To mark the 132nd anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, December 26, Fight Back News Service is circulating quotes from some of his writings on the United States and its role in the world.

“Chiang Kai-shek and his supporters, the U.S. reactionaries, are all paper tigers too. Speaking of U.S. imperialism, people seem to feel that it is terrifically strong. Chinese reactionaries are using the ‘strength’ of the United States to frighten the Chinese people. But it will be proved that the U.S. reactionaries, like all the reactionaries in history, do not have much strength. In the United States there are others who are really strong – the American people.”

— Talk with the American correspondent Anna Louise Strong, August 1946

“Apart from those who are deliberately deceiving the people or are utterly naive, no one will believe that a treaty can make U.S. imperialism lay down its butcher’s knife and suddenly become a Buddha, or even behave itself a little better.”

— Statement Opposing Aggression Against Southern Vietnam and Slaughter of Its People by the U.S. – Ngo Dinh Diem clique, August, 1963

“The United States has all along attempted to control the Congo. It used the United Nations forces to carry out every sort of evil deed there. It murdered the Congolese national hero Lumumba, it subverted the lawful Congolese government. It imposed the puppet Tshombe on the Congolese people, and dispatched mercenary troops to suppress the Congolese national liberation movement. And now, it is carrying out direct armed intervention in the Congo in collusion with Belgium and Britain. In so doing, the purpose of U.S. imperialism is not only to control the Congo, but also to enmesh the whole of Africa, particularly the newly independent African countries, in the toils of U.S. neo-colonialism once again. U.S. aggression has encountered heroic resistance from the Congolese people and aroused the indignation of the people of Africa and of the whole world.”

— Declaration of Support of the People of the Congo, December 1964

“The speedy development of the struggle of the American Negroes is a manifestation of sharpening class struggle and sharpening national struggle within the United States; it has been causing increasing anxiety among U.S. ruling circles. The Kennedy Administration is insidiously using dual tactics. On the one hand, it continues to connive at and take part in discrimination against Negroes and their persecution, and it even sends troops to suppress them. On the other hand, in the attempt to numb the fighting will of the Negro people and deceive the masses of the country, the Kennedy Administration is parading as an advocate of ‘the defense of human rights’ and ‘the protection of the civil rights of Negroes,’ calling upon the Negro people to exercise ‘restraint’ and proposing the ‘civil rights legislation’ to Congress. But more and more Negroes are seeing through these tactics of the Kennedy Administration. The fascist atrocities of the U.S. imperialists against the Negro people have exposed the true nature of so-called American democracy and freedom and revealed the inner link between the reactionary policies pursued by the U.S. Government at home and its policies of aggression abroad.”

— Statement Supporting the American Negroes in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism, August 8, 1963

“The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and oppressed Black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new clarion call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class. It is a tremendous aid and inspiration to the struggle of the people throughout the world against U.S. imperialism and to the struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. On behalf of the Chinese people, I hereby express resolute support for the just struggle of the Black people in the United States.”

— Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968

“The Black masses and the masses of white working people in the United States have common interests and common objectives to struggle for. Therefore, the Afro-American struggle is winning sympathy and support from increasing numbers of white working people and progressives in the United States. The struggle of the Black people in the United States is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.”

— Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968

“A new upsurge in the struggle against U.S. imperialism is now emerging throughout the world. Ever since the Second World War, U.S. imperialism and its followers have been continuously launching wars of aggression and the people in various countries have been continuously waging revolutionary wars to defeat the aggressors. The danger of a new world war still exists, and the people of all countries must get prepared. But revolution is the main trend in the world today.

“Unable to win in Vietnam and Laos, the U.S. aggressors treacherously engineered the reactionary coup d’etat by the Lon Nol Sirik Matak clique, brazenly dispatched their troops to invade Cambodia and resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, and this has aroused the furious resistance of the three Indo Chinese peoples. I warmly support the fighting spirit of Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, Head of State of Cambodia, in opposing U.S. imperialism and its lackeys. I warmly support the Joint Declaration of the Summit Conference of the Indo Chinese Peoples. I warmly support the establishment of the Royal Government of National Union under the Leadership of the National United Front of Kampuchea. Strengthening their unity, supporting each other and persevering in a protracted people’s war, the three Indo-Chinese peoples will certainly overcome all difficulties and win complete victory.

“While massacring the people in other countries, U.S. imperialism is slaughtering the white and black people in its own country. Nixon’s fascist atrocities have kindled the raging flames of the revolutionary mass movement in the United States. The Chinese people firmly support the revolutionary struggle of the American people. I am convinced that the American people who are fighting valiantly will ultimately win victory and that the fascist rule in the United States will inevitably be defeated.”

— People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All Their Running Dogs, May 23, 1970

#RevolutionaryTheory #Mao #Socialism #MarxismLeninism

The following paper by Mick Kelly, the Political Secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), was presented at the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) International Theoretical Conference on Fascism in the 21st Century in the Imperialist Heartlands. Sydney Loving of the Central Committee of FRSO also participated in the conference, which took place November 28-29, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Comrades and friends,

Let me start by thanking the National Democratic Front of the Philippines for organizing this most important event. In providing a venue for revolutionaries to address the big theoretical issues facing our respective movements, the NDFP is making a real contribution to our collective efforts to shatter the chains of monopoly capitalism.

The question of fascism is an important one, and it can impact one’s strategy, tactics, and a host of organizational measures; in fact, the fascism question can be one of life and death. There is also a wealth of important texts that address the issue, and of special importance are those of works of R. Palme Dutt and Georgi Dimitrov – both of which received wide circulation by the Communist International.

Comrades might be interested to know that the issue of fascism is a mass question among large numbers of progressive people in the U.S., given the wave of attacks unleashed by the reactionary Trump administration, Over the past 9 months, millions of people, in big cities and small towns, have taken to the streets. The extremely sharp struggles against mass deportations – including the uprising in Los Angeles and high level of struggle in Chicago and Portland, Oregon – make up one of the main issues shaping domestic politics.

We see the overall conditions as extremely favorable for building communist organization. As FRSO has been able to play an important role in these fights, we continue to be in a period of extraordinary growth.

What fascism is

For some, “Fascism” as an invective – a sort of swear word, the worst thing that you can call someone or some action of government – as opposed to a political category with a scientific definition. This is a long-standing tendency on the part of the petty bourgeois left, and certainly there is no one here who does that. Others, like the Trotskyites [1], see fascism as the product of a mass movement of the petty bourgeoisie. That is not correct either.

We are in agreement with the definition adopted by 13th plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International which states fascism is, “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”

At the 7th Congress of the Communist International, Dimitrov pointed out, “The accession to power of fascism is not a ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie – bourgeois democracy – for another form, open terrorist dictatorship.” [2]

This is an important point. While it is true there is not a qualitative difference between fascism and bourgeois democracy, in the sense that they are both ways that the monopoly capitalist wield state political power, there is a qualitative difference in so far as one is very different than the other when it comes to democratic rights of working and oppressed people.

Fascism and capitalist democracy are different forms of political rule. The fact that there is real difference between the two means that revolutionaries will employ different tasks, objectives, and organizational measures depending on the form of bourgeois rule. Communist organizing in a period of open terror is for all practical purposes illegal.

Fascist governments wage aggressive wars characterized by extremes of national chauvinism. In fact, bourgeois democratic governments have always done the same and often resort to the use of open terror to maintain control of their colonies or neo-colonies. In fact, the use of open terror in the neo-colonial or colonial settings is a feature that is common to fascist and bourgeois democratic governments.

In his important work The State and Revolution, Lenin points out, “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell (through the Palchinskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis and Co.), it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.”

Why would the ruling class give up this “best possible political shell”? Stalin responds that it is because they have to:

In this connection the victory of fascism in Germany must be regarded not only as a symptom of the weakness of the working class and a result of the by the betrayals of the working class by Social-Democracy, which paved the way for fascism; it must also be regarded as a sign of weakness of the bourgeois, a sign that the bourgeois is no longer able to rule by the old methods of parliamentary and bourgeois democracy, and, as a consequence, is compelled in its home policy to resort to terrorist methods of rule — as a sign it is no longer to find a way out of the present situation on the basis of a peaceful foreign policy, and, as a consequence, is compelled to resort to a policy of war. [3]

Finally let me quote from R. Palme Dutt, “Fascism is not inevitable. Fascism is not a necessary stage of capitalist development through which all countries must pass. The social revolution can forestall Fascism, as it has done in Russia. But if the social revolution is delayed, then the menace of fascism becomes urgent.” [4]

So, there are several themes that should be circled back to. First, fascism employs open terrorism. Sure, there can be courts and parliaments, but open terrorism is what the fascist state is organized around and for. Secondly, fascism is a tool of the financial oligarchy – particularly its most reactionary and chauvinist sectors. And finally, there is the issue of extreme national chauvinism and fascism’s war-like nature.

To what degree is there a fascist danger in the U.S.?

In the entire epoch of monopoly capitalism, fascism is a latent tendency and therefore a possibility, given that the necessary conditions are present. In a context where the decline of U.S. imperialism is accelerating, where polarization is sharpening in the political superstructure, it is necessary to have a materialist evaluation of the objective conditions. That includes a realistic assessment of an immediate fascist danger.

When identifying what fascism is, in our view the most essential feature is the use of open terror by the ruling class, meaning the legal possibilities to organize for socialism are slim to nonexistent. That is not currently the situation in the United States, and communists in the U.S. need to utilize every avenue and opportunity to build the people’s struggle while developing revolutionary organization.

