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Text here: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1939/how-to-be/index.htm – about 27,000 words, so about 100 minutes to read
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Audio here, British female AI speaker, 2h41m21s: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=aeGlxpDvoqc&listen=1
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Audio here, American human male speaker: https://yewtu.be/playlist?list=PL0-IkmzWbjoZVLIJX6CLKGC9Vz6Gwv9kI&listen=1
It is nine chapters, so one chapter per day for nine days seems the obvious way to go.
Liu Shaoqi is an admirable figure, Chairman from 1959 to 1968, a pragmatist who came into conflict with the worst tendencies of Mao and the Gang of Four, praised by Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping. I'm getting more and more interested in the pragmatic Chinese Marxists who actually succeeded and built something with a strong eye to pragmatism, not idealism.
Ok, so chapter 1 today (the 17th) and one chapter a day til the 25th?
And notes/thoughts in this thread.
Hence, in order to remould himself and raise his owl level, a revolutionary must take part in revolutionary practice from which he must on no account isolate himself.
Before revolutionary practice:
After revolutionary practice:
Thoughts on chapter one: seems like relatively standard but useful praxis theory in terms of revolutionary mindset and party behavior. The bit about “carries with him the remnants of the various ideologies of that society (including its prejudices, habits and traditions)” resonated with me as I see a lot of leftists where, even though they recognize that the results produced by the current institutions are rotten, there’s still an instinct in them to crouch their theory and practice in line with the acceptable precepts of those institutions. We need to be vigilant in finding the fine line between genuflecting to the old order and being contrarian for contrarianism’s sake.
Otherwise, the observations about not letting the traps prior revolutions fell into, avoiding the emergence of new hierarchies, pretty bread and butter stuff. Looking forward to what he has to say on the more practical applications of this mindset.
Thoughts on chapter seven:
For example, some comrades of peasant background used to think that communism meant "expropriation of local tyrants and distribution of the land".
I have noticed that many rural leftists tend to put a bigger emphasis on fair land distribution. Which makes sense given the histories of many rural areas, speculators hoarding good land, peasantry relegated to the scraps.
A few even join because they count on the Party to get their taxes reduced
That statement would make many a chud’s brain seize up and not compute. Which is an irony, in that income tax is negligible to nonexistent in most Marxist-Leninist economies.
Indeed, for most people it is impossible to have a proufound understanding of communism and the Partys Programme and Constitution before joining the Party. That is why we can only prescribe acceptance, and not a thorough understanding of the Partys Programme and Constitution as a condition for admission.
Gatekeeping is incompatible with socialism. Encountering ignorance in a potential comrade is a sign to communicate, not patronize or show off.
Some people habitually place their personal interests above those of the Party when it comes to practical matters; they are preoccupied with personal gain and loss and always calculate in terms of personal interests; they abuse the public trust, turning their Party work to private advantage of one kind or another; or they attack comrades they dislike and wreak private vengeance, on high-sounding pretexts of principle or Party interests
It’s interesting, because while the notion of serving the great good of the proletariat over self-centered scheming fits well into socialist organizing, it also mirror a lot of Eastern philosophy: abolishing clinging to the idea of the self, readjusting worldviews to around what is best for someone to do in this situation rather than what is best for the self.
This type of self-seeking individualism often manifests itself inside the Party in unprincipled quarrelling, factional struggle, sectarianism and departmentalism; it manifests itself in disrespect for and wilful violation of Party discipline.
No infighting, people.
Departmentalism within the Party arises chiefly because some comrades only see the interest of the part, i.e., the work of their own department of locality, and fail to see the interests of the whole, i.e., the interests of the entire Party and the work of other departments and localities. Politically and ideologically, this resembles the guild outlook. Not all comrades who make the mistake of departmentalism are necessarily prompted by individualism, but people with an individualist ideology usually make the mistake of departmentalism.
I work in the public sector and you see this shit all the time. Even if two units are in the same department there’ll be elbowing for resources and undermining each other even though they’re working towards the same goal.
What is there in personal position for a Communist to bother about? No one's position is higher than an emperor's, and yet what is an emperor compared with a fighter in the cause of communism? Is he not just "a drop in the ocean" as Comrade Stalin put it? So what is there in personal position worth bothering or bragging about?
