Rev Left Radio - Understanding Maoism: Critique of Maoist Reason

Episode Date: July 1, 2020

J. Moufawad-Paul lives in Toronto and works as casualized contract faculty at York University where he received his PhD in philosophy. He is the author of Austerity Apparatus, Continuity and Rupture, and Demarcation and Demystification. In this episode, Breht and JMP discuss intra-Maoist lines of thought, examine their differences, and argue for a specific strain of Maoist thought as most in line with a scientific approach to socialism; one that avoids the traps of dogmatism, eclecticism, and opportunism.  Get the 2nd Edition of The Communist Necessity HERE Get Critique of Maoist Reason HERE Check out JMP's website HERE Outro Music: 'JU$T' by Run The Jewels (feat. Pharrell Williams and Zach de la Rocha) LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com

Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. For today's episode, we are going to be discussing J. Mouthwad Paul's new book, Critique of Maoist Reason. Long-time listeners of Rev Left are probably very familiar with JMP. He's been on a number of times. His big work that I think is most known on the left is continuity and rupture, but he's also a prolific author on many other texts related to the Maoist terrain. And in this book, he's basically thinking through Maoism,

thinking through the different sub-tendencies of Maoism, the disagreements within the Maoist tradition, and really clarifying and demarcating lines of struggle within that overall milieu. There are probably, in this book, he names up to five different general Maoist tendencies. and works methodically through them to see which one represents actual, you know, scientific socialism and which ones are deviations of dogmatism, eclecticism, or some combination of both. So this is going to be sort of a more advanced deep dive into Maoism. If you're utterly ignorant to the Maoist tradition, we have previous episodes where we do more

101 introductions to Maoism. But if you have a fair grasp of where Maoism stands in the overall, a arena of Marxist thought, then I think this will be really informative, even if you're not a Maoist. But if you do consider yourself a Maoist or if you do have interest in the Maoist tradition or want to learn more about it after having grasped its sort of 101 basic concepts, this will be a really interesting dive into the debates within the Maoist terrain overall. We always love having JNP on. He's one of the most clearest writers and thinkers on the Maoist left, and I really enjoy talking

to him and hopefully you'll enjoy this conversation as well. So without further ado, let's get into this wonderful discussion with JMP on his new book, Critique of Maoist Reason. Enjoy. Hello, I'm Joshua Mufalwad Paul. I am contract faculty of York University and I do a bunch of organizing or I used to do a lot more than I do now because I'm a dad and do a lot of child care. And I also write a number of like books that are about philosophically investigating radical theory. Beautiful. Yeah, it's an honor to have you back on. I don't even know what number this is. I don't know if it's five, six, or seventh time you've been on. But obviously, Rev. Left, and I'm personally, am a huge fan of your work. And you have a new book called The Critique of Mowist

Reason, which we're going to discuss today. Before we get into that, though, you also are releasing the second edition of the Communist Necessity. A wonderful text. Did you want to talk a little bit about that and maybe what's different about the second edition that wasn't included in the first? Yeah. So the publisher of the first edition, Chris Blabeda. They, you know, they're almost sold out of the first edition last summer. So they asked me about the possibility of putting out a second edition. If so, would I like to add some materials? So I agreed. And it's, it is still the main text is still the central part of it. Like I didn't change anything with the main text. But I did write an afterward, like about a 20 page afterward, maybe a little bit longer,

like looking back at the text from five years later and my thoughts on it five years later and reflections on it. So that's an extra afterward. And then there's an introduction or preface written by Dow Yun Chu, who also has written a great book on John Hinton. And so it's the, it was a you know, all together, it's really great to see it out again with a different book. And I do want to plug it because, you know, it was, it came out to be released. It was supposed to be released at the beginning of 2020. It got pushed back a little bit, and then the pandemic hit. And so the publisher was worried about selling it and, you know, moving it at this time as a lot of publishers are.

But, yeah, I just want to plug it for those that haven't read the first edition. still got the same text in it but with extra stuff at a good price and you know it's good to support Chris Blavidavidav. Absolutely, yeah. And I will link to that in the show notes. I think the communist necessity is perhaps the only major work of yours where we haven't had an entire Rev Left episode dedicated to it for whatever reason. I think I came to your writing sort of after it was already published

and we just never got back to going back to it. But it's really a wonderful, really important text. I'm going to get the second edition just so I can check out the additions that you've made after the fact, but the book itself is short, it's readable, and it's really important, and I think anybody that is at all interested in communism, socialism, and sort of this historical moment, and, you know, just sort of thinking about it generally would benefit from that text. So I'll link to it in the show notes. People should definitely go check it out. But today we are talking about your newest work, critique of Maoist reason, and I've had you

on for continuity and rupture, and I've had you on talking about Marxism as a science, both of which are sort of assumed in this text. Like, you know, you're not going to go rehash all those arguments. You can listen to this episode and not go back and listen to those other two and still get a lot out of this for sure. But if this episode is interesting to you and you want to learn more, I'll link to those other two episodes that I think are directly relevant to this as well. So you can sort of fill out some of the stuff that we don't get to. And especially when it comes to Marxism as a science, if you want to hear all those arguments and stuff, it could be helpful to understanding this text as well. So I'll link to all of that. But first and foremost, and this is

just a way to orient our listeners to this new work, why did you set out to write this book critique of Maoist reason? And what is the central aim of it? Well, I set out to write this book because, as you know, and as anyone that's been paying attention to Maoism will know, that there are a lot of debates within the Maoist-Maloo and also a lot of really shoddy thinking among some factions of the Smaloo. And so as I discussed in continuity and rupture, MLM is a new tendency, right, that needs to generate the tools to understand its full meaning. There's, like, there's a lot of investigation to do in the train of Maoism and a lot

that needs to be clarified. I think this book is kind of like trying to set up kind of just some patterns of how to clarify it, how to think our thought, how to think what Maoist reason is and to critique bad species of reasoning within kind of Maoist theory. And the whole point is that if we get better at thinking our thought, like thinking through what it means and its application, we can avoid a variety of errors that undermine our practical and theoretical development. But on top of that, I want to say, you know, you mentioned earlier, too,

the thing about the other episode about science, it's funny because as soon as you said that, it reminded me that when we did that episode, that part of what I responded to in the questions were like we're taken as notes from out of, and actually I might have even been reading some of the sentences in some parts to explain it out of a draft. critique of Maoist reason because of that time it was it was in draft form like early draft form that's interesting yeah um so like just like some some things up front when it's called critique of Maoist reason it's worth just stating and I think you state this in the book by critique

it's not critiquing Maoism it's using critique in the same way that like Kant or Sartre used it is an investigation into the different forms that Maoism can take and thinking through Maoism and its implications and sort of sorting out the different variants of Maoism. And I think that's incredibly important for people who are interested in Maoism and might not know a lot about it because sometimes if your only engagement with Maoism is through a certain subset of a certain type of Maoist online, particularly, it could actually be very much turning off away from Maoism. And in fact, my first engagements with Maoism online were of that negative sort and it was sort of easy to make a straw man.

of Maoism and later through your work and other work, I got a better, more robust picture of it. But I think it's very important for that reason. And then there's just a lot of confusion around the term Maoism. I was actually just listening to randomly on a drive over here to the latest Joe Rogan episode where he's talking about the protests and stuff. I'd like to check in on all these different thinkers and popular media people to see what their takes are all across the spectrum. And within the first 15 minutes, the word Maoism pops up from the guest. And It's obviously used in a way that shows that neither of the people talking about to have any fucking clue what they're talking about, but they're still using the term.

