I was never comfortable with that formulation. Just from everyday experience alone, we should know that people are not free from ideology. Not now, not ever.

I have given that passage the most generous interpretation one could give it which is that he means the people are free from anti-communist presuppositions, but to say they retain "none" of their slavish features is overstating it to say the least.

This passage shows why we should be careful even when reading Mao. Maoists like to believe everything he ever wrote was a pure expression of dialectics with no pragmatic calculation in mind. I'm more skeptical than that. I always thought his evaluation of Stalin to be at odds with his otherwise tough-minded approach and have wondered about the degree of realpolitik at work.

As for the passage, it is more propagandistic than analytical but it reflects the political culture of China at the time that he could say such a thing. Practice has already shown that considering the proletariat "blank" is at odds with reality and we should dispense with that notion.

The RCP never ceases to astound. Upholding "poor and blank"? Oy!

Your exegesis on this quote is helpful, Mike. Back in the dark ages of the late '60s we used to go spelunking for non-canonical Mao articles and quotes in sources like <b><i>China Quarterly</i></b> and there I found some academic Sinologists making an interesting distinction. Especially in looking at the still unfolding GPCR, they talked of "Left Mao" (e.g.,"It's right to rebel") and "Right Mao" (e.g., "Seek truth from facts"). If one were to expand these categories, I would stick "poor and blank" at the top of "Dumb Mao."

Here we get the same old liberal presuppositions. When Mao talks of Chinese people being 'poor and blank', it's in quotation marks. He's quoting someone who is denegrating the Chinese people who he disagrees with.
Mao then proceeds to turn around what they are saying so he is praising the Chinese people, their passion and their desire for change and progress. In the same passage he states:

'The political consciousness of the broad masses is rising rapidly. The backward sections among them are exerting themselves to catch up with the advanced, which demonstrates that the socialist revolution in our country is forging ahead in the economic field (in those places where the relations of production have not yet been completely transformed) and in the political, ideological, technical and cultural fields.'

Here he says the 'backward sections' are 'exerting themselves', this implies that the beautiful picture being painted on the people's consciousness is in fact the product of their own efforts. Nowhere is he saying that an elite is painting its own fanciful ideas on the consciousness of the stupid masses. This just isn't what he means. To say it is means just following the usual liberal 'anti-totalitarian' bullshit.

In Canada, the leading liberal Michael Ignatieff supports torture as does leading yank liberal
Alan Dershowitz. So-called liberals in the UK such as Oliver Kamm, Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch support the invasion and genocide in Iraq. The liberal newaspaper 'The Observer' backed this stance.

In the context of western exploitation of the Third World, western liberalism=fascism. These people talk a lot of bullshit about democracy and human rights but none of this is meant to apply to the Third World masses they parasite off. I suggest we ditch this whole fantasy liberal discourse and stop apologising for communism.

"'Seek truth from facts'... is a rather radical insight today too… given the various influences of rote memorization, formulas and fantasy planning."

Could you expound upon that, Mike? I am confused, because you say that "Seek truth from facts" is a radical insight in this day and age, and yet Avakian's "All truth is good for the proletariat..." is not a radical insight. Why do you say that?

Actually Mike I have to disagree with your interpretation of BA's essay. Nowhere does he unconditionally uphold the phrase 'poor &amp; blank'. Neither does he criticise the taking of it literally by communists, in the way which you correctly did, warning how proletarians are not actually 'blank' but have taken up various non-proletarian ideologies to various degrees. I think the main point of BA's essay is to show that the actual content of Mao's essay (&amp; PRC practise) was exactly opposite of Naomi Klein's insinuation of brainwashing.

So although I agree, Mike, that the approach 'poor &amp; blank' literally taken can be seen in the 'take ML home to the workers' line, as well as in today's line of expecting folks to shit themself with joy as soon as they finally hear of Bob's wondrousness; despite that insight which should also be brought forward in relation to Mao's phrase, it's a question of BA's essay being incomplete rather than incorrect.

Also Mao put the phrase in quotes too, so I think it's clear that he didn't mean it literally either. (I think this is true also of the quote used in Letter 8 on the 'cult of the individual', that he was probably using the phrase sarcastically since that is how the USSR revisionists phrased it &amp; he wanted to turn it around against them -- not that Mao is beyond criticism, I think it's great that folks are not just blindly taking what he says.)