Modesty in achievement is fitting for a socialist, as the goal is the collective achievement.
Therefore, while we are opposed to individualistic heroism and ostentatiousness , we are certainly not opposed to a spirit of enterprise in the Party members. The desire to make progress in the interests of the people is the most precious quality in a Communist. But the communist, proletarian spirit of enterprise is entirely different from the individualist "spirit of enterprise". The former means seeking truth, upholding it and fighting for it with the greatest effectiveness. It is progressive and opens up unlimited prospects of development, while the latter offers no prospects even for the individual, for people with an individualist ideology are usually driven by their personal interest into deliberately brushing aside, covering up or distorting the truth.
This is a clever turning of the liberal critique back on itself. Leftism is not opposed to being enterprising, quite the opposite, it just applies the enterprising spirit to the greater hood rather than personal gain.
Naturally we should try our best to do more, but if we cannot and can only do a little, that is also useful and just as honourable.
It’s very easy to feel that one is never doing enough for the movement, so I appreciate this line amongst the “work hard for the party” rhetoric.
Comrades who are unwilling to undertake technical work think that it stifles their talents, that it prevents them from becoming famous (actually it does not, as witness the technical worker Stakhanov)
I feel like I’d much rather do that technical work than elbow for leadership.
when necessary, it [the Party] will even give up some of its work in order to preserve comrades working under the rule of reaction.
Hey what does this mean? What is the rule of reaction? I'm puzzled.
I get the feeling something is being lost in translation here. Like the phrase is either being transliterated too much or there simply isn’t a decent English equivalent. My guess is it’s done sort of mutual aid for comrades under some version of indentured servitude but that’s a complete shot in the dark.
Thoughts on chapter five:
For a Party member, the result of this struggle should be that the proletarian ideology overcomes and ultimately eliminates any non-communist world outlook and that ideas based on the general interests and aims of the Party, of the revolution and of the emancipation of the proletariat and all mankind overcome and ultimately eliminate all individualism.
Similar to the last chapter, the emphasis is on adapting the worldview of the proletariat, rather than memorizing particular precepts. Also, I get the impression that he’s referring to individualism in the Nietzschean sense of the needs of the masses being subsumed to those of the “ubermensches,” not in the sense that people shouldn’t be unique.
Generally, a lot of the pie in the sky descriptions of what communist society will be like seems more selling than serious analysis. However, it’s pretty obvious this is trying to be more about installing resolve and vigor in party members than pure academic analysis of political economy or philosophy, so it’s okay.
This is the inevitable result of the efforts of the exploiting classes to preserve their class interests and rule. For they cannot maintain their ruling position unless they keep the exploited masses and the colonial peoples backward, unorganized and divided.
This seems interesting in light of a latter passage:
China is still in the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and our enemies are imperialism, which perpetuates aggression against China, and the feudal and comprador forces, which are in collusion with imperialism.
This says to me that the history of British imperialism in China was a significant factor in the development of the communist party there. That the association between the Chinese ruling class and the British caused them to see themselves as the exploited colonial people.
If the masses were all politically conscious, united, free from the influence of the exploiting classes and free from backwardness, as some people imagine them to be, what would be so difficult about the revolution?
Indeed.
But for the proletariat, victory and political emancipation are only the beginning of the revolution, and a tremendous amount of work remains to be done after the victory, after the seizure of state power.
This this this this this. Simply seizing power in the revolution doesn’t mean socialists can then just flip the political economy switch from capitalism to communism. Political economies are social systems and those take time and need to evolve to reach new forms.
I'm in, sounds fun (and also I've been slacking on reading theory lately)
Ok cool, try to get Chap 1 read today.
If you slack off in the middle, you have to donate $20 to the US Republican Party.
A bit late but some final thoughts: this clearly meant to be theory in a practical, good membership of an organization way rather than direct analysis of political economy and/or philosophy. There, it just gives standard “read the Marxist-Leninist literature” advice. So a lot of it feels less like socialist-specific guidance and more guidance that would be available applicable to most members of an institution.
