“[Maoism] was proclaimed as the highest stage of Marxism-Leninism in the present era. The Chinese leaders have declared that ‘Mao Tsetung has achieved more than Marx, Engels, and Lenin…’ The Constitution of the Communist Party of China, approved at its 9th Congress, which was held under Mao Tsetung’s leadership, says that ‘Mao Tsetung thought is the Marxism-Leninism of the era … ‘, that Mao Tse-tung “….has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism and has raised it to a new, higher stage”. Basing the activity of the party on [Maoism] instead of on the principles and norms of Marxism-Leninism opened the doors even more widely to opportunism and factional struggle within the ranks of the Communist Party of China. [Maoism] is an amalgam of views in which ideas and theses borrowed from Marxism are mixed up with idealist, pragmatic and revisionist principles from other philosophies.” -Enver Hoxha (Imperialism and Revolution).

Maoists assert their status as “anti-revisionists” but in actuality Maoism negates Marxism as an inherently ultra-leftist, opportunistic ideology. Furthermore, Mao Tse-Tung was not a true Marxist, but merely a radical and revolutionary progressive democrat who never established a dictatorship of the proletariat let alone socialism, and even despite the advances he had made for China remained an opportunist. Mao and Maoism can be summed up as radishes: red on the outside, white on the inside. In this post we shall examine the revisionist nature of Mao and his thoughts, and their relations to Marxism-Leninism. We shall start off examining Maoist theory.

Cultural Revolution: Mao proclaimed that capitalist ideology, liberalism, and other bourgeois cultures are not fully removed from society through socialist revolution and that class struggle against these detrimental features of capitalism are continued in one form or another throughout the socialist stage of development. Maoism states the method for dealing with bourgeois culture is through “cultural revolution,” in which the “masses” are mobilized to spread communist ideology in order to reduce capitalistic or feudalistic culture. However, the cultural revolution turned out to be an ultra-left disaster for Mao. Beginning in 1965 it was more of a tribute to the cult of Mao than to spreading communism. All of Mao’s words and teachings were expected to be understood and followed without question, and as a result production and economic activity declined, workers too busy engaging in appraisal of Mao Tse-Tung thought. Because class consciousness was not reached, the masses, many of whom were mere uneducated youth, frequently became excessively violent, opportunistic, and acted more in favor of adventurism than communism. Mao essentially let Party control loose itself to the hands of the cultural revolution, and even began to remove Party officials in opposition to the revolution such as Liu Shaoqi, who was originally to be named as Mao’s successor.

The cultural revolution underwent three primary stages. The first stage was the “anti-intelligence” stage in which the youth spread to combat the intelligentsia. In order to remove what was inherently perceived as “bourgeois education,” lessons in school were stopped to large extents and the focus of all daily activity shifted to the cultural revolution and praising Mao’s brilliance. It was then in the second phase of the cultural revolution in which Mao claimed that the bourgeoisie was within the Party itself and that the Party’s administration must be overthrown. As a result, terror and violence broke out on large scales, without any control from the Party because quite simply, the Party was ruined through Mao’s actions. Mao also failed to realize that he himself let the bourgeoisie exist within the Party, choosing to allow revisionists and “capitalist roaders” such Xiaoping to remain in power, and to allow the bourgeoisie to control communes as managers, allowing the bourgeoisie to receive 25% of profits from workers. Four out of seventeen members of the Politburo, including Mao, survived the cultural revolution. These members were seen as enemies of the people for their opposition. Next, in the third stage of the cultural revolution Mao finally realized the nature of the beast. He began to divide the masses into smaller groups and send them to the countrysides, shifting the power into the peasantry. This then allowed for the peasantry to become a more dominant force in numerous aspects of China’s infrastructure, including agriculture and science, and the peasantry even began to control the labor of the youth groups that had once been active in the cultural revolution. Mao also is noted for utilizing the military in 1967 to further gain control of the situation, as he often did when feeling threatened. Even with the obvious failures of the cultural revolution, Mao still stubbornly promoted it and it was not until 1976, Mao’s death, when the cultural revolution truly ended. Mao claimed to officially have ended the cultural revolution in 1969 but in reality it was extended much longer. Then after Mao’s death, the Gang of Four were perceived as counter-revolutionaries and were removed from power and jailed by Guofeng and Xiaoping, who were ironically enough spared and chosen as successors by Mao himself. Capitalism then began to restore itself in China, and whatever socialistic bases Mao had developed began to crumble. We see therefore that the cultural revolution was never an instrument of achieving socialism, or the dictatorship of the proletariat, but of reducing every member of society to brainlessly obeying Mao Tse-Tung thought. The cultural revolution exposed the revisionism of Mao, and his total lack of understanding of Marxism; at no point where the teachings of Marx or Lenin followed or spread during the cultural revolution. It remained not a revolution, but a liquidation of Marxism.

In Imperialism and Revolution by Enver Hoxha, Hoxha states that the very name of “cultural revolution” was inaccurate. “In our Party’s opinion, this name was not accurate, since, in fact, the movement that had burst out in China was a political, not a cultural movement. But the main thing was the fact that neither the party nor the proletariat were in the leadership of this ‘reat proletarian revolution’. This grave situation stemmed from Mao Tse-Tung’s old anti-Marxist concepts of underestimation of the leading role of the proletariat and overestimation of the youth in the revolution. Mao wrote: “What role did the Chinese young people begin to play since the ‘May 4th Movement’? In a way they began to play a vanguard role – a fact recognized by everybody in our country except the ultra-reactionaries. What is a vanguard role? It means taking the lead… Thus the working class was left on the sidelines, and there were many instances when it opposed the red guards and even fought them. Our comrades, who were in China at that time, have seen with their own eyes factory workers fighting the youth. The party was disintegrated. It was liquidated, and the communists and the proletariat were totally disregarded. This was a very grave situation.”