And so, you know, I just put all that on the table to show people that, you know, if you're interested in Maoism, this is an important thing. And Maoism is one of those things that is very often straw-manned and misrepresented, and very few people out there are giving a robust defense of it and thinking through the nuances and complexities of it. And so that's what this book does, among many other things. Yeah, thank you. I mean, just to add to that, too, going, well, I mean, on a Joe Rogan show,

you'd expect that nobody knows what they're talking about. Exactly. But, you know, also back to the term critique. And, you know, I used it for a variety of reasons, the summer tongue-and-cheek reasons. I admit that, too, as well. But, you know, one thing, too, is part of one, something central to Maoism is the notion of criticism and self-criticism, right? So being able to critique and self-criticize ourselves or myself as a malice and to think through my own reason and the reason of the groups that I'm in, I think is core to how theory should develop, revolutionary theory should develop.

Yeah, I could not agree more. So I'm going to touch on a few things up front before we get into the bulk of the episode, just to continue to help people orient themselves to the text and some of the words that are used throughout. So broadly speaking, and we will get into more detail soon, what are dogmatism and eclecticism and how? How do they manifest within just Marxism broadly? We'll get to Maoism, but just Marxism broadly. Yeah, I mean, I use these terms quite a bit as kind of almost these registers of what I was thinking about critiquing certain aspects that have attached themselves to Mao's reason. And, yeah, dogmatism, again, you're asking for generally speaking,

because if we are going to get into it in more detail, I'll just keep it quite general. Dogmatism is the tendency to treat revolutionary theory as if it's like a revealed religious text, you know like the kind of like the bible or something and everything everyone wrote down is absolutely correct and this leads to substituting formulaic thinking for scientific thinking right so if you it's just that's kind of the way that becomes this very dry formalism results from dogmatism right you end up like doubling down on things that someone said and it makes it correct not in terms of the substance but more in terms of the form right is this it comes out from these texts these texts are revealed texts it's almost like a thinkers or profits and then you aren't open to any kind of change or development within theory Right. Eclecticism is the tendency to be, it's kind of the flip side of dogmatism. It's also talked, though, but how they're not always necessarily opposites. They're kind of like in this, maybe in a dialectical sense, sometimes they are, but they also can sometimes merge together in really interesting ways. Ecclecticism is the tendency, I guess, to become enamored by, you know, new and creative ideas. And this idea of almost having a smorgasbord approach to theory or something where you're like, oh, take something from there and something from there.

And maybe if I mix it all up in a pot, I'll get like this amazing idea. And as we know, from cooking, cooking doesn't really work like that. So why would revolutionary theory work like that? But, yeah, it's this idea to become enamored with new and creative ideas and thus not become systematic about our thought. In any case, I'll leave it at that since we're going to be getting into it later. Yeah, and I think anybody who's been on the left for any amount of time, you've come across dogmatists in every sort of strain of revolutionary leftism, if you will,

and you've come across eclecticism. In fact, while I haven't really necessarily been overly dogmatic, in my past during political development, I've certainly had periods of my early political development of eclecticism, you know, of like, well, I like this from Marx, but I don't like this. And I like this from anarchism. I don't like that. I'm going to mix these together. And that is a, it's a sort of compelling thing to do for a certain sort of person. And dogmatism is as well. Dogmatism can substitute the difficult task of thinking through things for yourself and really, you know, giving it the rigorous intellectual attention that it deserves. And it's much

easier to phrase monger and to just, you know, resort to authority and to pull a quote out of context to defend your position without ever having to actually think through it and defend it. So in some ways, they're both forms of laziness. They both lead to revisionism and we'll get into how they manifest within Maoist terrain specifically. But anybody that's been on the left has certainly come into contact or perhaps yourself have been through periods of either dogmatism or eclecticism or both. So I think we all get an idea of what that is so we can understand it moving forward. The next question I have is you talk about the Maoist point of origin and why it's important in your book. This is, again, another thing we got to put on the table before we move

on. So what is the Maoist point of origin, as argued for in your book? And why is it important to locate a single origin point for the Maoist development of revolutionary science? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I use the term point of origin because it's a term that was being used in certain debates, right? So I used it for that reason. I think it's more, more accurately you could say it's like a process that I'm looking at or like a little chain that's like a series of interconnected points but it's important because it's the origin like an origin moment and it's what I you know it's what I claimed in continuity and rupture but I explored further in this book due to confusion and criticisms of what I wrote there so it's the sequence

begun by the communist party of Peru the PCP and consummated by the revolutionary internationalist movement or the rim of which the PCP was a member, right? So understanding, and I think so that's where I say it is, right? And this is, there's, you know, debate, oh, maybe it should begin with the Chinese revolution or maybe, and there's reasons why I argue that. And I, again, I gave the main reasons about that, about seeing Maoism as a new contemporary thing that emerges in this, through this kind of process, through that origin, in continuity and rupture.

So I'm not going to get into it in much detail here. but the reason why I think it's important to talk about it is because understanding the origins of a sequence is very important, specifically in science, since, and I'm always going back to talk about the importance of seeing this as a revolutionary science, since science has established points of origin to provide themselves with meaning, and as I say in the book, reason is not a historical, right? It's not like things to have just been the same way they all are for time, and there hasn't be these moments of emergencies of new concepts, right? While there's, you know, there always is a certain complexity in the development of any scientific sequence. And, you know, there's multiple line struggles that often get simplified by history. Despite all that, it's usually narrowed to an origin that founds the terrain. So, I mean, you can look at this example of the one that I give in the book is, there's so many I could use, but, you know, the book uses one that I think is a clear one, like evolutionary biology. We know that it begins with Darwin's origin of the species, right? and in his conception of natural selection.

But that doesn't mean that Darwin wasn't affected by other thinkers, that there was a process preceding him, total complexity preceding him, or that Darwin was not himself representative of a larger social process. But the point here is that there's that ruptural moment of the emergence of evolutionary biology, and it's represented historically in the conception of natural selection. And I point out in the book, too,

that people made later these kind of retrospective claims that, oh, you can find all this in Lamarck. But at the time, no one saw that in LaMarch. An evolutionary biology was not initiated by Lamarck. It was initiated by Darwin. And that's the same thing I get to hear, is that when we find this sequence of the connectivity of the PCP in the rim is what originates

what we can call contemporary Maoism. Yeah, and just to further help clarify the point, you make it within the book an analogy with Marxism, and you say that the point of origin of Marxism is Marx and angles, work and you can look in hindsight and say well actually look at all these utopian socialists that came before Marx you know couldn't we put Marxism's origin point even before Marx and angles themselves and you talk about you know why that's why that's flawed am I getting that analogy right

yeah yeah so yeah so just understanding the Maoist point of origin is going back and saying you know what we call Maoism today originated through these processes and not other ones or ones that other people want to argue for and disregard these other things and it'll become I think more clear as we go on why that's increasingly important. But let's go ahead and move on to the bulk of this conversation. And this is basically going through the different manifestations, iterations, variations of Maoism and talking about, you know, which one is correct in principled and the other ones are, you know, deviations and why they are. So, you know, let's go through the five main versions or expressions of Maoism that you put in your book one at a time in order to get a clear

understanding of them and to articulate your criticisms of them. So for the very first one, can you talk about post-Maoism? What major instantiations of it exist and why is it ultimately a dead end? Yeah, I mean, a lot of this stuff, there's a great, and I'm going to probably, I'll mention it again, my reply here, because it's going to become relevant. But there's this, there is a great article. I can't remember what it's called. The author is Thomas M. It was put out by one of the PCR-RCP journals years ago. And it's an analysis of post-Maoism. And I quoted in critique of Maoist reasons.

