p The present epoch is justly known as the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism, and the historical experience of the past few decades provides irrefutable evidence of this. As a result of the joint struggle of the socialist states, the working class in the capitalist countries, the newlyfree and the oppressed peoples, there is a further weakening of imperialist positions in the political, economic, military and ideological spheres. The Main Document of the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties says that “socialism, which has triumphed on one-third of the globe, has scored new successes in the world-wide struggle for the hearts and minds of the people".  [5•1 

p However, international imperialism has been counterattacking in an effort to change the overall balance of forces in its favour. In these conditions, there is need for even greater cohesion of all the anti-imperialist forces, above all, the Communist and Workers’ Parties, the most progressive sections of modern society. “The policy of joint anti-imperialist action demands that the ideological and political role of the Marxist-Leninist Parties in the world revolutionary process should be enhanced".  [5•2 

p This task can only be fulfilled through implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology, against Right and “Left” opportunism, against revisionism, dogmatism and Leftsectarian adventurism.

p One of the pressing tasks before Marxism-Leninism today is to criticise the theoretical conceptions of Mao Tse-tung and his group. The Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the Party’s 24th Congress stressed that the Chinese leaders “have put forward an ideological-political platform of their own which is incompatible with Leninism on the key questions of international life and the world communist movement and have demanded that we should abandon the line of the 20th Congress and the Programme of the CPSU".  [6•1 

p A new front of ideological struggle has been opened in connection with the anti-Marxist, anti-socialist, chauvinistic and anti-Soviet line pursued by the present Chinese leadership. This line was officially formalised by the 9th Congress of the CPC in April 1969. The theoretical basis of this line is the “thought of Mao Tse-tung”, or Maoism, which is an ideological trend hostile to Marxism. Maoism is deeply alien to internationalism and to the idea of the proletarian solidarity of nations; Great-Power chauvinism has become one of its main features.

p The history of 20th century revolutions shows that Marxism is latent with vast attractive power not only for the working class, but also for other social groups, in particular, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. Apart from the Marxists, the communist and working-class movement is joined by men with various incorrect notions about the ways of restructuring society, among them revolutionary democrats, anarchists, bourgeois nationalists, etc. Some of them, once tempered in the flames of revolutionary struggle in the ranks of the Party, become Marxists, others fail to stand the test and break with the communist movement, while still others remain in the ranks of the Party, but never ultimately shed their old petty-bourgeois or bourgeois convictions.

p This is of particular importance in any examination of the make-up of Communist and Workers’ Parties in developing, 7 peasant countries. Petty-bourgeois ideology necessarily has a negative effect on these Parties, because their ranks are formed mainly from the non-proletarian sections of society. This was a fact to which Comintern documents at one time strongly drew attention. In these conditions, the role of the leading nucleus of the Communist Party is considerably enhanced, for it has the duty to rally, on a common Marxist platform, all the members of the Party, regardless of their social origin, past activity and former views, and to prevent views hostile to Marxism from gaining the upper hand in the Party. When for various reasons leadership in a Communist Party falls into the hands of anti-Marxists, this creates the danger of the Party’s degeneration and its conversion into a non-socialist, non-revolutionary organisation.

p Let us emphasise that from the outset the CPC brought together not only Marxists, but also non-Marxists, many of whom joined the Party mainly for tactical reasons. One of them was Mao Tse-tung.

p Chinese Marxists-Leninists were aware of Mao Tse-tung’s erroneous political line, and of the anti-Marxist essence of his views, and saw the artificial build-up of the myth of Mao Tse-tung as an outstanding theorist and infallible leader of the Chinese revolution. As best they could they resisted Mao’s attempts to impose his own, specific line on the Party, to “sinify” Marxism, and to supplant Marxist-Leninist ideas with the “thought of Mao Tse-tung”. It was their persistent resistance to Mao’s political line that made the 8th Congress of the CPC in 1956 expunge from the Party Rules the provision, imposed on the Party at the 7th Congress in May 1945, according to which the Party was “to be guided in all its activity" by the “thought of Mao Tse-tung”, and laid down in the Rules that “in all its activity the Communist Party of China shall be guided by Marxism-Leninism”.

p Mao Tse-tung did not accept this ideological defeat at the 8th Congress of the CPC, and launched on a fresh round of struggle against the Marxists-Leninists and internationalists in the period of the so-called “great proletarian cultural revolution" in China, one of whose purposes, it will be recalled, was massive terrorism in order to impose Mao’s views on the whole Party and the Chinese people, as the “most correct" and the “greatest” ideas.

p The failure of the “Three Red Banners" line and the 8 foreign-policy defeats were a blow at the myth of Mao’s being a Marxist-Leninist and an infallible theorist of the Chinese revolution. In this context, a special role was played by the “cultural revolution" which laid bare the real antiMarxist petty-bourgeois nature of the Maoists’ views and political line, and provided fresh evidence that Mao and his followers pursued aims which were a far cry from scientific socialism, democracy and peace. What is more, it showed once again that the Maoists confronted the international revolutionary movement as a bourgeois-nationalistic trend seeking to occupy a commanding position in the world revolutionary process so as to impose Mao’s anti-socialist views on the Communists and revolutionary democrats, to subordinate the revolutionary movement to their influence and to make it serve interests incompatible with Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.

