Mao and Marx

Abstract

Let us be clear about two very fundamental facts. First, the issue of what constitutes a (good) Marxist has been a matter of fierce and continuing worldwide debate and struggle for decades. And second, the China field for over 20 years has generally treated this issue as if the answer were rather obvious, while explicitly and implicitly concluding with unseemly ease and near unanimity that Mao is not a (good) Marxist. Relatedly, although the implications of Marx's historical materialism and dialectical understanding-and more particularly the implications of the primacy of the mode of production in Marx's thought-are exceedingly complex, they have not been treated accordingly by liberal scholars in the field. Our scholars of Mao, who, to the best of my knowledge, rarely if ever have developed a materialist approach and have never written seriously about any mode of production, do not for such reasons hesitate to authoritatively declare that Mao has misunderstood or ignored just these matters and thereby violated the essential nature of original Marxism. These fundamental facts are, I submit, virtually undeniable.