So some of my stuff comes from there. And so it's worth, you know, hunting that down for people that want to know more about it after my very quick loss. But, I mean, if we're looking at post-Maoism, I'd say, like, the major instantiation today would be like kind of the RCP USA's version of, quote, Maoism, unquote, because it's not that anymore. It's post-Maoism. The whole Bobavakian's new synthesis kind of thing. And the whole idea is that it's hard. This is more like, again, a general tendency that I talk about. It's a general tendency because it's all kind of united by this notion of almost having

to get beyond Maoism. Maybe there's no reason to talk about stages. Maybe there needs to be a new stage. Maybe it's all ruptures, right? Or maybe there's a new synthesis, like, you know, the most dogmatic. version would put it like a vacience version um and you know you can also say that there were you know the kasama project was like actually a big kind of post-mowist organization came out of the rCP USA as anyone who's familiar with that organization would know but i mean the kasama project's no longer

around today but it was a very non-dogmatic actually more leaning into kind of the eclectic side of things post-mauism still sought roots in Maoism used Maoist terminology in many ways but also saw itself as having to move beyond it. And so I can't think of any other big ones. It largely seems to be a tendency of formerly Maoist organizations and individuals that they kind of want to retain their appreciation of Maoism while rejecting its scientific status. So, you know, another one just popped into my mind, Alan Bidieu and Sylvain Lazarus, right, who came out of this kind of a certain type of Maoist Malou.

They, you know, still have this appreciation of the cultural revolution or something. But again, they go beyond, they want to go beyond this notion of the parties, so they've their own eclectic kind of ways. I guess they would represent that trend in France. They had an organization at one point in time, but I actually don't think it exists anymore. That's funny how they fall apart, right? So in order to examine the different species of Maoism, like when I, in the whole book, I kind of taught, when I'm examining them all, I talk about this thing I call the primary principle. And that's the primary principle of revolutionary theory would be making revolution, right? That's the point of being a communist, of being any type of Marxist.

You'd think if anyone identifies as a Marxist, you'd feel that, well, that means you want to make revolution at some point, right? Because that's the whole point of communism, right, and Marxism. And so the question is how good are these expressions of Maoism at pursuing that goal? How close do they come to pursuing that goal? And, you know, post-Maoism hasn't fared very well on this. and in fact it's largely led to organizational collapse or just the kind of like dogmatic isolation of the RCP USA but that was happening already when they're drifting towards this and it's you know it's kind of a drifting drifting about and again I think that the you know Thomas M's critique that I quoted in the book

would sum up the problems more succinctly than I can absolutely so now we're going to get into the next three I think are ones that most people think of when they think of Maoism today So the next one is Maoist third worldism. In your book, you call this tendency a sort of alternative or shadow Maoism. So what exactly is it, what makes it distinct? And why is it an example, like in your book you dedicate a chapter to it calling it dogmato eclecticism, a mixture of both dogmatism and eclecticism. Would you like to talk about that?

Yeah. I mean, first, I think it should be clear that, you know, Maoist third worldism is a not term used by a lot of the groups that I talk about in this chapter or a lot of the groups that other people would start calling, would call the Maoist third worldist. But it is a term that emerged later and people started using it later, sometimes pejoratively,

and then there were groups that like picked it up after being used pejoratively and held it up to value it. Other groups didn't. I know it's because people that associate with some of these trends, they might use this as a red herring. It's like, well, we never called ourselves

Maoist third worldist, so this is, this critique just doesn't know what it's talking about. I mean, it doesn't matter if you never called yourself that. just the general category and there's a reason that this tendency has been called right and been placed under and there's something that unites it all together and just makes sense to call it what most people know that category is but in any case I call it you know an alternative shadow because groups like the Maoist international movement and other so-called third worldist organizations existed before or during the time the people's war in Peru started and sometimes

we're beginning to use the term Maoism to refer to themselves as well and even seeing it as a new development or even seeing it as you know even agreeing with what peru said about it but wanting to attach this kind of third world as valent onto it so to be simple what unites this what unites this tendency is that it claims that there is no proletariat in imperialist countries or if there is there is there is some takers or if there is it's very marginal it's very marginal and not not as meaningful because value is produced in the global peripheries and so exploitation in in this kind of very clear sense from capital can only exist in places where this actual value is being produced. So I call it dogmato-eclectic, aside from just being cute, I guess, because it relies on

very formulaic definitions of the proletary and value, but develops them eclectically, right? It develops them into these. And also, also on the side of us, too, some of the organizations and individuals associated with these third worldist groups could be super dogmatic, right? If you ever ran into anyone back when the LCO still exists, I don't even know if it's still, it didn't really exist in the real world? I don't know. But I mean, if you've ever interacted with people from the leading like communist organization

or the LCO, right, they're seeing their videos. It's like sheer dogmatism. They're as dogmatic as the average of Aikianite, right? But, you know, so there's that, right? It relies on the very formulae definitions of the proletary and value, but develops them eclectically. its members are dogmatic, but there's also this kind of eclecticism in theories of revolutionary practice that comes out of this tendency, like, for example, the idea of global people's war where the global peripheries surround the imperialist centers.

It's almost like this, you know, external event for third worldists here. And it's always interesting that point out, most of the people that define themselves according to this tendency and say this, they aren't part of any third world revolutionary organization, always in the first world. But I mean, that's a different, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, If I made that the main argument, then that would be kind of the genetic fallacy. But it is just an important insight into this as well. And to ask why hasn't been taken up by people?

Why aren't, you know, the people leading people's wars in, you know, India and Philippines saying, you know what, we should, we should surround the center in a global people's war together. Anyhow, sorry about that. Yeah. So you got that kind of eclecticism there. But then you also had this kind of like the, the Blecking Gaget group, and they were in, you know, northern Europe. And, you know, they came up with the idea. They didn't put one of the first ones that came up the idea.

There was no proletariat in the third world. Proletariat only exists in the third world. So their practice was they robbed banks and they sent the money to third world revolutionaries without anyone knowing the bank robberies. Without anyone knowing the bank robberies were for political reasons, this only was discovered later when they were caught because they got sloppy. But, you know, at the beginning, people just thought it was normal bank robberies. And the only reason they didn't do it is because they honestly believe there was no proletariat, no working class movement in their country, so it would serve no purpose to talk about it for political reasons. And in fact, it'd be better if people just thought it was selfish bank robbers because they wouldn't crack down on it thinking with some like political assault, right? And I could get money sent earlier.

