The Philosophical Views of Mao Tse-Tung: A Critical Analysis

by M. Altaisky, V. Georgiyev

177 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Voyager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this work was written well after the rise of revisionism and restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, obliging any reader to treat the theoretical declarations of the authors carefully (not to mention the erroneous claims about the Soviet Union still following a socialist course, and the citation of Brezhnev in the conclusion), the authors’ access to important Chinese theoretical works which were seemingly exclusively published in Mandarin and reference to first-editions of Mao’s works long before they were censored by the CCP leadership to conceal their glaringly un-Marxist character (made available in English by Stuart Schram in The Political Thought of Mao Tse-Tung) makes this book an especially useful read in understanding just how thoroughly alien to Leninism Maoism has always been in practice, even during the lifetime of Stalin who Maoists today insist Mao had always supported and defended.

In addition to shedding light on Mao’s career as a plagiarist, stealing from Soviet writings on philosophy and requiring the expertise of P.F. Yudin to patch the errors of Mao’s flimsy writings, the authors show that the hatred for the Soviet Union stoked by the CCP did not begin with the rise of revisionism, but came long before (not unlike Tito who declared that he had become disillusioned with the Soviet Union in 1938!), as translations of works from leading Chinese theorists where it is claimed that after 1935 the Soviet Union ceased to develop Marxism-Leninism any further and was simply “marking time”. Of course, glimpses of the Chinese Tito’s (as Stalin correctly called him) true thoughts about Stalin slipped through occasionally like in Mao’s On the Ten Major Relationships, but in statements like the above, the reader is shown just how low the Chinese estimation of Stalin and the Bolshevik Party’s contributions to Leninism after Lenin’s death was. What’s more, instances are recalled of Liu Shaoqi, despite his many real faults, being attacked for citing Lenin’s Two Tactics… instead of the works of Mao, of all things!

Because much of Mao’s philosophical work was either plagiarised from Soviet books or had to be corrected by Yudin, a considerable portion of this book is dedicated to detailing the history of Mao’s flimsy philosophical development and the instances of plagiarism or necessitated corrections, making this book less a critique of Maoist philosophy and more a summary history of Maoist philosophy. Nevertheless, the book opens with an excellent exposure of the origins of Mao’s erroneous views in philosophy, from his past as an anarchist and education in Confucianist mysticism, and through both the works of Mao and leading Chinese philosophers, the authors demonstrate the subjective idealist character of Maoist philosophy and its distortions on questions of the subjective factor, the relation of theory to practice, etc., although, still, the bulk of citations come from Chinese newspapers and theorists other than Mao.

Overall, although this book doesn’t quote from Mao himself as often as one might like and more space is dedicating to summarising history than directly criticising Mao’s views, this book still offers a great deal in unmasking the thoroughly nationalist, anti-Soviet, and anti-Leninist views of Maoism, and offers a great starting place toward a complete exposure of the philosophy of Maoism.