Abstract
Mao Zedong often used the terms “class” and “masses” or “people,” which were some of his most important concepts in the revolutionary struggle. However, his use of these terms differed considerably from the way they were ordinarily used. It is said that the most useful concept he learned from Marx was class struggle, yet his class concept is not the same as Marx’s and, moreover, it changed over time. In this chapter, I use these terms as clues to analyze what Marxism meant to Mao Zedong. I will also consider why violence was frequently used in Mao’s policies, for example, in his land reform policy, and will discuss the general relationship between revolution and violence.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Part of the responsibility for these mistranslations lies with Japanese Marxists of the Meiji era, such as Koutoku Shusui and Sakai Toshiaki, who translated the original Marxist texts into Japanese.
- 2.
The first edition was published in the magazines Zhongguo Nongmin (Chinese Peasants) and Zhongguo Qingnian (Chinese Youth). The contents were considerably compressed and altered in the officially published edition of Mao Selected Works (Imabori 1966, p. 66). The first edition is included in Mao Zedong Collection Vol. 1.
- 3.
Needless to say, actual strategies are not based solely on such simple calculations. It also goes without saying that competence in revolutionary and liberation struggles is not determined solely by manpower.
- 4.
In this article (original), Mao Zedong said “We, the Communist Party, will never exclude all revolutionary people (if they do not surrender, if they are not even anti-communist), and we will maintain a united front and carry out long-term cooperation with all thoroughly anti-Japanese classes, strata, parties and individuals.”
- 5.
The original is from Jianguo Yilai Mao Zedong Wengao (Mao Zedong’s Manuscripts since the Founding of the Country), Vol. 11, pp. 265–266.
- 6.
Although the Cultural Revolution produced the most victims of all political struggles during the Mao era, other political movements also created a vast number of victims, from high-ranking Political Bureau members to nameless peasants, even though they were not executed or sent to labor camps or prisons.
- 7.
These materials are contained in Mao Zedong Collection Vol. 3. Note that the original text indicates that these instructions were issued in June 1933, but the article entitled “How to Differentiate the Classes in the Rural Areas,” in Mao Selected Works Vol. 1 was written by Mao in October 1933 “to correct the deflection that occurred during land reform and correctly solve the land problem.”
- 8.
Here, “exploitation” refers to all income other than compensation for one’s own labor.
- 9.
Ancestral hall refers to ancestral shrines for clans, and scholarship land refers to land held by the same clans to finance education of their young members.
- 10.
No need to say, the story would be different if the descendants were able to continue to purchase new land, but this was not the case in traditional China, where the supply of land was quite limited, except in the Northeastern part of the country.
- 11.
The Chinese language also has the words “the public” (dazhong) and “the populace” (minzhong), but terms such as “public line” and “populace line” are not generally used.
- 12.
This sentence is taken from Lenin’s “The Proletarian Revolution and the Apostate Kautsky,” but history is ruthless, and as Kautsky criticized, proletarian power has turned into a violent mass repressive apparatus.
- 13.
For more on the Futian incident, see Chap. 2, note 17.
- 14.
Archives that collect and store historical materials from various regions or departments.
- 15.
Mao Zedong said, “I still remember. In 1920 I read for the first time Kautsky’s Class Struggle, Chen Wangdao’s translation of the Communist Manifesto, and an Englishman’s History of Socialism, and there I learned that there had been class struggle since the beginning of mankind and that class struggle was the driving force of social development. I acquired a way, albeit rudimentary, to recognize the problem” (Takeuchi 1989, p. 55).
- 16.
If we replace Np (proletariat) in the above equation with poor and hired peasants, etc., this argument holds.
- 17.
Revolution of the poor refers to the social transformation of the working class and the poor through revolution.
- 18.
They refer to local bosses, some of whom were landowners.
- 19.
Engels wrote this in his “Preface to the monograph on Marx’s ‘The Class Struggle in France, 1948–1850’” (1895).
- 20.
Remarks made at an emergency enlarged meeting of the Party Central Committee in Hankou in August 1927. At this meeting, Mao Zedong criticized the Party’s approach of only conducting mass movements instead of military action. These words also appear in “Problems of War and Strategy” (November 1938) (in Mao Selected Works, Vol. 2).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nakagane, K. (2024). Class Struggle Theory and the Mass Line: “Marxism” According to Mao Zedong. In: Mao Zedong and Contemporary China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1761-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1761-3_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-97-1760-6
Online ISBN: 978-981-97-1761-3
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)