And so, I mean, in that sense, too, as a point of, the Blacking Gate group was probably the only formation of this tendency that followed its core assumptions ruthlessly. The train of taxes. I mean, this is exactly, and you believe there's no, the proletarians in the third world, and you want to rent your service to them in the first world, this kind of thing is exactly

what you should be doing. They did it. They were honest, they were consistent, and they should be saluted for that at some level. I mean, also they risk their lives

to generate material support for revolutionaries. I mean, that's good work, right, that they did, even if it was based on the wrong principle, and they went to prison for that, and they dedicated their lives

to something that did, mean something revolutionary wise but still it is a strange way of conceiving things at least according to me who disagrees of this line and I give arguments for any way in any case I also want to kind of end you know mentioning this stuff on third worldism by pointing out that while I call it dogmato eclecticism and I disagree with its core principles it is important to note that it's development of the theory of a labor aristocracy while ultimately wrong in its undialectical approach understanding totality, still provided some very useful theoretical insights about the preponderance of the labor aristocracy in imperialist countries. And there's other theoretical insights that come

out of it as well that are really worth studying. But at the end, it falls short of what I call the primary principle. Yeah. And that's something you talk about in a lot of your work is this idea that even theoretical dead ends, even things that like postmodernism broadly in philosophy, You know, these things are not the path in and of themselves, but by engaging with it in a principled Marxist way, you know, you talk about like Karl Marx, reading bourgeois economists and taking from them, Lenin did the same thing. There is something you respect in your work about engaging with things outside of the quote-unquote canon, and then, you know, critically bringing in aspects that you think can bolster the overall Marxist project. Is that a fair way of putting it? I don't want to put words in there. Yeah, yeah, as long as I don't fall too much into eclecticism at the end of the day, but that's why, you know,

we always got to watch out for but for sure i mean marks angles lenin mao even Stalin i mean because everyone always rags on Stalin for not having read or studied and all that but he did i mean all these all these people you know they they they actually studied a whole bunch of stuff you know a whole bunch of stuff and stuff that was that was actually quite antagonistic to the line or stuff that was similar but they disagreed with and they were able to like synthesize ideas out of it and through critique like great gain insights as well and that's that's another symptom of dogmatism is a refusal to engage with anything outside of what is conceived to be the canon or the proper text. And we might touch on that a little bit later. But thirdly,

we have Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, commonly known as MLM. And this is the version of Maoism that I think both you and I defend and identify with. And in your book, you argue that this category of Maoism is Maoist reason, while the other three or four are deviations from it. What makes it different from the other versions of Maoism, and why does it represent the most principled and scientific form of Maoism? Well, I mean, this was very simple to answer. I mean, well, one thing I wrote a whole book already talking about why this is continuity and rupture, and maybe should plug the old interview you did with me there. But the thing I add here in connection to its differences with the with the others is that it's the form of Maoism associated with all the Maoist people's war. that have happened and are more importantly still happening.

So it's actually, it's pursuing that primary principle of making revolution by initiating people's wars, where these other tendencies largely, largely haven't done it in the same kind of level. Also, it was the synthesis of a number of revolutionary organizations, and this is important, including the PCP. So, I mean, next, I guess the fourth species is the one that relates itself only to the PCP, but it's important that when I talk about this variation, which is kind of like a hair's spread the way from the fourth variation is that this variation originally saw itself and saw

the PCP as part of its tradition and still does because the Communist Party of Peru was part of the revolutionary internationalist movement and was a signatory on some of their main synthesis points about Maoism. But again, I've already said why I think this in continuity and rupture and so I'm not going to belabor the point. Yeah. And again, I'll link to continuity and rupture's episode in the show notes. People definitely go check that out if you're interested in this part specifically but what comes up again and again and you know sometimes with a book of such a depth it's hard to create an interview that touches on all these nuances and complexities that really bring the book to life but again and again like you know the reasons that this category is

valued above the other ones is not some arbitrary decision on the part of jmp but rather judging by the actual making of revolution the advancement of class struggle what actually in the real world produces revolutionary movements and which ones don't and we have a enough hindsight with a bunch of different tendencies, even beyond Maoism. I mean, you talk about Trotskyism, for example, or how do you say that word? Hose. Hoge, yeah. You talk about those strains. So I just wanted to put that out. And again, if you engage with this text in its entirety, you'll definitely get that. So that's important. But let's go ahead and move on. So fourthly, there is one that I think is perhaps the most common, perhaps online, especially if you're in, like,

sectarian debates with Maoists online. You might come across this strain predominantly. But it's the Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, principally Maoism strain, often associated with the red guards and with a heavy emphasis on the Peruvian Revolutionary Gonzalo. This emphasis is so pronounced that they are often referred to

pejoratively as Gonzaloists. And I knew that's a pejorative because I called one of them once, not knowing it was a pejorative and they got very bristled by that. So it is a pejorative, I guess. But in your chapter against communist theology, you take this strain to be particularly

dogmatic and rooted in a rejection of thinking through Maoism scientifically and opting instead for a doctrinaire dogmatic approach defined by something more akin to religious thinking than scientific thinking. Can you explain a bit more about what principally Maoism is and then get into some of your main critiques of it? Yeah, I want to be careful here because I think there can and should be line struggles with the principally Maoist types. Not all of them. I find the Americans are more particularly, you know, well, they particularly do not like me and, like, organizations I associate with. So I don't know what that's, but what's that with usually.

But I think in general, their kind of should be line struggles with, with this tendency, because they do come from the same MLN tradition that I say is the one, the main one. And they're more of a post-communist, like post-people's war in Peru, fork in the past. And also, you know, the U.S. variant of principally Maoism isn't the only group of people associating with tradition. Numerous European groups use it, as do the Brazilian Maoists. And the Brazilian Maoists are actually quite important and arguably the one that you should be paying the most attention to in this trend. And I'm going to talk about them a little bit later in answer to this too, because, yeah, I might have, in order to really talk about the dogmatism of those that the most associate with this trend loudly and demand that everyone does it, I may have, you know, done. this bent the stick a bit too far by, you know, because there's also the Brazilian principally Maoist

two that I think deserve an important discussion. Anyhow, there's a reason I associate the, I want to add this too, the reason I associate the Communist Party Peru before Gonzalo was captured and before the People's War fragmented with a third variant. At that period of time, the PCP was using principally Maoism as a way to qualify that Maoism was a third stage of revolutionary communism rather than just an additive, right? So they were like mainly, mainly Maoism in the way it could be translated to. But in English, we usually get it as principally.

And they were also part of the rim. And they signed that. But the use of the term principally Maoism now are people that, you know, see, are people in groups that have decided that only the concepts developed by the PCP constitute proper Maoism and everything else is rightest. So they'll criticize every single group. I mean, they have to be careful in criticizing the Indians because they also are like, wow, these people are in a people's war, and they called themselves Maoists.

But sometimes, and I've seen some of these people, some people that associate themselves, principally Maoist, privately, it's almost like say things that, like, the Indians are revisionists with guns. So, like, I mean, they won't say that publicly all time, although they call Ejit a rightist, even though he was, like, one of the prime theorists. Or, like, he's been captured now, so he has to be, you know, and he's freed from prison, so he's, like, no longer in the central committee or anything. But, I mean, this is, you know, this is the reality. is that the way they talk about these other things is like you have to have these

conceptions that just comes specifically from the PCP and these conceptions the main aside from the debate about whether or not people's war is universal which you know the PCP is arguably the first group that said that and that's something a lot of people not associated with principally Maoism may uphold as well but the ones the three big ones that you know that they they push and I have a very specific understanding of them is militarization of the party, concentric construction, and Yafatura, or the idea of great leadership. These are what are focused on.