It is a fact that there are fascist groups and there are people in government who are pro-fascist. These elements are present in the military too. Their attacks should be met head on. The events of January 6, 2021, when Trump attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power and his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, speaks volumes about the lengths reactionaries will go to – as well as some of the limitations that necessity places on them.

The U.S. has always repressive place. Even as it went to war on German fascism and was an important part of the world anti-fascist coalition, 120,000 Japanese Americans were put in concentration camps.

Whatever assessment one has about a fascist danger, repression and resistance to repression need to be taken seriously. This means opposing reactionary laws and measures that restrict our democratic rights. It also means pushing back hard against legal attacks we face. Over the past 15 years our organization has faced a fair amount of repression, [5] and we have developed some capacity to deal with it. The most recent example was the defense of an immigrant rights activist and comrade who was charged with conspiracy to further civil disorder in the aftermath of the anti-ICE rebellion in Los Angles. We build a broad, national defense campaign and charges were dropped.

All quantity includes quality – and there is a whole political landscape between capitalist democracy and open terror (fascism) that could be very different from what we have experienced over the past 50 years.

Fascism is a tool of the most reactional monopoly capitalists to prevent revolution. In the U.S. today, we are not in a revolutionary situation. An effective strategy against fascism would necessitate building the broadest possible united front to stop it, like for example the Popular Front employed by U.S. communists from the mid-1930s on. If there is an immediate danger of capitalist democracy being replaced by open terror, we can and will adjust our strategy and organizational functioning accordingly.

Comrades: communists have a rich history of resisting repression and defeating fascism. It was Soviet soldiers who planted the flag bearing a hammer and sickle on the ruins of the “thousand-year Reich.” Our comrades of the Philippines have repeatedly demonstrated it is possible to grow and thrive in the context of U.S.-sponsored terror. The road might be a hard one, but our future is bright.

Let me close with a quote from the outstanding revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong:

I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? I also said that the tsar of Russia, the emperor of China and Japanese imperialism were all paper tigers. As we know, they were all overthrown. U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown, and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.

Long live proletarian internationalism! Long live the unity of the world’s peoples! Victory is certain, together we will win!

Notes

[1] Trosky states in Fascism: What it is and how to fight it, “The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a “self-made” man arising from this movement.”

[2] Dimitrov, The Fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the fight for uniy of the working class against fascism, 7th Congress of the Communist International, page 127

[3] J. Stalin, Report to the 17th Party Congress, CW vol. 13, page 300

[4] R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution

[5] In 2010 more than 70 FBI agents carried out coordinate raids against antiwar and international solidarity activist – including the homes of a number of FRSO members.

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Statement #Fascism #NDFP #Philippines #Lenin #Stalin #Mao #MarxismLeninism

One of the major problems of revolutionary organizing has always been the contradiction between building movements of the broad masses, and those movements being led by a relatively small, disciplined and unified vanguard. How does a revolutionary organization, based on democratic centralism and united around a Marxist-Leninist program, mobilize the masses far beyond its own membership? The answer to the question is a method of leadership used by all communists from the Bolsheviks onward, called the mass line. Mao Zedong’s short essay, “Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership” is a key, systematic explanation of the mass line in Marxist-Leninist theory. 

After the Yan’an Rectification Movement launched in 1942, cadre education was given special attention. As a result, many of Mao’s articles from the period in Yan’an are particularly clear and concise. “Methods of Leadership,” from June 1943, is no exception. Along the lines set out by the 1942 Rectification Movement, Mao’s aim is “To combat subjectivist and bureaucratic methods of leadership,” by promoting “scientific, Marxist methods of leadership.” The lessons distilled in this short essay are drawn from Mao’s experience leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the Chinese Soviet Republic, and the Long March.

Mao’s argument

“There are two methods which we Communists must employ in whatever work we do,” Mao explains. “One is to combine the general with the particular; the other is to combine the leadership with the masses.” This is Mao’s first point. 

Elaborating, Mao goes on to say, “In any task, if no general and widespread call is issued, the broad masses cannot be mobilized for action. But if persons in leading positions confine themselves to a general call – if they do not personally, in some of the organizations, go deeply and concretely into the work called for, make a break-through at some single point, gain experience and use this experience for guiding other units – then they will have no way of testing the correctness or of enriching the content of their general call, and there is the danger that nothing may come of it.” 

Too often those who claim to be revolutionaries stop short at the general call, but don’t go to the masses to organize and mobilize them. They broadly proclaim, “We need socialism!” but fail to link the call for socialism with the masses' felt needs and day-to-day struggles in a practical way. Then they fall into pessimism and blame the masses when they fail to take up their ideas. Mao, instead, suggests that we use the mass line.

Mao says that “However active the leading group may be, its activity will amount to fruitless effort by a handful of people unless combined with the activity of the masses.” In other words, the broad masses have to be drawn into the struggle. “On the other hand,” Mao explains, “if the masses alone are active without a strong leading group to organize their activity properly, such activity cannot be sustained for long, or carried forward in the right direction, or raised to a high level.” This is the problem we see with spontaneous uprisings and rebellions. They burn bright and hot and are a clear demonstration of the people’s righteous anger, but, without revolutionary leadership, they aren’t sustainable and eventually they burn out. 

“The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts, the relatively active, the intermediate and the relatively backward. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate element and to win over the backward elements.” This is an essential point. The relatively active, or advanced, are the people who want to fight back against their exploitation and oppression. They may not yet be Marxist-Leninists, but they see that things have to change and that the route to change is through struggle. These are the people that communists must find and organize with, shoulder to shoulder. By fighting together with the advanced and summing up our experiences, we can work to win them over to Marxism-Leninism. 

By relying on these advanced fighters, the broad, intermediate elements can be pulled into the struggle, and many of them can be raised to the level of the advanced. The intermediate are a much larger section of the masses, not active, but generally aware that things are bad and shouldn’t be like this. The advanced fighters show them the power of active struggle, and can draw them into those struggles. 

Finally, there are the backwards elements. These are the people who carry water for the class enemy among the people. They have all kinds of backwards ideas, and promote those ideas among the people. Some of them may be won over while others must be isolated. 

The important point to take away from this breakdown of “advanced, intermediate and backwards” is that revolutionaries should focus their attention and energy on the advanced, active fighters. By doing that, the effects of their work will ripple outwards to the broad masses like waves from a pebble tossed into a pond. 

Finally, Mao links the mass line to the Marxist theory of knowledge, explaining how we learn through practice, moving from a lower to a higher level, together with the masses.

“In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily ‘from the masses, to the masses’. This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.”

People learn through struggle, and we have to start from where people are at and advance them step by step. Through the course of struggle, we have to sum up our successes and failures, subject ourselves and our comrades to criticism and self-criticism, learn from and fix our shortcomings, and carry forward that which is proved correct through practice. Then we apply these lessons to our mass work as we move forward. 

What does Mao mean by “concentrate” the ideas of the masses? This is an important point. A key ingredient to Mao’s mass line slogan of “from the masses, to the masses,” is Marxist-Leninist theory. It means using Marxism-Leninism to transform those ideas from “scattered and unsystematic ideas” into a focused strategy that can be implemented on the ground. It means taking the felt needs and demands of the masses, applying the science of Marxism-Leninism to understand the contradictions at work, and steering those felt needs and demands in a direction that brings the greatest number of people possible into conflict with the enemy. 

Mao’s “Methods of Leadership” today

Today, we find ourselves in the particular position of having no true communist party in the United States. There is no organized and advanced detachment of the entire working class, whose cadre are what Stalin called “the generals of the proletarian army.” We are therefore faced with the central task of building just such a party. But as Mao tells us, “A leading group that is genuinely united and linked with the masses can be formed only gradually in the process of mass struggle, and not in isolation from it.” In other words, party building is impossible to accomplish apart from serious mass work. 

This means we must understand and utilize the mass line every single day. Whether we are working in the trade unions, struggling for Black and Chicano national liberation, or fighting for a free Palestine, among many other important struggles, we are working to accomplish three objectives. As the Political Program of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization puts it, “Our party building work should be placed in the context of our three objectives: To win all that can be won while weakening our enemies; Raise the general level of consciousness, struggle, and organization in our immediate battles; and Win the advanced to Marxism-Leninism, thus building revolutionary organization.” 

The only way to build an organization comprised of the “generals of the proletarian army” is to recruit the best and most dedicated fighters in the people’s struggles, learn together with them through the crucible of day-to-day battles against the class enemy, and through the summation of those experiences, demonstrate in practice the power of Marxism-Leninism.

#RevolutionaryTheory #RedReviews #Mao

In 1942, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China launched a rectification movement in the Yan’an base area during the difficult years of the Second United Front. This was in the middle of the War of Resistance Against Japan. During this time, the civil war between the Communist Party of China and the reactionary Kuomintang was put on hold in order to unite and fight back against the invasion of Japanese fascism.

What was the Yan’an Rectification Movement? Essentially it was a movement to educate the party in Marxism-Leninism. It was part of a longer process of correcting major errors which truly began at the Zunyi Conference in 1935 and culminated in the Seventh National Congress of the CPC in 1945. As explained in the book A Concise History of the Communist Party of China, “After the Zunyi Meeting, the Party line had developed along a correct Marxist path. However, the subjectivism and dogmatism that had so seriously damaged the Party’s cause needed to be fully addressed from an ideological standpoint.” The Zunyi Conference in 1935 had repudiated major errors in leadership, consolidating the party’s leading core around Mao Zedong. But the problems in the center up to that point caused ripples throughout the party as a whole that had to be addressed. The Yan’an Rectification Movement set out to do exactly that.