So the value I got out of it was seeing how this reflected what the problems were that the CPC was having in the late 30’s and what seemed of the moment and what is timeless:
- The problem with careerists in the party, opportunistic membership based on the assumption that the CPC would become more powerful. Suggests that many in China saw the national government’s position as weakened at the time, but not so much an issue in current revolutionary Western parties.
- People not putting in enough effort or only wanting to contribute in certain ways. Really a problem in any organization with voluntary structures.
- The struggle addicts. Obviously, this was a prevalent issue in the party, probably aimed at those higher up than him. The one issue that resonates the most in modern leftist organizations, where too many join to satisfy their own sense of self-righteousness rather than accomplish things.
- Can tell that foreign incursions played a large role in the rise of the communist party. The combination of British imperialism and the Japanese invasion must’ve destroyed the sense of the government being able to keep China from falling into colonial status, which made Marxist-Leninism look attractive as an alternative that could prevent that.
Thoughts of chapter nine:
As for the latter, some of them only see or over emphasize this side of a thing, while others only see and over emphasize the other side; both fail to view problems comprehensively and objectively in accordance with the laws of the development and interrelationship of objective phenomena, and both take a one-sided, subjective view of problems. Hence, they are unable to arrive at correct conclusions or chart the right course for our actions.
Similar idea as in intersectionality; proper analysis is only possible through viewing the whole as a unique combination of factors instead of picking out a singular factor and only focusing on that.
Obviously, it is only through inner-Party struggle that such contradictions can be resolved, differences settled and incorrect thinking overcome. As Engels put it, “In the long run the contradictions are never slurred over, but always fought out.”
The use of struggle by Chinese leftists is interesting, as we typically think of struggle as a thing leftists do against the dominant ideology, not each other. I think the idea is that leftists aren’t struggling with each other but rather the remnants of bourgeois ideology within ourselves.
People of one kind do not or will not see shortcomings, mistakes and other undesirable phenomena in our Party, but blindly believe that there is scarcely anything wrong in it; hence they relax their vigilance and slacken their struggle their struggle against these phenomena. People of another kind see nothing, or hardly anything, except these undesirable phenomena and fail to see how correct and glorious our Party is; hence they become pessimistic and loose confidence, or they become alarmed and bewildered in the face of such phenomena.
Hopium huffers versus doomers.
Some Party members do nothing about the shortcomings, mistakes and other undesirable phenomena in the Party and allow them to grow. They just muddle along and are unwilling to fight these evils. They fear inner-Party struggle and self-criticism, considering them harmful to the Party
Inaction and fear of upsetting balance is not as bad as outright malevolence but still undermines the movement.
This is the attitude taken by Communists who have a weak sense of duty towards the Party, are extremely liberalistic, or are guilty of bureaucracy.
I think bureaucracy here means a mindset wherein, instead of a proper analysis of a conflict or contradiction in the Party as to come to a truthful, proletariat solution, one just defers to a route, codified process of dealing with it. Default to a system rather than ideological analysis.
People with this attitude believe that inner-Party struggle must be launched under any and all circumstances - the more frequently and bitterly, the better. They magnify every trifle into a matter of “principle” and brand every tiny fault with such labels as political opportunism. They do not carry on inner-Party struggle properly and specifically in accordance with the objective needs and objective laws of development, but instead “struggle” mechanically, subjectively and violently, regardless of the consequences.
Giving false airs of high-minded principle to what are actually just petty personal preferences as self-flattery. Every leftist organization has at least one of these types about.
Profit by every good example, promote and spread a spirit of integrity in the Party and vigorously support all correct views and opinions. Do not follow any bad examples or be influenced by any wrong ideas.
Amplify good behaviors and ideas instead of constantly chasing bad ones to belittle.
even makes use of outside forces to help him attain some private ends within the Party, he will be making an unpardonable breach of discipline.
Given the timeframe this was written during, I bet this was a particularly thorny problem for the Chinese Communist Party.
more particularly we do not have enough criticism from below and self-criticism, both of which would be greatly encouraged.
Hmmm, even in that era there was issues with Yes men and not wanting to criticize upwards.