And I think a lot of these groups are using militarization of the party and concentric construction not in the way the PCP meant, or they have their own very specific way of thinking it in terms of the U.S. and Europe or something like that. Or sometimes you ask and you'll get like three different answers to them. But the Yepatera thing is another issue, this idea of great leadership, which, you know, has been criticized by numerous Maoist groups as well. I'm not going to get into that here because I've done it many times and we'll just open up that whole can of worms.

But in any case, this trend is largely dogmatic and that it sees any type of Maoism that does not accept the three concepts, militarization of the party, concentric construction and Yefetura, right, in the way that they understand them, we'll see anyone that doesn't accept these as rightist. And in this way, this means that they've actually classified the ongoing people's wars as rightest and not properly Maoist as as well as some of the largest Maoist organizations in the world.

And also, you know, having spent a lot of time with the adherence of the ones that are really pushed this dogmatic line, as opposed to the ones that may want to have a discussion or something of that, they don't take the time to study Marxism. There's generally this anti-intellectualism. They don't want to read anything

that could contaminate their thought, right? Any different line struggle. They misrepresent material they dislike. I've seen so many misrepresentations that they don't even bother to do the research. And it's terrible self-criticism, even though they like to repeat over and over that criticism is a gift, right? Even that becomes this dogmatic mantra of like, ooh, we do self-criticism. Criticism, self-criticism, but is it actually being done?

In any case, it goes back to the point, like dogmatism undermines and ruins revolutionary organizations. And this was Mao's point at the beginning of on contradiction, right? The problem is that a lot of dogmatists don't see themselves as dogmatists. And it's like you can't point of the behavior, but people just are repeating. the same lines, repeating the same formulas, just have to say the same words is like in this kind of mantra-like way and then anything that doesn't

accord to the words that they're familiar with the formulas, they label postmodernism. It's like people got to, you got to like look at that. That's like a very dogmatic culty behavior, right? And but also, again, I want to, you know, add here that just the one thing about the Brazilian Maoists that are in this principally Maoist

that I think need to like be kind of separated from this. I mean, they still maintain those three things are important. But what I've heard from them, from comrades, I know who have met them and seen their organization and been in Brazil and things like that. I've heard something that's a bit, a little bit different than what's presented largely by this trend, which is why I, even in that passage, I kind of accept them. I talk about the exception of the resilience, right? They do have a mass movement, right? And actually, the Red Spark website has been covering it recently in a series, their mass movement, which is pretty impressive. And although they

uphold the militarization of the party, concentric construction, even Yafatura. They also said to people that have spoken with them that they believe there should still be principled struggle with the other rim organizations. They don't turn everything into antagonistic contradictions. And they also claim that the PCP's relationship with the rim was important for the foundation of contemporary Maoism, which is interesting, right? So in that sense, they're kind of a possible exception of this milieu, this kind of theological malism, as I like the call it. But I mean, that would generally be how I conceptualize them and why I think there's some deep problems with that, especially if we want to have like critical thought is really important for, for revolutionary

movement. Yeah. I really like how you, you know, you front load this with like a lot of these folks, you know, the slightly less dogmatic ones can definitely be struggled with. And it's nice to see that the Brazilian comrades reciprocate that feeling. I need to do, and it's way overdue doing an entire episode on The Shining Path because I think a lot of, you know, people in North America that are on the left don't really know a lot about it, and so it's worth doing that work, and I'll get to that this year at some point. But, you know, whenever I post, like, an episode with you, or at least the last couple times, there's always been at least one of these folks that jumps in there and calls you a rightist. And in your book, you talk about just sort of the illogic of the left-center

rightist perspective from these folks. Could you touch on that maybe really quickly before we move on? Yeah, I mean, it's just a, it's a performative thing. They can never actually explain why I'm rightist, except that I don't accept those three things about principally Maoism. That's what makes me a rightist. That is literally the thing that makes me a rightist. I mean, they'll try to point to other things, too, that I've never said or done, right?

It's the kind of miss out. And every time I pointed out, they keep repeating it, and have never, ever once self-criticized for being an error, which is interesting on their part. Um, but yeah, this is like, I'm, I'm, I'm a rightist because I don't accept that the, you know, the, what is it? I just said it. So the militarization of the party, consensure construction and Yefetura are our central Maoist concepts. That's it, right? Yeah. Well, they can't really explain what makes that rightism. Well, it just means it's rightism because I'm not with what they see is the revolutionary program that they've accepted dogmatically, which in itself is a very right wing way of thinking. So that's why I just like, it's this kind of thing where just people throw these insults and it and, and, and, and, I mean, do it on the same way that like religious people will will call someone a heretic or an apostate or something right yeah and you know i'm somebody who has genuinely engaged with pretty much all of your major work i've read all of your your books a lot of your major essays and any of the critiques that i see from from this crowd um none of it makes sense to me as somebody who's engaged

with your work calling you a right is just incomprehensible and so it is sort of almost tautological and it's like assertion that because you don't do this you are that you know because you don't already agree with me that must mean by definition that you're that you're a rightist of some sort but it's really incomprehensible and i've yet to see a critique of you that it all aligns with the work that i've actually engaged with of yours for what it's worth but anybody who sees this episode go up on twitter scroll down to the comment section you'll see a jmp you get called the rightest but um but yeah so it's interesting it's it's obviously unfair and uh i reject that that claim against you lastly there is a version of mawism that you identify

as sort of vague and in development. I think in other places in the text, you call it an agnostic Maoism, if I'm not getting that confused. You argue that this strain is sort of inconsequential because it can be subsumed under various other subtenancies outlined above. But just to ensure that it is covered, can you briefly talk a bit about what that is

and why it too must be rejected? Well, I mean, this is largely a tendency that I've seen here and there, that, you know, it will, and why it's kind of nebulous, but it needs to be talked about because people will define themselves somewhere, to fall somewhere in this way. It's a tendency, this tendency has a tendency

to agree that Maoism is the third stage of revolutionary science, but that generally to be unclear about its origins, to say that maybe it doesn't have any, just emerged organically from the Chinese revolution, or there was already Maoism after the Chinese revolution, without any study or synthesis. Or maybe in 1968 in the cultural revolution,

right? This is vagueness. Some people who think like this claim that Maoism, it's, you know, it's what we should call the third stage, but it isn't really figured out aside from the importance of the cultural revolution and that more work needs to be done to establish its parameters. And so due to this vagueness, it's worth rejecting because it's kind of a theory in search of a theory. Like how can you uphold that as a theory? It's a lot of these people that will hold this. It's almost like they want to identify as Maoists because of the Chinese revolution. But the they'll drift like maybe towards one of the other more coherent tendencies eventually. So it's a minor one, but worth mentioning. Yeah, it's kind of a general tendency that you can have. Because it's worth mentioning because it exists. Yeah. So I'm going to read a little segment and then I'm going to ask the question. And on page 66 of your book, you write,

one final point needs to be made about the theological distortion of Marxism, particularly Marxism, Leninism, Maoism. Theological approaches to revolutionary theory are largely incapable of grasping the distinction between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. Specifically, there is a tendency to treat all contradictions as antagonistic. Everything that differs from the authoritative reading of the theory is judged hostile, just as priests judge all deviations from revealed scripture as heretical. And, you know, on Red Menace, our sister podcast,

we did an entire episode on Mao's On Contradiction, where we talk about this for those that are really interested in understanding the philosophy and theory behind contradictions and the antagonist. and non-antagonistic versions of them, but can you briefly remind us what antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions are, how dogmatic and theological approaches like that of some of the principally Maoist sub-tendency

fail to make these distinctions, and just sort of what the overall cost of this failure is? Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you brought up on contradiction because that's where I would go to talk about this, right? because this terminology of antagonistic and non-intaginistic contradiction is worked out on contradiction by Mao. And I obviously think on contradiction is a book that everyone should read who's interested in philosophizing revolutionary theory. So, yeah, there is a section where Mao outlines the contradiction isn't everything but is either antagonistic or non-intaginistic. Actually, he mentions it earlier in the piece, but then he ends up near the end focusing on it in more detail.