Of course in reference to Hoxha, Maoists like to whine that Hoxha himself supported the cultural revolution and saw Mao as a great Marxist-Leninist. In those regards Hoxha clearly responds: “Our Party defended the fraternal Chinese people, the cause of the revolution and socialism in China, and not the factional strife of anti-Marxist groups, which were clashing and fighting with one another, even with guns, in order to seize power.

Of course, this Cultural Revolution was a hoax. It liquidated both the Communist Party of China, and the mass organizations and plunged China into new chaos. This revolution was led by non-Marxist elements, who have been liquidated through a military putsch staged by other anti-Marxist and fascist elements.”

Hoxha then states: “In our press Mao Tsetung has been described as a great Marxist-Leninist, but we never used and never approved the definitions of the Chinese propaganda which described Mao as a classic of Marxism-Leninism, and “Mao Tsetung thought” as its third and higher stage. Our Party has considered the inflation of the cult of Mao Tsetung in China to be incompatible with Marxism-Leninism.”

When Hoxha himself carried out a cultural-revolution it occurred in a much different, and much more successful manner than the Chinese revolution as well. Finally, in regards to the notion of class struggle continuing to exist in socialism, it was never Mao who developed this idea, and Maoists continually like to give credit where it is wrongly due. It was Stalin who originally theorized this, in his theory of aggravation of class struggle under socialism. But Stalin recognized the ultra-leftism of Mao’s cultural revolution and the immaturity and anti-Marxist stances taken from Maoism as well.

New Democracy: Maoism states that socialism can only be built through collaboration of all classes and parties via new democracy; a new democratic regime with such wrongful misconceptions based on “coexistence” and non-Marxist teaching. New democracy undermines the vanguard Marxist-Leninist party, undermines the proletarian dictatorship, and allows the bourgeoisie to remain in power. Dictatorship of the proletariat let alone socialism can never exist without strong leadership from the vanguard party; such political pluralism of Maoism is therefore detrimental to socialism, and once again an inherently ultra-leftist conception. Alliance with the bourgeoisie is alliance with anti-Marxism, and this alliance does nothing to strengthen socialism. New democracy and Maoism inevitably conclude that bourgeois ideology exists eternally and therefore should be given the possibility to “blossom like a hundred flowers.” And of course as it turns out, Mao’s attempts of new democracy never caused beautiful flowers to grow, but merely to “enable the bourgeois wasps to circulate freely and release their venom (Hoxha).” In fact, Mao’s allowance of bourgeois into the CCP was one of the very reasons for the cultural revolution. Combining the cultural revolution and new democracy we see cycles in Maoism. First there is a period of “great harmony” then great disorder, then the cycle repeats, given the incorrect and revisionist nature of Maoism. Maoism’s theories of revolution (e.g. new democratic stages of development) therefore boil down to metaphysics rather than dialectical materialism of Marxism. Mao treats the revolutionary process as an endless process, and as a result it’s no wonder there are the occasional quasi-Trotskyist Maoists that are able to demonstrate just how perverse Maoism is capable of being. Maoism does not realize the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead Maoism attempts to form itself on the basis of petty-bourgeois ideology; “class collaboration” in what can only be described as a “hybrid state.” Some Maoists will claim that Marx himself was petty-bourgeois and became a “class traitor,” and then became a revolutionary, which they use as “proof” that there can be collaboration with the petty-bourgeois. However, Marxist-Leninists don’t necessarily claim that members of the petty-bourgeois can’t accept Marxism, we merely reject the notion of collaboration; dictatorship of the proletariat, not dictatorship of the petty-bourgeois. Marxism-Leninism seeks a well disciplined and educated vanguard party to educate and lead the people, but attempting to give the petty-bourgeois this position is merely liberalism. Stalin noted that the Communist Party is the most advanced detachment of the proletariat, and so denying the Party their true influence results in failure. New democracy also gave a high amount of power to the peasantry, which is grounded in opposition to Marxism, which states that only through a strong leadership of the proletariat can the peasantry gain proper education. The peasantry are utilized as an ally of the proletariat when necessary, but to rely almost solely as them as Maoism does is nonsense. New Democracy turned out to be nothing more than a state-capitalist nightmare.

Three Worlds Theory: According to Mao, the USA and the post-Stalin Soviet Union represented the first world, imperialist states. The second world represented other, lesser imperialist states in their spheres of influence and the third world represented all non-imperialist countries. The first and second world exploit the third world through imperialism, and as a result the working class of the first and second world are “bought out” by the bourgeoisie and raised by imperialism, and thus according to Maoist Third Worldists, socialist revolution can not occur in the first and second world countries; there is no proletariat in the first and second worlds. The entire conception of the three worlds theory was merely justification for Mao’s attempt to gain control over the third world countries surrounding China. Some Maoist Third Worldists even extended this further and claim that there can be no White proletariat, which merely leads to ultra-leftism and radically false perceptions of class struggle. The Maoist Third Worldists assert that those of the third world countries are more strongly likely to make revolutions, and as a result “choke” imperialism. It is true that revolution in third world countries does in fact weaken imperialism, as actually noted by Stalin and Lenin, but the belief that only the third world countries are capable of revolution, that the proletariat is merely a second-rate force, and especially the belief that there is no white proletarian force is absurd. The three worlds theory is merely a counter-revolutionary and chauvinist theory that divides class struggle and is anti-Marxist. Marx stated that the only true division of capitalist society is the exploiting and exploited; the three worlds theory ignores the Marxist analysis of exploitation and claims that simply because a first world worker benefits from imperialism he is not a proletariat, even despite his relation to the means of production, and despite the fact that he himself is also a wage-slave. The very claim that there are “three worlds” is inherently racist and based on metaphysics; capitalistic reactionary belief. Mao’s three world theory ultimately claims that class struggle does not exist in any country, or simply it is blind to class struggle because it judges countries and even people in relation to bourgeois political concepts and economic development.

