The classes said to share power in this ‘new-democratic’ joint dictatorship include the national bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and even that section of the landlord class which is willing to participate in the new democratic state (i. e., that section which Mao calls ‘the enlightened gentry’):

“Places in the organs of political power should be allocated as follows: one-third to . . . the proletariat and the poor peasantry; one third to . . . the petty-bourgeoisie, and the remaining one-third to . . the middle bourgeoisie and the enlightened gentry”.

(Mao Tse-tung: ‘Current Problems of Tactics in the Anti-Japanese United Front’ (March 1940), in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 2; Peking’ 1865; p. 427).

Right away we see this sharing of power. Is it temporary? Is there a good explanation for it?

Far from suppressing the Chinese bourgeoisie, the ‘new-democratic republic’ will permit its political parties to exist over a long period of time:

“Why should the bourgeois and petty bourgeois democratic parties be allowed to exist . . . over a long period of time? . . . Because it is . . the policy of the Communist Party”.

(Mao Tse-tung: ibid,.; p. 413).

and will permit the Chinese bourgeoisie freely to express its ideology:

“It is inevitable that the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie will give expression to their own ideologies. It is inevitable that they will stubbornly assert themselves on political and ideological questions by every possible means. You cannot expect them, to do otherwise. We should not use the method of suppression and prevent them from expressing themselves, but should allow them to do so.”

(Mao Tse-tung: ibid.; p. 411).

Why are we allowing reactionaries to spread bourgeois ideas around? Doesn’t this undermine the revolution?

The completion in 1956 of this programme of formation of joint-state private enterprises was later portrayed by the Chinese revisionists as ‘the completion of the socialist revolution’:

“The socialist revolution in the ownership of the means of production was fundamentally completed in 1956”.

(Chou En-lai: Report on the Work of the Government (December 1964), in: ‘Main Documents of the First Session of the Third National Congress of the People’s Republic of China’; Peking; 1965; p. 26).

We hear about joint-state private enterprises in contemporary China so it’s interesting to see it develop here first.

while the new-democratic state (previously defined as the state of ‘a class alliance which included the national bourgeoisie’) was now portrayed as a state of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’, as ‘socialist state power’:

“The dictatorship of the proletariat in our country rests on firm foundations and our socialist state power is unshakeable”.

(Chou En-lai: op. cit.; p. 28).

But behind this false facade of ‘socialism’, as Mao himself admits, the reality was that the Chinese national bourgeoisie continued to exploit the working class:

“In joint state-private industrial and commercial enterprises, capitalists still get a fixed rate of interest on their capital, that is to say, exploitation still exists”.

(Mao Tse-tung: op. cit.; p. 394).

So according to Mao, the proletariat is in firm control and yet they’re still being exploited by capitalists. Fascinating.

So, if we judge Maoism on the basis of facts and not on that of mere prejudice and wishful thinking, it is clear that Maoism is a brand of revisionism designed to serve the national capitalists of colonial-type countries by checking the revolutionary process at the stage of national-democratic revolution and preventing it from going forward to the stage of socialist revolution.

Moving on:

Our second source is Enver Hoxha: “Mao Tse-Tung Thought” – An Anti-Marxist Theory

…our Party began to look more deeply into the causes of the vacillations which had been observed in the stand of the Chinese leadership towards Khrushchevite revisionism, such as the instance in 1962, when it sought reconciliation and unity with the Soviet revisionists, allegedly in the name of a common front against American imperialism, or in 1964, when, continuing the efforts for reconciliation with the Soviets, Chou En-lai went to Moscow to hail the coming to power of the Brezhnev group. These vacillations were not accidental. They reflected the lack of revolutionary principles and consistency. When Nixon was invited to China, and the Chinese leadership, with Mao Tse-tung at the head, proclaimed the policy of rapprochement and unity with American imperialism, it became clear that the Chinese line and policy were in total opposition to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Following this, China’s chauvinist and hegemonic ambitions began to become clearer. The Chinese leadership started to oppose the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the peoples, the world proletariat, and the genuine Marxist-Leninist movement more openly. It proclaimed the so-called theory of the “three worlds”, which it was trying to impose on the entire Marxist-Leninist movement as its general line.