Hence it is impossible to educate the Party, the proletariat and the masses correctly if we do not unfold criticism and self-criticism, constantly expose and correct short comings and mistakes, overcome wrong ideas and conduct inner-Party struggle to resolve inner-Party differences, but instead take a compromising attitude and follow a “middle” line, or try to muddle through in inner-Party struggle.
Appeal to the middle is a fallacy liberals are prone to and only allows bad ideas to work through and creates a pusillanimous mindset.
If the Party were to refuse to retain or tolerate all comrades who reflect non-proletarian ideologies in some degree, or who have committed some mistakes and yet are not incorrigible, and were to reject them categorically and even expel them, then the tasks of educating the comrades and consolidating the Party’s organization would be nonexistent.
Ultra leftism is an autoimmune disorder to socialism.
In particular, these comrades fail to understand that the achievement of communism involves the tremendous and difficult task of transforming all mankind into the selfless citizenry of a communist society, the task of converting men with their many weaknesses into communists with a high level of culture through a long process of tempering and education in the course of struggle.
Once again, mass movements require building a mass, not just a sliver of the “pure, true believers.”
Comrades who take an extreme attitude do not understand that the achievement of communism is an arduous and torturous task, they fear difficulties and crave a straight road, they want to eliminate everything unpleasant at one stroke and leap immediately into the world of their ideals. Thinking and acting in this way, they inevitably run their heads against a brick wall. And after banging and bruising their heads, they quite often become disheartened and loose their confidence in the future of communism. Thus they swing between extremes, from “Left” to “Right”, thereby revealing the essence of their non-proletarian ideology.
I’ve known people like that, they just bounce from one radical movement to another, getting discouraged the moment it’s not easy, constantly puffing about the moral superiority of their contrarianism.
It does not mean that we should make a big fuss over small matters, conduct inner-Party struggle with stony faces and never compromise even on routine and on questions of a purely practical nature.
Who’s bringing what dish to the potluck is not an ideological struggle.
I’ll type up some final thoughts tomorrow, see if there’s any points you brought up that I should address.
Chapter three thoughts: it’s refreshing to see self-development being explicitly tied to larger societal development and the former not being possible without the latter. Self-improvement approaches in the West, like so much else, is hyper atomized and misses the role social action plays.
It means that we should listen modestly to the opinions and criticisms of our Party comrades and of the masses
There is a contradictory mentality in many Western socialists where want a mass, working class movement, but also are dismissive of those masses as “normies.” The needs of the working class must be met, not projecting needs upon them.
Furthermore, on the basis of new experience we should ascertain whether there are any individual conclusions or aspects of Marxism-Leninism that need supplementing, enriching and developing.
As much as “immortal science” makes for great memes, if there’s a categorical denial that the theory can be improved and is perfect, then it’s not science. There must be room for falsification, amending of the hypothesis, in order for the theory to be scientific in nature.
Foreign stereotypes must be abolished, there must be less singing of empty, abstract tunes, and dogmatism must be laid to rest; they must be replaced by the fresh, lively Chinese style and spirit which the common people of China love.
I wonder what Mao saw as the differences between the foreign implementations of Marxism and the Chinese style.
Party membership is open to anyone who "who accepts the Programme and Constitution of the Party organizations, pays membership dues and works in one of the Party organizations". (My thought: the tricky point here is "accepts the Programme and Constitution" – a party would have to write one that's broad enough to allow flexibility, yet specific enough to exclude right-wing/reactionary/anti-revolutionary tendencies. It's about specifying what are the real hallmarks of the party?)
Engels said Marx's mission was to overthrow capitalism. This is interesting because some people think of Marx as a theoretician.
Liu Shaoqi quotes Engels on Marx and Stalin on Lenin and the gist of it is "Be a fighter, be a man of action." Stalin on Lenin: "Never refuse to do the little things, for from the little things are built the big things – that is one of Ilyich's important behests." – This is reminiscent of the line in Combat Liberalism: "to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type."
An emerging theme is that Marxists should unify theory and practice.
Don't adulate the heroic names so much that they become unattainable. They were very small on the scale of things.
