Interesting that you say this as Mao argued that vanguardism was somewhat faulty in the sense that it encourages the Party to become separate from the people, thus his railing against bureaucratism in the 60s. The mass line is necessary, and the mass lines also means understanding local sensibilities and needs. The PRC attempting to take former imperial holdings and make them part of a single polity I think was a policy based not on the mass line but a belief that minority regions could not be lost.
I do not necessarily thing the CCP was wrong to take the path it did so but yes I do believe that revolution could have been encouraged in a more grassroots fashion, and that doing so would have meant that separatism would have never really emerged as an actual problem.
For sure, to be clear I don't think Mao was a flawless god made flesh or that the PRC never did anything wrong ever ever.
I think looking back on history you can always see ways things could have gone better, not just with your knowledge of the outcomes of people's actions but with your different definition of "better" than historical actors, even historical actors you think did good things or you agree with more than other historical actors in the same time period.
The OG Maoists did seem to have some nationalist/"natural borders"/manifest destiny style brainworms and the PRC still uses some uncomfortably reactionary nationalist rhetoric to justify things today. I don't agree that Tibetan seperatism/anti-communism was never going to be a problem if the PRC took a more grassroots approach,. I think it would have came from different places but the CIA wasn't going to not agitate and any of the Tibetan ruling class that survived or escaped weren't going to not be mad about losing their slaves. I also think the CPC would have to be comprised of quite different people to value Tibetan national self determination over spreading communism to a feudal theocracy/restoring Chinese pride and well and truly ending the century of humiliation.
I'm not much one for going deeply into alternate histories. I don't think it was ever really possible for the CPC to have a different approach to Tibet (after all, they didn't have a different approach to Tibet, they had the one they had). I'm a little interested in examining why they had the approach they had and how it worked out, I think that can teach us things, but I don't think there's any way of really knowing, or even of productively discussing, if things would have been better or worse if they'd taken a more "grassroots" approach to fostering communism in Tibet. I'm tempted to say it would have at least been slower and less likely to succeed, but I have no real way to back that up and it's neither here nor there.
What I am very interested in are more abstract questions of morality (should we value the consent of the governed over spreading communism) and what may or may not work in our current situations.
The things in this I'm very much down to talk about (or as the case may be massive walls of text on a 10000 member commie shitposting forum about 😜) are if wars of communist states against other non-communist states are a thing that's desirable or effective and if revolutionaries have a right/imperative to try to implement communism without the initial (explicit?) consent of the majority of the people they're trying to do a communism for/with and whether nation states and national sovereignty should be respected or if they're just reactionary garbage.
I'm currently of the opinion that wars are good if winnable, explicit consent is impractical but consent of the governed is important, not sure how important compared to the suffering that can be stopped without, and nation states/ national sovereignty are entirely reactionary garbage except in that the consent of the governed is important.
Happy to elaborate/open to being informed persuaded on any of those :)
My view of history as someone who practices and cares deeply about it is that history is meaningless without also thinking about the potential paths that were lost. The CCP actively debated, molded, and changed its minority policy. They themselves admit it was not inevitable and was a conscious decision that they took. Just studying other comparative revolutions tells us that yes, other policies could have been taken and that yes we can and should be able to make judgement calls.
National sovereignty is reactionary, but it is also the only route that polities have in the face of imperialism. This is why national liberation movements often had a combination of socialist and progressive nationalist forces. Similarly in Tibet following the end of the Qing, there were struggles between different factions of 'nationalists' but also a reluctant acceptance that China is big enough tha Tibet would also be tied to it somehow. The 'somehow' in that story is important. China made the call ultimately not to pursue Soviet autonomous policies (which, to be fair, very rarely actually produced real meaningful autonomy ie look at Soviet Kazakhstan) because they considered Tibet too important due to its water resources and its sheer size. Without its minority areas, China would be 40% smaller. So national defense made annexations necessary, and perhaps I don't even disagree but it does mean we have to reckon with the fact that this was not really about spreading communism. The early CCP said as much - revolution was the thing that the Han would do, and if necessary they would do it to others. And as Zhou Enlai himself noted, much of that chauvinism had its roots in Soviet and British ethnic studies. I wouldn't call it imperialist, yes, but there was a certain imperious attitude to it that we do have to have a little introspection about. Similarly, peasants would complain about this all the time - that Party cadres would never try to understand them. This is something that the mass line corrects, imo, and without it I am very unsure as to what revolution would really look like in the long term.
Furthermore, if you spread revolution without any sort of mass support in the country you invade, you will defang any potential for local progressive forces and empower the reactionaries, thus you get Afghanistan. In the fight against reactionary tendencies, conflict itself will never be enough and I frankly do not think interventionism will ever beget lasting change. America certainly has proven that and even if you believe a communist country would act differently (though we must note that it has been rare for existing communist parties to take over an entirely different country and actually create a lasting new regime), I think we must genuinely try and understand what we want revolution to be. Does revolution mean one vision of progress that is imposed on all? Or does it mean creating novel paths for people depending on their socioeconomic and cultural structures? To me the answer is clear.