In A History of the Modern Chinese Revolution, Ho Kan-chih explains the particular ideological context of the Yan’an Rectification Movement as follows:

“As the Party was working in the rural areas, it could not help being constantly affected by the broad mass of petty bourgeoisie which surrounded it. The bourgeoisie also tried every means to influence the Party. After the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war, a large number of progressives of peasant or urban petty-bourgeois origin joined the Party. … It was also inevitable that those members of petty-bourgeois origin who had not yet been sufficiently steeled ideologically and politically should attempt in various ways to influence the Party with their ideology and working style, and, in some cases, even to 'reform' the Party according to petty-bourgeois ideology and ways of thinking. This had led to a contradiction within the Party between proletarian and non-proletarian ideologies, especially between proletarian and petty-bourgeois ideologies. Confronted with this grave problem within its own ranks, the Party decided to take up the urgent task of educating these members in Marxism-Leninism.”

Ho goes on to explain, “The Rectification Campaign was mainly directed against tendencies towards subjectivism in the approach to study, towards sectarianism in the style of Party work and towards their form of expression – stereotyped Party jargon in literary work.” To this end, Mao Zedong wrote three short texts dealing with each of these in turn. These three essays formed the basis of the rectification movement, attacking petty-bourgeois ideology and its manifestations: “Reform Our Study.” “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work,” and “Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing.”

“Reform Our Study”

In “Reform Our Study,” Mao Zedong takes aim at subjectivist attitudes towards study, especially the problems of dogmatism and empiricism. Mao highlights three errors in particular: “neglect of the study of current conditions, neglect of the study of history and neglect of the application of Marxism-Leninism.”

Fundamentally, these problems originate from studying Marxism in the abstract, rather than studying theory in connection to practice, as it relates to China's concrete conditions and the specific tasks of the Chinese revolution. Mao explains this very clearly, saying,

“Although we are studying Marxism, the way many of our people study it runs directly counter to Marxism. That is to say, they violate the fundamental principle earnestly enjoined on us by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, the unity of theory and practice. Having violated this principle, they invent an opposite principle of their own, the separation of theory from practice. In the schools and in the education of cadres at work, teachers of philosophy do not guide students to study the logic of the Chinese revolution; teachers of economics do not guide them to study the characteristics of the Chinese economy; teachers of political science do not guide them to study the tactics of the Chinese revolution; teachers of military science do not guide them to study the strategy and tactics adapted to China's special features; and so on and so forth.”

To get at the heart of this, Mao contrasts the subjectivist attitude towards study to the Marxist-Leninist attitude. He writes,

“Many of our people … are doing research work but have no interest in studying either the China of today or the China of yesterday and confine their interest to the study of empty ‘theories’ divorced from reality. Many others are doing practical work, but they too pay no attention to the study of objective conditions, often rely on sheer enthusiasm and substitute their personal feelings for policy. Both kinds of people, relying on the subjective, ignore the existence of objective realities.”

Contrary to this is the Marxist-Leninist attitude towards study:

“With this attitude, one studies the theory of Marxism-Leninism with a purpose, that is, to integrate Marxist-Leninist theory with the actual movement of the Chinese revolution and to seek from this theory the stand, viewpoint and method with which to solve the theoretical and tactical problems of the Chinese revolution. Such an attitude is one of shooting the arrow at the target. The ‘target’ is the Chinese revolution, the ‘arrow’ is Marxism-Leninism. … To take such an attitude is to seek truth from facts.”

Based on this, Mao makes three proposals towards the rectification of the problem of subjectivism in study. First, he says we should make “a systematic and thorough study of the situation around us.” Second, he proposes a thorough and systematic study of the history of China “in the several fields of economic history, political history, military history and cultural history.” And third, he proposes that the whole Party study the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course. Mao correctly states that this book “is the best synthesis and summing-up of the world communist movement of the past hundred years, a model of the integration of theory and practice…”

“Rectify the Party’s Style of Work”

In “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work” Mao continues from where he left off in “Reform Our Study.” First, he tackles the problem of the relationship between practical work and theoretical work.

“We want theorists who can, in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint and method, correctly interpret the practical problems arising in the course of history and revolution and give scientific explanations and theoretical elucidations of China's economic, political, military, cultural and other problems. Such are the theorists we want. To be a theorist of this kind, a person must have a true grasp of the essence of Marxism-Leninism, of the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint and method and of the theories of Lenin and Stalin on the colonial revolution and the Chinese revolution, and he must be able to apply them in a penetrating and scientific analysis of China's practical problems and discover the laws of development of these problems. Such are the theorists we really need.”

In other words, theoretical work must not be abstract but must be aimed at the needs of the Chinese revolution. “It is necessary to master Marxist theory and apply it,” Mao says, “master it for the sole purpose of applying it.”

Mao holds up Karl Marx himself as an example of the kind of theorists we need. He says, “Marx undertook detailed investigations and studies in the course of practical struggles, formed generalizations and then verified his conclusions by testing them in practical struggles – this is what we call theoretical work.”

Mao makes an important point. Both dogmatism and empiricism are subjectivist errors that misunderstand the dialectical relationship between theory and practice, and he says that both of these must be corrected.

“Those with book learning must develop in the direction of practice; it is only in this way that they will stop being content with books and avoid committing dogmatist errors. Those experienced in work must take up the study of theory and must read seriously; only then will they be able to systematize and synthesize their experience and raise it to the level of theory, only then will they not mistake their partial experience for universal truth and not commit empiricist errors.”

A big part of this essay deals with the problem of sectarianism. Mao breaks down several remnants of sectarianism within the party. Mao highlights a number of expressions of sectarianism within the Party: “relations between the part and the whole, relations between the individual and the Party, relations between outside and local cadres, relations between army cadres and other cadres working in the locality, relations between this and that army unit, between this and that locality, between this and that department and relations between old and new cadres.” In all of these instances, Mao’s emphasis is on putting the interests of the party and the revolution first.

There is also the problem of sectarianism in the party’s external relations. Mao writes “we cannot defeat the enemy by merely uniting the comrades throughout the Party, we can defeat the enemy only by uniting the people throughout the country.” In other words, because the Communist Party is based upon a very high degree of organizational discipline and political unity, it must be a minority in relation to the broad revolutionary masses of the people. For that reason, it is necessary for the party to unite everyone who can be united in order to defeat the class enemy.

“Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing”

At the end of “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work” Mao promises to deal with the problem of stereotyped party writing later. In “Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing,” Mao delivers on this promise. “Stereotyped Party Writing” means something specific. The term is referring to a formal, bureaucratic writing style popular with Chinese intellectuals at the time. We might compare it to a kind of overly academic style today, filled with technical jargon and a web of subheadings, long-winded, opaque, dry, and lifeless.

Instead, Mao explains that while we should explain things thoroughly and completely, we should do so simply and clearly, concisely, and in terms that are intelligible and engaging to our audience. Concerning composing leaflets and doing broad propaganda work aimed at the masses, Mao quotes Georgi Dimitrov (then the head of the Communist International) on this issue: “When writing or speaking always have in mind the rank-and-file worker who must understand you, must believe in your appeal and be ready to follow you!”

According to the book A Concise History of the Communist Party of China, “Party members followed the rectification approach of first carefully studying the relevant documents and carrying out criticism and self-criticism.” The book goes on to say,

“The rectification movement was a thoroughgoing Marxist education movement that produced tremendous results. The Movement correctly combined Marxism-Leninism with the Chinese reality, and awakened the entire Party to the Marxist ideological line of seeking truth from facts. The movement initiated large-scale discussions throughout the Party about how to regard the tenets of Marxism in light of reality, how to combine the basic tenets of Marxism with the realities of the Chinese revolution, and what attitude to adopt toward some of the major questions in the Party’s history.”

That is how the CPC sums up the lessons of the Yan’an Rectification Movement today, and its lessons are valuable for us as well.

Why should we study Mao’s writings from the Yan’an Rectification Movement today?

These days more and more people are being won over to the idea that capitalism is a failed system, and more and more people are coming to the conclusion that socialism and Marxism provide the answers to the problems posed by the continuing decline of the imperialist system.

But at the same time, just as in China at the time of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, many of these people are coming to Marxism from a petty bourgeois class background, or without a clear view on how to study. They don’t understand the absolute necessity of studying Marxism concretely as it relates to real practice in the real world. So instead, they watch streamers and videos, listen to podcasts, or read books and articles from academics that merely talk about Marxist ideas abstractly. They get their education in Marxism from people with no practical experience in organizing the masses to confront the class enemy. They learn to quote Marx and Lenin, but they don’t learn to apply the methodology of Marx and Lenin to the concrete problems that face us here and now.

These modern subjectivists don’t aim the arrow of Marxism-Leninism at the target of revolution in the United States, or use Marxism to sum up real practical experiences in organizing. The purpose of studying Marxism-Leninism is to master it and apply it. Instead, some think that before they can engage in practical work, they must first master theory, failing to understand that theory cannot be mastered in isolation from practice. Meanwhile, some others go on doing practical work in isolation from theory, thinking that theory is for someone else to deal with. Still theory and practice are isolated from one another. They make the same mistake from the other side. As a consequence, people substitute petty bourgeois radicalism or pragmatism for Marxism.

Because of this wrongheaded subjectivist approach to theory, people are “shooting blindly” or “shooting at random” when it comes to practical work, instead of “aiming the arrow at the target.”