“To divide the world in three means failure to recognize the characteristics of the epoch, to impede the advance of the proletariat and the peoples towards the revolution and national liberation, to impede their struggle against American imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, capital and reaction in every country and in every corner of the world. The theory of ‘three worlds’ advocates social peace, class conciliation, and tries to create alliances between implacable enemies, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the oppressed and the oppressors, the peoples and imperialism. It is an attempt to prolong the life of the old world, the capitalist world, to keep it on its feet precisely by seeking to extinguish the class struggle. But the class struggle, the struggle of the proletariat and its allies to take power and the struggle of the bourgeoisie to maintain its power can never be extinguished. This is an irrefutable truth and no amount of empty theorizing about the “worlds”, whether the “first world”, the “non aligned world”, the third world, the nonaligned world, or the umpteenth world, can alter this fact. To accept such a division, means to renounce and abandon the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on classes and the class struggle” (Enver Hoxha, Imperialism and Revolution).

People’s War: Maoism states that in order to achieve a successful revolution, the vanguard must be aware of the needs of the masses, and their needs must be factored into how the revolution takes place. By meeting the needs of the people, the revolution therefore becomes a revolution by, and for the people. According to Mao, people’s war, often as guerrilla warfare, undergoes three stages. In the first stage, the revolutionary forces begin mobilizing in remote areas in order to establish its base. Once the movement is able to gain more momentum, it continues to establish other bases throughout the area, its influence is spread throughout the countrysides, gaining support through reforms and revolutionary activity. The third stage is then to capture small cities, then larger cities, then finally take on the entire country and the bourgeoisie, all meanwhile backed with extremely high “approval ratings” by the masses.

Historically, and even in more modern situations, people’s war has relied extensively on the peasantry, however. The proletariat is the only force capable of fully leading the revolution; the peasantry is merely a valuable ally. Hoxha criticized Mao’s conception of a peoples war for having the revolution occur in the countrysides first and then the peasants capturing the cities, for he saw this process as cementing power for the peasantry and not the proletariat. The Marxist-Leninist approach of revolution therefore is an uprising that occurs simultaneously with the cities and countrysides, which worked out well in Russia and Albania. Therefore Mao’s protracted people’s war would become a longer process than necessary, and would reject essential components of revolution. Hoxha furthermore stressed that the people themselves train in using weapons in order to defend the country, and therefore military ranks were abolished, arms were distributed, and so forth. Ultimately, people’s war as a tactic for revolution is not supported by Marxist-Leninists (those who reject Maoism, anyway) but only as a method of self-defense (as utilized by Hoxha).

“In accord with the concrete conditions of a country and the situations in general, the armed uprising may be a sudden outburst or a more protracted revolutionary process, but not, an endless one without perspective, as advocated by Mao Tsetung’s ,”theory of protracted people’s war”. If you , compare the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the revolutionary armed insurrection with Mao’s theory on -people’s war-, the anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist, anti-scientific character of this theory becomes clearly apparent. The Marxist-Leninist teachings on the armed insurrection are based on the close combination of the struggle in the city with that in the countryside under the leadership of the working class and its revolutionary party. Being opposed to the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution, the Maoist theory considers the countryside as the only base of the armed insurrection and neglects the armed struggle of the working masses in the town. It preaches that the countryside must keep the city, which is considered as the stronghold of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, besieged. This is an expression of distrust in the working class, the negation of its hegemonic role. While adhering unwaveringly to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism on the violent revolution as a universal law, the revolutionary party of the working class is resolutely opposed to adventurism and never plays with armed insurrection. In all conditions and circumstances, it carries out an unceasing revolutionary struggle and activity in various forms, in order to prepare itself and the masses for the decisive battles in the revolution, for the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie with revolutionary violence. But only when the revolutionary situation has fully matured does it put armed insurrection directly on the order of the day and take all the political, ideological, organizational and military measures to carry it through to victory” (Enver Hoxha, Imperialism and Revolution).

Mass Line: The mass line makes analysis of what the people need, what is on their minds, and so forth, and then takes those needs and gives a Marxist approach in order to help the masses understand their class interests. The mass line theory is indeed Marxist, but the problem is that Maoists seem to attribute the theory in it’s entirety to Mao. All Marxists have supported the same ideas, and the very idea of going to the masses can be attributed as early on as Marx himself.

And so where do Maoists currently stand today? One such example of Maoism’s degenerate properties manifest themselves in the RCP, an ultra-leftist organization led by Bob Avakian. Avakian makes numerous errors in his analysis of communism, as well as history, claiming Stalin committed “grievous errors,” mostly in reference to suppression of reactionaries and even to some petty criticisms of socialism in one country. Avakian attributes the theory of socialism in one country completely to Stalin, but this is not the case. Where Stalin was the spearhead in the theory’s development, it originally can be traced back to Vollmar’s theoretical work written in the late 1870s. Avakian then further makes errors, inherently claiming that socialism in one country literally means socialism shall only remain in one country, which is certainly not the case. And in regards to the Third Worldists, only a small portion of groups take the theory to heart including hypocrites such as MSH and MIM, the latter of which nobody takes seriously anyway, having no official Party line. The occasional degenerate Trotskyist is able to find acceptance of some Maoist tendencies as well. And of course when mentioning Maoism one simply has to mention the Nepali Maoist revolutionary activity that has been taking place for years. At this point, revisionism is increasingly rampant within their movement and Dengist stances have now been taken and are more prevalent. Overall, the need for Marxist-Leninists to alliance themselves with Maoists varies dependent on the Maoist. Maoists may praise Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and perhaps even Hoxha, but only the hardliner Maoists have any real worth to themselves.