So, you know, for example, when we're looking at what do we mean by this, like the contradiction of bourgeois and proletariat, that's antagonistic. And just antagonistic where one's entire existence is predatory upon the others, right? And the only way to get rid of that is through, is class, well, is class struggle that relationship and class revolution is the way to get rid of it. So that's antagonistic. And with the riots that are breaking out right now, there's definitely a contradiction between the police and the people that is antagonistic. There's no way that's not non-intaginistic. And people that think that are like, you know, liberals. And also, and beneath that, because of what the riots are about, the contradiction between a white supremacist and a black person is antagonistic. They'll never be non-intaginistic. Again, despite liberals wanting to say that, you know, we should treat Nazis like, you know, nice people and win them over or something like that. And, you know, those are extreme examples, but they get to the point of what an antagonistic contradiction is. But, you know, Mao gives an example of, one of the examples of a non-intaginistic contradiction that Mao gives is the contradiction between workers and peasants in the period of new democracy in China.

That's not antagonistic. They definitely had contradictions between what they wanted, but the coalition was important. It was important to keep it together and not to treat as antagonistic. Otherwise, the revolution would fall apart, right? And it could be resolved. Non-ontagonistic contradictions can be resolved. So some line struggles in organizations, I mean, non-intaginistic can be resolved in by the contradiction can disappear because it's non-intaginistic and sides can be won over in this non-integonistic way. Integionistic contradictions can be resolved too through struggle and class war.

But some line struggles in organizations, too, if we look at organizations, and it becomes important for how we treat contradictions because of organizations and among the masses, right? So line struggles and organizations may be non-intaginistic because they do not threaten the organizations. organization. And in some cases might be contradictions because the situation hasn't been studied on either side in those kind of line struggles. You may have this complete discussion over tactics or something that is non-integonistic. Both sides want to resolve the issue. They just have different ideas how to do it. And it has to resolve it with one side either being proved correct or people being studied in doing that. But it's not something that is deeply, you know, takes you away from the actual meaning of the organization. But there's other line struggles. And that would be like between outright revisionism and the revolutionism and the revolution. A line, you know, a line circle where someone says we want to turn this organization into, like, a, you know, a bourgeois party and run in elections, something like that, right? That's an antagonistic line struggle right there. So, Mao's point always in this was that these things aren't fixed. Non-intagonistic contradictions can become antagonistic and vice versa. And if we treat non-intagionistic contradictions as antagonistic, which is what dogmatists tend to do, then we end up turning friends into.

enemies, alienating the masses, becoming singularly incapable of self-criticism, and also incapable of doing meaningful mass work. On the other hand, right, which I know you asked it just about the dogmatic, I'm about feeling to make that, but the other side is important, too, if you treat paganistic contradictions as non-integonistic, that's where you get revisionism, opportunism, and a movement that betrays as principles. And this is precisely why the dogmatists will say anyone that doesn't accept their line is revisionist, because they see it as an antagonistic contradiction, not as a non-integonist.

one, a very specific, except that very specific notion of Maoism, Yvamo, they haven't done a good job proving it. So that's what makes it, you know, and what would be a non-integonistic contradiction into antagonistic one. In their mind, it's already antagonistic, because if you don't follow dogmatically these things, you know, then you are a revisionist or an opportunist. Right. So I'll give two quick examples on each side of this and tell me if I'm off the mark, and I made these as simplistic as possible so people on the left generally can further understand this, And I think you mentioned it, which is a great one, which is during these protests, people dancing, kneeling, locking arms with police is a great example of turning an inherently antagonistic contradiction, right? The cops versus the social movement that's trying to confront them over their racist policing into a non-antagonistic one where we're all friends holding hands.

You know, everything's lollipops and rainbows and the police are somehow going to be won over by, you know, these performative displays of unprincipled unity. On the other hand, maybe an organization that's a Marxist organization going to a DSA protest and punching an old man in the face, for example, that would be turning a non-antagonistic contradiction into an antagonistic one, because although there are really real differences between a certain Marxist, Leninist, Maoist organization, and perhaps a democratic socialist one, given the conditions that we're operating in, that specific contradiction need not be antagonistic at this time. Is there anything there that you disagree with or am I pretty much on point there? No, I don't disagree. I would say that the notion, you know, well, for the first one, I'd say it's not that they turn it into. They just, they mistake an antagonistic contradiction for a non-intaginistic. It doesn't actually become non-integonistic. It literally is antagonistic, the police against the people.

That point. But it's like they mistake it. They want to treat it as non-intaginistic. And in the second one, you brought the point that context is important, right? I mean, you know, groups like the DSA I see is like utterly revisionist organizing. organizations and things like that. But number one, their operation is not taking away some piece of the pie from you, right? It's not like the people that gravitate towards the DSA or the people that are going to gravitate towards, like, a revolutionary Maoist organization.

Maybe it's, and if they, and if they might, then you've got to do a better job at bringing them in. I think there's a point when these kind of organizations, like say, the DSA or what have you, can become, like, can become antagonistic. and that's when you would have like if you're initiating a people's war and they're getting in the way of it and you actually are not just it's not just like happening because you declared it but you actually have you're in like a stage of strategic defensive and there are you know like a revisionist organization there is telling people not to join it and actively getting in the way of it and doing the work of a state against the revolution then that is when it becomes antagonistic but in a separate place where it's just like meetings and a place where we yeah again it's the context right and I you know I just these things change and Mao's always about like look at the context and how these things shift. Yeah, that's incredibly important. You know, not something that's non-antagonistic today can become antagonistic. You can look back in history at the well-known story of how the social Democrats killed Rosa to see how, you know, Marxists and social Democrats could, you know, at one point be non-antagonistic, but quickly develop into an antagonistic contradiction given the

right conditions. So I think that's incredibly important. And again, just to echo your point, you're right, The kneeling with the cops will always be wrong. It's not turning something into something else. It's just mistaking an antagonistic contradiction with a non-intaginistic one. And that's an important clarification. So I appreciate that. All right, let's go ahead and move on. We have like two more questions, I think, before we wrap this up.

Beyond the trends of Maoism discussed already and beyond the problems of both eclecticism and dogmatism, there are two dominant errors in communist praxis that we still need to address, namely right and left opportunism. These are words that get thrown out a lot, but I think it's just helpful to clarify their meaning and talk about them a little bit. So we'll start with right opportunism. What is right opportunism? How does it manifest? And, you know, how can it be combated? Today, I mean, the most common manifestation of right opportunism and the way to understand it is kind of the economism that leads a movement to liquidate itself within the working class, right?

