COMENTRIES ON MAO's TEXT “ON NEW DEMOCRACY”
The whole conception of the new democratic revolution developed by Mao was one of the most important contributions to Marxism to the extent that it was not limited to developing the Marxist theory of the state, but an integral theory over a variety of problems, such as: The means and ways of realizing the New Democracy; the problem of power that occupying the center of this structure; the conditions to ensure the passage of the New Democracy into Socialism; the question of the role of the Communist Party; the importance of a United Front of several revolutionary classes and their construction and armed struggle as the main form of struggle.
Mao's conception of the revolutionary process in China noted that the variety of instruments that come in the revolutionary process condense into "three fundamental instruments of the revolution", which are: The Communist Party, the Popular Front and the army.
For our interpretive exercise on the text "On New Democracy", 1940, we have to contextualize the situation in China at that time, in which the fight against Japanese imperialism emerged as enemy number one of the strongest nationalist sectors, thus serving as ballast for the process of national unification around the Communist Party in a startling moment of the rivalization process which would lead it to antagonize irremediably against the Kumitang.
As Mao himself admits in the final portions of the analyzed text, the Maoist revolution passed through three distinct stages (and entered its fourth), each with its own centers of power and agendas. The idea of a new democracy, as well as the text in question, is than addressed to a fourth phase of the revolutionary process (which started in 1937 and are now a days known to have lead to the unification of China under the Communist Party control).
According to Mao, the first period (1919-1921) would comprehend the process of formation of the Communist Party. The second one (1921-1927) would comprehend the alliance between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang to combat the warlords in the North – the so called Northern Expedition. The third period (1927-1931) would feature Chiang Kai-shek as the new leader of the Kuonmintang and the rivalry between them and the Communist Party, leading to the extreme of a war between them. The fourth period, than, would start in 1937, with the Japanese expansion from the already dominated Manchuria (in the Northeast) to the countryside, what made rivalries between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang to be put aside for the settlement of a United Front meant to resist the Japanese imperialism.
Coherent to his Hegelian Historical Materialism, Mao starts his analysis by seeking lessons in the Russian revolutionary process on the interest of taking the Chinese revolutionary process at the same state of Soviet socialism. Thus, he notes that Russia, though delayed, had its peculiar capitalist development, benefited greatly by their status as an imperialist country (Lenin characterized the feudal-military empire).
In this context, Mao presents his plan of action for this fourth phase in the form of a cultural theory, in which the Marxist perception of the relationship between culture and structure is redeemed somewhat rough to establish the primacy of politics over economics. Mao proposes policy changes that will lead to economic transformations that are capable of producing a culture in line with the new political model established. The way Mao establishes primacy of politics may makes it seem like there is here a serious break with Marxism, since most superficial understandings of Marx feature a picture of economy generating policy. However, Marx didn't begins his social thought based on institutional frameworks such as economics or politics but, instead, on an individual basis and, therefore, the initial force of Marxist logic is consciousness, which would produce effects on the economy which than would affect politics. In this sense there is no contradiction between Mao and Marx if we assume the consciousness to be an instance of political consciousness. The point here which I believe to deserve some critics is that Mao's use of preconceived superstructural categories as the very first source of his social though may leave little or no room for humanism in his revolutionary ideal. It is a slight theoretical difference, but it seem to be at the root of the brutality usually observable in the case of Chinese Maoism. After all, Marx develops a social analysis from the individual role in establishing economic structures which affect the institutionalized political system that finishes the process generating cultural setting that, also due to the role played by individuality in its epistemology, saves space for appreciation of the human being as individual and not just an amorphous mass. Therefore, Marxism is a revolutionary and critical theory, but, above all, humanist. Maoism, however, starts from the institutionalized political bodies without going through the political process where individuality plays a role, then follow for the analysis of the economy in an equally non-humanized/non-individualized approach, leading than to a cultural environment conceived as a sub-product only of mechanisms, and not individuals. One may ask where is the room for humanism in Maoist epistemology of logic.
Going forward, Mao contextualizes its cultural theory to the Chinese case, demonstrating the need for a specific approach to this reality and developing the categories and steps he considered essential to the transformation of a medieval colonized culture into an intermediate pluriclassist transitional culture to finally unfold a socialist culture.