Interesting that you say this as Mao argued that vanguardism was somewhat faulty in the sense that it encourages the Party to become separate from the people, thus his railing against bureaucratism in the 60s. The mass line is necessary, and the mass lines also means understanding local sensibilities and needs. The PRC attempting to take former imperial holdings and make them part of a single polity I think was a policy based not on the mass line but a belief that minority regions could not be lost.
I do not necessarily thing the CCP was wrong to take the path it did so but yes I do believe that revolution could have been encouraged in a more grassroots fashion, and that doing so would have meant that separatism would have never really emerged as an actual problem.
For sure, to be clear I don't think Mao was a flawless god made flesh or that the PRC never did anything wrong ever ever.
I think looking back on history you can always see ways things could have gone better, not just with your knowledge of the outcomes of people's actions but with your different definition of "better" than historical actors, even historical actors you think did good things or you agree with more than other historical actors in the same time period.
The OG Maoists did seem to have some nationalist/"natural borders"/manifest destiny style brainworms and the PRC still uses some uncomfortably reactionary nationalist rhetoric to justify things today. I don't agree that Tibetan seperatism/anti-communism was never going to be a problem if the PRC took a more grassroots approach,. I think it would have came from different places but the CIA wasn't going to not agitate and any of the Tibetan ruling class that survived or escaped weren't going to not be mad about losing their slaves. I also think the CPC would have to be comprised of quite different people to value Tibetan national self determination over spreading communism to a feudal theocracy/restoring Chinese pride and well and truly ending the century of humiliation.
I'm not much one for going deeply into alternate histories. I don't think it was ever really possible for the CPC to have a different approach to Tibet (after all, they didn't have a different approach to Tibet, they had the one they had). I'm a little interested in examining why they had the approach they had and how it worked out, I think that can teach us things, but I don't think there's any way of really knowing, or even of productively discussing, if things would have been better or worse if they'd taken a more "grassroots" approach to fostering communism in Tibet. I'm tempted to say it would have at least been slower and less likely to succeed, but I have no real way to back that up and it's neither here nor there.
What I am very interested in are more abstract questions of morality (should we value the consent of the governed over spreading communism) and what may or may not work in our current situations.
The things in this I'm very much down to talk about (or as the case may be massive walls of text on a 10000 member commie shitposting forum about 😜) are if wars of communist states against other non-communist states are a thing that's desirable or effective and if revolutionaries have a right/imperative to try to implement communism without the initial (explicit?) consent of the majority of the people they're trying to do a communism for/with and whether nation states and national sovereignty should be respected or if they're just reactionary garbage.
I'm currently of the opinion that wars are good if winnable, explicit consent is impractical but consent of the governed is important, not sure how important compared to the suffering that can be stopped without, and nation states/ national sovereignty are entirely reactionary garbage except in that the consent of the governed is important.
Happy to elaborate/open to being informed persuaded on any of those :)
My view of history as someone who practices and cares deeply about it is that history is meaningless without also thinking about the potential paths that were lost. The CCP actively debated, molded, and changed its minority policy. They themselves admit it was not inevitable and was a conscious decision that they took. Just studying other comparative revolutions tells us that yes, other policies could have been taken and that yes we can and should be able to make judgement calls.
National sovereignty is reactionary, but it is also the only route that polities have in the face of imperialism. This is why national liberation movements often had a combination of socialist and progressive nationalist forces. Similarly in Tibet following the end of the Qing, there were struggles between different factions of 'nationalists' but also a reluctant acceptance that China is big enough tha Tibet would also be tied to it somehow. The 'somehow' in that story is important. China made the call ultimately not to pursue Soviet autonomous policies (which, to be fair, very rarely actually produced real meaningful autonomy ie look at Soviet Kazakhstan) because they considered Tibet too important due to its water resources and its sheer size. Without its minority areas, China would be 40% smaller. So national defense made annexations necessary, and perhaps I don't even disagree but it does mean we have to reckon with the fact that this was not really about spreading communism. The early CCP said as much - revolution was the thing that the Han would do, and if necessary they would do it to others. And as Zhou Enlai himself noted, much of that chauvinism had its roots in Soviet and British ethnic studies. I wouldn't call it imperialist, yes, but there was a certain imperious attitude to it that we do have to have a little introspection about. Similarly, peasants would complain about this all the time - that Party cadres would never try to understand them. This is something that the mass line corrects, imo, and without it I am very unsure as to what revolution would really look like in the long term.
Furthermore, if you spread revolution without any sort of mass support in the country you invade, you will defang any potential for local progressive forces and empower the reactionaries, thus you get Afghanistan. In the fight against reactionary tendencies, conflict itself will never be enough and I frankly do not think interventionism will ever beget lasting change. America certainly has proven that and even if you believe a communist country would act differently (though we must note that it has been rare for existing communist parties to take over an entirely different country and actually create a lasting new regime), I think we must genuinely try and understand what we want revolution to be. Does revolution mean one vision of progress that is imposed on all? Or does it mean creating novel paths for people depending on their socioeconomic and cultural structures? To me the answer is clear.
"Wars are good"
Well that's not a very civil thing to say at all.
😔
Don't let my shit posting ruin a good dialogue though - I was learning a lot, thanks to all involved.