Mentioned here is the Nixon visit, when Mao was trying to cozy up with U.S. imperialism. Probably not the best course of action if you’re trying to show your support for liberation movements around the world.

The party is not an arena of classes and the struggle between antagonistic classes, it is not a gathering of people with contradictory aims. The genuine Marxist-Leninist party is the party of the working class only and bases itself on the interests of this class. This is the decisive factor for the triumph of the revolution and the construction of socialism. Defending the Leninist principles on the party, which do not permit the existence of many lines, of opposing trends in the communist party, J. V. Stalin emphasized:

” … the communist party is the monolithic party of the proletariat, and not a party of a bloc of elements of different classes.”

Mao Tse-tung, however, conceives the party as a union of classes with contradictory interests, as an organization in which two forces, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the “proletarian staff” and the ,”bourgeois staff”, which must have their representatives from the grassroots to the highest leading organs of the party, confront and struggle against each other. Thus, in 1956, he sought the election of the leaders of right and left factions to the Central Committee, presenting to this end, arguments as naive as they were ridiculous.

This gets back to the liberal idea of “free speech.” As if all views should be given equal weight and pondered over even if they are clearly destructive in nature. Not everything needs to be balanced.

…under the name of the “General Directory”, Mao had set up around himself a special apparatus which kept the Political Bureau, the Central Committee of the Party, the cadres of the state, the army, the security service, etc., under surveillance and control. Entry to this Directory and knowledge of its work was forbidden to all, including the members of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau. Here plans for the bringing down or elevation of this or that factionalist group were worked out. The men of this Directory were present everywhere, they eaves-dropped, watched, and reported independently, outside the control of the party. Apart from them, this Directory had at its disposal entire armed detachments, hidden under the name of the “Guard of Chairman Mao”.

This praetorian guard more than 50,000 strong went into action whenever the chairman wanted “to act with one blow”, as has frequently occurred in the history of the Communist Party of China and as occurred recently with the arrest of “The Four” and their supporters by Hua Kuo-feng. Under the pretext of maintaining contacts with the masses, Mao Tse-tung had also created a special network of informers among the population who were charged with the task of keeping the cadres of the base under surveillance and investigating the conditions and state of mind of the masses, without anybody’s knowledge. They reported directly to Mao Tse-tung alone, who had severed all means of communication with the masses and saw the world only through the reports of his agents of the “General Directory”.

Mao wants competing thoughts to flourish in the state and yet he creates an environment that puts his own thoughts above the rest. How is the proletariat in control here?

The party committees, the leading cadres and the Central Committee itself received orders from the “General Directory”, this “special staff”, which was responsible to Mao Tse-tung alone. The party forums, its elected organs, had no authority whatsoever. The article of “Renmin Ribao” says,

“no telegram, no letter, no document, no order could be issued by anybody without first going through Mao Tse-tung’s hands and being approved by him.”

It turns out that as early as 1953, Mao Tse-tung had issued a clear-cut order:

“From now on, all documents and telegrams sent out in the name of the Central Committee can be dispatched only after I have gone over them, otherwise they are invalid.”

Under these conditions there can be no talk of collective leadership, democracy within the party, or Leninist norms.

Mao Tse-tung’s unlimited power was so far-reaching that he even appointed his heirs. At one time he had appointed Liu Shao-chi as his successor. Later he declared that his heir to the state and the party after his death would be Lin Piao. This, a thing unprecedented in the practice of Marxist-Leninist parties, was even sanctioned in the Constitution of the party. Again it was Mao Tse-tung who designated Hua Kuo-feng to be chairman of the party after his death. Having power in his hands, Mao alone criticized, judged, punished and later rehabilitated top leaders of the party and state.

One person should not have that much control in a socialist state.

“Which is better in the final analysis,” Mao Tsetung asked, “to have just one party or several?” And he answered, “As we see it now, it’s perhaps better to have several parties. This has been true in the past and may well be so for the future; it means long-term coexistence and mutual supervision.”

