Marx Lenin and Mao
Various figures and their philosophies have shaped the ideologies of Socialism and Communism over the past 200 years. Three names, Marx, Lenin and Mao, respectively, an economist, a revolutionary and a philosopher, each developed and altered the original hope and idea of utopian society till, over time, the underlying theme was nearly forgotten. Parts of the world, rattled and inspired by two centuries of industrialization and world war, began to see the new and unique conditions created for the individual growing worse and unacceptable. This not only added to the appeal of socialism but created the vacuum in which communism eventually came into being in much of the east and other parts of the world.The first to collect his thoughts and develop a pragmatic philosophy in a way that could transcend culture and make his theory known on a broad scale throughout much of Europe was Karl Marx. Marx, a Jewish German born in 1818 lived during prime years to see first-hand the state of the proletariat under increasingly mechanized conditions. He lived in different parts of Europe in his lifetime. As he spent time in Germany France and England and studied the history of society and its origins, his interest in socialism expanded as he developed his own progressive theories. Collectivism, materialist conception of history, labour value theory, economic determinism, the dialectic, and social evolution are all Marxist tenets that have been both consumed and redistributed by radicals and academics alike.
Based on the socialist intent of “abundance for all” Collectivism is the idea that personal ownership of material things is wrong, in particular any occasion where individuals having more than enough when another has nothing. Behind this thought is the core philosophical idea that all people are equal. The only true ownership according to Marx is one’s own labor and the value that goes into the goods that come from that work. The efforts of the underpaid and mistreated proletariat (the working class) taken and sold for profit by the greedy bourgeoisie (the business owners) is the ultimate injustice and something that grew to be common in the industrial age. The utilization of assembly lines and large scale import-export wholesale-retail made the gap between classes and fairness grow larger. This idea that material value came from the hands of the worker, not from the sales pitch of the market place is what developed into Labor Value Theory. The value of goods produced by society, and the value of life lived by the laborers in society were both becoming less and less. The gap between the bourgeoisie and proletariat and the conflict it created is what Marx called “The Dialectic.” A dialectic is traditionally the outcome between two philosophical views in debate and discussion. Marx applied this mode of thought to his ideas of economy and its influence on the rest of society.
Marx’s theory of Economic Determinism was based on the importance of economy as it affects all the other facets of social life. Overall Marx felt that the means and mode of agricultural and industrial production were the predicates of life in society. Even when it came to education, politics, religion, culture and family, the methods of an operating economy were the first influence on everything. The thoughts and ideas of the individual and nation alike were first set in motion by how the individual worker spent his day in production, how the business owner went about his sales, and how the larger organ of society continued to live based on each cell of society making the system work. Only from there could other ideas begin or old ideas develop.
Marx’s approach to the philosophy of socialism was a rational and scientific one. Social Evolution is the proposition that society has its own natural evolution to follow through stages in a strict linear fashion. Looking at history Marx concluded that any society and its governments begin with an early communal and agricultural system and over time there will be a rise to power and an empire is established. With the dialectic relationship in place the outcome is feudalism from the empire state as is best seen in the British history. Further along over time the feudal model is naturally replaced with capitalism as in The United States rising from British origins. But before the return and implied goal of a mature and more sophisticated version of communism, is the evolution of capitalism into socialism. As in Darwin’s theory of evolution, for Marx, this was a purely linear and scientific model. Less scientifically he saw this progression would require a revolution of the proletariat, with or without violence. Marx died before his ideas took to the streets. Russia the first society to take to his ideas and attempt socialism was not yet a capitalist one. The dilemma for socialism is that it appeals to countries which lack the wealth to use it, and does not appeal to productive ones.