The success of the Yan’an Rectification Movement also speaks for itself. Volume 1 of An Ideological History of the Communist Party of China says, “The years between the Zunyi Conference in 1935 to the Seventh National Congress of the CPC in 1945 were an important period in which the Party changed from a path of several setbacks to a series of continuous victories, and the whole process of organization saw rapid growth.”

We can learn a lot from the lessons of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, but we must think about how these lessons apply to our practical work in the U.S. today. Like the CPC, we too should understand the reality of our concrete conditions here in the U.S. – “seeking truth from facts.” We should study the history of the United States from the perspective of Marxism-Leninism. The Political Program of the FRSO addresses U.S. history, but we can still go deeper. For example, we can read the works of U.S. Marxist-Leninists like William Z. Foster’s Outline Political History of the Americas and The History of the Communist Party of the United States, Harry Haywood’s Black Bolshevik, and Frank Chapman’s Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism, among others. And, last but not least, we should “aim the arrow at the target” by applying Marxist-Leninist theory to the concrete tasks of revolutionary organizing here and now.

Mao once famously said that if you want to know the taste of pear you have to change the pear by eating it. This is also true of theory. If you want to truly understand dialectical and historical materialism, you have to apply them to the problems of practical mass struggles.

J. Sykes is the author of the book “The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism”. The book can be purchased by visiting tinyurl.com/revsciMLbook

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Five Essays on Philosophy collects five important essays on dialectical materialism and Marxist epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, by Mao Zedong. It includes the articles “On Practice” and “On Contradiction” as well as “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” “Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work,” and “Where do Correct Ideas Come From?” 

The extraordinary thing about these essays is that they are tremendously practical. This isn’t something often associated with philosophical works, but Mao demonstrates in simple and straightforward terms the way that philosophy can be used by the working class. As Marx said in his eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” Mao shows us how to do that.

On Practice 

The first article in the collection is “On Practice: On the Relation Between Knowledge and Practice, Between Knowing and Doing,” from 1937. Together with “On Contradiction” this was originally delivered as a lecture to the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in the Yenan base area during the United Front against Japan. The aim of “On Practice” together with “On Contradiction” was to correct tendencies towards dogmatism and empiricism among cadres in the Communist Party of China at the time by giving a thorough explanation of the practical implications of Marxism-Leninism’s theoretical foundations. 

What do we mean by dogmatism and empiricism? Put simply, both disregard the dialectical interconnectedness of theory and practice. Dogmatism ignores the lessons of practical experience, while empiricism ignores the need for theory to guide practice. 

Practice is the source and aim of theory. This is the main point of “On Practice.“ The two must be understood as deeply interconnected.

“On Practice” explains the materialist premise that our ideas arise from our material reality, namely from our social practice in production, class struggle, and scientific experiment. Mao points out, “Of these other types of social practice, class struggle in particular, in all its various forms, exerts a profound influence on the development of man's knowledge. In class society everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.” 

Mao explains it like this: 

“Marxists hold that man's social practice alone is the criterion of the truth of his knowledge of the external world. What actually happens is that man's knowledge is verified only when he achieves the anticipated results in the process of social practice (material production, class struggle or scientific experiment). If a man wants to succeed in his work, that is, to achieve the anticipated results, he must bring his ideas into correspondence with the laws of the objective external world; if they do not correspond, he will fail in his practice. After he fails, he draws his lessons, corrects his ideas to make them correspond to the laws of the external world, and can thus turn failure into success.”

Because knowledge is based on practice, our knowledge progresses from a lower to a higher level as we gain experience, building upon itself. Mao explains that knowledge proceeds through stages, from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge. Beginning with perception of the world around us, we then form theories and ideas. Mao sums all of this up like this:

“Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.”

On Contradiction

Mao’s essay “On Contradiction” is an explanation of dialectical materialism and how it can be applied by revolutionaries as a method of analysis to guide practice. Here he explains how change occurs, so that we can transform society in accord with its laws of motion. 

Mao gets straight to the point, saying “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.” He explains that Marxist philosophy is materialist, meaning that it sees material processes as being the driving force of social change. He explains that it is dialectical because it sees things as interconnected and driven forward mainly by its internal contradictions, and, secondarily, in its interrelations with other things.

Mao argues that reality is a process, and that any complex process is made up of a system of contradictions. Within this system of contradictions, while there are many different contradictions at work, one is always principal. In other words, the principal contradiction is the contradiction that is determining the overall motion of the process as a whole. At the same time, each contradiction is asymmetrical. One side – the principal aspect of the contradiction – is dominant. Finally, there are different types of contradictions that can be resolved in different ways, antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. 

The main way that change occurs is through the transformation of quantity into quality, where the buildup of quantity leads to a qualitative leap, and the two aspects of a contradiction exchange places. In capitalist society, an example would be the build-up of consciousness and organization by the working class, and the building of a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party. This would represent the quantitative accumulation of force by the secondary aspect of the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie that is fundamental to capitalism. The primary aspect of that contradiction is the bourgeoisie. It is the ruling class. It controls the means of production, the state, the media, the police and the army. But a revolution represents a qualitative leap, whereby the secondary aspect of the contradiction, the working class, has accumulated enough force that the two aspects can exchange places. Socialism puts the working class in charge. The proletariat becomes the principal aspect of the contradiction. 

Mao emphasizes the importance of grasping the principal contradiction. This is the contradiction that is determining the overall motion of the process. He gives an example, saying,

“in capitalist society the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction. The other contradictions, such as those between the remnant feudal class and the bourgeoisie, between the peasant petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, between the proletariat and the peasant petty bourgeoisie, between the non-monopoly capitalists and the monopoly capitalists, between bourgeois democracy and bourgeois fascism, among the capitalist countries and between imperialism and the colonies, are all determined or influenced by this principal contradiction.”

In other words, Marxists should strive to understand which contradiction is principal and which contradictions are secondary. Understanding this tells us where to focus our attention and where and how to aim our blows as we fight to change society. While the fundamental class conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is principal within the imperialist countries themselves, that contradiction is heavily influenced by the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations, which is driving imperialism’s decline on a global scale. This analysis has to guide our strategy, meaning that the multinational working class must lead a united front against monopoly capitalism, with the strategic alliance between the working class and the movements of oppressed nationalities at its core. 

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People 

“On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” was written by Mao in 1957 and delivered as a speech to the Eleventh Session of the Supreme State Conference. It helped guide the Communist Party through the “Hundred Flowers” campaign and the Anti-Rightist campaign that followed. 

The main point of the essay is to explain the difference between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions within the context of the situation in China at the time, during socialist construction, and to give some guidance on how the contradictions in socialist society ought to be approached and resolved. 

Antagonistic contradictions are essentially a zero-sum game. One side’s gain is the other side’s loss. For example, the bourgeoisie gets its wealth at the expense of the working class, so this contradiction is antagonistic. Everything good for the capitalists is bad for the workers, and vice versa. Because this contradiction is fundamentally antagonistic, it can only be resolved antagonistically, through the revolutionary change of which class is in power. But other contradictions are non-antagonistic, meaning there is room to come to agreement, unity and compromise. The contradictions within the united front are like this, and can be resolved through discussion, debate and persuasion, in the course of our united practical struggle. 

Mao sums this idea up like this. “This democratic method of resolving contradictions among the people was epitomized in 1942 in the formula ‘unity – criticism – unity’. To elaborate, that means starting from the desire for unity, resolving contradictions through criticism or struggle, and arriving at a new unity on a new basis. In our experience this is the correct method of resolving contradictions among the people.”

If we use this method of “unity – criticism – unity” to resolve contradictions among the people, contradictions within our organizations and within the masses in the united front work that we do, we can prevent the real contradictions that exist from becoming antagonistic. This is essential if we are to unite all who can be united against the enemy, the monopoly capitalist class. 

Five Essays on Philosophy today

Five Essays on Philosophy wraps up with Mao’s “Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work” from 1957 and a short article from 1963 entitled “Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?” 

In the speech on propaganda work, Mao argues that “While we have won basic victory in transforming the ownership of the means of production, we are even farther from complete victory on the political and ideological fronts. In the ideological field, the question of who will win out, the proletariat or the bourgeoisie, has not yet been really settled. We still have to wage a protracted struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology.” It emphasizes the importance of waging ideological struggle against both dogmatism and revisionism. Therefore, Mao says, “Both dogmatism and revisionism run counter to Marxism. Marxism must necessarily advance; it must develop along with practice and cannot stand still. It would become lifeless if it were stagnant and stereotyped. However, the basic principles of Marxism must never be violated, otherwise mistakes will be made. It is dogmatism to approach Marxism from a metaphysical point of view and to regard it as something rigid. It is revisionism to negate the basic principles of Marxism and to negate its universal truth.”

“Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?” is largely a concise reiteration of the ideas explained in greater length in “On Practice.” Mao writes, “the one and only purpose of the proletariat in knowing the world is to change it. Often, correct knowledge can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge and then back to practice. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge, the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge.” 

Today it is essential that we use Marxist-Leninist philosophy to analyze our conditions and guide our practice as we work to advance the struggle. The lessons of “On Practice,” that practice is the source and aim of theory, is essential to all that we do. The lessons of “On Contradiction,” that we must grasp the principal contradiction in order to formulate strategy for revolution, is likewise essential if we are to accomplish anything. And we must understand that antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions both require their own methods of resolution. We have to struggle for proletarian ideology against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideological trends like dogmatism and revisionism. And we must always do this in a way that allows us to unite all who can be united against our common enemy. Studying Five Essays on Philosophy by Mao Zedong can help tremendously as we seek to apply Marxist-Leninist theories to the tasks before us.

