1. What is the lesson of the cultural revolution? The ultra-left position is that the CR represents the "limits of Leninism" (Badiou) and that communists should support the rejection of the party and the state as a whole. This was represented most clearly in the "Feb. 8th Circular Order" from 1967:
With the establishment of the Shanghai People’s Commune, a wholly new form of power organ came into being. Although the old SPC power organ was smashed, remnants of bourgeois right in the Liu-Dengist line still exist in our Bureau. All hierarchy (dengji) and professional titles (zhicheng) serve as tools for bourgeois dictatorship to rule and suppress the revolutionary masses. For a long time, the bureau directors have always been ruling the division directors, the division directors always ruling the office directors, and the office directors always ruling the masses. The higher levels have always demanded things from and pressed the lower levels. People with “zhang” (directors) titles have always placed their own interests above those of the Party and the masses whereas the masses cannot “rebel against orthodoxy” (li jing pan dao). The words of the persons with “zhang” titles became “directives” that the masses were forced to carry out one hundred per cent, without being allowed to lodge any complaints. In this way, the masses’ enthusiasm and initiatives were seriously inhibited. This kind of old system of hierarchy is a superstructure not suitable for our country’s socialist economic base, a product of the Liu-Dengist line, and a hotbed to foster slavishness and produce revisionism. It should be completely smashed! For this purpose, this circular order is promulgating the following,
1. Effective as of now, all appellatives of “zhang” titles are abolished. All people will be called revolutionary comrades to each other.
2. Effective as of now, the ranking system (jibie zhidu) is abolished. The wages will be distributed according to the former standard (not applicable to those power holders taking the capitalist road). In the future, the wage distribution will be enforced in accordance with new provisions set by the Central Committee and Shanghai People’s Commune.
3. Rebel fighters and revolutionary comrades shall be urged to observe this order.
Quoted to show it sounds pretty reasonable without historical analysis. This is the common interpretation of the CR in the west in various forms, at least according to Raymond Lotta:
It has been articulated in various permutations by progressive China scholars like Maurice Meisner. It was taken up by currents of international Maoism, especially in France in the late 1960s, and subsequently by intellectuals like French political economist Charles Bettelheim. Not least, in the CR itself, some Red Guard formations advocated that the CR would succeed if and only if it became a full-scale assault on all cadre and existing structures of power.
So this is not just anarchists and trots leeching off real struggles. I obviously reject this view by calling it "ultra-left". But what is the alternative? Do we defend the CR as a whole? This leads to a bunch of sub questions:
1a. Was there significance in changing the Shanghai "Commune" to the Shanghai "Revolutionary Committee"? Clearly this represents more that a name change.
1b. Can one uphold the entire CR in light of the changes in foreign policy, many of which are indefensible from an anti-imperialist standpoint?
1c. If the ultra-leftists were wrong to reject the entire party, why was the party so easily able to reverse the CR and implement capitalist revisions far more severe than anything the USSR did?
2. What is social imperialism? More generally, what is socialism? Are these concepts economically definable or do they have a political dimension as well. Can one have a socialist economy without democracy? Does socialism, as a transitional state, have to be moving away from or towards communism, and thus can we still define socialism moving back towards socialism as socialist? Clearly revisionism here covers a variety of concepts and doesn't really convey information on the socialist/capitalist aspects of North Korea vs the China vs the USSR in 1956 and 1989 etc. My own position is imperialism and socialism have to be defined as a mode of production with a uniquely socialist superstructure but that theorizing the USSR as 'social-imperialist' and possibly 'state-capitalist' allowed the CR to happen in the first place. This is clearly not a position at all and not one I'm satisfied with.
3. What is the legacy of Maoism? Most negatively, what are the failures of the Nepalese revolution? These have been explained very clearly by various Maoist parties and maoists on a descriptive level but I have never seen a clear explanation for what this failure means for Maoism theoretically. Maoism is of course worth upholding, that there's something to discuss in the present shows how vital remains. But Nepal to me has to mean something more than just the failure to properly implement anti-revisionism, self-criticism, the mass line, democratic centralism, etc.