At the turn of the century the vast Russian landscape was mostly rural, agricultural, and a feudal society. The Russian nobles in the service of the Czar were expected to do military or civil service but still owned the land and for all intents and purposes owned the workers that worked the land. Russia remained, for the most part, uninfluenced by western thought. That said, the writings of Marx and his ideas of a better world for the working class made their way into the hands and hearts of people and a movement began to coalesce till in 1898, after political reforms were put in place by the czars themselves, a Socialist Democratic Party was formed. It was formed out of what Marx would have considered the Bourgeoisie. After a Duma (Russian Parliament) was created in 1905 the socialists themselves began to divide into two groups. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin (Vladimir Illich Ulyanov) broke from The Mensheviks, led by Jues Martov. The Bolsheviks were the more radical of the two, and Lenin in particular felt that a revolution could not take place without violence. This is different than what Marx thought. In fact looking at what Marx published, it was too soon for Russia to even consider socialism. Marx established the formula of capitalism naturally taking place within a society before socialism in his theory of social evolution. Lenin was forced to dismiss this fact and had to act as things unfolded as they were. His country was in an upheaval and needed Socialist action.
Meanwhile, the First World War continued with Germany in Poland. The people grew tired of the fighting and the government till eventually the people took to the streets hungry and inspired by socialist ideas. The military, disenchanted with their leaders after years of pointless war, joined the Russian people instead of attacking them upon orders from their superiors. From there revolution took place in 1922, The Union of the Soviet Republic took over and Lenin was their leader. Unlike Marx, Lenin said that revolution is born in the cities, and in this case it was true. Lenin had the challenge of taking his broken home land and turning it into the first Socialist country ever on earth. He had to run and establish a government and develop a plan of recovery from the revolution. This is something Marx never faced. Marx was the philosopher and the idea man. Lenin now had to be a leader after being a revolutionary. With the Czar Infrastructure gone, and Russia needing to harvest its resources, and feed the people, Lenin came to a conclusion in his new economic policy that went against Marxist thought, land ownership for the people. His slogan was “Land Bread Peace.” Instead of the peasants and proletariats being owned by the land they themselves owned the land where they lived. No doubt Lenin had to make other compromises to the manifesto, but as this too seemed a necessary compromise, it went against the means by which Marx proposed, which was that any private ownership was as flawed as capitalism and capitalist means of production.
Even as Lenin lived and died another revolutionary began to take the long and winding road to power to establish Marxist based ideals in another country, China. Mao Tse-tung, like Lenin was born into a life that would have been considered bourgeoisie by Marx, and also like Lenin Mao lived in a land ruled by a distant centralized government with a huge disparity between upper and lower classes. Unlike Lenin however Mao came into a communist movement that was already afoot when he began. Mao entered into the Communist party of China at a low rank in 1921 as it was just beginning. The de facto ruling party in China at the time was not directly connected with the emperor or political parties at all, but was rather the warlords who exercised their power throughout China. The Communist and Kuomintang (KMT) parties formed a shaky alliance against the warlords. Eventually the Kuomintang attacked the Communists and in smaller numbers was forced to flee in to the northern rural communities of China. This is where Mao began to develop as a leader and what would later become his policies. He traveled and lived among the peasants with the existing Communist party in a retreat from the Kuomintang in what is known as “The Long March.” His thoughts had already been established in his writings that the backbone of China was the peasant society. Here though Mao makes his first established side step from Marxist theory and says that the peasants rather than the proletariat will lead a revolution to establish Communism. By 1934 Mao was the head of the Communist party in China. As the Japanese began attacks against China in World War 2 the Communist party again established ties with the Kuomintang to fight the common threat. Eventually, by 1945 the Japanese were defeated and the conflict between China’s two main parties resumed till eventually the KMT fled to Taiwan, and by 1949 Mao was China’s new leader. Much the same way as Michael Collins did in Ireland during the same period, Mao squashed the larger numbers of his opposition, both Japan and the Kuomintang with Guerilla Warfare. Mao believed in a perpetual revolution, a mixed bag form of evolution perhaps, where over time things were to take their course, with and without violence, and for the good, under Communism.
Mao was different than Marx. Not only did he rise into the leadership of a country, but he did so by appealing to the peasants with ideas, teaching the philosophy of communism rather than changing or trying to change the economic structure first as Marx thought. Like Lenin, Mao skipped over capitalism and began to seek out stability by planting socialist thought throughout the land and put land in the hands of the poor. In his first Five-Year Plan he had the peasants take over farm land the landlords were exiled. Unlike any communist leader Mao improved the status of women in his country and made them legal equals, something that was not common anywhere in the world at this time. Eventually Mao accomplished the goals of his first Five-Year Plan, but over the years that followed China has been forced to deviate from the Marxist and Communist ways when the economy soured relying on a moderate position of market socialism where workers get paid based on productivity.