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Since the writing of The Communist Manifesto and the founding of the First International, proletarian internationalism has been a cornerstone of scientific socialism, and is a pillar of Marxism-Leninism. Today, in the era of imperialism, putting genuine proletarian internationalism into practice demands that we be consistent anti-imperialists.

Beyond any moral questions, there are two obvious, material reasons for this proletarian internationalist, anti-imperialist unity. On the one hand every dollar that goes to imperialist war is a dollar that could have been spent on people’s needs at home. But even more importantly, every blow struck against imperialism weakens the monopoly capitalist class here.

What imperialism is and what it is not

First, let’s be clear on what imperialism means. Understanding the link between imperialism and monopoly capitalism is essential. Indeed, imperialism and monopoly capitalism aren't just linked, they’re synonymous. Failing to understand this, some people think any kind of big country is an empire and that any empire is imperialist, from ancient Rome to socialist China. But this is an idealist and metaphysical view. In other words, this view fails to look at how imperialism develops historically, according to definite material processes. It should be obvious that the Roman Empire and the U.S. empire are qualitatively different.

If we look at imperialism historically, we have to understand its relationship to the dominant socio-economic system. V.I. Lenin developed the scientific analysis of imperialism in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, to help the working-class movement understand the demands that this new historical stage of capitalism placed on the socialist movement. In “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” Lenin writes, “Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism.”

Lenin goes on to explain that imperialism, as monopoly capitalism, has five principal characteristics:

“Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.”

This is the historical materialist view of imperialism as it exists today. Thus, Lenin points out that “Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in America and Europe, and later in Asia, took final shape in the period 1898–1914. The Spanish-American War (1898), the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) and the economic crisis in Europe in 1900 are the chief historical landmarks in the new era of world history.” The rise of imperialism in the U.S. led to the colonization of foreign territories and contributed to the development of oppressed nations within the borders of the U.S., such as the Chicano Nation in the Southwest, the African American Nation in the Black Belt South, and the Hawaiian Nation.

Dialectically, the era of imperialism has led to the development of four fundamental contradictions operating on a world-scale: the contradiction between labor and capital, the contradictions between the imperialists among themselves, the contradiction between the imperialists and the movements for national liberation, and, following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the contradiction between the imperialist and socialist systems.

It is important to note that some people choose to ignore the historical connection between the development of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. They argue that countries like China are imperialist, because they engage in foreign trade. Looking at the difference between the foreign policy of China and the imperialist countries will help us understand what imperialism is in practice, and what it isn’t. Basically, what these people fail to understand is that imperialism is fundamentally exploitative, extractive and violent.

Imperialism relies upon predatory loans, structural adjustment programs, unequal trade agreements, privatization and liberalization, to ensure that it can extract as much profit from its colonies and neocolonies as possible. Capital is exported to the underdeveloped countries in order to exploit cheap labor. By locking these oppressed nations and peoples into a permanent state of underdevelopment it is able to achieve a higher rate of exploitation than it can otherwise. This super-exploitation allows the imperialist powers to prop themselves up with these super-profits, using them as a kind of life-support, to prolong the existence of the capitalist system far beyond its natural lifespan.

This inevitably leads to the sharpening of the contradictions between the imperialists themselves and the contradiction between the imperialists and the movements for national liberation. For this reason, the imperialists must back all of this up with military force. For the U.S., this includes a network of military bases, spanning the world, and its military alliances, like NATO, which it dominates. It will not hesitate to intervene militarily, or to arm and fund its proxies, such as Ukraine and Israel. It will stage coups and assassinate leaders. There is no price in human bloodshed and suffering that is too high to protect U.S. hegemony and imperialist super-profits.

China’s foreign policy in the developing world is nothing like this. It is neither exploitative nor extractive and is based on equal and mutually beneficial trade agreements. It is also fundamentally peaceful. The countries that benefit from trade and development from China are not locked into underdevelopment by China. Nor are they targeted for Chinese military intervention, or coups. On the contrary, China provides an alternative to imperialist underdevelopment that many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are glad to take.

China doesn’t do this because the Chinese are nice and the imperialists aren’t. The imperialists are violent, exploitative and extractive because they must be. The imperialist system is governed by laws, laws inherent to capitalism. China behaves differently because these are laws from which the working class has freed itself in the socialist countries. Socialism, and China in particular, is thus a counterbalance to imperialism in the world. This counterbalance causes the contradiction between the imperialist and socialist systems to sharpen, leading to a constant barrage of anti-China propaganda and increasing aggression from the U.S. towards China.

Imperialism and war

Beyond this question of what imperialism is and what it isn’t, there is further confusion about what it means to be consistently anti-imperialist in relation to the question of war. Because monopoly capitalism relies upon military intervention, that is, upon war, to further its aims, progressive people everywhere rightly oppose imperialist war. But it is possible to make a very dangerous error here.

There is a pacifist trend in the anti-war movement that originates in the ideology of the petite bourgeoisie. These people oppose all war, regardless of who is fighting and for what. They see the violence of the imperialists and the violence of the oppressed as equally bad. These are the kind of people who, in the face of Zionist apartheid in Palestine and the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, demand first and foremost the movement’s condemnation of Hamas. They demand peace, condemning both the reactionary violence of the oppressor and the revolutionary violence of the oppressed. There is a material basis for this kind of thinking. The petite bourgeoisie is a class stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are driven down by the monopoly capitalist class, but they also benefit from the exploitation of labor and support the capitalist system. By taking this pacifist approach, they wash their hands of the whole conflict, and try to cling to the status quo.

On the other hand, there are also social-democrats who turn a blind eye towards imperialism. These people believe that “socialism” can be built within the framework of monopoly capitalism, despite the super-exploitation of the oppressed peoples of the rest of the world. This is why the representatives of this ideology tend to lend their support to the U.S. wars for empire, while they clamor for “socialism” at home. They see “socialism” as social programs under capitalism, like Medicare, public works projects, the postal service, and fire departments. Their “socialism” doesn’t challenge the power of the monopoly capitalists but would merely regulate it. Based on the so-called “Nordic model,” this kind of “socialism” is really just imperialism dressed in red—they advocate socialism in words, but imperialist in deeds. This is what Lenin called “social-imperialism.” These reformists argue for class collaboration, denying that the contradiction between the working class and the capitalist class is fundamentally antagonistic. And so, these “socialists” don’t understand that the starting point of socialism is the seizure of political power by the working class.

Some of these social democrats are the “progressive except for Palestine” variety. They support progressive reforms that would help working and oppressed people, but when it comes to foreign policy, especially in regard to support for Israel, they hold social-chauvinist and downight reactionary positions. Right now, as Israel continues to wage a genocidal war against the Palestinian people, these so called “socialists” have nothing but praise for Zionism and the Israeli apartheid state, and nothing but scorn and condemnation for principled anti-imperialists who stand in solidarity for the unified Palestinian Resistance.

We must be absolutely clear: victory for the resistance in Palestine is a victory for working and oppressed people everywhere, and that victory is coming closer every day. History will remember the Israeli state together with apartheid South Africa, as a stain on history and a mark of shame to everyone who ever supported it. As PFLP leader Leila Khaled once put it, “The supreme objective of the Palestinian liberation movement is the total liberation of Palestine, the dismantlement of the Zionist state apparatus, and the construction of a socialist society in which both Arabs and Jews can live in peace and harmony.” When that day comes, not only will the Palestinian people be liberated from oppression, but a mighty blow will be struck against the monopoly capitalist class in the U.S. that relies on the Zionist state to maintain its hegemony in the Middle East.

Social-chauvinist thinking isn’t a new problem, but it must be addressed again. Indeed, Lenin fought these tendencies in the Second International. Lenin argued that true proletarian internationalism means that socialists should support the defeat of their own imperialist governments in their wars of domination and plunder. Lenin put it simply, saying, “During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.” During World War I, Lenin fought against those in the socialist movement who called for a “class truce” during the inter-imperialist war.

Some “socialists” even supported “defense of the fatherland” wrongly identifying the interests of the working class with the national interests of the capitalist ruling class. In his 1915 essay “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War” Lenin takes to task those “socialists” like Karl Kautsky in Germany and Leon Trotsky in Russia who opposed the slogan of revolutionary defeatism, that is, the call for the defeat of one’s own imperialist government and the demand to transform the reactionary inter-imperialist war into a revolutionary, civil war. In his 1916 article, “Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International,” Lenin further attacks these social-chauvinists, saying, “War is often useful in exposing what is rotten…”

But imperialist war is only one side of the equation. The reality is that some wars are unjust and others are just. Mao Zedong put it this way in his book, On Protracted War.

“History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Communists oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Communists not oppose just wars; we actively participate in them. As for unjust wars, World War I is an instance in which both sides fought for imperialist interests; therefore, the Communists of the whole world firmly opposed that war. The way to oppose a war of this kind is to do everything possible to prevent it before it breaks out and, once it breaks out, to oppose war with war, to oppose unjust war with just war, whenever possible.”

The wars carried out by the imperialists for hegemony, to divide and redivide the world, and to protect their super-profits, are unjust. They sacrifice the lives of millions for the sake of profit, to make sure the lines on the graph go up, and that the vaults of the shareholders are filled to the brim. This is why the U.S. gives billions in military aid to its proxies, like Israel, to maintain its foothold in the Middle East. No matter the war crimes or atrocities, the U.S. is always ready with its checkbook. These wars impede progress.

