Mark's reaction to the "Report"
Well, I must say that I like this quite a lot, and I think I agree with it pretty much wholesale. One limitation of it is that it is somewhat anecdotal, meaning that it's difficult to ascertain whether Mao's conclusions are empirically correct. Parts are indeed apriori/theoretical. His statement of the relation of landlords' domination to the domination of tribe, cult and patriarchy seems to me underevidenced, for example. I buy the argument that among the poorest women may have more authority through their labour value, but what does this mean in terms of the revolution - how are women to be further liberated?
It seems to me though that Mao is here already developing a Maoist viewpoint which diverges from previous Marxism in seeing the peasantry as revolutionary agents, if requiring a bit of propaganda from conscious types like himself. I think he correctly identifies the power of ideology to arm peasants with the vocabulary to make revolution.
It seems to me though that Mao is here already developing a Maoist viewpoint which diverges from previous Marxism in seeing the peasantry as revolutionary agents, if requiring a bit of propaganda from conscious types like himself. I think he correctly identifies the power of ideology to arm peasants with the vocabulary to make revolution.
posted by Himself @ 10:19 PM
5 Comments:
At 2:06 AM,
readingmao said…
isn't it strange though that the three options that Mao presents are:
1. march at their head and lead them
2. trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing
3. stand in their way and oppose them
there are moments when the "vangard" is proposed in terms of the peasants themselves - the poor peasants who have created a constituent power, the authority of the "peasant association" this seems to be a different ontological point than the possibility of "marching at their head and leading them." The movement itself seems to be the vanguard.
On a different note, I fully agree with the point about developing a post-marxist theory of revolution. It seems here that Mao was preoccupied with the immense "cultural" history of the chinese countryside. As he notes, the question of whether "its terrible" for the middle-class peasants is related to the question "A peasant association? Who know if heaven wills it or not?" Of course, heaven, a cosmological reference is related to the whole host of cultural concerns that dominates the particularity of chinese culture. In a sense, here lies the limit of the analysis of capital in Marxism, for the genuine revolutionary task must take into account the cultural, that is, cosmological and metaphysical commitments on the part of those who make up the revolutionary movement. Does this preface the "cutural revolution"? -note also Mao reference to the resistance against patriarchy in the broad sense of the term.
At 6:14 PM,
Himself said…
But surely this is where Westernised-scientific vanguardism comes in, in guiding the struggle ideologically so that it is able to reach results hitherto unseen in China?
At 10:52 PM,
readingmao said…
what?
I don't know if "scientific" enters in here.
"Even if ten thousand schools of law and political science had been opened, could they have brought as much political education to the people, men and women, young and old, all the way into the remotest corners of the countryside, as the peasant associations have done in so short a time? I don't think they could."
Mao might be either, at this point, unschooled in the ecumenical Marxism just then developing in Europe, or will fully attempting to develop a concept of vanguard from a different (cultural?) position. This is speculation on my part.
I'm confused about your comment in two ways:
1. Is it a "de re" statement such that you are saying that the ideological development of the peasantry actually requires this infusion of proletarian science?
2. Are you commenting on Mao's own commitments to the "scientific" vanguard?
At 6:19 AM,
Himself said…
yeah, I think I was more thinking of his thing about the commies subverting superstition by showing them that they themselves have the power to change things, not through making offerings and receiving the favour of heaven, but through grassroots political action.
Apposite quote from you, though.
At 10:13 PM,
Nate said…
Hey you two,
Tzuchien, on the question of vanguards, from what I've read of the piece so far and from what you've noted - sometimes the peasants are the vanguard - here's what I think. First off, my sense is that it's not simply a matter of Mao and co needing to respond to the peasants (what's at stake is at stake only for Mao and co). It's also a matter of something being at stake for the peasants too.
I think it works like this in this picture: The peasants are the revolutionary class (class vanguard). Mao and co are the revolutionary part (organizational vanguard). In that respect, there doesn't have to be any dramatic change of perspective: the class vanguard can be seen as the condition within and field upon which the organizational vanguard acts. In a sense, the two condition each other - class vanguard without organizational vanguard wins less, gives the initiative back to the enemy class. Organizational vanguard without class vanguard is empty.
I get the term class vanguard from a piece by Midnight Notes, an excerpt from which is here:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3843/monty5.html
One other thing, on the need to take into account the cultural etc. Certainly, but it's not at all clear what this 'taking into account' amounts to and how much it does/doesn't vary across locations. To my mind the genuine revolutionary task (not a term I would use) is the production and exercise of power. Insofar as culture, cosmology, metaphysics enter into that then they're appropriate to address. I'm not sure to what degree they must always enter in, nor that there's a universalizable formula for how to address them. (Except the minimal universal of the injunction to organize.)
take care,
Nate
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