In essence, Socialism and Communism are part of a philosophy that is easier said than done. Finding a way to improve the lives of everyone within our reach is a huge task to tackle. A person has to see beyond themselves. Some see religion as the answer, some see politics, some see education as a way, and some see a need for revolution. My surfing friend Zack told me a long time ago, at the beach one day, “Capitalism works because it’s based on the bad in men, Communism never will work because it’s based on the good in men.” I couldn’t understand what he meant then. Seemed a deep sentiment for a teenager, still does. In an irony I became privy to, five years ago, I saw him living on the street. I tried to talk to him as he wandered behind a building. He didn’t remember me, but I never have forgotten what he said that day years ago. Some ideas can be so much more powerful than any government, it’s believing in an idea that’s the hardest.
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlenin.htm
Baradat, Leon, Political Ideologies: Their Origins and Impact (10th Edition) [Paperback], Prentice Hall, 2008
Communist Revolution: The Big Wheels Keep On Turnin
What can be seen or heard of the revolutions fought nearly a century ago that so many lived and died for? Like our American revolution, the revolutions in both China and Russia can seem both perpetual, and non-existent. The Russian revolution in 1917 led by the Bolshevik Party, saw the removal of the monarchy as it was replaced by the first ever Communist government known to man. At the time of the revolution the government had grown weak in part because of World War 1, and the parties calling for revolution grew strong. Subsequently, Russia became the Soviet Union, and Lenin became its new leader. In true communist fashion, based on the ideas of Karl Marx, redistribution of wealth and the removal of land ownership both came to fruition. The aristocracy was replaced with the intellectual sector of the sub-czar Russian upper class. Revolution and all that goes with it sunk deep into the psyche of the masses. This fact is evident even today. The political manifestos of Red Russia may have been abandoned but the reality of pre and post revolution oppression and tyranny remains today when it comes to the people, the press, democracy and economics.
Democracy was something Lenin and the Bolsheviks allowed as long as it served their purposes (1). The first election after the revolution was an upset as the Bolsheviks expected an easy win but lost to the less extreme Mensheviks or “Socialist Revolutionary Party.” This required the provisional incumbency to use force to remain in power and Lenin began to trumpet the Marxist idea that democracy was placation tool of the bourgeoisie. This is ironic considering his lack of resistance to elections before losing and he himself being bourgeoisie by definition. Once Communism rose to the top the Soviet Union became and remained a one party system till the fall of 1991. The Lenin years included austerity and violence but nothing like what came next. After Lenin’s death Joseph Stalin came to power and confronted the Nazis and his perceived internal opposition with further militarism and secret police (what later became the KGB).
The Russian people have had generations of psychology and culture shaped by government actions. After a century of living with dictatorship and repression the opposite of what was promised by the efforts of revolution has remained the only constant. Rather than equality fairness and the elimination of poverty, there remained an oppressive class which left the proletariat without food and without individual liberty. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 Russia looked as if it was on the brink of a new democratic and free market era. Within a year the KGB was gone and an independent press emerged. But this did nothing to help the economy.
After a decade of economic difficulty in the 1990’s, Russia has experienced a gradual increase in productivity and prosperity, particularly over the last 10 years under Vladimir Putin. Industrialism has increased since the beginning of the 21st Century, but privatization and capitalism have only had the last 20 years to get traction. Ironically it seems to be the ghosts of the revolution that have delivered the stimulus needed. Vladimir Putin’s leadership harkens back to those days with a decreased emphasis on human rights and a return to heavy retaliation against government opposition. Those who speak out against corruption or against poor working conditions may find themselves in jail or victims of “mysterious attack.” This happens to those with money as much as it does to those without. There are outside investors, but their motivations seem to be driven by the profitable advantages gained from the stability that comes from the overreaching power of the government rather than any democracy, if any, that is taking place. So, rather than lingering signs of the revolution existing in Russia through the ideals of Communism, there is more obviously the militarism and fear of speaking one’s own mind that sees is way into the daily workings of the proletariat.
