Communal Democracy-Great Proletarian Cultural Revolutionist-Feminist-Maoist Chinese Modelist...

"You are not a Maoist, you are a revisionist"


Things are not always black and white. The same goes with peoples ideological line. The acronym MLM can mean many different things to different people.


To some individuals or groups it means ML (which itself is used in many ways such as Hoxhaist or tankie or Stalinist) with some contributions from Mao. Some MLM uphold the Three head theory (Marx Lenin and Mao) and some uphold four (Marx Lenin Stalin and Mao). To some it means staunch anti-revisionism to any Marxist-Leninist revision. To others it means to revision all revolutionary theory to current and local conditions. Some Maoist support younger Mao's ideas and actions and some support older Mao's ideas and actions. Some dogmatically follow all his writing to a tee and some people see his ideas as a starting point and think it is against Maoism itself to be dogmatic. To some people to be a Maoist is to be a state-authoritarian, to others it is complete dictatorship of the proletariat from the bottom up.


I am writing this because I want to explain why I am the kind of Maoist that I am.


The great leap forward (GLF) is usually used as a way to attack Maoist so let me just say that first off the massive numbers of 16-70 million people that were "killed" by Mao has been disproved by many accounts (here is one). Many people did die during the GLF, but it was from starvation and not mass murder and no one set up the GLF so people would starve (there was also drought in some areas and natural disasters in others) . In fact it is impossible to prove how many people starved or that more people starved than in previous years. But the great leap forward was important in the country side because the nation didn't have good irrigation systems and in drought years whole villages would have to fight off starvation (which was a major problem under the old KMT and feudal system). So the CPC called for peasants to help build these huge irrigation systems. The problem was that no one was tasked with turning volunteers away and too many people volunteered and not enough people stayed home and grew food. So I see the GLF as both a success and a failure, if one person died because of the policy then it was one too many. However the GLF brought great harvest after this period and helped put a boot to the throat of mass starvation(many claims supported in link).


Just thought I should clear that up least someone thing Maoist think murdering millions is okay or justifiable.


One of the major reasons I am a Maoist is that I believe communal democracy as enacted in China during the liberation phase up til its dismantling by the soviet wing of the party was the greatest example of proletarian democracy. The old peasants associations and village congresses along with communal farms and kitchens were great corner stones for how a proletarian society should look.


Another reason is that I admire the right and ability of people to criticize the government and their policies and have a chance to steer policy. Under communal democracy and especially during the cultural revolution until 68 the peasants and the working class held control over almost all aspects of their lives. At one point in time during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) the people of Shanghai actually took a vote to change what the colors on the stop lights meant. They voted to make red mean go because red was the color of socialism and thus the color of progress and a movement forward. Some may see this as silly but it illustrates how much power communal democracy gave to the masses. They ended up not changing the light system because it was agreed that it would be confusing to people not from the city and more important things could be discussed.


Since I brought it up I will discuss why I uphold the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) as the furthest advance towards communism and why I believe that many cultural revolutions will be necessary to achieve communism.


Many critics of the GPCR on both the right-wing and the reactionary left simply brush off the GPCR as a violent period that was a result of Mao trying to hold onto power. This is simply an incorrect ahistorical view of the cultural revolution. While there was violence used in the GPCR it was purely because of anger that came forth from the masses over right-wing politicians attempts to turn China into a capitalist nation.


One point of the GPCR was to revolutionize the masses and to smash the reactionary ideas and customs of the old Chinese society. It was direct action by the people to destroy all lines that advocated capitalism as the way forward. Violence was unfortunately needed sometimes to unseat politicians, reactionary landlords or bosses. Everyone was subject to the peoples will. Party members were especially targeted if they were seen as capitalist roaders or as reactionaries.


I believe that cultural revolutions would only be needed in backwards nations and bourgeois minded societies. I do think that the GPCR brought many lessons that we can draw from to revolutionize the popular masses and keep radical people's power in charge. It was reported that when Mao was forced to order the red guards to disband that he did so with tears running down his cheeks. Was this because he knew that this symbolized the end of people's power in China? And that it also showed that the government was to take more power over the people as opposed to the people holding power over their government? Meaning that the "revolutionary Committees" were to be reinstated and that the Soviet wing and the capitalist roaders had won? This writer think these are the reasons for his tears that sad day for China. Most of China's politicians speak ill of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution today because as reactionary capitalist roaders and capitalisms running dogs these politicians would have been targeted during the GPCR, and rightly so.


Anti-anti-ideologies- I do not uphold any anti ideologies, I do believe every branch has something to contribute to the movement to some degree. I am not a anti-revisionist, I think revision to MLism is very important and needed to move forward. We live in a different time and under different conditions and in different places than any of these people who have become demigods. To treat people as infallible is in my opinion in itself against a dialects position. Also to not unite with those who can be united with, over silly reasons is considered leftism.