4. What is the difference between Marxism-Leninism and Maoism on an economic level? The political and theoretical differences are clear enough, but Marxism demands we understand these as the super-structural manifestations of the base. Obviously the Maoist critique of the USSR's economy is significant but what is a Maoist organization of production, even if this is just a description of the innovations of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution on an economic level (the CR was 10 years long after all and the economy was still going). Most importantly for me, what does a 3 in 1 combination look like when applied to the whole nation (and possibly the whole world)? How do mass organizations think about production and the tasks of communism (abolishing the differences between skilled and unskilled labor, manual and intellectual, and from each according to his ability, to each according to his work)?
Feel free to take the discussion in any direction though. These are some of the things I'vv read about Maoism:
The Paris Commune in Shanghai: http://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/2356/D_Jiang_Hongsheng_a_201005.pdf?sequence=1
The Battle For China's Past:
http://www.strongwindpress.com/pdfs/ebook/The_Battle_for_Chinas_Past.pdf
Chinese Economic Development:
http://www.strongwindpress.com/pdfs/TuiJian/Chinese%20Economic%20Development.pdf
Fanshen:
http://www.strongwindpress.com/pdfs/TuiJian/Chinese%20Economic%20Development.pdf
I have read Badiou but I don't think it's particularly good once you know more real history. My interpretation of Marxist philosophy is also heavily influenced by a Maoist reading of Althusser. I know literal nothing about what the CPI(M), the RIM, Shining Path's theory, etc except that you can find it here:
http://www.bannedthought.net/
oh and obviously uphold Maoism Third Worldism and Monkey Smashes Heaven. Hate that amerikkka beat
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
getfiscal posted:shengwulien
nice username
getfiscal posted:The principal ideologue of the shengwulien was jailed for criticizing the leadership. In prison he decided to teach himself mathematics. When he got out he fled and did a PhD in economics and ended up like one of the most prominent mainstream Chinese economists in the world.
That's no great surprise. Even William Hinton criticized Neal Huner for sympathizing with the ultra-left and failing to understand class struggle:
According to Hinton, the essence of Hunter's book is a denial of class struggle, “All the sound and fury, he avers, comes from a clash between pragmatic communists and dogmatic communists; the result, a healthy shakeup in the bureaucracy but definitely not a transfer of power from one class to another. He pours scorn on the idea that the ‘extreme left’ could possibly have sold out to the ‘extreme right’of the Party hierarchy, or have any political connection with it….”
-see The Paris Commune in Shanghai by Jiang Hongshen pp. 59 for more elaboration
the utopianism of the ultra-left easily lends itself to becoming right-wing (as what happened to trots who become neocons) because if one sees the dictatorship of the proletariat as indistinguishable from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, whether through an anarchist understanding of 'hierarchy' or an ultra-left understanding of socialism as an objective goal irrespective of democratic will it's trivial to support the version of dictatorship that at least grows the economy
babyhueypnewton posted:We've had discussion of Maoism scattered through various threads and I thought we could centralize it. Here are some questions I think are worth discussing:
This is a good thread bhpn, thank you for making it. Personally, one of the things I think makes Maoism distinct (whether it be MLM or third worldism) is the question of strategy. Maoists organizations usually insist on having an actual, coherent line on how to make revolution, which I think distinguishes them from other modern Leninist formations.
1. What is the lesson of the cultural revolution? The ultra-left position is that the CR represents the "limits of Leninism" (Badiou) and that communists should support the rejection of the party and the state as a whole. This was represented most clearly in the "Feb. 8th Circular Order" from 1967:
With the establishment of the Shanghai People’s Commune, a wholly new form of power organ came into being. Although the old SPC power organ was smashed, remnants of bourgeois right in the Liu-Dengist line still exist in our Bureau. All hierarchy (dengji) and professional titles (zhicheng) serve as tools for bourgeois dictatorship to rule and suppress the revolutionary masses. For a long time, the bureau directors have always been ruling the division directors, the division directors always ruling the office directors, and the office directors always ruling the masses. The higher levels have always demanded things from and pressed the lower levels. People with “zhang” (directors) titles have always placed their own interests above those of the Party and the masses whereas the masses cannot “rebel against orthodoxy” (li jing pan dao). The words of the persons with “zhang” titles became “directives” that the masses were forced to carry out one hundred per cent, without being allowed to lodge any complaints. In this way, the masses’ enthusiasm and initiatives were seriously inhibited. This kind of old system of hierarchy is a superstructure not suitable for our country’s socialist economic base, a product of the Liu-Dengist line, and a hotbed to foster slavishness and produce revisionism. It should be completely smashed! For this purpose, this circular order is promulgating the following,
1. Effective as of now, all appellatives of “zhang” titles are abolished. All people will be called revolutionary comrades to each other.