p The appearance of Maoism in China as a specific pettybourgeois, nationalistic trend is connected not only with the name of Mao Tse-tung, but also with definite objective conditions.

p Because the Chinese proletariat emerged on the historical scene at a relatively late date, and because it was weak as a class, socialist concepts in China for a long time had the character of a social utopia coloured in the hues of traditional Chinese notions about the perfect society with its purely peasant ideals of social justice.

p From the outset, the Communist Party of China had to work in a country where the peasantry made up 90 per cent of the population. The social make-up of the CPC was largely peasant and petty-bourgeois. That is why petty-bourgeois ideology of every shade was frequently reflected in the minds of CPC members. That was inevitable. As Mao himself admitted, men who came to the CPC from the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie were “often liberals, reformists, anarchists, Blanquists, etc.”, who pretended to be MarxistsLeninists.  [8•1  Let us bear in mind that Mao himself comes from the petty bourgeoisie.

p The survival of semi-feudal relations of production in China helped to conserve among various sections of the Chinese people Great-Power nationalistic attitudes, which 9 the country’s ruling elite had been implanting for many centuries, attitudes which at the turn of the century were sharpened to the extreme and assumed the urge of restoring China to her old grandeur. The ideology of Great-Han chauvinism had infected not only the conservative feudal, bureaucratic forces, but also China’s petty-bourgeois democrats, who dreamed of seeing their country as the centre of the world and reigning supreme in the international arena. It was indeed Great-Han chauvinism, combined with pettybourgeois revolutionism, that created the atmosphere in which Mao’s ideology developed.

p Mao’s views were shaped in the conditions of the Chinese people’s revolutionary struggle against imperialism and feudalism, in an atmosphere of growing popularity of MarxismLeninism in China, following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the internationalist assistance which the Soviet Union was rendering the Chinese people in their liberation struggle. It was quite natural therefore for Mao Tse-tung at one time also to turn to MarxismLeninism as a banner which rallied all the progressive forces of China. He sought to exploit the vast authority of Marxist-Leninist ideas for his own selfish ends. He clothed his petty-bourgeois, unscientific conceptions and views in Marxist-Leninist form, because the reputation of being a Marxist-Leninist opened up before him the possibility of taking over the leading position within the CPC.

p Marxism-Leninism never became for Mao a world outlook which he understood, assimilated and accepted. He regarded Marxism-Leninism as a “foreign teaching”, of which only some “general truths" could be applied in China. Mao’s approach to Marxism-Leninism was pragmatic, for he borrowed from it only that which met and served his purposes. Because before the Chinese people’s victory in 1949 Mao’s schemes were objectively in the main identical with the tasks of the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution, he made use in that period of that part of Marxism-Leninism which could be placed at the service of these tasks.

p Mao’s views never took shape as a full-fledged, systematic world outlook, or a more or less coherent theory. They are a conglomerate of diverse ideas borrowed, depending on the need of the moment, from the most diverse sources, ranging from the conversations of Confucius to the writings of 10 Kropotkin. That is why they are eclectic, fragmentary and superficial. The appearance of the Little Red Book in China was not at all accidental: it was a reflection of the mosaic nature of Mao’s views. Mao’s views and political line reveal elements which are akin to Narodism, anarchism, Blanquism, Trotskyism and other petty-bourgeois ideological trends. This is due not only to the concrete historical situation in which Mao’s views were shaped, the conditions which in the past generated in Europe ideas of “Left” revolutionism, but also to the influence, direct and indirect, exerted on Mao by the tenets of Bakunin, Trotsky and petty-bourgeois theorists of similar stripe. However, it would be wrong to identify Mao’s views with any of these ideological trends. Because Maoism is chiefly a Chinese phenomenon, it has deep socio-economic, historical, ideological and epistemological roots in Chinese soil, especially in view of the fact that Mao’s political acts and views have far from always been in the nature of “Left” revolutionism, constituting in many instances a Rightopportunist and nationalistic line covered up with Leftist catchwords.

p In claiming the “thought of Mao Tse-tung" to be the summit of modern Marxist-Leninist thinking, Chinese propaganda seeks to create the impression that Mao has formulated new ideas on all the basic problems of Marxist-Leninist theory. In actual fact, Mao has sought to exploit MarxismLeninism and to use its authority as camouflage, falsifying and distorting the essence of this great revolutionary teaching.

p The failure of the attempts to apply the “thought of Mao Tse-tung" in practice shows best of all that this “thought” is subjectivist and unscientific. These failures, more than anything else, show that Maoism, whatever the mantle it dons, cannot serve the interests of a modern society building socialism. The objective laws of social development have overthrown, and will always continue to overthrow, similar “thought” and the political schemes it is used to justify or cover up. For all the efforts of the present Chinese leaders to maintain their ideological domination, Maoism is bound sooner or later to suffer a complete collapse. However, this will occur the earlier the sooner the working people of China realise the true nature of the “thought of Mao Tse-tung”. The “cultural revolution" shows that the disillusionment in 11 this “thought” had spread in China to such an extent that it took a massive campaign of terrorism and intimidation to maintain the “thought of Mao Tse-tung" in a dominant position.