Self criticism- Is the most important trait that is need in any person or group that plans on taking a leadership position. Not only being able to make self criticisms but also learning from and fixing your short comings is so important to me. Ive never heard any group in the States say "we were wrong" or "that wasn't a correct tactic/slogan" etc. Ive never even heard a member of a party or group say "we were wrong/incorrect". Instead we hear excuses or straw arguments on how they were actually correct.  This I believe is brought on by the luxury of these groups being irrelevant in the bigger picture, they can afford to be wrong and ignore it because they are not accountable to anyone and their decisions don't affect any ones life. But these groups need to learn to do self criticisms and learn and grow from their mistakes or else they run the risk of never being taken seriously.

The Socialist Parties: A Collective Problem (part 2 expansion and corrections on the original)

If you have not read my first entry on this subject you can find part one here where I try to explain the reason why democratic centralism naturally degenerates in bureaucracy. I wrote part one when the topic was very personal to me and I made some simple minded errors that make me disgraced to admit I had ever written it. Instead of deleting it and pretending I never wrote it I would like to make corrections and expand on why democratic centralism often becomes corrupt. A comrade that has been around for a while showed me one of the major errors of that article and I will address all the problems with my first article first.


In the first entry I wrote: "Even Trotskyist use the democratic centralism model in most of their parties but when a party or country degenerates to bureaucratic centralism the trots call that party/country Stalinist. Of course a Trotskyist is never going to pass up a chance to jab at Stalin but in reality it was Lenin's model of democratic centralism that is/was incorrect."- I would like to be clear that I was wrong in this statement because the fact is that parties who have degenerated from DCism into dictatorship of the leadership are not following real Leninism. Lenin called for open detailed debate and that the party would then chose the best course of action. What happens in most parties in the US is that their leader or leaders make all the choices and the rank and file are expected to follow suit or else they are party traitors. And do not be fooled I have heard this story multiple time from members of Trotskyist, Hoxhaist, Maoist, ML and any other party. But I wanted to clear myself for my mistaken ideas of attacking Lenin's style dcism when it is not a historical figures fault but it differs on a party to party basis. I would like to reiterate that this is not a form of "Stalinism" but is a dialectal problem and should not be so simply brushed off.


I also said: "When a party starts there are usually a few members who are more dedicated than others or do more work than other members. This rightfully earns this said person a certain amount of respect among the founding members and new members. So they are elected to a seat of power. The problem is that as time goes on the people who started the group want to make sure things are run the way they want and that they stay in charge. So what ends up happening is that the original members end up with multiple seats or too much power."- I was mainly wrong in writing this in that corruption doesn't have to start at the beginning. It can also happen after a certain wing takes over main seats in the party. The person who is the leader will assign people that follow his line or people that will parrot everything they say to the point that democracy is not even needed in the party because everyone 'already agrees' but in reality this is corruption. What will then happen is that any one in the party who challenges the leadership on party lines or tactics, the leadership will say that you are disrespecting the choice of the party when in reality you may just disagree with the leaders who have no desire for real line struggle.


"we may need to do away with democratic centralism all together."- I think this statement was a result of my emotions I fear because we do need democratic centralism. But there needs to be more emphasis put on the democracy of the many. A small central committee made up of all like minded people shouldn't control a whole party. I think this is the reason that the corruption problem lies within most parties CC's.

A suggested solution: Central Committee's should be made up of people of different ideas and backgrounds. If you have healthy debate and different representatives in the CC I believe this could help eliminate the corruption problem most parties face. There is no reason why then people who are all friends and who all believe in the same exact line should all be on the CC. There should be a wide variety of ages on a CC also. Young people are more militant and adventurous when it comes to politics and older comrades seem to be more reserved and calculating (in a good way). We need a healthy mix of the two, not one or the other extreme.


I wrote at the end: "Obviously this writer knows he doesn't have all the answers but I am sick of seeing hundreds of intelligent individuals walking around parroting what their leaders, elders and party tell them to."- this I still believe and yes it still makes me sick.


I still have a deep mistrust of democratic centralism but this does not mean that I do not think it can not be properly implemented. I still think that communal democracy could be a good substitute or should be intertwined with democratic centralism. I am still a strong supporter of local chapters, cells or whatever they are called in a party having more power over their locals than the national party. As I said in my last post: "Communal socialism would be better because how is some one in LA or DC or NYC suppose to know what we need in Mississippi or Illinois or Colorado etc? Only the people from those areas know exactly what they are producing and what they need. Each area would be more personally in charge of themselves and thus wouldn't feel the constant oppression of the centralized state." I still uphold this view.


Another problem I see is that the rank and file members of a group or party dogmatically defend their own submission to these kind of fake democratic centralism's. I think this half stems from a kind of sub-understanding of what real democratic centralism is and the other half can be contributed two ways. One; the dogmatic nature of communist who think just because Lenin said or wrote something and their party quotes him out of context that the must be right. And two; the party or group itself twist the ideas of democratic centralism to mean that rank and file members listen and are subordinate to their leaders and to self criticize or try to create a line struggle is against what Lenin taught and thus you are a naughty commie and need to be punished.


I think it may be time to start having Marxist Leninist debate nights between groups so as to force people to be theoretically involved and to force people to think outside of their parties little box. I for one can not stand when you are having a debate with someone from a party/ORG about their political line and all they do is shove their fingers in their ears and repetitively say the same thing their parties site says over and over again.


