More on the particular recipe of Maoism for Mass Mobilisation, Five Struggles at Yan’an and Liu Shaoqi

Liu Shaoqi (1898 to 1969) was Mao’s deputy until he was purged during the Cultural Revolution and as such a major early CCP theorist and thinker. He is known especially in theoretical terms for his contribution to the theory of CCP mass mobilisation. He compared the arrival of the new consciousness for the peasants to having a new head placed on their shoulders and claimed a peasant had first given him this image.

Here’s Liu on mass mobilisation from ‘On the Mass Movement for Rent and Interest Reduction’ in Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi, Vol 1, pp. 235-6:

We should carefully prepare a talk, the gist of which might run: Who created the world? The workers and peasants did. Where do our food and houses come from? They are created by the workers and peasants... The experiences of peasant struggles in other places and the success of the revolution in the Soviet Union should be used to drive home the point that the workers and peasants should become masters of society. Once they appreciate this truth, they will be in high spirits and will raise the demand to turn the existing world upside down and wipe out the landlords altogether... When they first became politically awakened, many peasants in central China were so excited that they could hardly sleep at night. They approached the work teams, asking all sorts of questions. In this way, the peasants acquired revolutionary ideology or, to use their expression, “had a new head” placed on their shoulders. This type of stimulation is what we mean by Marxist-Leninist education of the peasants. It is an enlightenment campaign of a new form – class education. If it is carried out successfully, the peasants will follow us and will not have misgivings or waver when things are not going smoothly.

As it happens, Liu also illustrates (by his own dramatic rises and falls essentially at the whim of Mao) the inherent instability of the methods of Maoism involved in effecting such mystical transformations. Mao did not envisage stability but he rather imagined continual instability (and contradictions) arising from his revolution. He saw continual struggle and contestation (even within the party organisation) as a good thing (as long as he ultimately won the war, as it turned out). He promoted criticism and self-criticism as part of what he considered was a vital process.

In the Yan’an period, Mao was challenged by five other potential leaders over five issues:

1) By Zhang Guotao over military tactics and leadership;

2) By Liu Zhidan over the predominance of the party centre over localised centres of power;

3) By Wang Ming (with other Soviet trained intellectuals) over ideological control;

4) By Wang Shiwei over the intellectual freedom of intellectuals and artists; and

5) By Ding Ling over Mao’s preference to subordinate women’s rights to the goals of the larger revolutionary project.

Several problems have arisen for Maoists both in claiming to be Marxist and in claiming that Maoism will lead to utopia. The rest of this history will explore in part how the four main problems below (two of each type) continued to be wrestled with by especially CCP leaders and theorists and with what results for the theory and practice of CCP rule in the PRC.

The first two concern whether Mao is even a Marxist having appealed to the peasants rather than the proletariat for leadership and having not waited until Capitalism had become developed to revolt. The second issue was of course also faced (and was dealt with) by the theory of Leninism and Mao dealt with the first but discussion continues.

Some of the main problems for utopia may include the subordination of the rights of intellectuals, women, locals and artists to the struggle and the central controllers. The contradictory issue perhaps at the heart of Maoism is broad: how can a strong, unified and centralised system, as envisaged and practiced by Mao, avoid irreconcilable tension with the ‘mass line’ approach to government of, by and for the people fully valuing local initiative and mass participation?

In the next post I will move on to the first decade of CCP rule and focus on rural reforms. In subsequent posts I’ll go on to outline reforms made in the cities.