Mao regarded the participation of bourgeois parties in the state power and the governing of the country with the same rights and prerogatives as the Communist Party of China as necessary. And not only this, but these parties of the bourgeoisie, which according to him “were historical”, should wither away only when the Communist Party of China also withers away, that is, they will coexist right up till communism.

Capitalist parties don’t need to “supervise” anything, let alone exist in a socialist state that’s trying to achieve communism.

As emerges from his writings, Mao Tse-tung did not base himself on the Marxist-Leninist theory in analysing the problems and defining the tasks of the Chinese revolution. In his speech delivered at the enlarged working conference called by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in January 1962, he himself admits:

“Our many years of revolutionary work have been carried out blindly, not knowing how the revolution should be, carried out, and against whom the spearhead of the revolution should be directed, without a concept of its stages, whom it had to overthrow first and whom later, etc.”

This has made the Communist Party of China incapable of ensuring the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution and transforming it into a socialist revolution.

Confusion about who the enemy is is a pretty good indication that Mao didn't understand Marxism-Leninism very well. Hey, I don’t either, but I’d probably spend more time figuring it out before leading millions of people through decades of war. Just saying.

In March 1949, at the plenum of Central Committee of the Party, at which Mao Tse-tung submitted the program for China’s development after liberation, he says:

“During this period all the elements of capitalism, of town and countryside, must be permitted to exist.”

These views and “theories” brought about that the Communist Party of China and Mao Tse-tung did not fight for the transformation of the revolution in China into a socialist revolution but left a free field for the development of the bourgeoisie and capitalist social relations.

No limits, no curbs? Why not progression?

“Just as everyone should share what food there is,” he writes, “so there should be no monopoly of power by a single party, group or class.” (Mao)

This idea has also been reflected in the national flag of the People’s Republic of China, with four stars which represent four classes: the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

I actually never knew what the stars represented so this was a shock to me.

Mao Tse-tung has presented his opportunist stand towards the bourgeoisie as a creative implementation of the teachings of Lenin on the New Economic Policy (NEP). But there is a radical difference between the teachings of Lenin and the concept of Mao Tse-tung on allowing unrestricted capitalist production and maintaining bourgeois relations in socialism. Lenin admits that the NEP was a step back which allowed the development of elements of capitalism for a certain time, but he stressed:

“… there is nothing dangerous to the Proletarian state in this so long as the proletariat keeps political power firmly in its hands, so long as it keeps transport and big industry firmly in its hands”. (Lenin)

In fact, neither in 1949 nor in 1956, when Mao Tse-tung advocated these things, did the proletariat in China, have political power or big industry in its own hands.

Moreover, Lenin considered the NEP as a temporary measure which was imposed by the concrete conditions of Russia of that time, devastated by the long civil war, and not as a universal law of socialist construction. And the fact is that one year after the proclamation of the NEP Lenin stressed that the retreat was over, and launched the slogan to prepare for the offensive against private capital in the economy. Whereas in China, the period of the preservation of capitalist production was envisaged to last almost eternally. According to Mao Tse-tung’s view, the order established after liberation in China had to be a bourgeois-democratic order, while the Communist Party of China had to appear to be in power. Such is “Mao Tse-tung thought”.

The transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution can be realized only when the proletariat resolutely removes the bourgeoisie from power and expropriates it.

As long as the working class in China shared power with the bourgeoisie, as long as the bourgeoisie preserved its privileges, the state power that was established in China, could not be the state power of the proletariat, and consequently, the Chinese revolution could not grow into a socialist revolution.

Mao envisions a peaceful long term co-existence with the bourgeoisie, which as we all know is a fantasy. When given enough space, the bourgeoisie has the ability to reverse progress and even overthrow the revolution. History shows us this.