Such remarks on the particularity of the Chinese case, already mentioned in this analysis, lead him to identify the need for an intermediate stage between the stage where China was and the desired stage of socialism. He points out that China, like all other countries in the stage of non-advanced capitalism - feudal organizations - and under the yoke of imperial powers - the colonies - should first work to strengthen their national democracies, to get rid of the immediate enemy – Imperialists and feudal lords – and just then to focus their efforts on combating global bourgeoisie and establish socialism. He says, however, that this stage of national democracy by which the colonies must pass is no longer the one Marx distinguished in the trajectory of Western nations. This is not the bourgeois revolutions that Marx characterized as important historic step for the development of socialism in Europe. Mao points out how knowledge about cooptation by the bourgeoisie of these revolutionary processes, as well as the emergence of the USSR as a global political force, no longer allows the hope of liquidating feudalism by means of bourgeois democracies. Therefore, he points out that the only way not to have this intermediate process hijacked by the bourgeoisie would be to form a pluriclassist dictatorship, instead of the traditional dictatorship of the bourgeoisie that it accuses the modern Western democracies to be. This pluriclassist dictatorship is what he calls the New Democracy.
While characterizing the concept of pluriclassist dictatorship, Mao stresses the importance of not rivaling nationalist sectors at once, after all, one must confront imperialism, and this is a fight that requires strength and capacity. By stating that he basically defines as nationalist sectors all classes except the feudal lords, large landowners whose wealth comes from the earth more than the work and, of course, direct agents of the imperial capital, as banks monopolies and disproportional agents in the economy. He points out how the interests of these sectors are invariably best served by imperialist forces and therefore it is natural that they align to maintain the colonial status in spite of any national empowerment. Thus, he claims for the political exclusion of these groups and advocates in favor of redistributing their wealth among the social sectors that he believes could be nationalists.
At this point it is necessary to emphasize the strategic use that Mao makes of the wealth of those sectors that he considers as non-nationalists, after all, is based on their 'excess of wealth' that he propose to reach the peasants demands of social justice. At the same time, he emphasizes that the expropriation will be restricted to these sectors, which automatically includes several sub-groups within the scope of the bourgeois classes to be favored in the New Democracy. He makes it clear that no political alienation and economic deprivation will affect the pitty and even wealthy bourgeois sectors who prove their adherence to the nationalist cause and whose wealth production is considered to be essential on strengthening the New Democracy.
Under these aspects of the New Democracy one can raise two major criticisms. First, it does not explain what actually motivates the bourgeoisie to support this intermediate stage - the New Democracy - once it's born destined to give way to socialism, a step in which the bourgeois interests, even the petty bourgeoisie, would invariably be thwarted? The idea of transition behind the New Democracy makes clear the intent to 'cheat' the bourgeoisie whenever possible, therefore, why would the bourgeoisie join this pluriclassist dictatorship? Would it be that bourgeoisie is ignorant about the process or that they are aware of the possibility of co-opting the New Democracy in order to make it permanent? Personally it seems to me unlikely that such an adhesion is the result of ignorance, especially when the purpose of shifting to a socialist model is so explicitly clear in Maoist speeches and texts. Perhaps at the time of Mao the possibility of the bourgeoisie co-opt the stage of New Democracy seemed unlikely, but the historical evidence seems clear that, from 80 years, that's exactly what happened with China. If this process was a forced co-optation of the process or the capitulation of Maoist leadership is something open to debate, but an obvious fact in contemporary China is that the dictatorship in Beijing certainly does not allow the peasants and workers to enjoy the same space as the bourgeoisie. Nor is it reasonable to expect that contemporary China, which Slavozic Zizec characterized as the most advanced stage of world capitalism, will become a socialist model to combat the surplus value and alienation.
Mao does not present an argument about why the bourgeoisie would support a system bound to turn against her. His arguments all reside in the realm of relative gains of the bourgeoisie in a New Democracy being higher than under Japanese yoke, but what about the obvious comparative advantages of being a bourgeois under Japanese domain than to be a bourgeois into a socialist state? It is obvious that the bourgeois interests would be best served in a colonial China than in socialist China, and the fact that Mao did not say anything about it, and the fact that bourgeois belief in the ignorance of the fact is an almost cynical innocence, may mean that, indeed, the whole idea of New Democracy as a transitional stage lie in ignorance or ill intent of Maoism itself. In a personal reading of the facts, I do not believe that these same questions have not been to Mao and therefore I do not believe that the current Chinese political system is the result of an unexpected twist. If the idea of a New Democracy at first sounds like a trap for the bourgeoisie, a closer look might reveal that the idea of transition is in fact the real trap, and those who wanted and want a socialist China are the real prey.