Every Communist should keep his feet on the ground, seek the truth from the facts, work hard at tempering himself, work conscientiously at self-cultivation and do his best to improve his own thinking and quality. He should not regard the thinking and qualities of such great revolutionaries as the founders of Marxism-Leninism as beyond his reach, give up and be afraid to advance.
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People who, "Although they read Marxist-Leninist literature, they are unable to use its principles and conclusions as a guide to action and apply them to concrete, practical problems in real life". Dogmatists who "could only babble Marxist-Leninist phraseology". They become arrogant. "Those people had no sincere desire to study Marxism-Leninism or fight for the realization of communism - they were just careerists in the Party, termites in the communist movement."
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People who study hard, "conscientiously carry on self-cultivation and examine themselves to see if their handling of affairs, their dealings with people and their own behaviour conform to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism". "They are well read in Marxism-Leninism but at the same time they make a special effort to investigate and analyse living reality, to study the characteristics of their own time and all aspects of the situation facing the proletariat of their own country, and to integrate the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the revolution in their own country."
Studying the characteristics of your own time and conditions implies we should spend time studying contemporary polls, news, debates, current affairs. Study that and study classic theory and unite them. And do practice of course.
Don't expect applause, adulation, respect. Ironically you get it this way ("Yet such a person will enjoy the considered respect and support of the mass of the Party members just because he acts in this way"). This is also a life-lesson I learned just in life.
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Then there are people of exactly the opposite kind. They see themselves above all as pupils of the founders of Marxism-Leninism, conscientiously study the theory of Marxism-Leninism and strive to grasp its essence and spirit. They look up to the noble character and proletarian revolutionary qualities of the founders, and in the course of revolutionary struggles they conscientiously carry on self-cultivation and examine themselves to see if their handling of affairs, their dealings with people and their own behaviour conform to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism. They are well read in Marxism-Leninism but at the same time they make a special effort to investigate and analyse living reality, to study the characteristics of their own time and all aspects of the situation facing the proletariat of their own country, and to integrate the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the revolution in their own country. They do not content themselves with memorizing Marxist-Leninist principles and conclusions, but take a firm Marxist-Leninist stand learn the Marxist-Leninist method and act accordingly, giving spirited guidance in every revolutionary struggle, and thus they transform reality and at the same time transform themselves. Every one of their actions without exception is guided by the general principals of Marxism-Leninism and is devoted to the victory of the proletarian cause, the liberation of the nation and all mankind, and the triumph of Communism.
Is, I think, the most important paragraph of the chapter, detailing what we should strive to be and be doing.
In order to live, man must wage a struggle against nature and make use of nature to produce material values. At all times and under all conditions, his production of material things is social in character. It follows that when men engage in production at any stage of social development, they have to enter into certain relations of production with one another.
Pretty standard materialism, nicely expressed.
Every member of a class society exists as a member of a given class and lives in given conditions of class struggle. Man’s social being determines his consciousness.
I don't fully agree "Man’s social being determines his consciousness." because I'm not that much of a materialist, but the general point is taken. He then says, "In class society the ideology of the members of each class reflects a different position and different class interests.", and obviously things like class traitors exist.
Quotes “The German Ideology” by Marx & Engels that men are reformed in the process of revolution. That is to say, not by some self-improvement exercise, but by praxis.
"the revolution is necessary, therefore, not only the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew" – the revolution not only overthrows the bourgeoisie, it transforms the proletariat.
An immature revolutionary has to go through a long process of revolutionary tempering and self-cultivation, a long process of remoulding, before he cam become a mature and seasoned revolutionary who can grasp and skilfully apply the laws of revolution. For in the first place, a comparatively immature revolutionary, born and bred in the old society, carries with him the remnants of the various ideologies of that society (including its prejudices, habits and traditions), and in the second he has not been through a long period of revolutionary activity. Therefore he does not yet have a really thorough understanding of the enemy, of the people or of the laws of social development and revolutionary struggle.
This probably foreshadows/summarises a lot of what the book is gonna be about.
Work hard, study hard, transform yourself.
Some will make very rapid progress and some who used to lag behind will even forge ahead of others. Other Party members will advance very slowly. Still others will waver in the struggle and, instead of being pushed forward by revolutionary practice, will fall behind.
