danwei work unit organization of employment, residence, and social insurance; and the hukou system of internal residential passports. These artefacts of living Maoism continue to shape social life in China even as they have changed under the post-reform forces of market and international contact.
This has produced a cautious reluctance to get involved in public affairs because to do so is dangerous. This population, long corralled by the rules of non-democratic participation in danwei and commune life, does not have the habits of mind suitable for a liberal or tolerant society.
These same habits and expectations even shape those who reject official Maoism and embrace alternate political ideas and social practices.
Inevitably, some part of these values and expectations has been passed along—by parents and teachers—to younger generations. Naturally, they change with time and new experiences, but these mental models still shape the experiences and reactions of people across China. Central among these p. It is this mental furniture from Maoism that will shape the lives of people in China long after the hukou passports and danwei work units are a thing of the past.
Sharpe, Find this resource:. Cheek, Timothy ed. Schram, Stuart R. Sharpe, —. Mao Zedong xuanji Beijing: Renmin, , i. Schram ed. Sharpe, — , ii. Xuanji , iii. Republican China, — , pt. Xuanji , ii. Jeremy Brown and Paul Pickowicz eds. See Brown and Pickowicz eds. Xuanji , v. Leung and Y. Kao eds. Sharpe, , ii.
Sharpe, , — Kau and Leung eds. Dick Wilson ed. Jeffrey N. Stuart R. Cheek ed. For Marx, it eventually comes down to the inevitability of the proletariat to revolt against the workings of the free market as we often see with the recessions — all their hard work goes to nothing, while a handful of capitalists profit from the instability that they themselves have caused.
Note that Marx does not predict a violent overthrow, though it is certainly the case that he does not exclude it. In his lifetime, he did not incite any violence to my knowledge at least , and in fact the Manifesto treats this kind of violence somewhat mockingly:. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze.
Additionally, for Marx the revolt must be a global revolt — the interest of the proletariat is a global interest and the possibility of the classless society is only feasible if the movement is a global movement. There is no division in ethnicity, nationality, sex, etc. While Marx did not articulate much on the political workings of the revolution and was mainly concerned with the flaws in the economy, Lenin thought to articulate how the revolution should proceed in political terms and so did almost everyone else after Marx.
As we saw before, Marx only mentioned that the new classless society would be democratic, but how it would come about, or even in what sense democratic representative? Here, Lenin stepped in to dictate the organisation of the proletariat. The political in its Schmittian formulation is a decision between friend and enemy.
It is a decision on the concrete existence of the enemy that is to be repelled. I emphasise concrete because for the future Marxists that will be dealt with here, this concreteness disappears into a paradoxically ephemeral yet constant enemy. The idea was that a party would help complete the inevitable end: a classless society. For as long that is not the case, there would be a need for a party to work out all the details.
The core difference here is with other Marxists of the time, who did not envisage any political groupings as above others, they only understood the progression towards the classless society in egalitarian terms. With Lenin we thus get the popularisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. While there is good reason to assume that contemporary Marxist theorists were not in agreement with Lenin, there is an equally good reason to assume that Lenin was not truly in agreement with himself.
His work changes towards a more accepted view prior to the revolution as if to gain popularity and returns back to his previous views after. One core influence of Lenin and something that actually shows that he was more than a politician to this day , is an understanding of the capitalist system as an imperialist project.
Capitalism cannot be contained within a state and is necessarily a global project. The share in the world, after all, is much larger than what can be achieved domestically. Global competition thus creates only a handful of businesses dominating the markets. These business, in turn, form cartels, and not only for market manipulation, but also for dominating the primary resources. The outcome is the familiar exploitation of the third world by the first world states.
But there is more. They would in fact be able to dictate what the government does, either through bribery or through monopoly on certain goods say, steel. Together, business and government would then be able to engage in global conflicts for primary resources, exploiting large portions of the world population.
That is, capitalism ultimately requires an exploitative system in order to maintain its dominating position over other countries hence imperialism. It either exploits labour, or it exports capital to sustain its colonial grip. Lenin pretty much wrote everything he thought about, which results in roughly 45 volumes. I doubt there are many people who have read all of them, and I am certainly not one of them.