On the other hand, wars that oppose imperialism, that fight for national liberation from foreign capital and their domestic lackeys, are progressive, just wars. From Palestine to the Philippines, people are fighting tooth and nail to throw off the yoke of imperialism and colonialism, to achieve national liberation, independence, and dignity. These wars are just and should be supported.

During World War II, in “The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War,” Mao put it like this:

“The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the ‘patriotism’ of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the ‘patriotism’ of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better.... For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world.”

Because the anti-imperialist struggle is the strategic ally of the working class movement, Mao explains, “in wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism.”

During World War II, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union transformed the nature of that war. The war began in 1939 as an inter-imperialist war for the redivision of the world between the imperialist powers, but once the Soviet Union came under attack in June of 1941, it was no longer correct to regard the war as a purely inter-imperialist war. The contradiction between the imperialist and socialist systems came to the forefront, leading communists to join in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany, the main danger to the USSR. Furthermore, communist-led resistance movements, particularly in China, Yugoslavia and Albania, were waging just wars for liberation against imperialist occupation.

Friends and enemies

At the core of all this lies an important point, that Mao summed up well: “We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.” Who is the enemy? The imperialist, monopoly capitalist class. Who does the enemy oppose? Everyone fighting against oppression and for liberation, and everyone who challenges their hegemony. Who does the enemy support? Anyone who will serve their interests, who will help them in their drive for domination and exploitation.

Stalin makes this crystal clear in his 1924 book, The Foundations of Leninism, when he says, “The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement.”

Stalin gives the example of Amanullah Khan in Afghanistan: “The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism.”

To clarify this point, Stalin contrasts the nationalist movement in Egypt to the Labor Party in Britain. He writes “the struggle that the Egyptians merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British ‘Labor’ Government is waging to preserve Egypt's dependent position is for the same reason a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin and the proletarian title of the members of the government, despite the fact that they are ‘for’ socialism.”

This may seem strange to some people, but the reason for this is simple. The monopoly capitalist class that is oppressing, in Stalin’s example, the Egyptian independence movement, is the very same monopoly capitalist class that is exploiting the British working class. Their defeat by the Egyptian independence movement weakens them, helping the British working class to overthrow them. There is a strategic alliance that is possible here, even among classes with different interests, because they share this common enemy.

U.S. imperialism is in a state of prolonged and inevitable decline. Since the historic defeat of U.S. imperialism in Vietnam, the United States has grown more and more desperate. Like a cornered beast, it lashes out everywhere. For all of its snarling, biting and clawing, it accomplishes little at great cost. Its place of dominance in the imperialist system, established at the end of World War II, is slipping away. The labor movement is seeing an upsurge, the national liberation struggles are advancing, and the socialist countries are gaining strength. U.S imperialism fights on many fronts, and each defeat it faces is a victory for the working class here and around the world. Everyone who wants socialism should celebrate every blow struck against the imperialist, monopoly capitalist class.

J. Sykes is the author of the book “The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism”. The book can be purchased by visiting tinyurl.com/revsciMLbook

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December 26, 2023 marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of the great leader and teacher of the Chinese revolution, Mao Zedong. This is an excellent occasion to review Mao’s contributions as one of the principal theorists of the science of revolution, Marxism-Leninism.

Mao Zedong always stressed that it is the masses who make history, but like all Marxists he recognized the importance of leadership in revolutionary change. As the leader of the revolution in China, Mao made innumerable practical contributions both to the Chinese Revolution and to the international communist movement as a whole.

Mao led the Chinese Revolution to victory in establishing new democracy and socialism, thus liberating the Chinese people from feudalism and imperialism. Under Mao’s leadership, the Chinese people carried out land reform, industrialized and modernized their productive forces, and went from a backward, semi-colonial and semi-feudal country dominated by domestic warlords and plundered by foreign imperialists, to a powerful, independent country, where the working class wields state power for the betterment of the people.

After the death of Stalin in 1953 and the rise to power of Khrushchev in the Soviet Union in 1956, Mao led the struggle against modern revisionism in the international communist movement, upholding and defending the revolutionary essence of Marxism-Leninism.

“The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should regard it not as a dogma, but as a guide to action,” wrote Mao. “Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution.” Indeed, Mao Zedong’s leadership united practical struggle with revolutionary theory, and Mao always emphasized the importance of the dialectical relationship between theory and practice. For Mao, Marxism was always a science, driven by the practical demands of the Chinese revolution, and a weapon of class struggle, to be used to overthrow the old society and build a new world.

The theory of Mao Zedong is likewise universally applicable, and we should study it closely. As Lenin said, Marxism has three main components: philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism. Mao wrote important texts contributing to our understanding of each of the aspects of Marxism-Leninism, as well as important works on revolutionary strategy.

On philosophy, Mao wrote On Practice and On Contradiction. These works form the firm foundation of Mao’s thought on revolutionary theory, and deserve particular attention. On Practice teaches us that theory must be grounded in practice, in our experience in production, class struggle, and scientific experiment. Here he gives us a clear and concise explanation of the Marxist theory of knowledge, explaining how theory comes from practice, and is then tested by being applied to practice, and then corrected through the summation of that practice. In this way, theory and practice develop together in spiral fashion, each developing and enriching the other. The theory in On Practice immunizes Marxist science against dogmatism, firmly emphasizing that there is no theory for theory’s sake, but rather that the source and aim of Marxism-Leninism is practical work.

In On Contradiction, Mao explains how dialectical materialism, the philosophical heart of Marxism, analyzes social processes according to their internal contradictions. In other words, things change as a result of struggles inherent to those things, such as the struggle between the working class and the capitalists inherent to capitalism. Mao explains how we can analyze which contradictions are driving things forward and determining the overall motion of things, so that we can focus our energy and organization towards those things in the most strategic and effective way. On Contradiction is a manual on the practical application of dialectical materialism.

On political economy, Mao wrote many important works, applying Marxism to the analysis of Chinese conditions such as his Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society. Mao demonstrated with his works on political economy how we can determine who the friends and enemies of the working class are, who we can unite with, and who will oppose us tooth and nail. Marxist political economy lays bare the laws of motion of capitalist society. By aligning our strategic orientation with these laws of motion, and by fusing Marxism with the masses, Mao showed that we can move mountains.

Based on this, Mao also developed theoretical works on revolutionary strategy. On this topic, Mao wrote a number of important articles and pamphlets, such as his important works on the necessity of armed struggle. In Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War and On Protracted War, Mao developed the theory of protracted people’s war, applicable broadly to large, semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries fighting for national liberation and socialism. Mao also developed the theory of the United Front in his essay On the Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party. This essay sums up how we can form a strategic alliance of revolutionary classes in order to unite against a common enemy. Mao also developed the pivotal theory of the mass line in his essay Some Questions on Methods of Leadership, explaining how to lead broad mass movements by uniting with the felt needs and demands of the advanced activists in struggle around immediate demands in order to move the masses towards a class-conscious understanding of the necessity for fighting against capitalism and for socialism. The mass line is the key to the fusion of Marxism with the working class movement.

On scientific socialism, Mao wrote On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, On the Ten Major Relationships, and his important study of Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR. These works and others demonstrate how Mao looked to the experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union and attempted to apply the lessons of that experience scientifically to the particulars of Chinese conditions. In his important work On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, Mao emphasized the importance of continuing the class struggle under socialism in order to consolidate socialism and combat revisionist trends towards capitalist restoration.

In the mid-1960s and 70s, Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, also known as “The Little Red Book,” became a handbook of revolution, taken up by young revolutionaries all over the world, from the Black Panther Party and the New Communist Movement here in the U.S. to national liberation movements from Palestine to the Philippines.

In China, Mao’s contributions to Marxism-Leninism are referred to as “Mao Zedong Thought,” and the writings of many of Mao’s contemporaries are also studied alongside the works of Mao. Indeed, Mao certainly never worked alone. We too have a lot to gain from studying the works of Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun, and Deng Xiaoping. Today, Xi Jinping continues to lead the Chinese people in applying Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions.

As revolutionaries in the United States, working to advance the peoples struggles, raise the consciousness of the working and oppressed people through struggle, and build a new Communist Party, we should strive to be like Mao.

Like any human being, Mao made his share of mistakes, but, like Mao, we should likewise analyze and sum up those mistakes in a scientific and practical way, rather than dogmatically repeat them. Like Mao, we should unite theory with practice. We should be practically minded, and we should apply dialectical materialism to our practice so as to better orient and guide our work in a strategic and effective way.

Like Mao did with the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, we should apply Mao’s theory to building revolution and socialism in a creative way, based firmly on the concrete analysis of concrete conditions when and where we find ourselves. We must subject theory to the crucible of practical work. In other words, we should study and apply the science of revolution, Marxism-Leninism, “not as a dogma, but as a guide to action.” If we can do this, then we will surely win.

J. Sykes is the author of the book “The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism”. The book can be purchased by visiting tinyurl.com/revsciMLbook

#RevolutionaryTheory #MarxismLeninism #Mao

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following paper by Mick Kelly, political secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, that was presented in Amsterdam October 14 at International Theoretical Conference on Imperialism and War organized by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Comrades and friends,

On behalf of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, I would like to extend our thanks to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and its member organizations for organizing this timely and important theoretical conference on imperialism and war. And we salute all of you in attendance today. We have much to gain by exchanging our respective views, seeking points of agreement to build unity, and putting proletarian internationalism into practice.

Marx famously noted that the point of understanding the world is to change it. To put this another way, theory must be weaponized. As revolutionaries, we strive to find the ways and means to strengthen our common efforts to drive imperialism and its tools to their extinction.