Marxist-Leninist Analysis of Mao.
Mao’s Library.
Imperialism and Revolution by Enver Hoxha.
Enver Hoxha Collected Works.
Refuting Maoism Third Worldism.
The Variants of Revisionism.

Scott Harrison

We hope that this article will be the first in a series of articles and reader commentaries on the mass line and related concepts on FRS.  As the article explains, the concept of the mass line is talked about often, but is often misunderstood and misapplied with bad results. This article  is adapted from a letter written by the author to a fellow revolutionary in December 2009.

One of the biggest problems in talking about the mass line is that there are many different conceptions already out there of what it is all about. Strangely enough, however, both within the Maoist movement and outside of it (including within Sinologist circles) this multitude of different conceptions of what the mass line is very seldom recognized or taken seriously. Everybody seems to jump to the conclusion that their own initial notion of it is the correct notion and the notion that everyone else shares (or at least should share).

If someone were setting out to write a historical treatise on how the term has been used over the past 75 years, including in different countries, then all these various conceptions would have to be mentioned. And I suppose in that case there would be no right or correct view about what the mass line is, and no wrong or incorrect views. (This is the lexical semantics approach that modern dictionary makers use.)

But it has seemed to me that as Maoists we ourselves have the obligation to put forward Mao’s conception of what the mass line is all about. That is, we have the obligation to champion one particular conception of the mass line, and specifically the conception that Mao put forward.

That means we have to start with and maintain a focus on Mao’s writings. And given that even in China there were very different conceptions of the mass line (such as those by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping—which I discuss in Chapter 37 of my mass line book), we have to be very careful even with writings about the mass line by other CCP members and even with official documents of the CCP in cases where Mao did not write those documents. In particular, we have to be very careful with CCP Congress documents which talk about the mass line since these were often written by Liu or Deng and often reflect their views more than they do Mao’s.

Even the CCP didn’t fully grasp or completely implement the notion of the mass line that Mao put forth. The proof of that is that Mao had to constantly talk about the mass line, and continually clarify and refine it over the years to combat a large number of misconceptions, both populist-rightist and anti-democratic “left” misconceptions.

The problem though in learning what Mao’s own conception of the mass line is, is that he himself never wrote a complete and final treatise on the subject. He first broached the topic in a major way in his 1943 essay “Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership”. In that essay he does bring out the core concept of the mass line in the name he himself was using for it at the time: the leadership method of “from the masses, to the masses”.

But there are many important aspects of the mass line method that Mao did not discuss in that essay. For example, he did not make it clear there that this is not simply repeating to the masses what we hear from the masses in a populist fashion. Later on, in many separate places, he clarified this with his apt analogy of the party as a factory processing the ideas of the masses and turning out a finished product. In doing so he brought out the role of Marxism-Leninism in doing this processing (sifting, winnowing and synthesizing), as well as the role of scientific investigation of the objective situation in doing so.

So the painful fact is that one cannot learn Mao’s full conception of the mass line by reading any one of his essays, or even by reading section XI on the Mass Line of the Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (which is the source of the initial conception for most Maoists). The full Maoist conception of the mass line can only be taken directly from him through a systematic study of his writings. However, I have tried to sum that all up in my mass line book. The first initial summation occurs in Chapter 3, “A Quick Overview of the Mass Line”. But all the points are further discussed and elaborated in later chapters.

The Importance of Contrasting Mao’s Conception of the Mass Line with Other Conceptions

I’ve found that you can’t simply summarize Mao’s conception of the mass line and expect most people to then completely understand it.  Most of the time they interpret Mao’s writings on the topic (or any short summation of them) in light of their own initial notion of what the mass line is all about.

According to Marxist epistemology, this is how everybody proceeds almost all the time. We try to understand new things in light of what we already know. Everyone tries to interpret new ideas and concepts largely in terms of what they already know or believe. In most cases the new must be compatible with the old, must mesh with it. And it is always a struggle to fully accept and adopt new ideas which involve the abandonment of some old ideas. It has taken me decades to understand just how difficult this process is for people when it comes to understanding and adopting Mao’s conception of the mass line which generally conflicts with their initial biases.

Thus it is critically important in propagating Mao’s conception of the mass line to contrast it with the most common misconceptions that people have. The first of these is bourgeois populism. The opposite misconception is what I call the sectarian-dogmatist interpretation of the mass line, although it could also be called a “left”-idealist interpretation. (It is sectarian in that it cuts these groups off from the masses and their struggles and turns them into an isolated sect. It is dogmatic in that it supposes that the group already has all the answers about the road forward and has nothing to learn from the masses about this. It is idealist in that it supposes that leadership only means putting forward ideas and that people can learn directly from those ideas and don’t need any experience in struggle to go along with it.)

I explore these two major ways of going wrong, and contrast them with Mao’s conception of the mass line, in Chapter 4 of my book. However, I’m not sure how successful that chapter is. It does seem to me that the chart, “Three Interpretations of the Mass Line”, at the end of that chapter is pretty straightforward though.

It is particularly important to contrast Mao’s conception of the mass line with that of the two groups named Freedom Road Socialist Organization in one direction, and with the RCP in the other direction. These days we also need to contrast Mao’s view of the mass line with the very different views that exist in India and Nepal.