Finally a couple comments on NK. First, another anti-communist remark in the very same quote is the phrase 'Year Zero', which refers to Khmer Rouge, &amp; although she doesn't say they were communist (they were not, for the record), the fact that she talks about Mao in the next breath lends itself to the standard bourgeois propaganda line. However, I also need to say that I saw a BookTV interview with her about this book where she actually half-upheld the Bolshevik revolution. She one-sidedly was against Stalin &amp; wasn't calling herself a Leninist either, but she was completely against the interviewer trying to say that Bolsheviks were totalitarians, rather she said they were honestly trying to change the world for the better, overthrew a horribly oppressive regime, &amp; had the support of the people. I mention this just to say that although she obviously does not have the correct line on history of communism, neither has she uncritically swallowed every bourgeois lie about it.

Mike, the 'poor and blank'statement has been quoted ad infinitum by liberals trying to discredit Mao, so it's obvious what I'm talking about.

In your posts you seem to say its one interpretation of what Mao is saying, though not the one you're very happy with. Your comments on everything are ambiguous. This isn't a problem, maybe its a way of encouraging debate. However, you shouldn't feel too aggreived when people take the lead and jump into the debate and express views. I'm not part of some anti-Mike Ely conspiracy (I don't even know you) but I do wonder if your rupture from the RCP-USA was really such a good idea, as I think I've been making clear.

Mr. Mazenov, I think the point about "all truth is good for the proletariat" is that it does tend to obliterate the fence between truth and reality, that is to say, human (and in particular <i>class</i> attempts at summation of the underlying "capillaries," if you will, between disparate spheres of the objectively existing social and natural world and the latter proper. Mao is making that fundamental distinction.

Also, whatever problems exist with WCW, and whatever else can be said about "the pulpit of bones" (the parliaments, presidents and ministers of the global north are brought to you by courtesy of the generalissimos, death squads and ayatollahs of the global south), I would also warn against "social-fascism" and "a vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler" which I think destroyed the KPD. I see shades of this in "western liberalism=fascism."

Finally, Mao was not the first one to concern himself with being discredited by his own words. Though to cult of personality in the Soviet Union was more systematic, Stalin apparently had his own doubts.

<q cite>The German writer Lion Feuchtwanger [Lion Feuchtwanger, German writer (1884-1958)] <b>in 1936 confirms that Stalin suspected that the 'cult of personality' was being fostered by 'wreckers' with the aim of discrediting him</b>: "It is manifestly irksome to Stalin to be worshiped as he is, and from time to time he makes fun of it. Of all the men I know who have power, Stalin is the most unpretentious. I spoke frankly to him about the vulgar and excessive cult made of him, and he replied with equal candour. He thinks it is possible even that 'wreckers' may be behind it in an attempt to discredit him". (L. Feuchtwanger: 'Moscow 1937'; London; 1937; p. 93, 94-94).</q>

http://www.geocities.com/redcomrades/pers-cult.html

Cold Lamper: To be fair I think the intent of statement 'all truth is good for the proletariat' means that it's good for the proletariat to <i>know</i> the truth of everything, not necessarily that the reality of the situation is good for them (obviously, right?). The point of 'all truth' is that it is truth from all sources.

Avakian’s polemic against political truth and his quote, "All truths are good for the proletariat — everything that’s actually true can help us get to communism," run right up against Ely's opportunist and instrumentalist methodology of taking quotes and words out of context specifically to attack Avakian (or a strawman, particularly in pieces like this one).

To wit, a quote from the first chapter of Lenin's State and Revolution:

"What is now happening to Marx's theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now "Marxists" (don't laugh!)."

I'm expecting another nine letters on the guy who wrote that any day now...

Observer:

This is hardly an appropriate use of the Lenin quote.

Lenin's point was obviously to note how some tried to convert (after his death) the towering thinker and revolutionary activist Marx into a harmless icon.

Mike is not trying to convert Avakian into anything harmless but rather to assess him as a revolutionary leader.

Your segue "To wit,a quote..." just shows pomposity and confusion.

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