Hi! Long time lurker, first time poster. Been discussing stuff with MLs of all stripes recently, and have come across a common statement used by a lot of Maoists which frustrates me.
They seem to always fall back on statements like “The CPC allows billionaires in their ranks, so they are revisionist.”
Maoists have often used this as a kind of “gotcha” argument against more traditional MLs, or “Dengists” as they love to label us.
It’s frustrating, because…I don’t disagree really, allowing members of the bourgeoisie to hold political power is pretty much the definition of revisionism. The problem is, this feels more like a way to silence dissent or discussion rather than facilitate it. Feels like an overly simplistic hard line that simplifies history into binary divisions. Often followed by an implied “China is revisionist, therefore Maoism is the only working form of socialism.”
I’m reaching out to people to see if anyone has any ways to combat this, in a way that encourages discussion rather than it just devolving into insults or truisms hurled back and forth without thought.
In the Maoist circles I was in, Che’s Guerilla Warfare was considered mandatory reading.
It was pretty good, really inspiring honestly, though I can’t speak to the universality of the tactics. I especially liked the bit where he admonished western leftists who excused lack of revolution on the presupposed indestructibility of the imperial militaries. Of course, Che did not have to face drones and robot dogs.
He does, however, make explicit note of how poor Cuban revolutionaries overthrew a military dictatorship supported by U.S. aircraft and other technologies well beyond the means of Cuban workers.
Funnily, though mandatory reading in my circle, I have seen Gonzaloite tweets come out since then denouncing Che’s Guerilla Warfare as “Focoist revisionism”, among other things. I do not see how becoming so enraged at a successful revolutionary giving tips on making revolution helps anyone, but ultras are a silly lot.