2. Effective as of now, the ranking system (jibie zhidu) is abolished. The wages will be distributed according to the former standard (not applicable to those power holders taking the capitalist road). In the future, the wage distribution will be enforced in accordance with new provisions set by the Central Committee and Shanghai People’s Commune.
3. Rebel fighters and revolutionary comrades shall be urged to observe this order.
Quoted to show it sounds pretty reasonable without historical analysis. This is the common interpretation of the CR in the west in various forms, at least according to Raymond Lotta:It has been articulated in various permutations by progressive China scholars like Maurice Meisner. It was taken up by currents of international Maoism, especially in France in the late 1960s, and subsequently by intellectuals like French political economist Charles Bettelheim. Not least, in the CR itself, some Red Guard formations advocated that the CR would succeed if and only if it became a full-scale assault on all cadre and existing structures of power.
So this is not just anarchists and trots leeching off real struggles. I obviously reject this view by calling it "ultra-left". But what is the alternative? Do we defend the CR as a whole? This leads to a bunch of sub questions:
1a. Was there significance in changing the Shanghai "Commune" to the Shanghai "Revolutionary Committee"? Clearly this represents more that a name change.
1b. Can one uphold the entire CR in light of the changes in foreign policy, many of which are indefensible from an anti-imperialist standpoint?
1c. If the ultra-leftists were wrong to reject the entire party, why was the party so easily able to reverse the CR and implement capitalist revisions far more severe than anything the USSR did?
I think Lotta is generally correct in that when most western scholars, communist or otherwise, reflect on the experience of the cultural revolution, they focus on the ultra-left interpretation of those experiences, and I think this is especially true when anarchists of some shade or other try to claim it for themselves. I think we have to remember that the cultural revolution was a period of intense class struggle, where in some cases "full communism" was actually starting to manifest, while in other cases communities were being taken over by gangs. In this context, it is easy to see how an ultra-left line could emerge as a combination of mass enthusiasm and adventurist opportunism. I've read some Bettleheim and I don't think he subscribes to the rejection of the party per se, but sees the cultural revolution as a necessary response to errors which might emerge in the socialist party-state.
In regards to the Shanghai commune specifically, I am no expert. I think the name change was to distinguish themselves from the communes, which were supported by the leadership in the CPC.
With regards to China's errors abroad during the CR I think each individual case has to be interrogated separately. I don't say this as a cop-out, but I think understanding China's role in the global world-system might help us comprehend the foreign policy errors, as well as help answer 1c.
I think the ultra-lefts were correct in that the party needed to be challenged (as evidenced by the subsequent rise of Deng despite being purged on several occasions) but they were wrong to assume the party-state could be completely dissolved given China's level of productive development and the slowing of the spread of socialism abroad with the advent of neo-colonialism and Soviet decline and collapse.
2. What is social imperialism? More generally, what is socialism? Are these concepts economically definable or do they have a political dimension as well. Can one have a socialist economy without democracy? Does socialism, as a transitional state, have to be moving away from or towards communism, and thus can we still define socialism moving back towards socialism as socialist? Clearly revisionism here covers a variety of concepts and doesn't really convey information on the socialist/capitalist aspects of North Korea vs the China vs the USSR in 1956 and 1989 etc. My own position is imperialism and socialism have to be defined as a mode of production with a uniquely socialist superstructure but that theorizing the USSR as 'social-imperialist' and possibly 'state-capitalist' allowed the CR to happen in the first place. This is clearly not a position at all and not one I'm satisfied with.
Generally speaking, both socialism and social-imperalism are definable more by the interplay between economics (base) and politics (superstucture) than either of those elements separately. I think social imperialism is no longer a relevant category in the modern era. Unless China somehow becomes capable of rivaling the US and the rest of the western bloc in all spheres, its unlikely we will see anything resembling soviet social imperialism as described by anti-revisionists. I think we should also like the errors during the CR, interrogate each instance of alleged social imperialism (Afghanistan, Hungary, etc.) before making a transhistorical judgement.