The Long March made some participants more enthusiastic, made others exhausted and they quit. People "differ in their attitude, stand and comprehension in relation to the revolutionary practice, and consequently they develop in different directions in the course of revolutionary practice"
Whether he joined the revolution long ago or just recently, every Communist who wants to become a good politically mature revolutionary must undergo a long period of tempering in revolutionary struggle, must steel himself in mass revolutionary struggles and all kinds of difficulties and hardships, must sum up the experience gained through practice, make great efforts in self-cultivation, raise his ideological level, heighten his ability and never loose sense of what is new. For only thus can he turn himself into a politically staunch revolutionary of high quality.
Just pulling this out because it's quotable.
Mencius, another feudal philosopher, said that no one had fulfilled a “great mission” and played a role in history without first undergoing a hard process of tempering, a process which “exercises his mind with suffering and toughens his sinews and bones with toil, exposes his body to hunger, subjects him to extreme poverty, thwarts his under-takings and thereby stimulates his mind, tempers his character and adds to his capacities”. Still more so must Communists give attention to tempering and cultivating themselves in revolutionary struggles, since they have the historically unprecedented “great mission” of changing the world.
😬
Our Communist self-cultivation is the kind essential to proletarian revolutionaries. It must not be divorced from revolutionary practice or from the actual revolutionary movements of the labouring masses, and especially of the proletarian masses.
From what I know about Liu Shaoqi, this point might recur. Theory alone is not enough; grow by practice.
The Mao quote in this chapter is about a dialectical theory-practice relationship.
Some people are broken by failure, but others are derailed by success (become complacent or arrogant). "Individual instances of this kind are not uncommon among our Party members. The existence of such a phenomenon in the Party calls for our comrades’ sharp attention."
"In past ages, before the proletarian revolutionaries appeared on the scene, practically all revolutionaries became corrupted and removedd with the achievement of victory. They lost their original revolutionary spirit and became obstacles to the further development of the revolution."
This is an interesting point. Revolutions have become tyrannical many many times in history. "once they themselves became the ruling class, these revolutionaries lost their revolutionary quality and turned round to oppress the exploited masses; this was the inexorable law."
But such can never be the case with the proletarian revolution and with the Communist Party. [lol, very optimistic of you comrade] The proletarian revolution is a revolution to abolish all exploitation, oppression and classes. The Communist Party represents the proletariat which is itself exploited but does not exploit others and which can therefore carry the revolution through to the end finally abolish all exploitation and sweep away all the corruption and rottenness in human society.
Reading this, I think, "Yeah that's the goal, but it isn't guaranteed. Arguably the more likely outcome is that the proletarian victors will become a ruling class". I hope the book goes on to address how to prevent that new class.
He then talks about purity ("preserving the purity of the Party and the state apparatus", "always preserve their pure proletarian revolutionary character so that they will not fall into the rut of earlier revolutionaries who removedd in the hour of success"), but the key question is HOW, how to preserve this purity.
But such can never be the case with the proletarian revolution and with the Communist Party. [lol, very optimistic of you comrade]
I read that as, "...can never be [allowed to be] the case with..." the same way one might say, "We can't fail here" to mean "We can't allow ourselves to fail here" and not, "It's literally impossible for us to fail." It doesn't make sense to talk about the need to preserve the purity of the party if that purity is inherently impossible to lose.
The last few paragraphs are also what grabbed me the most.
Thus, once they themselves became the ruling class, these revolutionaries lost their revolutionary quality and turned round to oppress the exploited masses; this was the inexorable law.
I can see how bourgeois revolutions would turn out that way, once in power, the bourgeoisie can start exploiting people themselves through financial means (more effectively).
But such can never be the case with the proletarian revolution and with the Communist Party.
I agree with the interpretation that this is what we must ensure after a successful revolution. At the same time, I also interpret it in a way where the proletariat generally speaking isn't a class that can exploit/exploits another class, so the members of the proletarian ruling elite would transition to being a class of ruling bureaucrats before they start exploiting the proletariat anew.
