Today is the Chinese New Year 2020 – Year of the Rat. In honor of the new year we honor Chairman Mao. Comrade Mao Tse-tung was a Chinese revolutionary and founding father of the People’s Republic of China. Mao lived from December 26, 1983 to September 9, 1976 but he lives forever in the hearts and minds of millions of revolutionaries. Mao is best known for his political theorizing, military genius, poetry, and much more.
Born on December 26, 1893 Shaoshan village, Hunan Province, Mao was the child of peasant farmers. Mao began to be politicized in his teenage years as resistance to emperor Piyu’s rule began to rise in the country. Mao was first introduced to socialism by reading the work of Jiang Kanghu, founder of the short lived Chinese Socialist Party. In 1921 the Communist Party of China was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in Shanghai. Mao was instrumental in building the party and served as party secretary for Hunan stationed in Changsha. Mao’s work at this time included organizing strikes and participating in literacy campaigns.
In 1922 the Communist Party of China (CPC), following the advice of the Soviet Union, joined forces with the Kuomintang (KMT), a nationalist party started by Sun Yat-sen. The CPC worked with the Kuomintang as a strategic alliance to eliminate feudalism and Japanese imperialism in China. Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925 and was succeeded by Chiang Kai-shek who would later prove to be a right-wing dictator and wannabe Mussolini. The alliance fell apart in 1927, in that time the CCP had grown from an organization of roughly 70 comrades to a major party with over 50,000 members.
A civil war broke out between the KMT and CCP with fighting lasting intermittently between 1927 and 1949 with a brief truce called in the late 1930’s to again fight the Japanese who had invaded eastern China. The truce proved to be short lived as Chaing Kai-shek was determined to wipe out the CCP. The KMT received extensive financial and military backing from the United States but it proved to be of little use against the CCP. In 1949 Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China with its capital at Beiping, which was returned to the former name Beijing.
Under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung China saw such successes as the Land Reform Movement, development of a planned economy, and a sweeping industrialization campaign. Mao would lead China as Chairman of the Communist Party of China until his death on September 9, 1976.
Combat Liberalism is probably one of Mao’s best known works. Written in 1937, ‘Combat Liberalism,’ was written a critique of certain members of the CPC. Ultimately this timeless piece is a call to combat liberalism within our ranks and within ourselves. Happy New Year 2020!
Read the full text below.
We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon.
But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations.
Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one’s suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one’s own inclination. This is a second type.
To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one’s own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.
To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.
To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue. This is an eighth type.
To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along–“So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell.” This is a ninth type.
To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.
To be aware of one’s own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh type.
We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types.
They are all manifestations of liberalism.
Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.
Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.
People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well–they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution.
We must use Marxism, which is positive in spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the Party and strengthen the ties between the Party and the masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person, and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist.
All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.