How we understand socialism is tricky though. I think it is primarily the transition from capitalism to communism, but there are numerous contradictions therein. For example, because communism is both a global mode of production and world-system while socialism exists within distinct geographical boundaries beside and a part of the capitalist world-system, socialism must maintain elements of capitalism until socialism is the dominant mode of production and a dual communist world-system in rival to the capitalist one can start developing. In reference to questions on the CR above, I think misunderstanding this was one of the errors of both ultra lefts and Chinese foreign policy makers. The advancement towards communism via the CR was absolutely necessary, but badly timed in the context of the global balance of forces.
3. What is the legacy of Maoism? Most negatively, what are the failures of the Nepalese revolution? These have been explained very clearly by various Maoist parties and maoists on a descriptive level but I have never seen a clear explanation for what this failure means for Maoism theoretically. Maoism is of course worth upholding, that there's something to discuss in the present shows how vital remains. But Nepal to me has to mean something more than just the failure to properly implement anti-revisionism, self-criticism, the mass line, democratic centralism, etc.
I think the failures in Nepal ultimately cannot be understood without addressing the question of strategy. How did the UCPN(M) and other revolutionaries actually expect to overthrow the government and start building socialism? If you are talking to western Maoists (excluding RCPUSA because they refuse to engage with actual strategizing), they often misunderstand developments in the peripheries because they dogmatically apply a universalist line to protracted people's war. While its commendable to have a line on making revolution, it doesn't help much if its wrong. Most maoists in the global peripheries (the Philippines, Turkey, India, Nepal, and to an extent Palestine) despite being engaged in what we call people's wars, don't see PPW as universal and actually see something closer to the October Road being appropriate for the core countries. In short, I think we need further interrogations into what revolution looks like in the 21st century before we are able to properly address failed ones. Although I think reflections like this one are a good start. (As a Canadian Maoist I'm more fond of RI and Indigenous radicals than I am the PCR, but that's a separate post).
4. What is the difference between Marxism-Leninism and Maoism on an economic level? The political and theoretical differences are clear enough, but Marxism demands we understand these as the super-structural manifestations of the base. Obviously the Maoist critique of the USSR's economy is significant but what is a Maoist organization of production, even if this is just a description of the innovations of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution on an economic level (the CR was 10 years long after all and the economy was still going). Most importantly for me, what does a 3 in 1 combination look like when applied to the whole nation (and possibly the whole world)? How do mass organizations think about production and the tasks of communism (abolishing the differences between skilled and unskilled labor, manual and intellectual, and from each according to his ability, to each according to his work)?
This is an area where a lot of research is lacking, but I think Maoist ruptures with the Soviet model were primarily in the social sphere, i.e. production was organized in a more dynamic, democratic, and communal way than in the USSR. Beyond that, I think hardline Maoists are more ambivalent about the necessity to develop the productive forces before building socialism.
I think the Mass Line is ultimately the most distinct lesson from Maoism, economics aside.
Feel free to take the discussion in any direction though. These are some of the things I'vv read about Maoism:
The Paris Commune in Shanghai: http://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/2356/D_Jiang_Hongsheng_a_201005.pdf?sequence=1
The Battle For China's Past:
http://www.strongwindpress.com/pdfs/ebook/The_Battle_for_Chinas_Past.pdf
Chinese Economic Development:
http://www.strongwindpress.com/pdfs/TuiJian/Chinese%20Economic%20Development.pdf
Fanshen:
http://www.strongwindpress.com/pdfs/TuiJian/Chinese%20Economic%20Development.pdf
I have read Badiou but I don't think it's particularly good once you know more real history. My interpretation of Marxist philosophy is also heavily influenced by a Maoist reading of Althusser. I know literal nothing about what the CPI(M), the RIM, Shining Path's theory, etc except that you can find it here:
http://www.bannedthought.net/
oh and obviously uphold Maoism Third Worldism and Monkey Smashes Heaven. Hate that amerikkka beat
This is a good reading list. In regards to RIM, Sendero Luminoso is distinct in being the only organization to uphold the universality of protracted people's war. SR is a case on its own and I think in many ways they deviated from Maoism proper and I personally consider most people who uphold their entire legacy to be dogmatists. The CPI(M) and the CPP have the most comprehensive lines on modern Maoism in my opinion and I'd be very interested in exploring what we can learn from them.
babyhueypnewton posted:4. What is the difference between Marxism-Leninism and Maoism on an economic level? The political and theoretical differences are clear enough...