The proletariat is able to build a strictly organized and disciplined party and set up a centralized and at the same time democratic state apparatus, and through the Party and this state apparatus, it is able to lead the masses of the people in waging unrelenting struggle against all corruption and rottenness and in ceaselessly weeding out of the Party and the state organs all those elements that have become corrupt and removed (whatever high office they may hold), thereby preserving the purity of the Party and the state apparatus.
This, I feel is a very important statement to take to heart. We, as revolutionaries need to not only constantly improve ourselves (through self-crit among other things) but also the vanguard party and proletarian state, to ensure it doesn't removed into class oppression (of the proletariat) again. It's also interesting to consider this statement in the context of Xi's anti corruption purges.
I can't wait to see how the text continues from here.
Will admit I’m not that knowledgeable about pre-revolution China, what exactly was the Long March and how was it a transformative thing for Chinese revolutionaries?
Unify theory and practice. That's a core theme of the book.
Marxism-Leninism is the interests of the working class. "Marxism-Leninism is the science of proletarian revolution... It can be thoroughly understood and mastered only by those who... have made the ideals of the proletariat their own"
"The science of Marxism-Leninism is of little of no use to anyone who is not a genuine revolutionary, who is not a proletarian revolutionary to the core, who does not want to bring about socialism and communism throughout the world and emancipate all mankind, to anyone who does not want revolution or is unwilling to carry it through to the end and wants to stop half-way."
Party members from the working class sometimes grasp this more intuitively than well-read non-working-class people. "For example, the section in Capital concerning surplus value is difficult for some Party members, but not for those from the working class. The reason is that in the process of production and of struggle against the capitalists, the workers come to know all too well how the capitalists calculate wages and working hours, exploit the workers for profit and oppress them."
Having said that, even people from the working class have to "study Marxist-Leninist theory modestly and diligently" and "we should add that no Party member can maintain a proletarian stand and express a proletarian ideology concretely in every revolutionary struggle unless he studies the theory and method of Marxism-Leninism diligently and guides his thinking and action accordingly."
Prior prejudices and selfish interests block people from becoming a person with proletarian/Marxist motivations. Some root them out and some don't. "When they handle practical problems in the course of revolutionary struggle, the habits and prejudices which they have brought with them from the old society and their individualistic calculations led them to think in terms of personal gain or loss"
Fighting bravely is not enough. The right class background is not enough. Ideological study is also necessary. You need firmness, but also the ideology-guided wisdom to know what to do.
Being familiar with theory, and being firmly pro-prole, you will be able to answer questions such "as the question of whom to rely upon, whom to unite with and whom to overthrow, the question of who are our direct allies, who is the main enemy and who are the secondary enemies, the question of rallying all possible allies, including even secondary enemies under certain conditions, to defeat the main enemy, and the question of making timely changes in strategy and tactics to meet changing situations".
Take the current situation of the Russo-Ukrainian war – the left is confused about who to support and who to oppose.
"national united front against Japan" – A United Front is a concept the person reading this should learn and understand. It means a temporary alliance for limited aims for definite action. It actually means united with people you don't agree with on certain things. For example, communists might unite with SocDems on some environmental thing. It's the opposite of squabbling and cancelling, what Liu Shaoqi calls "'closed-doorism' and sectarianism". The fact that it's a limited alliance for limited aims is what he's talking about when he says "certain comrades went to the other extreme, maintaining that since the Kuomintang had joined in the resistance to Japan, there was hardly any distinction between it and the Communist Party". He calls the cancel-culture refusal to unite with anyone a left (ultra-left) mistake, and the overfriendliness ("appeasement and capitulation") a right mistake.
"certain comrades did not understand that the contradiction between the Chinese nation and Japanese imperialism had become the principal one while the contradictions among the different classes and political groups within the country had become secondary." – that's interesting. It's saying that you unite with whoever is with you on the main issue of the hour.
"The proletariat cannot just emancipate itself alone; it must fight for the emancipation of all the working people, the emancipation of the nation and of all mankind, for only thus can it fully emancipate itself."