p Mao’s followers have been trying in various ways to make the Chinese people believe that his “thought” allegedly has a “miraculous power" and that it is the “embodiment of truth”. It is well known, however, that to establish the objectivity of a truth it has never been necessary to use force, abuse, idolatry and destruction of the most conscious and high-minded sections of society. Only obscurantism and barbarism were established in that manner. The light of truth has no need for the flames of bonfires lit to burn up books.

p This question naturally arises: if Mao’s views are unscientific, vulgar and schematic, is it at all proper to make any serious effort to expose them and to carry on a consistent ideological struggle against them? There is only one answer: it is not only proper, but necessary. It is necessary because the Maoists are seeking to present them as the highest achievement of Marxism-Leninism of the modern epoch. On the strength of their views, they have been pursuing a special, nationalistic line, discrediting the ideals of socialism and communism. Petty-bourgeois revolutionism, which permeates these views, exerts an influence on the petty-bourgeois section in China herself and elsewhere, especially in the developing countries.

p It should also be borne in mind that Mao’s views add up to an ideology of the personality cult in its ugliest form, and that they are marked by demagogy and an appeal to the basest instincts. The Maoists have used this demagogy to confuse the most backward section of the Chinese working class and the peasantry and to corrupt the young.

p Finally, Mao’s views and political line have made it possible for anti-communism considerably to step up its activity. Imperialist propaganda has been making wide use of the “thought of Mao Tse-tung" to fight the forces of socialism, democracy and peace. It has used, for its own ends, the fact that a part of progressive opinion abroad is inclined to regard Mao’s “misconceptions” and “mistakes” as being the price of transplanting the Marxist doctrine to Chinese soil. The Marxists are known resolutely to be opposed to any mechanical application of general truths and the imposition of 12 abstract schemes without consideration of the specific conditions in each country. Back in 1919, Lenin required the Communists of the East to “translate the true communist doctrine, which was intended for the Communists of the more advanced countries, into the language of every people...".  [12•1  However, this translation of Marxism into the idiom of each nation, including the Chinese, should not amount to a departure from or betrayal of the general principles of Marxism, or to a substitution of petty-bourgeois ideology for Marxism.

p To expose the anti-Marxist essence of Maoist theoretical conceptions there is need, first, to clarify their origins; second, to compare them with the principles of MarxismLeninism; third, to show the political orientation of Maoist postulates; and fourth, to examine these postulates in the context of the Maoists’ practical activity.

p In analysing the “thought of Mao Tse-tung" there is need to start above all from the Marxist doctrine of the state and revolution. There is need to obtain a comprehensive and profound understanding of what Lenin said about the tremendous complexity of the socialist revolution in a pettybourgeois country. The events in China make it necessary to consider a number of other problems as well, such as the class struggle and social relations in the transition period, the “cultural revolution" and the attitude to the cultural heritage, the correlation between the international and national aspects of the anti-imperialist liberation struggle, and finally, the problem of war and peace in the presence of mass destruction weapons, etc.

p This work is an attempt to give a scientific analysis, a Marxist assessment of the “thought of Mao Tse-tung”. The authors have naturally not set themselves the task of considering every aspect of this “thought”, let alone providing exhaustive and definitive answers to all the questions arising in the course of this consideration.

p The authors have constantly turned to an analysis of the Maoists’ political practices and have sought to show the true meaning of Mao’s various propositions in the light of the facts provided by the Maoists’ practical activity; they have tried to expose the unscientific, petty-bourgeois, 13 Great-Power essence of Maoism, and the depth of Mao’s political, moral and theoretical degradation.

p This monograph has been prepared by the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of the Far East of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

The Introduction was written by V. G. Georgiyev, Cand. Sc. (Philos.), and V. A. Krivtsov, Cand. Sc. (Philos.); Chapter One by V. G. Georgiyev; Chapter Two by V. A. Krivtsov (Section 1), V. G. Georgiyev and V. A. Krivtsov (Section 2); Chapter Three by Y. G. Plimak, Cand. Sc. (Hist.), and Y. F. Karyakin (Sections 1, 2, 3), V. G. Georgiyev and Y. G. Plimak (Section 4); Chapter Four by Y. G. Plimak (Sections 1 and 2), V. G. Georgiyev, K. I. Ivanov, Y. G. Plimak, and V. Y. Sidikhmenov, Cand. Sc. (Econ.) (Section 3), G. S. Ostroumov, Cand. Sc. (Law) (Sections 4 and 5), V. G. Georgiyev and G. S. Ostroumov (Section 6); Chapter Five by V. N. Semyonov, Dr. Sc. (Philos.), and V. Y. Sidikhmenov; Chapter Six by A. S. Frish, Cand. Sc. (Philos.); Chapter Seven by Y. A. Bailer, Dr. Sc. (Philos.), and the Conclusion by V. G. Georgiyev and V. Y. Sidikhmenov.