The Tendency to Confuse the Mass Line with Having a Mass Perspective

One of the most common misconceptions of the mass line in this country, and around the world, is that it is the same thing as what I call having a mass perspective. Here is how I summarize the differences between the two on www.massline.info:

“The mass line is the primary method of revolutionary leadership of the masses, which is employed by the most conscious and best organized section of the masses, the proletarian party. It is a reiterative method, applied over and over again, which step by step advances the interests of the masses, and in particular their central interest within bourgeois society, namely, advancing towards proletarian revolution. Each iteration may be viewed as a three step process: 1) gathering the diverse ideas of the masses; 2) processing or concentrating these ideas from the perspective of revolutionary Marxism, in light of the long-term, ultimate interests of the masses (which the masses themselves may sometimes only dimly perceive), and in light of a scientific analysis of the objective situation; and 3) returning these concentrated ideas to the masses in the form of a political line which will actually advance the mass struggle toward revolution. Because the mass line starts with the diverse ideas of the masses, and returns the concentrated ideas to the masses, it is also known as the method of “from the masses, to the masses”. Though implicit in Marxism from the beginning, the mass line was raised to the level of conscious theory primarily by Mao Zedong.

“A mass perspective is a point of view regarding the masses which recognizes: 1) That the masses are the makers of history, and that revolution can only be made by the masses themselves; 2) That the masses must come to see through their own experience and struggle that revolution is necessary; and 3) That the proletarian party must join up with the masses in their existing struggles, bring revolutionary consciousness into these struggles, and lead them in a way which brings the masses ever closer to revolution.  A mass perspective is based on the fundamental Marxist notion that a revolution must be made by a revolutionary people, that a revolutionary people must develop from a non-revolutionary people, and that the people change from the one to the other through their own revolutionizing practice.

“The relation between the mass line and a mass perspective is simply that only those with a mass perspective will see much need or use for the mass line. It is possible to have some notion of the mass line method of leadership and yet fail to give it any real attention because of a weak mass perspective.

“On the other hand, it is also possible to have a mass perspective and still be more or less ignorant of the Marxist theory of the mass line.

“The mass line and a mass perspective are best viewed as intimately related, as integrated aspects of the Marxist approach toward the masses and revolution. I have found the most felicitous phrase for both aspects together is ‘the mass line and its associated mass perspective.’

The trouble with identifying the mass line with having a mass perspective is that it downplays or even totally forgets the mass line method of leadership, the ―‘from the masses, to the masses’ part. Thus there is a strong tendency for those who don’t actually involve themselves in trying to lead the masses in mass activity directed against the enemy, to play down the mass line as a method of leadership and to focus only on the necessity of having a mass perspective.

The conception of the mass line of the two Freedom Road Socialist Organizations is rightist, populist and conflates having a mass perspective with the use of the mass line. They don’t believe in much in the way of independent revolutionary education (i.e., independent of their mass leadership work), and instead have a conception of the mass line as a replacement for bringing revolutionary ideas to the masses. This means they are tailing the masses instead of leading the masses toward revolution; it is a classic revisionist approach.

All genuine Marxists recognize that it is the masses who are the makers of history. Mao added something more to that, a method of leadership of the masses in struggle. And what Mao added is what he originally called the method of “from the masses, to the masses” and which came to be called the mass line.

The RCP’s Conception of the Mass Line in the 1970s and 80s—and Today

I still agree with the definition that the RCP gives of the mass line from the 1970s and 80s. In the July 1978 issue of (the old) Revolution newspaper, they wrote: “[The] mass line means taking up the ideas of the masses in light of Marxism and the long-term interests of the masses, and in this way concentrating what is correct and returning it to the masses in the form of policies they can grasp as their own.”  Not a bad short summary! And here is their discussion of it from their [current] “Draft Programme”:

“The mass line is the method through which the party both learns from and leads the masses. The party takes the ideas of the masses and concentrates these ideas into a more fully correct and all-sided view of reality. It then returns that synthesis to the masses in the form of line and policies, winning the masses to take these up and uniting with the masses to carry them out. This is a key tool in welding the unity of the party and the masses to advance the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle.” [pp. 28-29]

“The mass line is an ongoing process which links theory with practice and the vanguard with the masses in an ever-deepening way—all in the service of the masses’ fundamental revolutionary interests.” [p. 37]

It was long a mystery to me how the RCP could explain the mass line in a generally correct manner, and then refuse to put it into practice. Over the years it became clear to me that the problem here was with the RCP conception of what leadership and revolutionary political work consist of. On their conception, there is no distinction between propaganda and leadership. For them “leadership” does not necessarily involve getting people to do anything!

From my point of view the RCP has a correct formal definition of the mass line, but has little or no actual use for it, because they are seldom even trying to lead people in actual struggle—since they view that as essentially reformism at this point. Instead, they have a “left” idealist conception of what leadership is—one that really means just political education alone.

In brief, the RCP breaks with the mass perspective and mass line method of leadership by:

• Not participating with the masses in their own struggles, and not attempting to give leadership to these struggles.
• Thus, having little occasion to use the mass line method of leadership, since they are seldom trying to lead the masses at all in any actual mass struggles.
• Confusing educational work with leadership work, or—worse yet in their case—confusing the preaching of outsiders with leadership work.
• The virtual abandonment of democracy and the mass line method even within their own Party, and the substitution of Bob Avakian as the font of all wisdom.
• The idealist conception of revolutionary work as being almost exclusively the struggle over ideas.