Another major criticism to be made about the idea of New Democracy concerns the vagueness of the boundaries that separate unacceptable feudal lords and landlords from acceptable large landowners. There is actually a reference to the distinction between these categories relying on the purpose of the land and the relation labour-land that the owner has or not. Still there are several spaces open to ambiguity. After all, the farmer who has the same size of land that a feudal lord, but actually get involved in working the land will also be possessed of citizenship in this New Democracy? Shouldn't he lose his land and political rights? One may well think that there may be owners of giant territories, typical feudal in its extent, who, however, works on the land, even if eventually counting on employees also. The question than would be: Which category would fit such an individual? Moreover, what exactly can be considered work as a condition that binds the owner to s/hes land? We are talking here strictly of the physical labor of planting, or we are also considering the administrative duties?
These questions may seem less important, but, in fact, they are essential, especially considering Mao's claims that New Democracies are a necessary stage for all the colonies. Perhaps it is the case that China's context makes very clear one such differentiation, with only sharp distinctive social classes and no ambiguous limits among them. But, still, Maoist proposal is presented for a range of colonial countries and can not leave these questions unanswered. Otherwise there is the imminent risk that the more powerful sectors of the bourgeoisie and reactionary sects use precisely this vagueness to infiltrate and co-opt the New Democracy. Thinking about my personal experience I remember from Brazil, my home country, where even large landowners with land larger than small European countries sustain a rhetoric of being members of the petty bourgeoisie and belonging to the nationalist elite, posing as genuine allies in the struggle against imperialism. Lets suppose Brazil ever come through a Maoist-inspired revolutionary process, which should be the criteria to select which of these farmers should have their lands confiscated or not? Would the New Democracy be unharmed if farmers with huge unscrupulously properties were to be part of this new pluriclassist dictatorship?
Beyond contextualizing of the Leninist ideas about imperialism and colonialism for the specific case of China, Mao also intended this work to refute some of the major criticisms that have arisen within the United Front itself. Unfortunately, however, this turned out to be the most arbitrary of his essay, what, to some extent, may explain the very persecution he has imposed on these questioning groups since the control of the country was in their hands and such groups were no longer needed in the armed struggle. Rebutting criticism of Trotskytes and more extremist socialists, most of them favorable of an immediate socialist revolution, he insisted on the thesis that the productive capacity of the bourgeoisie was necessary to face the Japanese imperialism, without explaining why the same production capacity would suffer a severe decrease if passed to a socialist administration. While acknowledging the ambiguous character of bourgeois support he insisted on delaying the socialist revolution to have them as allies against the Japanese. Since the major function of the bourgeoisie in its revolutionary design is to maintain the productive capacity to face the threat of imperialism, why he didn't explain in detail what was the unique aspect in the bourgeois management of productive resources that a socialist model could not keep on with or even improve?
Mao denied any such criticism by insisting on an inevitable loss of production capacity if the bourgeoisie was not included into the ruling classes of the New Democracy, and always stressed that a more hostile action could take them to work on the side of imperialism. On the fact that negotiating the support of more powerful sectors of the bourgeoisie could be as difficult as capturing their own privileges via a direct socialist revolution, however, Mao offered no arguments but his almost messianic denial of this possibility and a series of attacks and frivolous questionings of the true interests of these groups. As if his positions were the only and perfect reference to judge whether one views over the revolutionary process were genuinely intended to promote a socialist society or merely pretending to want that in order to create barriers in this process. In short, he claimed the monopoly of the real desire for a socialist China and denied any different approach to that goal the chance of being sincere.
In truth Mao defended himself from criticism by an internal abrupt change, the leader of a nation the was more concerned in being theleader of a party, and struggled to limit the destinations, possibilities and forces of the nation to the guidelines of the Communist Party. By fending off criticism from the United Front Mao committed the sacrilege of fetishism, this inversion of values which is seminal in the construction of structures of domination of human beings over human beings. He confused the strength of a nation with his own party and tied the destinies of his people to the positions of the institution. Intoxicated by the power Mao found it easier to automatically deny the possibilities than to reveal exactly what prevented their opponents from being correct. He denied the possibility of a collective action coming from increasingly more conscious peasants and laborers, without clarifying what they missed for that.
Its curious the fate of this son of peasants, who marched victorious over feudal lords and imperialists, who unified the greatest nation in the world and, yet, died cursing utopia and the very utopians who marched at his side when it was foolish to resist but, differently of him, refused to capitulate when victory was at hand.
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