Picture: Jose Maria Sison
Introduction:
Definition of Maoism
The
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was reestablished on the theoretical
foundation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought on 26 December 1968. Since
1995, it has officially used the term Maoism as synonym for Mao Zedong Thought.
The adoption of the term is due to language alignment in relation to
Marxism-Leninism rather than due to any change of meaning or line in relation to
Mao Zedong Thought. Since 3 September 1993, in his message to the Symposium on
Mao Zedong Thought in Manila, the founding chairman of the CPP has referred to
adherents of Mao Zedong Thought as Maoists.
The Communist Party of the
Philippine stands by its definition of Mao Zedong Thought or Maoism as the third
stage in the development of the theory and practice of the revolutionary
proletariat towards the ultimate goal of communism. The ongoing stage of Maoism
proceeds from the previous stages of Marxism and Leninism, respecting and
upholding the theoretical and practical achievements of each stage, extending
and developing them further and making new achievements.
Maoism has
arisen thus far as the highest stage in the development of the theory and
practice of proletarian revolution by confronting the problem of modern
revisionism and putting forward the theory and practice of continuing revolution
under proletarian dictatorship through cultural revolution in order to combat
revisionism, prevent the restoration of capitalism and consolidate socialism.
Among the many great achievements of Mao, the aforesaid theory and practice
constitutes his greatest. This inspires hope for a socialist and communist
future against imperialism, revisionism and reaction.
Mao is indubitably
correct in identifying the revisionism of degenerates in power in socialist
society as the most lethal to socialism, and in offering the solution that
succeeded in China for ten years before it was defeated in 1976. The
disintegration of the Soviet Union and the full restoration of capitalism in
revisionist-ruled countries in the period of 1989-91 have vindicated Mao´s
position on the crucial importance and necessity of the struggle against
revisionism and the theory of continuing revolution under proletarian
dictatorship.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) can be
regarded as the prototype for the ample realization of the theory of continuing
revolution in socialist society, like the Paris Commune of 1871 was the
prototype for the proletarian class dictatorship that won victory in the October
Revolution of 1917. Proletarian revolutionaries can be confident that they are
forearmed with the theory behind the GPCR and the experience gained from it in
order to face the challenge of revisionism in socialist societies.
Maoism encompasses the major contributions of Mao to further develop
such basic components of Marxism as philosophy, political economy, and social
science as first laid down by Marx and Engels in the period of free competition
capitalism and the rise of the modern industrial proletariat in the 19th
century. Maoism also encompasses Mao´s major contributions to further develop
Lenin´s earlier theoretical and practical achievements in developing the
aforesaid components, and to carry forward the great victory of Lenin and Stalin
in socialist revolution and construction in the era of modern imperialism and
proletarian revolution.
In philosophy, Mao made a penetrating study of
the unity of opposites as the most fundamental law in materialist dialectics. He
explained the wave-like alternating and interactive advance of theory and
practice, and social practice (i.e., production, class struggle and scientific
experiment) as the source of knowledge. In political economy, he based himself
on the Marxist critique of capitalism and the Leninist critique of modern
imperialism, learned from the Soviet experience in socialist revolution and
construction, and put forward a political economy of socialism that sought to
improve on the pioneering experience of socialist revolution and construction in
the Soviet Union.
In social science, Mao followed the teachings of
Marxism and Leninism that class analysis is applied on a class society, that
class struggle is the key to social progress, and that class struggle in
bourgeois society must lead to the class dictatorship of the proletariat over
the bourgeoisie in the attainment of socialism. Mao´s class analysis of the
semicolonial and semifeudal society enabled the Chinese Communist Party to win
the people's democratic revolution with the correct program and strategy and
tactics, and proceed to the socialist revolution.
Subsequently, his
class analysis of Chinese society in the period of socialist revolution and
construction showed the correct handling of contradictions in such society. He
reiterated the Leninist thesis that classes and class struggle would continue to
exist in socialist society, that the resistance of the defeated bourgeoisie
would increase 10,000-fold, and that it would take a whole historical epoch for
the proletariat to completely defeat the bourgeoisie. He was well grounded in
recognizing the threat of modern revisionism in China and the need for the
theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship.
Mao
stressed the necessity and importance of working class leadership through the
Party and the basic alliance of the working class and peasantry in the new
democratic revolution. He posited that the semicolonial and semifeudal society
is in chronic crisis, and that the huge peasant population in the countryside
serves as the basis for the strategic line of protracted people's war and
establishment of the revolutionary organs of political power even while the
reactionary state still sits in the urban areas.
He developed further
the Leninist theory and practice of Party building and pushed forward the
rectification movement as an educational method through the mass movement for
rectifying major errors and strengthening the Party by raising the revolutionary
consciousness and capabilities of the Party and the masses. The rectification
movement in the Party was the seminal basis for the conception of the cultural
revolution in socialist society.
Mao pointed out that the bourgeoisie,
after being politically and legally deprived of the private ownership of the
means of production, retreats to the cultural realm to survive and make new
recruits even among the children of the working people being educated under the
socialist system. The cultural sphere can thus become the breeding ground for
bourgeois subjectivist ideas, revisionism and retrogression, unless an
indefinite series of proletarian cultural revolutions are undertaken.
Mindful of the way modern revisionism arose in the cultural sphere and
then the political sphere in the superstructure in the Soviet Union, Mao put
forward the theory and practice of continuing revolution under the dictatorship
of the proletariat through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966
to 1976. This involves a process of revolutionizing the relations of production
and the superstructure through a mass movement led by the proletariat and its
party.
For More on Mao Zedong Thought and Marxism Leninism Maoism
See also Article by N. Sanmugathasan on Mao and comments
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