What to Read

I have been asked what are the five most important pieces to read (and promote) with regard to the mass line. Of course, people should read chapter XI of the “Red Book”, and Mao’s “Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership”. But here’s the thing: They should not think they fully understand the mass line after reading those two pieces. The RCP’s 1976 pamphlet, The Mass Line, is still worth reading, and especially Avakian’s third article in that pamphlet which tries to combat rightist (populist) interpretations of the mass line. I would recommend my own mass line manuscript on massline.info, especially the first 4 chapters, and a general perusal of massline.info. Items like Dr. Joshua Horn’s lecture “The Mass Line” are inspiring, but they are not at all good as an introduction to the concept of what the mass line is all about.

But the truth is that there are no really good, short introductions to the mass line available (at least as Mao understood the term). The FRSO documents are rightist, populist and combines the mass line with a mass perspective, as I tried to bring out in my posted critique of them, so they are basically teachers by negative example.

From what I’ve read, the dominant concept of the mass line in the overall revolutionary movement in India is mostly incorrect: For groups other than the CPI(Maoist) it means something like “organizing the masses in their own (mostly) legal struggles as opposed to illegal revolutionary mass action and armed struggle.” That’s clearly a deeply rightist conception. With regard to the CPI(Maoist) itself, an excerpt from the volume Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: Study Notes on the mass line is posted at: http://www.massline.info/India/PeoplesMarch.htm This is a much better conception than the rest of the Indian revolutionary movement, but still doesn’t get into the topic as thoroughly as I would like to see.

Over the course of the next five years, Revolutionary Initiative will lay out the ideological, political, and organizational bases for the refoundation of a proletarian revolutionary movement and vanguard in Canada.Ideologically, we must deepen our understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism while creatively applying and developing it in relation to the contradictions in Canadian society. Over this period of time, we will develop a draft Party program for the Canadian revolution, while persisting in the unity-struggle with with other MLM forces in Canada.

Politically, members and supporters of RI must advance and expand the mass struggle in Canada. This is a question of quantity as much as it is a question of quality. The futility of social democracy must be exposed to the masses, as well as all other ideologies holding back the class struggle (anarchism, Trotskyism, revisionism, national chauvinism). Part and parcel to this struggle will be the popularization and development of proletarian internationalism in the mass movement.

The base of recruitment for the revolutionary vanguard must be, first and foremost, the proletariat, particularly the most exploited and oppressed segments.

Organizationally, in tandem with the development of ideological and political prerequisites, RI will establish the basis for transforming itself from a pre-Party formation into a genuine communist party, developing its base of proletarian revolutionary cadre across the country in preparation for the First Congress.

We must emphasize that the task of revolution is not ours alone. While the task of the vanguard is to unite the advanced and revolutionary strata of the proletariat and to guide and lead the revolutionary struggle of the masses, the revolution will be the product of the conscious activity of millions of working class people and their allies in the petty-bourgeoisie. It is the people that are the makers of history and the builders of the new society.

Canada’s multinational proletariat is united by its historical task of putting an end to the parasitic and moribund system of monopoly capitalism in Canada, removing Canada from the international imperialist division of labour, making a revolutionary break towards socialism, and undergoing continuous revolution, internationalist solidarity, and cultural revolutions until imperialism is defeated and communism is achieved. In the spirit of proletarian internationalism, Revolutionary Initiative will work alongside all genuine anti-imperialist forces throughout the world, but most essentially those led by the proletariat and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Most importantly for the revolution in Canada, Revolutionary Initiative seeks principled unity with all proletarian revolutionaries and proletarian revolutionary forces, and will struggle with all such forces with humility and camaraderie until we have achieved the most advanced and scientifically-formulated program possible for the Canadian revolution. We seek unity in the revolutionary communist movement in Canada and believe that revolutionary communists must ultimately be united in a single Party. Such organizational unity, however, is not possible with revisionist forces – all those forces peddling some form of class collaboration or another, such as Trotskyism, social democracy, and modern revisionism. We say this with full recognition that the manifold forces of bourgeois society and the imperialist world system necessarily give rise to line struggles within any revolutionary organization, and that the danger of new forms of revisionism arising from within a revolutionary organization is an inescapable danger, especially at new junctures in the class struggle. While struggling to ensure a proletarian revolutionary line, however, we must beware of the left dogmatism that has beset many Marxist-Leninist and Maoist organizations.

Revolutionary Initiative offers a genuine salute to all revolutionary communist forces and individuals who have dedicated years of work in rebuilding the revolutionary communist movement in Canada. Through unity-struggle, the mass line, and the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we can bring our scattered forces together to make revolution!

Towards the unity of the revolutionary Party-building movement in Canada!

“You must come to Kathmandu with shroud cloth wrapped around your heads and flour in your bags. It will be our last battle. If we succeed, we survive, else it will be the end of our party.”

— General Secretary Badal of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

APRIL 21 — There are moments when Kathmandu does not feel like a city on the edge of revolution.

People go about all the normal business of life. Venders sell vegetables, nail-clippers and bootleg Bollywood from the dirt, cramping the already crowded streets. Uniformed school kids tumble out of schools with neat ties in the hot weather. Municipal police loiter at the intersections while traffic ignores them, their armed counter-parts patrol in platoons through the city with wood-stocked rifles and dust-masks as they have for years. New slogans are painted over the old, almost all in Maoist red. Daily blackouts and dry-season water shortages are the normal daily of Nepal’s primitive infrastructure, not the sign of crisis. Revolutions don’t happen outside of life, like an asteroid from space – but from right up the middle, out of the people themselves. 