So it's driven by this laudable desire to find roots with the masses. That's how it manifests. It's like, you know what? You've got to really link up to the proletariat, be with them in this. struggles and things like that. But because of it, it's this liquidationist stuff where it just like ends up diffusing the entire movement into, say, like, the working class movement, it ends up tailing the working class movement. It often will end up watering down its ideology as it just wants to like, you know, struggle for economic gains and reforms. And also, you know, not be

outed as a communist because it wants to win people over slowly, right, and becomes incapable of pursuing a revolution. And it's, you know, it's the trend that was criticized by Lenin and what is to be done. But it keeps re-emerging, even with organizations that give lip service to what is to be done and I'll leave off the answer of how it can be combated for now because you're going to ask me about left opportunism next and I think the answer is connected on how to combat these tendencies. Perfect segue. So what is left opportunism? How does it manifest and how can both forms of opportunism be combated? Okay, so I mean left opportunism is the opposite of right opportunism. It's adventurism. It's kind of like

leaving the masses behind or even doing less and less mass work for fear of being contaminated. And as Mao reminds us, right, is that he always, he would always use the term left opportunism with scare quotes, like left, right? To point out that it's actually, it's still a rightism, right? It's left in form. And it disguises a real contempt for the masses or at least fosters that eventually. It dismisses their day-to-day struggles, might even call violent actions mass work and the belief that it inspires the masses.

Like, it's very detached, right? And in this point, agitation and abstract militancy replaces sustained work among the masses. So from there, I mean, to combat both tendencies is really to dialectically see what they're both correct about, but how they use their correct insights to pursue incorrect practices. Right opportunism is, the sentiment that leads to right opportunism is correct about embedding ourselves in the masses. But where it becomes this right opportunism is it takes it to the point of liquidation, right? just completely diffusing yourself in the masses and not being able to have that kind of a revolutionary organization that is able to also, you know, bring in like revolutionary theory and all that

stuff without, and not hide communism and also, you know, connect to militancy and all that stuff. I mean, and left opportunism on the other side is correct that militancy should not be abandoned, but it takes this to the point of abandoning the masses. So from these insights, we should recognize that a movement has to embed itself in the masses, but militantly and not just with empty slogans. It can't liquidate itself, but it cannot remove oneself into the sphere of adventurism either. Incredibly clarifying.

Yeah, thank you for that. So last question, you know, we've covered all of these different tendencies, these different errors, and, you know, it might be a good way to end this on talking about how we can just be on the lookout for it and perhaps, you know, proactively work against it. So in what ways can Maoist,

and just Marxists generally, proactively work to prevent dogmatism, eclecticism and opportunism from cropping up in our thinking. I'm thinking of somebody who's principled, sincere, wants to be effective and wants to find something that they can do to help hedge against these things cropping up within themselves and those around them. Well, I think, you know, by a combination of study and mass work, like I think not like study of like the core revolutionary texts as many as possible,

as much as you can, right? I mean, not everyone has the same access and has the same literacy. But like collective study with other people in these things. studying also work that that you need to like critique in something studying that honestly in order to write an honest critique by really grasping what you know that's exactly think of how many things that you know

Lenin's how much of Lenin's thought like move forward by just critiquing a contending line but knowing what those lines were you had to study that and also mass work like this is the combination it's a combination of study and mass work and that and that idea of like doing work amongst the masses trying to embed yourself with them

in this organizational sense. And also, you know, I think those two things actually will, you know, do the best at getting rid of like eclectic and dogmatic tendencies when those things are together and you're doing it with a group of people collectively. I feel that, you know, what tends to foster the stuff is that if you end up kind of getting pulled into an organization that tells you not to study or tells you not to bother reading things like that or because you might be contaminated by bad ideas or only read these things only read these few things that's a warning when you're told just read these yeah that's a really

weird that's that's exactly what like like i know the tactics that's like anyone who's come out of like say Mormonism or you know what's the other the jehovah's witnesses that's kind of the way that it functions they tell you just to read these very other types of reading and studies frowned upon and i've seen certain you know marxist organizations do this kind of thing and it's something you should be on the lookout for also another way to be on look at is people that claim they have some kind of new pie in the sky revolutionary theory that looks really super cool it's like it's probably not it probably just looks cool and really isn't that cool it's like waving around the invisible committee like it was like the next brand of margarine or something it was and it's like and we get new ones like that all

the time with like clever sounding names and shit and that's something to be on the warrant I mean not that you shouldn't read them you should but it's something to be like it's like being like ooh and becoming enamored with them always be suspicious of these things that claim they're like the new key to solve revolution and have this like you know that that's something eclectic is going on there as well and i mean and definitely when people are kind of embedded in doing mass work and not just you know going to meetings and calling the mass work or something but you know mass work amongst the masses um they you know and and they're also doing this study at the same time they they tend to be you know much more allergic to kind of dogmatism and eclecticism

So it's also, it's the people that I find that a lot of people that get, get drawn into this kind of, uh, symbology of, of the more dogmato kind of attempts of Maoism are people that are like online a lot. Um, not the people that are on the ground doing it, obviously, but the, the ones that like spent a lot of their time online talking about it and they're into the aesthetic, right? And, um, and so when, when some things, you know, when some, when some, when a politics is, is largely because it's an aesthetic that you like, that should also make you, you should be. You should be. You should be. You should be. And, you. You should be. You should be. You should be. And, you. And so when some, you. And so when some, you should suspicious about that yeah well said couldn't say it better myself um thank you so much for that thank you for coming on once again um again a huge fan of your work before i let you go can you let listeners know where they can find this new book and the second edition of the communist necessity and just your work overall online yeah so this one critique of Mao's reason was put out by foreign languages press and that's a small um you know it's named after the old revolutionary one uh in the days of Mao but it's a small Maoist press that's run out of Europe

that puts out a lot of Maoist classics as well and everything is very affordable for it. I mean, it's probably, it's really the only, I'm glad they took it, but it is really the only place that would take a book like this that is so meshed in just talking about kind of disagreements

amongst Maoists. Norbert press is really going to take that. But yeah, it's good. And I, it's, yeah, it's cheap there. And they also have a lot of, lot of other great stuff too um and then the other place that and that's you can find that at foreign languages dot press that's their website uh and then the other my my uh my uh second edition of the communist necessity that's put out by the publisher of the first edition that's kris

plebadeb and uh you can i mean the website is chris plebidid i think it's dot ca no maybe it's dot com Chris Blevadeb.com. I know you're going to put all this spelling up at the end, right? For sure. And I'm like trying to figure out how I spell that word in my head. I can't even say it. And yeah, that second edition is available there. It's also decently priced.