Secondly, the higher the politicization of society was, the easier it would be for the Chinese to delink material incentive from work and use moral incentive to increase production.
Through these methods the Chinese state could employ more social power on those who resisted or became anti-revolutionary while simultaneously rewarding the outstanding participants in non-materialist manners Whyte, , pp.
The removal of materialism and material differences from society was a step towards full communist, classless society in this analysis of Maoism. They both used politicization in a more pragmatic fashion. Lenin, when dealing with labor discipline, attempted to divorce work life from political life—where participation in decisions are made. It was a national rallying slogan that played to the pride of the Soviet citizen after the Marxist revolutions failed in Europe.
After the pronouncement, all political questions could take the form of nationalist questions. Once again, Maoist ideology can be seen as more revolutionarily oriented when compared to Stalinism. Growing to an extreme during and after WW2, Stalin regressed to the trappings and symbols of the old tsarist bureaucracy. Activism inside Soviet society was rewarded by material goods, privileges and rank. The use of ranks and uniforms, even to separate meticulous levels, for bureaucrats fully destroyed the idea that Stalin was working towards a classless socialist society Colletti, , pp.
Additionally, the bureaucracy that Stalin built had, as Lenin observed about the tsarist bureaucracy before it, become a tool of oppression. The most organized bout of activism was the Cultural Revolution.
During this time, Party and non-Party activists were used to curb the growth of bureaucratism in China Solomon, , p. Against this type of Weberian bureaucracy Mao fumed.
Activism, for Maoists, accomplishes four goals: activates the peasantry, produces an environment where people with the proper political consciousness excel, it hardens new recruits and creates veterans, and it inculcates the populace with activism designed to prevent bureaucratic staleness Solomon, , p. The Cultural Revolution was designed to use activism to attack a bureaucracy that had become too Weberian, where technical efficiency had become superior to political consciousness.
Repoliticizing the apparatus would reconnect China with Maoist principles that would increase productivity and development Hearn, , p. For the Maoist bureaucracy to be successful, even with technical efficiency de-emphasized, the amount of human inputs had to be maximized rather than the returns from limited resources Whyte, , p.
Activating the potential energy of the peasant masses was a continual source of strength for the Maoist communists and a vital goal if development was to proceed. Offering a radically different perspective on the differentiation of Stalinism and Maoism, Andrew Walder does not see a substantial difference between the two in their actuality , p.
Instead, he postulates that Maoism was a defense of the core Stalinist doctrine against Eastern European revisionism Walder, , p. In this formulation, Walder argues that the Cultural Revolution failed not because of sabotage by the bureaucratic class but rather because it incorrectly understood the nature of bureaucracy and relied on further centralization to rectify the reemergence of capitalist behavior inside of China , p.
This argument is compelling; however, it fails to distinguish between the animating attributes of bureaucracy between the two ideologies. Looking at the historical context surrounding the manifestations of Stalinism and Maoism shows that both revolutionized a society where a distinct bureaucracy already existed. By analyzing the principles of the revolutionary bureaucracies they each interacted with and influenced heavily, we can differentiate Stalinism and Maoism.
Specifically, the rationality of Stalinist bureaucracy was a profit-loss driven, technically rationalized agency designed to achieve the goals set before it, namely competing with its capitalist European neighbors.
Maoism, however, attempted to minimize the extent material conditions—where capitalist ideology seemingly reigns—from being instituted within the governing rationality that built the bureaucracy. Full politicization was what Mao intended to be the outcome of his Marxism- Leninism inspired bureaucracy. The actual outcomes of the differently instituted bureaucracies can be argued, but analyzing the two on the basis of the constituent characteristics within their bureaucracies, a differentiation of Stalinism and Maoism is apparent.
Martin 10 Sources: Colletti, L. The question of Stalin. In: R. Blackburn, ed. Sussex: The Harvester Press, pp. Hearn, F. Rationality and bureaucracy: Maoist contribution to a Marxist theory of bureaucracy. The Sociological Quarterly, 19 1 , pp.
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