Passing through Kathmandu’s Trichandra college campus after meeting with students in a nearby media program, I walked into the aftermath of bloody attack. Thugs allied with the Congress party student group had cut up leaders of a rival student group with khukuri knives leaving one in critical condition. Hundreds of technical students were clustered in the street when I arrived by chance. The conflict most often described through the positioning of political leaders is breaking out everywhere. 

Indefinite bandhs are paralyzing large parts of the country after the arrest of Young Communist League (YCL) cadre in the isolated far west and Maoist student leaders in Pokhora, the central gateway to the Annapurna mountain range. The southern Terai is in chaos, with several power centers competing and basic security has broken down with banditry, extortion and kidnapping  now endemic. Government ministers cannot appear anywhere without Maoist pickets waving black flags and throwing rocks.

With no central authority, all sides are claiming the ground they stand on and preparing their base. It’s messy, confused and coming to a sharp point as the May 28 deadline for a new constitution draws near with no consensus in sight. The weak government holding court in the Constituent Assembly can’t command a majority, not even of their own parties. Seventy assembly representatives of the status quo UML party signed a letter calling on their own leader to step down from the prime minister’s chair to make way for a Maoist national-unity government. He refuses, repeating demands that the Maoists dissolve their popular organizations and return lands seized by the people who farm them.

The Maoists have more pressing concerns than the legalism of the parliamentary parties. If they can’t restructure the state, by constitutional means or otherwise, the enthusiasm that brought their revolutionary movement this far may turn to disillusionment. With no progress in the assembly, and the leaders of the status quo parties now say there will be no resolution on time. The Maoists have rejected any extension as a stalling tactic and are turning to the people. With now-or-never urgency, they are mobilizing all their forces for a decisive showdown in Kathmandu.  

Nepal braces for May First

YCL members leading a labor contingent

Posters for May First appeared overnight announcing the Maoist call for workers and villagers to converge on Kathmandu for a “final conflict.” The Maoists are calling for a sustained mobilization, with the hope that an overwhelming showing can push the government out with a minimum of bloodshed and stay the hand of the Nepal Army.

May First is International Workers Day, the traditional day of action for communists around the world, but the mobilization has already begun.

Thousands of recruits are being trained by YCL cadre in districts throughout the country, drilling with bamboo sticks in place of rifles. With threats from Nepal Army commanders to put these protests down with force, the Maoists are preparing to defend their mass organizations, the marches, the party and the people from attempts at counter-revolution. Their meetings include political orientations and anti-disinformation training to combat the confusing fog of manufactured rumors and lies that are already in the air.

National assemblies of radical students, artists, intellectuals, ethnic federations, women, unions and trade organizations convened widely during the month of April All sectors are receiving the same message: The Maoists will not return to the jungle, or replay a guerrilla struggle. They will not retreat. The conflict will be decided frontally in the cities.  

Dual Power – Class Struggle at the Tipping Point

Nepal Army soldiers at GP Koirala's funeral

Nepal has two mutually-exclusive power structures: one is the revolutionary movement led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which has a powerful mass base among the people, a disciplined political militia in the YCL and its People’s Liberation Army. The other is the apparatus of Nepal’s state — held-over from the monarchy, unreconstructed, backed by the rifles of the Nepal Army and the heavy weight of feudal tradition.

Land seizures co-exist with plantations. Old judges still sit in their patronage chairs dispensing verdicts to the highest bidder while revolutionary courts turn off and on in the villages. The deposed king Gyanendra lost his crown, but retains vast tracts of land, a near monopoly on tobacco and a “personal” business empire. Large-scale infrastructure like hydro-power remains largely under foreign ownership, but only operate when, and how, the Maoist-allied unions let them. In short, the semi-feudal, semi-colonial system of Nepal is in place but the organized workers and Maoist-led villagers hold a veto.

In Nepal, people were taught; the poor would always be poor. They long believed it. There would always be kings, lords, myriad deities and foreign patrons to look over them. Caste dictated behavior and expectations for most, justifying dull cruelty and vast human waste. The tolerance and fatalism so beloved by British travel writers were also consigning the people of Nepal to isolation, ignorance and the lowest life expectancies in Asia. But the world doesn’t actually stand still, or turn in circles, as some would have it. Things do change.

When urban civil uprisings wrested a parliamentary system from King Birendra in 1990 nothing changed for the people after, save those whose hands got greased for government services. When rising expectations crashed into the closed doors of realpolitik of elite “democracy” – the Maoists blew them open, building an army up from the basic people themselves. From bases of support in Rolpa and Rukum, the People’s War spread to 80 percent of the country in ten lightning years. Over 10,000 lost their lives in the greatest uprising in Nepal’s history.

Yubaraj Lama, a prominent actor/director thrust into radical politics by the movement against the king, put it simple: “It was the failure of the political parties to bring democracy, any real social change for the masses of people that fueled the People’s War. This is what the Maoists changed. People were very fatalistic, looking up to politicians like princes. That is over.”

People who had never thought social change is possible now believe they can end their poverty. Kings are not gods and their crown can fall. Women and girls are more than a way to have male children. The heavy hand of foreign domination and its imposed backwardness can be challenged. The Maoists changed the concept of politics from appeal-if-you-dare to revolution from the ground up.

Everyone isn’t happy with the way the wind is blowing. It is easy to find haughty conservatives that think any hope from the poor comes at their expense and who want to see the Maoists crushed.

Talking with the owner of an English-language bookstore, an outspoken supporter of UML’s embattled prime minister, he insisted that people only attended the Maoist rallies because they were forced to. This plainly isn’t true, but I asked why they won the elections. He told me “these people are stupid” and “believe the Maoist lies that they can live in the big house.” When I noted that all the unions in the neighborhood were Maoist and they hardly seemed forced into it, he laughed. “Of course they are, they want to take all the money from people who own them.”