Sharpening contradictions on a world scale

The outstanding revolutionary Mao Zedong made the point, “There is great disorder under heaven, the situation is excellent.” This is an apt description of the situation we find ourselves in. The 4 fundamental contradictions – between labor and capital, between the oppressed nations and imperialism, between socialism and capitalism, and among the imperialist powers themselves – are intensifying. The factors for war and revolutionary struggle are on the rise.

The decline of U.S. monopoly capitalism is accelerating, a phenomenon that is a critical factor in shaping the development and motion of the other contradictions on a world scale. This decline is also shaping the contradictions within U.S. society, particularly the class struggle and the struggle against national oppression (the systematic inequality that is visited upon African Americans, Chicano/Latinos, Asian Americans, and the indigenous peoples) and is fueling a level of political polarization that is without parallel since the U.S. Civil War.

Features of a declining U.S. imperialism

The decline of American imperialism is not something new. It is a long-term process that has been underway since the early 1970s. In 1971, then-president Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system – where all currencies were fixed to the dollar (and countries that held dollars could demand payment for dollars in gold) – an important signal that the sun was setting on the American empire. Likewise, the rise of powerful movements for national liberation, and the U.S. defeats in Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea (Cambodia), demonstrated that the “American Century” was over.

The changing place of the U.S. in the world did not proceed along a straight line. The rise of revisionism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe following the death of Stalin ended in the final collapse of socialism in 1991. This allowed U.S. imperialism additional room to maneuver – not due to any internal development or strengthening, but because a constraining force had disappeared from the world stage.

While the monopoly capitalist rulers of the U.S. remain the main enemy of the world’s peoples, the place of the U.S. monopoly capitalists in the world is shrinking as their decline speeds up. The paralysis that pervades the appeals process of the World Trade Organization is one symptom. The stalling of large scale multilateral trade agreements since the Doha rounds and the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are others. Equally telling are some basic economic measurements. In 1960, the U.S. economy represented about 40% of the world economy. Today, it is about half that. The economy of the Peoples Republic of China is poised to surpass that of the U.S., and by some measures it has already done so.

In many respects former U.S. President Donald Trump was an ideal political representative of a declining empire, a practitioner of fraud and corruption who thinks in the short term and relies on contingency. Trump abandoned or undermined a large swath of the post-World War II economic and military topography that had Wall Street at its core and Washington DC as its capital. This meant weakening NATO and putting tariffs on allies and junior partners, accompanied by a bellicose go-it-alone approach.

Biden would like to revive and shore up the multilateral institutions of empire, but the U.S. lacks the muscle. It’s a colossus with clay feet that can no longer move the way it used to, and as a result Biden continues much of Trump’s protectionism and mimics Trump’s anti-China campaign.

Inter-imperialist rivalry

The declining fortunes of U.S. imperialism has led Washington to fear for capitalist supply chains, fueled in part by concerns about the ability of the economy to weather a major war. So, the Biden administration is fast-tracking new mining operations within the U.S. borders, subsidizing semiconductors, computer chips, and helping to underwrite the automakers’ transition to electric vehicles at the cost of autoworkers’ jobs. For his part, Trump who is the leading Republican contender for the presidency, says he will slap a 10% tariff on all imports, including those from Europe and Japan.

These practices, plans and polices are illustrative of increased inter-imperialist rivalry, and are contributing to rise of national chauvinism in the political superstructures of the major imperialist powers, along with war preparations.

Inter-imperialist rivalry can also be seen in Europe. The disintegration of the EU and moves such as the Brexit are good things, and they serve to weaken the respective European imperialist powers and provide a more favorable context for the working class of the Western European countries to advance their own interests.

At this juncture in time, the greatest inter-imperialist conflict is in Ukraine. The U.S provoked this war and in fact it is a proxy war against Russia. It is not a surprise that people in East Ukraine do not want to live under a bunch of reactionaries, and in fact they have waged a heroic struggle to avoid it. The Russian government correctly notes, with the passage of time, the war is increasingly a direct struggle with the U.S. and its accomplices in Western Europe, as the imperial powers pour in military aid such as advanced weapon systems, combat aircraft, tanks, moving troops closer to the war fronts, and providing intelligence and targeting information to the Ukrainian government.

We also need to be clear on the class nature of the war. It is an inter-imperialist conflict. Russia is an emerging imperialist power, where capitalist development has reached the stage of monopoly capitalism. It is a country that acts in its own “national interest.” In the early years following the fall of the USSR, Russia was dominated by compradors who sold the country to the West. This is no longer the case.

The U.S. and Western European powers speak of incorporating Ukraine into NATO and the European Union, while debating timetables and scenarios for this happening. This means that the war is likely to continue for an extended period, and that there is considerably more at stake than the fate of the Eastern Ukraine.

Working and oppressed people in the U.S. have nothing to gain from a U.S. victory – in fact a Washington/Wall Street win would strengthen the hand of our oppressor. Therefore, in our antiwar work we demand that the U.S. get out at once, and we will strive to utilize favorable conditions that result from any setback the U.S. ruling class is confronted with. It is like Lenn said, “During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.” A positive aspect of this conflict is that oppressed people can take advantage of this rivalry, as was recently illustrated by the meeting between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Russia.

Countries want independence, nations want liberation, and the people want revolution

There is a growing tide of anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

As we noted in the Main Political Report adopted at our 9th Congress:

“A great resurgence of the national liberation movement and the international communist movement is underway.

“In Asia, the socialist countries are on the rise. The national democratic struggle in the Philippines, led by the Communist Party of the Philippines, stands out in sharp relief and is an inspiration to people everywhere. The Philippines is a crucial base for the projection of U.S. power into the Pacific region. Millions of people are on the move in India, and revolutionary movements are growing in power throughout the region.

“In the Middle East, the center of gravity continues to be the heroic struggle of the people of Palestine to end the Zionist occupation and to liberate every inch of their land. A powerful camp of resistance has come into being that unites Iran, Syria, the Palestinian resistance, and the popular forces of Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — and it is fully capable of challenging imperialism, Zionism, and reaction of all kinds.

“In Latin America, a number of countries have broken out of the orbit of U.S. imperialism, including socialist Cuba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Across the continent, great advances in the popular and revolutionary movements are underway…In Africa, there are sharp struggles against imperialism, particularly in the horn of Africa.”

Two additional points should be made. In Palestine the reactionary right-wing rulers of Israel have rejected the “two state solution” favored by the U.S. and have opted for the logic of complete displacement of the Palestine people from their land. It is the logic of genocide. The Palestinian fight for national liberation has now moved into a phase where armed struggle is now the principal form of struggle. Looking at the emerging balance of forces in the Middle East, we can see the waning influence of U.S. imperialism and the end of the Zionist project.

In the Pacific, the liberation of Taiwan province by People’s China remains the great unfinished task of the Chinese revolution. The end of U.S. dominance in the Pacific region will mark the end of the U.S. as the core of a world empire.

Prospects in the U.S.

The situation is excellent. The science of Marxism-Leninism lays bare the general laws that are at work in a dying imperialism. For example, the intensification of uneven development gives rise to more wars; also, a contraction of world markets open to imperialism limits effective demand and contributes to new and greater crises of overproduction.

It is also possible to draw some general conclusions from recent events and experience.

Polarization is intensifying. The attempt by Trump to cling to power, including the storming of the U.S. Capitol are indicators of this. Trump is now the Republican frontrunner. If the elections are close, many will not accept the outcome. A declining, polarized U.S. imperialism is an unstable U.S. imperialism. This degree of instability is something new, and something that can be worked with.

Sharpening contradictions and polarization are fueling the class struggle. There are a growing number of strikes and sharp battles on the part of the working class. The recent fight of a third of a million Teamsters in the logistics industry and the strike by auto workers are but two examples of this.

The powerful uprising that took place after the police murder of George Floyd graphicly demonstrates U.S imperialism is a paper tiger. More than 23 million people participated in the protests. Thousands of buildings, including one of the main police stations in Minneapolis, Minnesota (the city of Floyd’s murder), were burned. This uprising showed the power of the Black freedom movement. It is also a fact that on the left, our organization – Freedom Road Socialist Organization – was the only communist group that played a significant role in those events nationally.

Also of note are the fights around democratic demands such as the fight to defend women’s and reproductive rights. In many cities, our organizations have played a major role in these struggles.

FRSO is working to build a new communist party. The current situation is excellent for doing exactly that, so we are experiencing an unprecedented wave of growth. Reality and modesty dictate we acknowledge we need to make substantially more progress in fusing Marxism-Leninism with the actually existing working class movement before such party is created. That said, the clock is ticking and if we continue to progress at our current rate, we will get there.

In 1956, Mao Zedong made the point, “Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.” The peoples of the world, along with the people of the U.S., will be the wind and the rain that U.S. imperialism is unable to withstand. There will be difficulties to be sure. But our future is bright!

Long live the unity of the peoples of the world!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Victory is certain!

#FRSO #MarxismLeninism #Imperialism #NDFP #Philippines #Mao #Feature

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following article written by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong on the 60th birthday of Joseph Stalin Stalin, Friend of the Chinese People

On the Twenty-first of December, Comrade Stalin will be sixty years old. We can be sure that his birthday will evoke warm and affectionate congratulations from the hearts of all revolutionary people throughout the world who know of the occasion.

Congratulating Stalin is not a formality. Congratulating Stalin means supporting him and his cause, supporting the victory of socialism, and the way forward for mankind which he points out, it means supporting a dear friend. For the great majority of mankind today are suffering, and mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help.