"The proletariat must rid the whole of human society of exploitation, oppression and class struggle once and for all, for only thus can it genuinely and finally emancipate itself. Hence a firm proletarian stand must be sharply differentiated from ‘closed-doorism’ and sectarianism. In waging struggles the proletariat and its political party must establish close ties with the masses of working people, form revolutionary alliances with other revolutionary classes and parties and lead the working masses and all their allies forward together; they must represent the interests of more than 90% of the population of the country."
Make clear delineations between the proletarian-communists and all other groups, even when you form a united front with them.
"In every stage of the development of the revolutionary struggle they must combine the interests of the part with the interests of the whole and immediate interests with long-term interests."
Lenin quote from 'What Is To Be Done?' that class consciousness means seeing the issues of the day in as manifestations of bourgeois or proletarian interests
Lenin: “The Social-Democrat's ideal should not be a trade-union secretary, but a tribune of the people, able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it takes place, no matter what stratum of class of people it affects; he must be able to generalize all these manifestations to produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation” – this is a great quote, he even drags the pigs. The political form of communism is the dictatorship of the proletariat by direct means.
Thought is necessary as well as experience. He quotes Mao 'On Practice' about this.
"If only we study this theory, apply it and master it in close conjunction with revolutionary practice, we shall be able to understand the inner connections of the changes taking place all around us and to know how and in what direction the various classes are now moving and will soon move, and we shall be able to determine our line of action and have confidence in the future of the revolutionary movement."
Lenin's statement, "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."
Marxism emphasises the importance of theory
Thoughts on chapter eight: find it wryly entertaining that he would depict the unsavory members of the party as in-laws rather than direct family members.
Before joining the Party, some young comrades were bitterly dissatisfied with existing society, saw no way out and turned to the Communist Party as to a beacon of light. They thought that everything would be satisfactory and would work out well once they joined. Yet after doing so, or after arriving in our revolutionary base area, they find there are shortcomings and mistakes in the Party, too, and in real life not everything is satisfactory (much that would satisfy them would not be in the interests of the revolution and the Party)
Heavy implications in that last line. I would imagine he’s referring to the utopian idealist types that think communism would be fully automated luxury for them right away and no struggle or work translating the theory to the practical business of running a political economy.
in China today there still exists exploiting classes and the influence of these classes - selfishness, intrigue, bureaucracy and various types of filth. We have many excellent Party members who are not easily affected by such influences. But it is so strange that certain members bring some of the filth of the old society with them into our Party of reflect it there? Is it so strange that a person that has just crawled out of the mud is covered with slime? Of course not. It is only to be expected. It would be strange and indeed incredible, if the ranks of the Communist Party were absolutely free from such filth.
Similar thematic metaphor as the classic “we all eat out of the trash can.”
The pressure of the bourgeoisie and its ideology on the proletariat and its party finds expression in the fact that bourgeois ideas, manners, customs and sentiments not infrequently penetrate the proletariat and its party through definite strata of the proletariat that are in one way or another connected with bourgeois society.
The long term interest of the proletariat is to rid itself of the shackles of the bourgeoisie, but as long as they must survive in a bourgeois political economy, they need to defer and placate that system. Thus we get contradictions in the proletariat movements (more on that in a bit).
The second stratum consists of new comers from non-proletarian classes - from the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie or the intelligencia.
The first two are straightforward enough, but the last category is a bit more nebulous. Is this just those in academia? Professional, as much as there can be, philosophers? Could journalists fall into this category?
The third stratum, lastly, consists of the labour aristocracy, the upper stratum of the working class, the most well-to-do portion of the proletariat, with its propensity for compromise with the bourgeoisie, its predominant inclination to adapt itself to the powers that be, and its anxiety go "get on in life". This stratum constitutes the most favourable soil for outright reformists and opportunists.
Ah yes, labor aristocracy, very contentious within leftist debate and more of that contradiction within the proletariat and proletariat movements. Obviously, all leftists want to see the well-being of laborers improved. Yet it’s also unavoidable that the history of improving their conditions has led to subsets of the working class seeing itself as working class plus, their protections and unions not the result of working class struggle but rather a blessing upon them for being the hard working laborers, as opposed to those lazy, mooching laborers. It is a delicate balance to find improvements that empower the working class without destroying its proper sense of class identity and not falling into producerism mindsets.