And, you know, my work can be found. Like, I have a blog, MLM Mayhem, and I usually, I have a page up in my blog. Usually it works so you can find links of where to find all of them. But generally, my stuff is published by Chris Klebadeb. foreign languages press and then zero books has published some of my other three books or two and a half books I co-wrote one of them too so two and a half books of my other work as well yeah and that's that all right well I'll link to all that in the show notes again if you are at all interested in Maoism or you call yourself a Maoist

you want to investigate these matters deeply continuity and rupture and critique of Maoist reason breeding them back to back I think would be incredibly helpful and clarifying for anybody who's even Maoist adjacent or interested at all in the debates about what Maoism is and in the inter-Maoist debate. So definitely check those out. I'll link to all of it in the show notes. Thanks again. I don't know if this is your sixth or seventh time, but I'm sure there'll be future times when you're on again. I just appreciate everything you do. Stay safe up north. And yeah, I'll be in touch soon. Thanks for having me. You a scholar

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Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar. Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar. Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar. Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar Get it Look at all these slaves masters Confucius saying Man you better thug out

Get the bag in a bug out Try the wrong home you might run your luck out Because just when your bases loaded They'll roll a grenade in the thugout Earth vote, not a mellow bunch We got a thumbs in the air like hella bust Look at who we done blessed with our trust I don't think we'll be left for too much

Hand on my heart of a mind On my drugs got a butter got punched for your Atlas truck Blood or not love It's just that dumb Lord sweet Buddha please make me numb Rain piles off walls like a city in room, but just found out it's created stupid. Lipped by the super moon are too lucid. Plus got shrooms in the blood I'm fooling.

BP, rigidist, New York City. The ex on the mat with a pain keep in it. Just as ducks here sitting. When murderous, choco, cops still earn in a living. Funny how softs ain't money, don't matter. That's rich now, in there. Get it, comedy. Try to sell packets, supposed to get food, get killed.

It's not an anomaly. Hey, it's just money. Mastered economics, because you took yourself from squalers. Sway. Mastered academics, because your grace and you were scholar. Slaid. because you can instigate a follow here look at all these slave masters yeah yeah let it sink in 2020 run the map wrong on cut in my hourglass don't watch it's filled to the bottom half

you see the piece now running fast on the tarmac get a starter jack see four when i run it back like a track star on a record lap nah like when it's deal catch clean look port pugilist a shooter's view as a prudent flick you move for you rudiments who convince you you can move against the crew in this coming up through the fence Offshore out of port of prints. Overjoy and left his fingerprints on the hearts of the gate in the world of residence. How can we be the peace when the peace is going to reach for the worst? Terror all the flesh of the earth.

Stay set from a deafening, reckoning, quaint like the pace of a verse. So questioning, this quest for things is a recipe for early death threatening. But the back to me is wet free for you is just money. The conclusion to critique of Maoist reason by Jay Malfoad Paul. In 1914, Lenin described dialectical transatlism. as a development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a different way on a higher basis, a development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line, a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions,

breaks in continuity, the transformation of quantity into quality, end quote. Thus, to assert that the emergence of Maoism is a third and higher stage of Marxism is to also assert such a transformation where the breaks in continuity are also a repetition on a higher basis. If we are to seriously think Maoism as a new stage of science and not simply a non-dilectical repetition of pre-Maoist Marxism-Leninism, then we have to also begin thinking what such a transformation means according to this basic understanding of dialectical development. If we do not, then we are simply stuck with an understanding of a quantitative straight line of development, where it is simply about adding up the insights as if they are an evolutionary

trend. Such a view admits no stages or periodizations of the science, no moments where old and limited ideas reach a limit and thus require revolutionary struggle to overcome the revisionism they may come to represent. Such a view treats Marxism not as a science, but a complete doctrine that generates an eternal continuity. It would make no sense to even speak of Leninism or Maoism, since if there are no breaks in continuity as mere prophetic additives, they would not be higher stages that require those leaps that break from one stage so as to establish another. As Adjik concludes on the Maoist party, quote,

One of the great leaps achieved by Maoism is its rupture from bad traditions of the common-turned period, without in the least minimizing its positive role. This must be further deepened. Today's Maoist parties are, without doubt, continuators of yesteryear communist parties. but their foundations must be the heights attained by Maoism in the Vanguard concept, not the outlook or methods of their past, end quote. Such heights attained by Maoism in the Vanguard concept are, according to Adjut,

and the living Maoist movements of which he was familiar, a rejection of the mechanical monolithic approach to organization, and one that binds the party of the avant-garde to the mass line in cultural revolution. It is only here, as we have seen through the development of Maoism from the 1980s onwards, where a truly Maoist reason can flourish and thus generate the next and hopefully final world historical revolution. I am well aware that Adjit is now being called a rightist by those elements of the Maoist milieu who would lock us into an emmanciated version of Maoism that has not developed since the

possibility of such a new stage was first conceived. This charge of rightism, though, is merely rhetorical, since it is only an insult thrown out by those who see themselves as properly left, and thus cannot conceive of any deviation from their line as anything but rightists. Hoax Heights also classified Mao's political line as rightist and revisionist because of its supposed deviation from Stalin's orthodoxy. The irony, however, is that such a rejection of Adjit's insights is by definition rightist, traditionalist conservatism, even if and when it manifests left styles of political practice. It's the textbook definition of right deviationism. In any case, if we are to understand the meaning of Maoist reason and a critique of its

boundaries, we must also learn how to think Maoism and its totality, which means to also think its distance from pre-Maoist Leninism and pre-Leninist Marxism, and which further means to think what makes Maoism the highest stage of revolutionary science. By what rationale we can call it a stage, what makes the process of which it is a part scientific, and what scientific thinking means for Maoists interested in developing revolutionary theory. The overall problematic that has guided this extended essay is the necessity of thinking Maoist thought. Those who cannot think Maoism will be those who are unable to answer the questions implied by the above paragraph, the questions that have structured this critique, because of their dogmatism, their eclecticism, their combination of these two registers, or their general agnosticism that would result in an incapability of making any meaningful

statement, dogmatic, eclectic, or otherwise, about what Maoism is. Formulaic, confused, or agnostic dismissals to this critique simply demonstrate that there remains regions of Maoist reason that have not yet grasped, and might even refuse to grasp what Maoism implies and demands, for it implies and demands no less than what was demanded by marks and angles. A ruthless criticism of all that exists, but according to a substantial reason that does not merely demystify the world, but in this demystification, generates the tools for the overthrow of existent reality. To be clear, I do not think that the various tendencies vying for the determination of Maoist reason are wholly antagonistic to each other, even if some

of them tend to interpret multiple non-antagonistic contradictions as antagonistic. I hold that there is still a lot of room for Comradley line struggle amongst these Maoisms so as to contribute to a more robust conception of Marxism-Leninism-Mauism. Even still, I think it is clear that there is only one tendency, the one forged through the PCP-R-I-M process and its parallels, that has been proven to represent Maoist reason, whereas other approaches are ultimately variations of dogmatism and eclecticism. Although such differences between tendencies might become antagonistic contradictions in the future, that is when the difference is get in the way of making revolution,

at the moment they remain at the level of non-intaginism, though the more dogmatic approaches to Maoism like to pretend otherwise. In this context, then, it becomes increasingly important to think Maoism and pursue a critique of its reason so as to sharpen the weapon of criticism. To sharpen the Maoist sword for the overthrow of existent reality through the critique of its general reason is to also plain away that which would make it jagged or dull. And though the dull and jagged aspects of the sword, might hate the wet stone that critiques their reason for existence,

at the end of the day the critique of the stone reveals that they were nothing more than flaws, temporary deviations in the sword's cutting edge. Malist reason will be revealed as the sharp weapon that it is once the stone of its critique has rendered it to itself.