Living in a period of the bitterest suffering in our history, we Chinese people most urgently need help from others. The Book of Odes says, “A bird sings out to draw a friend's response.” This aptly describes our present situation.

But who are our friends?

There are so-called friends, self-styled friends of the Chinese people, whom even some Chinese unthinkingly accept as friends. But such friends can only be classed with Li Lin-fu, the prime minister in the Tang Dynasty who was notorious as a man with “honey on his lips and murder in his heart”. They are indeed “friends” with “honey on their lips and murder in their hearts”. Who are these people? They are the imperialists who profess sympathy with China.

However, there are friends of another kind, friends who have real sympathy with us and regard us as brothers. Who are they? They are the Soviet people and Stalin.

No other country has renounced its privileges in China; the Soviet Union alone has done so.

All the imperialists opposed us during our First Great Revolution; the Soviet Union alone helped us.

No government of any imperialist country has given us real help since the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan; the Soviet Union alone has helped China with its aviation and supplies.

Is not the point clear enough?

Only the land of socialism, its leaders and people, and socialist thinkers, statesmen and workers can give real help to the cause of liberation of the Chinese nation and the Chinese people, and without their help our cause cannot win final victory.

Stalin is the true friend of the cause of liberation of the Chinese people. No attempt to sow dissension, no lies and calumnies, can affect the Chinese people's whole-hearted love and respect for Stalin and our genuine friendship for the Soviet Union.

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #Socialism #Mao #Stalin

To mark the 125nd anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, Dec. 26, Fight Back News Service is circulating Mao Zedong’s 1944 speech ‘Serve the People.”

Our Communist Party and the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies led by our Party are battalions of the revolution. These battalions of ours are wholly dedicated to the liberation of the people and work entirely in the people's interests. Comrade Chang Szu-teh [1] was in the ranks of these battalions.

All men must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Szuma Chien said, “Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather.” [2] To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather. Comrade Chang Szu-teh died for the people, and his death is indeed weightier than Mount Tai.

If we have shortcomings, we are not afraid to have them pointed out and criticized, because we serve the people. Anyone, no matter who, may point out our shortcomings. If he is right, we will correct them. If what he proposes will benefit the people, we will act upon it. The idea of “better troops and simpler administration” was put forward by Mr. Li Ting-ming, [3] who is not a Communist. He made a good suggestion which is of benefit to the people, and we have adopted it. If, in the interests of the people, we persist in doing what is right and correct what is wrong, our ranks will surely thrive.

We hail from all corners of the country and have joined together for a common revolutionary objective. And we need the vast majority of the people with us on the road to this objective. Today, we already lead base areas with a population of 91 million, [4] but this is not enough; to liberate the whole nation more are needed. In times of difficulty we must not lose sight of our achievements, must see the bright future and must pluck up our courage. The Chinese people are suffering; it is our duty to save them and we must exert ourselves in struggle. Wherever there is struggle there is sacrifice, and death is a common occurrence. But we have the interests of the people and the sufferings of the great majority at heart, and when we die for the people it is a worthy death. Nevertheless, we should do our best to avoid unnecessary sacrifices. Our cadres must show concern for every soldier, and all people in the revolutionary ranks must care for each other, must love and help each other.

From now on, when anyone in our ranks who has done some useful work dies, be he soldier or cook, we should have a funeral ceremony and a memorial meeting in his honour. This should become the rule. And it should be introduced among the people as well. When someone dies in a village, let a memorial meeting be held. In this way we express our mourning for the dead and unite all the people.

Notes:

1. Comrade Chang Szu-teh was a soldier in the Guards Regiment of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. A member of Communist Party who loyally served the interests of the people, he joined the revolution in 1933, took part in the Long March and was wounded in service. On September 5, 1944, when making charcoal in the mountains of Ansai County, northern Shensi, he was killed by the sudden collapse of a kiln.

2. Szuma Chien, the famous Chinese historian of the 2nd century B.C., was the author of the Historical Records. The quotation comes from his “Reply to Jen Shao-ching's Letter”.

3. Li Ting-ming, an enlightened landlord of northern Shensi Province, was at one time elected Vice-Chairman of the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region Government.

4. This was the total population of the Shensi-Kansu-Ningela Border Region and all other Liberated Areas in northern, central and southern China.

#UnitedStates #Socialism #PeoplesStruggles #China #Mao

To mark the 124nd anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, Dec. 26, Fight Back News Service is circulating his oft-quoted 1945 speech to the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of China, “The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains.”

We have had a very successful congress. We have done three things. First, we have decided on the line of our Party, which is boldly to mobilize the masses and expand the people's forces so that, under the leadership of our Party, they will defeat the Japanese aggressors, liberate the whole people and build a new-democratic China. Second, we have adapted the new Party Constitution. Third, we have elected the leading body of the Party—the Central Committee. Henceforth our task is to lead the whole membership in carrying out the Party line. Ours has been a congress of victory, a congress of unity. The delegates have made excellent comments on the three reports. Many comrades have undertaken self-criticism; with unity as the objective unity has been achieved through self-criticism. This congress is a model of unity, of self-criticism and of inner-Party democracy.

When the congress closes, many comrades will be leaving for their posts and the various war fronts. Comrades, wherever you go, you should propagate the line of the congress and, through the members of the Party, explain it to the broad masses.

Our aim in propagating the line of the congress is to build up the confidence of the whole Party and the entire people in the certain triumph of the revolution. We must first raise the political consciousness of the vanguard so that, resolute and unafraid of sacrifice, they will surmount every difficulty to win victory. But this is not enough; we must also arouse the political consciousness of the entire people so that they may willingly and gladly fight together with us for victory. We should fire the whole people with the conviction that China belongs not to the reactionaries but to the Chinese people. There is an ancient Chinese fable called “The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains”. It tells of an old man who lived in northern China long, long ago and was known as the Foolish Old Man of North Mountain. His house faced south and beyond his doorway stood the two great peaks, Taihang and Wangwu, obstructing the way. He called his sons, and hoe in hand they began to dig up these mountains with great determination. Another graybeard, known as the Wise Old Man, saw them and said derisively, “How silly of you to do this! It is quite impossible for you few to dig up those two huge mountains.” The Foolish Old Man replied, “When I die, my sons will carry on; when they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons, and so on to infinity. High as they are, the mountains cannot grow any higher and with every bit we dig, they will be that much lower. Why can't we clear them away?” Having refuted the Wise Old Man's wrong view, he went on digging every day, unshaken in his conviction. God was moved by this, and he sent down two angels, who carried the mountains away on their backs. Today, two big mountains lie like a dead weight on the Chinese people. One is imperialism, the other is feudalism. The Chinese Communist Party has long made up its mind to dig them up. We must persevere and work unceasingly, and we, too, will touch God's heart. Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. If they stand up and dig together with us, why can't these two mountains be cleared away?

Yesterday, in a talk with two Americans who were leaving for the United States, I said that the U.S. government was trying to undermine us and this would not be permitted. We oppose the U.S. government's policy of supporting Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists. But we must draw a distinction, firstly, between the people of the United States and their government and, secondly, within the U.S. government between the policy-makers and their subordinates. I said to these two Americans, “Tell the policy-makers in your government that we forbid you Americans to enter the Liberated Areas because your policy is to support Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists, and we have to be on our guard. You can come to the Liberated Areas if your purpose is to fight Japan, but there must first be an agreement. We will not permit you to nose around everywhere. Since Patrick J. Hurley [1] has publicly declared against co-operation with the Chinese Communist Party, why do you still want to come and prowl around in our Liberated Areas?”

The U.S. government's policy of supporting Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists shows the brazenness of the U.S. reactionaries. But all the scheming of the reactionaries, whether Chinese or foreign, to prevent the Chinese people from achieving victory is doomed to failure. The democratic forces are the main current in the world today, while reaction is only a counter-current. The reactionary countercurrent is trying to swamp the main current of national independence and people's democracy, but it can never become the main current. Today, there are still three major contradictions in the old world, as Stalin pointed out long ago: first, the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries; second, the contradiction between the various imperialist powers, and third, the contradiction between the colonial and semi-colonial countries and the imperialist metropolitan countries. [2] Not only do these three contradictions continue to exist but they are becoming more acute and widespread. Because of their existence and growth, the time will come when the reactionary anti-Soviet, anti-Communist and anti-democratic counter-current still in existence today will be swept away.

At this moment two congresses are being held in China, the Sixth National Congress of the Kuomintang and the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party. They have completely different aims: the aim of one is to liquidate the Communist Party and all the other democratic forces in China and thus to plunge China into darkness; the aim of the other is to overthrow Japanese imperialism and its lackeys, the Chinese feudal forces, and build a new-democratic China and thus to lead China to light. Those two lines are in conflict with each other. We firmly believe that, led by the Chinese Communist Party and guided by the line of its Seventh Congress, the Chinese people will achieve complete victory, while the Kuomintang's counter-revolutionary line will inevitably fail.

NOTES

1. Patrick J. Hurley, a reactionary Republican Party politician, was appointed U.S. ambassador to China towards the end of 1944. In November 1945 he was forced to resign because his support for Chiang Kai-shek's anti-Communist policy roused the firm opposition of the Chinese people. Harley's open declaration against cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party was made on April 2, 1945 at a U.S. State Department press conference in Washington. For details, see “The Hurley-Chiang Duet Is a Flop”, pp. 281-84 of this volume.

2. See J. V. Stalin, “The Foundations of Leninism”, Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1953, Vol. VI, pp. 74-82.

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