most peeps i've asked say they arrived at socialism either by studying history or through personal experience with class struggle/poverty. i'm one of those ducklings that somehow got there via economics, by giving marx an open-minded appraisal and finding his critics to be full of shit. so my trajectory was more marx -> value theory -> materialist philosophy -> engels/lenin/stalin
i'm sorry to say that in all this i have not cracked any mao beyond Combat Liberalism
which of those texts (or other) is a good resource for those of us who still don't know the first thing about what distinguishes the M-L from the M-L-M?
babyhueypnewton posted:the utopianism of the ultra-left easily lends itself to becoming right-wing
I think this is true but in a complex way. First, if you look at the broader communist movement during the 20th Century, large numbers of leaders and movements shifted to the right over time. It's actually hard to identify where individuals played in this process because you can always speak one way and act another. There are also lots of cases like Bukharin and Deng where people started off far-left and then pivoted right but not like in a way that they openly rejected socialism as an ideology. There's also the fact that people will say things that they think are "left" but are objectively right-wing, like Trotsky opposing socialism-in-one-country.
Constantignoble posted:babyhueypnewton posted:
4. What is the difference between Marxism-Leninism and Maoism on an economic level? The political and theoretical differences are clear enough...
most peeps i've asked say they arrived at socialism either by studying history or through personal experience with class struggle/poverty. i'm one of those ducklings that somehow got there via economics, by giving marx an open-minded appraisal and finding his critics to be full of shit. so my trajectory was more marx -> value theory -> materialist philosophy -> engels/lenin/stalin
i'm sorry to say that in all this i have not cracked any mao beyond Combat Liberalism
which of those texts (or other) is a good resource for those of us who still don't know the first thing about what distinguishes the M-L from the M-L-M?
I've seen Politics is in Command of Economics, Revolution is in Command of Production reccomend on several Maoist sites to describe political economy during the CR.
edi: Just got off the phone with WordPress. Not helpful; going to be contacting the BBB about these clowns again. But I always feel invigorated after a screaming match. Everyone dump all your IRC logs from the past two years to me via PM so I can deep search for snoops.
Edited by swampman ()
babyhueypnewton posted:4. What is the difference between Marxism-Leninism and Maoism on an economic level?
I think that here the difference is often not understood at all, but it can be illuminated with the study of some eastern bloc economies, versus the PRC during the CR, which I think has been covered pretty well in this thread.
For example, in any economic unit within socialist Poland, there was a variety of groups and institutions which had different goals. The Union, which was generally the way those people actually working in a factory put across their complaints/suggestions etc, the Party cell, which was generally ideologically committed cadres who would intervene in the interests of upholding the communist political-ideological formulations which reigned in Poland at the time, and the council of specialists, who were a variety of experts that would do most of the actual scientific/mathematical/organizational work behind organizing production, because while politics are important, understanding how to actually run a factory is probably a little bit more immediately important.
This system was mirrored in the majority of socialist states, although of course with case specific culturally produced differences. This power-sharing structure within the productive unit is I think, indicative of the conception of People's Democracy. In the Marxism-Leninism of that time and that region, the construction of socialism was interpreted as the patriotic duty of a broad coalition of non-hostile class interests. Thus, the interests of the most advanced section of the working class (the Party) the intermediate section of the working class (the Union) and the professionals (the Specialists) could be represented in equal ways and all taken into consideration when formulating policy.
Meanwhile, in the Chinese conception, people's democracy was meant to give way to socialism, and it was the goal of the communist party to liquidate the kind of differences that would necessitate separate structures for unionists, party officials, professionals, etc. This approach is what produced the intense egalitarianism of the cultural revolution, which while admirable, I don't think would be long-term functional in states constantly under imperial assault. Perhaps the various eastern european socialist countries could have attempted to liquidate the difference between manual and mental laborers, but the formation of a socialist intellectual class was objectively in the interests of working class power and the continued existence of socialism. A group of societies totally decimated by Nazi genocide and with the predatory sights of the whole capitalist world set upon them would have to quickly be able to create groups of people who could modernize the economy, reconstruct the nation, and put into practice a totally unfamiliar social system.