Acting in practice according to these views of conciliation with the enemies, the state administration in China was left in the hands of the old officials. Chiang Kai-shek’s generals even became ministers. Indeed, even Pu Yi, the emperor of Manchu-kuo, the puppet emperor of the Japanese occupiers, was protected very carefully and turned into a museum piece so that delegations could go to meet and talk with him and see how such people were re-educated in “socialist” China. Besides other things, the aim of the publicity given to this former puppet emperor was to dispel even the fears of kings, chieftains, and puppets of reaction in other countries, so that they would think that Mao’s “socialism” is fine and have no reason to fear it.

Stands which do not smack of class struggle have been adopted in China also towards those feudal lords and capitalists, who have committed innumerable crimes against the Chinese people. Elevating such stands to theory and openly taking counterrevolutionaries under his protection, Mao Tse-tung stated:

“… we should kill none and arrest very few… They are not to be arrested by the public security bureaus, prosecuted by the procuratorial organs or tried by the law courts. Well over ninety out of every hundred of these counterrevolutionaries should be dealt with in this way.” (Mao)

How can Mao expect to guide the working class with revolutionary theory if he keeps this kind of company around?

As a result of these anti-Marxist. concepts about contradictions, about classes, and their role in revolution that “Mao Tse-tung thought” advocates, China never proceeded on the correct road of socialist construction. It is not just the economic, political, ideological and social remnants of the past that have survived and continue to exist in Chinese society, but the exploiting classes continue to exist there as classes, and still remain in power. Not only does the bourgeoisie still exist, but it also continues to gain income from the property it has had.

Capitalist rent has not been abolished by law in China, because the Chinese leadership has adhered to the strategy of the bourgeois-democratic revolution formulated in 1935 by Mao Tse-tung, who said at that time:

“The labour laws of the people’s republic… will not prevent the national bourgeoisie from making profits … ” (Mao)

In conformity with the Policy of the “equal right to land,” the kulak stratum, in the forms which have existed in China, has retained great advantages and profits. Mao Tse-tung himself gave orders that the kulaks must not be touched, because this might anger the national bourgeoisie with which the Communist Party of China had formed a common united front, politically, economically and organizationally.

It sounds like someone wasn’t willing to finish the job. Maybe he met some friendly landlords that gave him a hug.

Mao’s statement at the Moscow Meeting of the communist and workers’ parties in 1957, when he said,

“in Stalin’s presence I felt like the pupil before his teacher, whereas now that we meet Khrushchev, we are like comrades, we are at ease,”

is not fortuitous. With this he publicly hailed and approved Khrushchev’s slanders against Stalin and defended the Khrushchevite line.

Finally, somebody he can relate to, Khrushchev!

…Keng Piao, the person in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, who makes the decisions on relations with the international communist movement. He has said,

“China does not approve the creation of Marxist-Leninist parties and does not want the representatives of these parties to come to China. Their coming is a nuisance to us but,” he stressed, “we can do nothing about them, for we cannot send them away. We accept them just as we accept the representatives of bourgeois parties”. (From Keng Piao’s conversation with comrades from our Party in Peking, April 16, 1973)

If this was the party attitude at the time then no wonder it shifted so far right in the following decades.

At first, Mao Tse-tung said that Tito was not wrong, but it was Stalin who had been wrong about Tito. Then the same Mao Tse-tung ranks Tito with Hitler and Chiang Kai-shek and says that

“such people… as Tito, Hitler, Chiang Kaishek and the Czar cannot be corrected, they should be killed”.

However, he changed his stand again and expressed his great desire to meet Tito.

Flip a coin I guess?

…Mao Tse-tung was not a Marxist-Leninist, but a progressive revolutionary democrat…

Maybe so.


I want to close by saying that even with revisionist tendencies Mao Tse-tung and his party brought about amazing improvements to the peasantry and working class of China. He succeeded in reducing poverty, expanding healthcare, increasing educational opportunities, driving industrialization, feeding the people through collectivization and promoting feminism. His theories were flawed and he made a lot of mistakes that ultimately lead to a right-wing resurgence but overall I have respect for his legacy and the work of the CCP.

Finally, if something I quoted is wrong or exaggerated feel free to correct the record. I’d rather have the facts and evidence than bad information.