Most recently, Yelena Bonner who died this past week, and was a well know and highly respected Russian dissident, declared that “Putin Must Go! (2)” This could have only happened from outside the country. But even being outside Russia was not enough to protect Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who was poisoned in 2006, after defecting to Britain (3). He did so after investigating the death of a journalist who spoke out against the government only to then speak out himself against his the injustices of Putin’s government. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and most recently Mikhail Prokhorov, two well known Russian billionaires have been jailed after being associated with opposition to Putin ( 4). Putin who is still Prime Minister after being President for two terms is a former KGB officer and is still seen as the true leader of the country. His roots if not planted in revolution, are unquestionably buried in Communism. So the legacy of a real revolution can only be the overpowering capacity of a government which sees violence and covert operations around democracy as a means to an end? Another country to consider is China.
In comparison to the Russians, the Chinese revolution, if not quite peaceful, appears more just. Mao Zedong appears to have kept the needs of the Chinese people as the head of government priorities. Successful at being a philosopher and a revolutionary, Mao saw much more difficulty implementing the ideas of Communism, and being an economist. Mao believed in “Constant Revolution” but meant this more as constant change to greater outcomes over time. Violence although sometimes necessary was not a long term necessity of revolution itself. In fact, when Khrushchev’s speech against Stalin revealed atrocities Mao and the communist government of China began to de-Sovietize and began to distance themselves from the USSR. Mao also was interested in women’s rights and improved the lives of all Chinese women by making them legal equals. This was not the case with Lenin, and wasn’t even on the radar with Stalin.
So where does China stand to today? What is left of the great red revolution? Well, for starters, China is still Communist but with modifications. In 1978, after the death of Mao there were economic reforms put into place to help the country improve in production and wealth. Communes and collectives were disbanded which allowed growth for individual farmer, the state stopped collecting and managing industrial profits, and private business was allowed. Eventually foreign business investments were also allowed through joint ventures in “economic zones.” The shift from the peasant as China’s symbol to the industrial businessman as the icon of a new China, although not a stated objective, is something that Mao would have never proposed.
China has in the last 10 years experienced economic improvement even beyond what has happened in Russia. This has happened in a different way though. The Government has found an almost zen-like balancing act on the fence between communism and capitalism and between democracy and the lack there of. Having embraced foreign investment and industrialization in the coastal and port cities the face of the population has seen a national shift, not only from “peasant” to the more socialist styled proletariat but at the same time and actual geographical movement to these areas. The life style of the Chinese worker has never been glamorous, but now the rights of the work place have been replaced with the means and demands of production. This is revolutionary sacrosanct. While the government retains almost 200 state-owned companies it does so not out of some attempt at fairness, but for profit, and does so while countries from across the world invest and take advantage of the low wage landscape. Democracy exists in China. Elections are held, people vote, but in essence the vote for people that go into regional pools, and from there are narrowed down and eventually picked individually by the government. Again, the zen-fence.
So where does the Chinese worker stand? Where are the fruits of his father’s revolution? How does he or she see the benefits of Communism, or Capitalism? He (or she) doesn’t. Thousands of workers protest and die in revolts because of dangerous and unsuitable working conditions every year. Beyond the point where we’ve been let in, it’s hard for us in the outside world to tell how long this has been the case, and we only know now, not because of the proximity of our corporate representatives, but because of the internet and the world wide communication it makes possible (5).
As or evidence of communist revolution in China, like Mao’s portraits and red-stars, it is almost everywhere, but only symbolic. As for the remnants of revolution in Russia, they remain almost hidden, but also…everywhere.
1. http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/russianrev
2. http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Soviet+dissident+fought+Putin+dies/4971575/story.html
3. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110618/en_afp/russiapoliticstaxcourt
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/23/russia.world1
5. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b2239ad8-9a9e-11e0-bab2-00144feab49a.html#axzz1PkqLw2QY
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