There is no reason why a group with less than 300 members should all be subordinate to 7-15 people. That is ridiculous and no one can make a strong enough claim to me that this is in any way democratic. Which brings me to my next point which is when the dogmatics after being out debated say 'well you have a liberal/bourgeois idea of democracy'. Democracy is a word that cannot mean but one thing. If we use word parts here it means "rule of the people" (google it if you don't believe me) so how can you call your group "democratic" centralist if you don't use democracy? In fact you are using a bourgeois definition of the word if you are defending a few people ruling over the greater number of people in your group. As this is how the bourgeoisie use the word democracy is to say that a few rule over the masses.


In short I think we need a open national debate on democratic centralism and what it means and how to use it properly. I think the true idea of democratic centralism has become lost and distorted to benefit a few leaders when it is meant to benefit the greater populace in a group.


I would really love to see some comments and peoples ideas at the bottom of this page. It is time to start discussing things of this nature.




Written by; Dustin Slagle

The Communist Movement Needs a Revolution Within the Movement Itself!

It is my belief after having many discussions about a possible boycott of the upcoming national elections in the USA that the left in our nation has for the most part taken a turn to the right and is too thick with un-critical, dogmatic reformist.


The only non-reformist argument I've heard is the dogmatic quoting of Lenin's "Left-wing communism an infantile disorder". Which would make sense if there was any non-capitalist or a non-imperialist parties to run in to have our voice heard in like the parties that Lenin refers to in this writing. The nations that Lenin addresses in this writing are nations that had social democrat parties that the CP's could run in to have their voices heard and to show that reformism is a dead end and can not work to over throw a capitalist government. He wasn't pointing out that reformism works.


Here in the USA we have no party to run in to give a communist voice in. The creation of a Labor Party or a SD party in the USA would not even give us the chance to voice our communist voice as we have seen in England, entryism does not give us a voice in a pro-imperialist pro-capitalist party. And any SD party in the US would still be more of a right-wing SD than the ones that Lenin describes in his writing. This old worn out tactic has been proven to be the wrong tactic over and over again in history. There is a difference between entyism and participating in bourgeois parliamentary elections to discredit them. In the USA it is not possible to discredit the capitalist government by participating with the capitalist/imperialist parties. It is also a waste of resources to run your own candidate and silly to do it "to raise awareness to socialism" as it was correctly said; you can't educate communism in a nation where the capitalist own the schools and news that teach and propagate capitalism.


Still some people parading as dialect materialist would rather place their fingers in their ears and say "boycotting is ultra-leftism" as loud and as fast as they can so that they do not have to listen to something other than what Lenin proposed back almost one hundred years ago. The fact of the situation is that we have a bunch of fake communist claiming to be dialect materialist revolutionaries when in fact they are nothing more than dogmatic revisionist-reformist. So why would they parade around calling themselves revolutionary? Because revisionist is a bad word and reformist means you believe you can change the capitalist system from the inside a little bit at a time. Which means that participating in the capitalist-bourgeois government is a legitimate form of struggle. Of course this is false and the grossest form of revisionism and is playing traitor against the working class. Logic is a communists only true guiding light!


I believe that a broad boycott campaign supported by Socialist, communist, anarcho's, and even progressive liberal's would see less than 50% of the population vote in the presidential election and only about 32% in the mid-term elections would show how phony the bourgeois elections here in the US really are.


I think that the communist movement as a whole has for the most part shifted to the right. I think people like me who are revolutionary communist, who believes that a violent overthrow of the government is the only way to achieve socialism are a dying bread. That is because of the comfort that communist enjoy when playing entryism. It is easier to participate with your enemy than it is to fight them and I think this comfort has cost the movement dearly. It has lead to people marching around proclaiming themselves revolutionaries even though the most advanced idea they have is to lay in bed with their enemies. This is why I call for a revolution within the communist movement itself, a political revolution if you will. It is needed to shift the communist movement back over to the left. We need to break the Khrushchev line of "peaceful co-existence" and smash it in to unrecognizable size. It must be destroyed for the sake of our movement and for the sake of our future.


Revolution is not a joke, it "is not a tea party". Revolution means that there is a conflict in which one group violently kicks out the old rulers. It is not peaceful it does not happen in elections even in Venezuela there was a coup before the election and look how long it has taken to reach being progressive and they are still not officially in socialist construction though they are working for it. Since I have already mentioned Venezuela I would like to point out that the current situation there would be a good time for communist to play entryism to give communism a voice seeing as it would be silly to oppose a popular socialist government with a socialist opposition force.


Cuba, Laos, China, Vietnam, and Belarus would be other examples of nations where entryism would be the correct path. Even in nations that have progressive SD's or left wing coalitions like Sweden it would be correct to play entryism as a way to get a communist voice in parliament as Lenin stated. But in bourgeois democracies it is fullish to use elections as your main tactic to bring around the socialist transformation of society. In places like the US there are no progressive parties worth participating in that having any power so I motion that there is only one real alternative to playing entryism, and that is to boycott the elections!




Written by; Dustin Slagle