So basically, I think a large part of this division was proximity and necessity, combined with a different ideological conception of socialist construction. Eastern Europe was bordered by a viciously predatory group of imperial lapdogs, while China was largely allowed more autonomy as long as it maintained an anti-Soviet policy. China was greatly damaged and destroyed during its anti-Japanese and civil wars, but did not suffer the kind of total social death that eastern europe did. These material circumstances produced the deviations in application and construction of socialism, but any value judgements on which was better, I'm not exactly prepared to make, and I don't think can be made, because there wasn't as much "choice" present here as many people think.
hashish_nasrallah posted:This approach is what produced the intense egalitarianism of the cultural revolution, which while admirable, I don't think would be long-term functional in states constantly under imperial assault.
so would you say that moving away from that played a role in the relative longevity of communism in china vs europe?
c_man posted:so would you say that moving away from that played a role in the relative longevity of communism in china vs europe?
I think that's not particularly the case here. Although late 80s eastern europe was definitely more egalitarian and economically redistributive than the modern PRC, the real roots of why China survived longer than the various people's democracies is because it managed to sustain growth much longer, mainly because it had a large amount of development potential. Though I suppose you could argue this development potential was only really grasped upon moving to the Deng Xiaoping model, its fairly cut and dry that poverty reduction and visible economic growth would keep a majority of Chinese people satisfied with the government. Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, many people didn't realize that the vaguely stagnant mild growth was a much better option than the de-industrialization and total destruction of social welfare etc that "democracy" brought. One of the great many 20th century tragedies.
hashish_nasrallah posted:This approach is what produced the intense egalitarianism of the cultural revolution, which while admirable, I don't think would be long-term functional in states constantly under imperial assault. Perhaps the various eastern european socialist countries could have attempted to liquidate the difference between manual and mental laborers, but the formation of a socialist intellectual class was objectively in the interests of working class power and the continued existence of socialism. A group of societies totally decimated by Nazi genocide and with the predatory sights of the whole capitalist world set upon them would have to quickly be able to create groups of people who could modernize the economy, reconstruct the nation, and put into practice a totally unfamiliar social system.
What the actual fuk lmao
hashish_nasrallah posted:Meanwhile, in the Chinese conception, people's democracy was meant to give way to socialism, and it was the goal of the communist party to liquidate the kind of differences that would necessitate separate structures for unionists, party officials, professionals, etc. This approach is what produced the intense egalitarianism of the cultural revolution, which while admirable, I don't think would be long-term functional in states constantly under imperial assault.
This is why the CR is so transformative and why Maoism can be categorized as a "new development" of Marxism-Leninism and why we have Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Most Maoist parties and organizations which persisted past Soviet collapse and Chinese revisionism had little interest in taking sides over the Sino-Soviet split or anything like that, but were very concerned with preserving and upholding the lessons of the CR.
And I think whether the CR was appropriate for the Eastern Bloc or even China is beside the point. The CR is the only historical example (that I know of) of a transition from socialism to communism. We must remember that the goal is full communism and nothing less - this is the conclusion of Marxism and the only way to truly resolve the social contradictions in industrial human society. So yes, its possible to argue the CR was inappropriate, or that attempts to induce cultural revolution in the USSR were ultraleft, but we cannot ignore the implications of the CR for when it is possible to start the transition to communism in earnest.
SparksBandung posted:Most Maoist parties and organizations which persisted past Soviet collapse and Chinese revisionism had little interest in taking sides over the Sino-Soviet split or anything like that
I don't understand what you're talking about here. every significant maoist party very clearly and resolutely sided with the prc and rigorously condemned soviet social imperialism and what they saw as the restoration of capitalism in the ussr. this was considered a defining point of unity for the maoist movement and continues to be held as a fundamental point of political line
this is about as fundamental to what constitutes mlm as upholding the gpcr is, not least because these are intrinsically related principles
blinkandwheeze posted:.custom316698{}
SparksBandung posted:
Most Maoist parties and organizations which persisted past Soviet collapse and Chinese revisionism had little interest in taking sides over the Sino-Soviet split or anything like that
I don't understand what you're talking about here. every significant maoist party very clearly and resolutely sided with the prc and rigorously condemned soviet social imperialism and what they saw as the restoration of capitalism in the ussr. this was considered a defining point of unity for the maoist movement and continues to be held as a fundamental point of political line
this is about as fundamental to what constitutes mlm as upholding the gpcr is, not least because these are intrinsically related principles
Ok yes, that's correct. There was a contradiction which manifested as Chinese communism versus Soviet revisionism but the fundamental element of that line was not about supporting Chinese foreign policy or whatever (which we've established was atrocious even during some anti-revisionist highs) but upholding the potential manifest in the Chinese experience. So maybe from 1949-1975 being a "maoist" was just being pro-China but it developed beyond that significantly