With all the paranoia of America’s white-fright militias, Nepal’s reactionaries conflate rudimentary democracy, let alone the communist program of the Maoists, with the very end of the world.

Nepal’s embattled elites also can’t simply be brushed aside or nuanced into reform. They too have an army, the former Royal Nepal Army (NA), renamed but unreconstructed. The officer corps is steeped in caste ideology and disdain for the common people, supplied with modern weapons and not-so-secret Indian and American advisers.

The PLA is training and waiting within UN-supervised cantonments – military bases scattered across the countryside. The YCL, led by former PLA commanders is training new militias throughout the country. And for its part, the Nepal Army is confined to its barracks, concentrated in and around Kathmandu.

The politics of this moment are intricate. Many forces parry and maneuver for advantage. But the basic situation is this: Dual power has produced a highly unstable stalemate between a revolutionary people and a weakened regime – a paper tiger with real claws — and the moment of decision is fast approaching.   

Democracy is just a word

Nepal Army soldiers at GP Koirala's funeral

Over the last twenty years, passion has only grown to see the people decide Nepal’s future, to have some form of genuine popular. This desire fueled the People’s War that started in 1996. It animated the powerful mass movement that toppled the king in 2008.

One of the fruits of that struggle was the current Constituent Assembly – where elected representatives of the grassroots were supposed to craft a new framework for a new society, with both open election to seats and sectoral representation to ensure that women, minorities and workers had direct representation. The very idea of such a constituent assembly comes from communist demands – it was their answer to bourgeois democracy.

Maoists made 40 demands of the King in the mid-1990s before launching their rural guerrilla war. Despite consistent flexibility on almost everything, a constituent assembly was the only demand that was never negotiable. It’s profound, the idea of an empowered assembly drawn from every corner– including elected representatives of the poor, women and minorities – for the purpose of remaking the very basis of government and society. This was to be the workshop of a New Nepal.

In a short-lived alliance with the parliamentary parties brokered in 2006, a popular uprising in Kathmandu forced the king out and secularism was established. Elections where held in 2008, and the Maoists emerged the largest party, with more delegates than the old standbys UML and Congress combined. The rest of the seats went to a score of minor parties.

This unprecedented assembly has been gridlocked since it convened. On one side, the old political parties want an Indian-style parliamentary system that is quite compatible with rural feudalism and caste oppression. And opposing those parties, stand the Maoists who speak of a radical new peoples democracy where those excluded from politics will now set the terms.

The Maoists have used their days in this assembly to flesh out their plans for a New Nepal. They drafted and popularized constitutional provisions for a future people’s republic – including land reform, complete state restructuring, equality for women, autonomy for oppressed minorities and an end to Nepal’s stifling subordination to India. Ambitious plans to redirect government investment in basic infrastructure like roads, sanitation and vastly expanded public education were all scuttled when the Nepal Army refused to recognize civilian control after the Maoist victory. Then-Prime Minister Prachanda resigned, leading the Maoists out of government and leaving the Constituent Assembly in gridlock.

The same callous ruling classes, who ignored the bitter poverty of people for decades, now claim to be Nepal’s only “democratic” alternative to the Maoists.

Yet everyone knows: It was those Maoists who went deep among the people, who fought with guns, braved torture and sacrificed many lives for constitutional elections — winning a popular mandate in that voting. Who, then, are the true democrats here? Who really speaks for the people and their aspirations for power?

Time itself is accelerating

All the political forces in the country have now spent the last years in slow-mo maneuvering. They have revealed their programs and exposed their natures – before a closely watching population.

The Maoists are refusing to wait any longer. Leaders of Congress and UML parties admit a constitution can’t be delivered by May 28. The Maoists reject any postponement of that May 28 deadline. No more stalling, they say.

Hundreds of thousands have been mobilized in peaceful mass marches over the last months. Such marches have been a vehicle for intensive mass organizing. They have been used as a gauge of growing partisan strength. The logistics of moving people through the streets to each of the main government offices is practice for seizure. In short, they can be understood as dress rehearsals for a revolution.

On April 6, 2010, Maoists held powerful rallies in all of Nepal’s 75 districts — demanding that the unelected prime minister resign to make way for a new Maoist-led government. Further rallies are scheduled leading up to May First.

Maoist demands are unlikely to be met by parliamentary procedure and they know it. Maoists have discussed a double-barreled approach: build on the base areas and social transformation of the People’s War to launch popular insurrection in the city. Nepali revolutionaries have been incredibly patient, refusing to over-extend their hand. They are seeking to apply one of Mao Zedong’s most famous principles, the mass line:

“It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail.”

This is what Prabhakar, Deputy Commander of the PLA, meant when he said: “We will not take any action against this government. People at large will decide the fate of this government”

The Maoists have been working hard to make the next push – for the final seizure of power – an act of the people, not a self-isolating putsch by the communists alone.

On April 15, YCL commander Sonam was arrested in Kathmandu on weapons charges. Thousands of people mobilized within the hour for a torchlight march to the jail. Sonam was released.

Backed by the Defense ministry, commanders of the 96,000-man Nepal Army began new recruitment this week in direct violation of prior agreements.

UCPNM leader Ashok calls this “conspiracy to invite civil war.”

For all its complexity, dual power in Nepal rests on two armies. The middle ground is disintegrating under the pressure. Splits are appearing within all kinds of political forces – including the moderate leftist UML and reportedly among the army rank-and-file. The UCPN(M) openly says it is seeking to make its case “directly to the soldiers.”

In short: The Maoists are forcing a question of ultimate power that the people of Nepal will have to decide. Look to May First and the days that follow.