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Part 1: The Legend of “Maoism”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Karl A. Wittfogel
Karl A. Wittfogel
Affiliation:
New York.
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Extract

A number of months ago I discussed in an article some conceptual weaknesses in the study of Chinese Communism. To illustrate my point, I briefly reviewed the “Maoist” thesis—the claim that Mao Tse-tung, in 1927 and subsequently, violated basic principles of orthodox Marxist-Leninist Communism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 1 , March 1960 , pp. 72 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

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References

1 New Leader, issue of 07 22/27, 1959, New YorkGoogle Scholar. I am indebted to the New Leader for permitting me to reproduce parts of this article here.

2 See, for instance, Tang, Peter S. H., “Stalin's Role in the Communist Victory in China,” American Slavic and East European Review XIII, No. 3 (10 1954), pp. 375–388CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Communist China Today (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), p. 74 et seq.Google Scholar; Walker, Richard L., China Under Communism: The First Five Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), pp. 20, 153Google Scholar; ibid., The Continuing Struggle. Communist China and the Free World (New York: Athene Press, Inc.), 1958, p. 110Google Scholar; Michael, Franz H. and Taylor, George E., The Far East in the Modern World (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1956), p. 414Google Scholaret seq.; Wittfogel, Karl A., “The Influence of Leninism-Stalinism on China,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (09 1951), p. 28Google Scholaret seq. (hereafter cited as Wittfogel 1951); ibid., “The Communist Strategy in Asia,” the New Leader, 02 15, 1954Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Wittfogel, 1954)Google Scholar; ibid., “Short History of Chinese Communism,” in Handbook on China, edited by Hellmut Wilhelm under commission from The Human Relations Area Files for the United States Army, Chap. V, A (MS. hereafter cited as Short History); ibid., Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), p. 442Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Wittfogel 1957); ibid., “Die Bauern,” Chap. 11 of Handbuch des Welt-Kommunismus (Freiburg/München: Karl Alber—American edition to be published soon by Frederick A. Praeger), 1958, p. 456et seq.Google Scholar

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4 Schwartz, Benjamin I., Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951)Google Scholar, Acknowledgments (hereafter cited as Schwartz 1951).

5 Brandt, Conrad, Schwartz, Benjamin and Fairbank, John K., A Documentary History of Chinese Communism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as Documentary History).

6 Documentary History, p. 27.Google Scholar

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9 Op. cit. p. 75.

10 Op. cit. p. 77 et seq.

11 Op. cit. p. 191.

12 Op. cit. p. 199.

13 Documentary History, p. 77.Google Scholar

14 Op. cit. p. 79.

15 Schwartz, 1951, p. 76.Google Scholar

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17 Schwartz, 1951, p. 118Google Scholar; Documentary History, p. 79.Google Scholar

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28 Lenin, , SWG VIII, p. 349.Google Scholar

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34 Lenin, , SWG XII, p. 361.Google Scholar

35 Lenin, , SWG XX, 1, pp. 4, 25 and passim.Google Scholar

36 Lenin, , SWG XX, 1, pp. 108, 117, 527Google Scholar; XX, 2, pp. 9, 11 et seq., 24 et seq., 29 et seq.

37 Lenin, , SWG XXI, pp. 140Google Scholaret seq., 146, 175 and passim; XXII, p. 20 et seq.

38 See below.

39 Lenin, , SWG XXV, p. 336et seq.Google Scholar

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43 Lenin, , SW X, p. 237. Italics mine.Google Scholar

44 Lenin, , SW X, p. 241.Google Scholar

45 Lenin, , SW X, p. 243.Google Scholar

46 Schwartz, 1951, p. 192Google Scholar; cf. p. 119 et seq.

47 Schwartz, 1951, p. 196.Google Scholar

48 In this context, obviously: Communist-led thought and activity.

49 Lenin, , SW X, p. 242Google Scholar. Italics mine.

50 For the doctrinal problems connected with the Communist use of the term “feudal,” see Wittfogel, 1957, p. 379et seq.Google Scholar

51 Lenin, , SW X, p. 242Google Scholar. Italics mine.

52 Lenin, , SW X, p. 242Google Scholaret seq.

53 Lenin, , SW X, p. 240.Google Scholar

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57 Lenin, , SW X, p. 198.Google Scholar

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59 (Pervyi) S'ezd narodov Vostoka, Baku, September 1–8, 1920 (1st Congress of the Peoples of the East, Baku, 1920)Google Scholar. Stenographic reports (Petrograd: Communist International Publishers, 1920), 2nd ed., p. 191.Google Scholar

60 Ibid. p. 15 (Zinoviev), p. 178 (Bela Kun), p. 186 (Skachko).

61 Ibid. p. 13 (Zinoviev).

62 Ibid. pp. 178, 184, 194.

63 Ibid. pp. 13, 184.

64 Ibid. p. 13. Meaning obviously: the Communist Parties of these areas.

65 Ibid. pp. 195, 198. Cf. Lenin, , SW X, p. 242.Google Scholar

66 Ibid. p. 185.

67 Ibid. p. 179.

68 Ibid. p. 178. Italics mine.

69 Baku Congress reports, p. 185.Google Scholar

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75 TFE (Zinoviev), p. 153. Italics mine.Google Scholar

76 Schwartz, , 1951, p. 30Google Scholar; Documentary History, p. 67.Google Scholar

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78 In November 1926, Bukharin referred to China as a peasant country in Lenin's sense of the term; and he cited Lenin's argument of the three steps of Communist policy in such countries, the organisation of peasant soviets being the second step (International Press Correspondence. English ed. [Vienna/London, 1921–1928] 1926, p. 1471Google Scholar [hereafter cited as Inprecor]).

79 Mif, one of the authors of the draft resolution on the Chinese situation, seems to have proposed that the slogan of peasant soviets in the countryside be proclaimed immediately and without waiting for a corresponding development in the industrial centres. Mif's idea was rejected by Stalin, in his speech on 11 30, 1926Google Scholar (Inprecor 1926, p. 1583).Google Scholar

80 Stalin, J., Works, 13 vols. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House 1952–1955), Vol. VIII, p. 384.Google Scholar

81 Inprecor 1926, p. 1583.Google Scholar

82 Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semi-Colonies, Sixth World Congress of the Comintern (Inprecor 1928, p. 1666).Google Scholar

83 Inprecor 1930, p. 1065Google Scholar. Italics in original. Manuilsky wrote this in an article “On the Threshold of the Fourteenth Year,” published in Pravda on 11 7, 1930.Google Scholar

84 Inprecor 1930, p. 439.Google Scholar

85 Schwartz, 1951, p. 193.Google Scholar

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87 Trotzki, L., Die Russische Revolution 1905 (Berlin: Vereinigung Internationaler Verlagsanstalten, 1923), p. 230et seq.Google Scholar

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90 Trotsky, 1947, p. 19et seq.Google Scholar

91 Trotsky, 1932, p. 273.Google Scholar