Under Lock & Key

The Worker Elite: Notes on the “Labor Aristocracy”
by Bromma
Kersplebedeb, 2014

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Bromma opens with some definitions and a valid criticism of the term “working class.” While using many Marxist terms, h connection to a Marxist framework is not made clear. S/he consciously writes about the “worker elite,” while disposing of the term “labor aristocracy” with no explanation. In the opening s/he rhetorically asks whether the “working class” includes all wage earners, or all manual laborers. While dismissing the term “working class” as too general, Bromma does not address these questions in h discussion of the worker elite. Yet, throughout the book s/he addresses various forms of productive labor in h examples of worker elite. S/he says that the worker elite is just one of many groups that make up the so-called “middle class.” But it is not clear how Bromma distinguishes the worker elite from the other middle classes, except that they are found in “working class jobs.” Halfway through the book it is mentioned that s/he does not consider “professionals, shopkeepers, administrators, small farmers, businesspeople, intellectuals, etc.” to be workers.(p.32)

We prefer the term “labor aristocracy” over “worker elite,” and we may use it more broadly than Bromma’s worker elite in that the type of work is not so important so much as the pay and benefits. Bromma, while putting the worker elite in the “middle class,” simultaneously puts it into the “working class” along with the proletariat and the lumpen working class. We put the labor aristocracy in the First World within the petty bourgeoisie, which may be a rough equivalent of what Bromma calls the “middle class.” Of course, the petty bourgeoisie has historically been looked at as a wavering force between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Yet, in the case of the oppressor nation labor aristocracy, they have proven to be a solidly pro-imperialist class. This analysis, central to MIM Thought, is particular to the imperialist countries.

Despite these questions and confusions, overall we agree with the global class analysis as it is presented in the beginning of this book in terms of who are our friends and who are our enemies.

One good point made throughout this book is the idea that the “worker elite” is not defined merely by an income cut off. While not denying the central role of income, Bromma defines this class position as a whole package of benefits, material (health care, infrastructure), social (family life, leisure activities) and political (lack of repression, voice in politics). At one point s/he brings up the migrant farm workers in the U.$., who can earn similar amounts to the autoworkers in Mexico who s/he argues make up an established worker elite. In contrast, the migrant farm workers suffer the abuses of the proletariat at the bottom rung of U.$. society, and in reality many make far less than Mexican autoworkers. We agree with Bromma’s implication here that the migrant workers make up a proletarian class within the United $tates.

While criticizing previous attempts to set an “exploitation line” in income, Bromma brings in PPP to improve this analysis. The book provides a helpful table of the income levels in Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) for various groups. PPP defines income levels relative to a basket of goods to account for varying prices across countries/regions. Bromma concludes that “a global middle class annual income probably starts somewhere between PPP $10,000 and $15,000”, meaning that a single worker (man) could comfortably support a family on this amount. This is similar to the estimates others have done and we have used elsewhere.

One of the key characteristics of this income level is that they have gone beyond covering basic needs and become consumers. Bromma lists one of the three main roles of the worker elite as being a consumer class. This is something we have stressed when people ask incredulously why the capitalists would pay people more than the value that they are producing. Bromma cites a source discussing the Chinese planned capitalist economy and how they have goals for expanding their consumer class as they recognize that their increasing production will soon not be absorbed by consumption abroad. This is typical capitalist logic. Rather than seeing what the Chinese people need, and produce based on those needs as they did under a socialist planned economy, today they first produce a lot of the most profitable goods and then try to find (or create) a market to sell them to.

Where we disagree greatest with this book is that it takes up a line akin to Huey P. Newton’s intercommunalism theory, later named globalization theory in Amerikan academia. It claims a trend towards equalization of classes internationally, reducing the national contradictions that defined the 20th century. Bromma provides little evidence of this happening besides anecdotal examples of jobs moving oversees. Yet s/he claims, “Among ‘white’ workers, real wages are stagnant, unemployment is high, unions are dwindling, and social benefits and protective regulations are evaporating.”(p.43) These are all common cries of white nationalists that the MIM camp and others have been debating for decades.(1) The fact that wages are not going up as fast as inflation has little importance to the consumer class who knows that their wealth is far above the world’s majority and whose buying power has increased greatly in recent decades.(2) Unemployment in the United $tates averaged 5.9% in April 2014 when this book came out, which means the white unemployment rate was even lower than that.(3) That is on the low side of average over the last 40 years and there is no upward trend in unemployment in the United $tates, so that claim is just factually incorrect. High unemployment rates would be 35% in Afghanistan, or 46% in Nepal. The author implies that unions are smaller because of some kind of violent repression, rather than because of structural changes in the economy and the privileged conditions of the labor aristocracy.

The strongest evidence given for a rise in the worker elite is in China. One report cited claims that China is rivaling the U.$. to have the largest “middle class” soon.(p.38) Yet this middle class is not as wealthy as the Amerikan one, and is currently only 12-15% of the population.(p.32) It’s important to distinguish that China is an emerging imperialist power, not just any old Third World country. Another example given is Brazil, which also has a growing finance capital export sector according to this book, a defining characteristic of imperialism. The importance of nation in the imperialist system is therefore demonstrated here in the rise of the labor aristocracy in these countries. And it should be noted that there is a finite amount of labor power to exploit in the world. The surplus value that Chinese and Brazilian finance capital is finding abroad, and using partly to fund their own emerging consumer classes, will eat into the surplus value currently taken in by the First World countries. In this way we see imperialist competition, and of course proletarian revolution, playing bigger roles in threatening the current privileges of the First World, rather than the globalization of finance capital that Bromma points to.

As Zak Cope wrote in a recent paper, “Understanding how the ‘labour aristocracy’ is formed means understanding imperialism, and conversely.”(4) It is not the U.$. imperialists building up the labor aristocracy in China and Brazil. South Korea, another country discussed, is another story, that benefits as a token of U.$. imperialism in a half-century long battle against the Korean peoples’ struggle for independence from imperialism and exploitation. While Bromma brings together some interesting information, we don’t agree with h conclusion that imperialism is “gradually detaching itself from the model of privileged ‘home countries’ altogether.”(p.40) We would interpret it as evidence of emerging imperialist nations and existing powers imposing strategic influence. Cope, building on Arghiri Emmanuel’s work, discusses the dialectical relationship between increasing wages and increasing the productive forces within a nation.(2,5) Applying their theories, for Chinese finance capital to lead China to become a powerful imperialist country, we would expect to see the development of a labor aristocracy there as Bromma indicates is happening. This is a distinct phenomenon from the imperialists buying off sections of workers in other countries to divide the proletariat. That’s not to say this does not happen, but we would expect to see this on a more tactical level that would not produce large shifts in the global balance of forces.

Finance capital wants to be free to dominate the whole world. As such it appears to be transnational. Yet, it requires a home base, a state, with strong military might to back it up. How else could it keep accumulating all the wealth around the world as the majority of the people suffer? Chinese finance capital is at a disadvantage, as it must fight much harder than the more established imperialist powers to get what it perceives to be its fair share. And while its development is due in no small part to cooperation with Amerikan finance capital, this is secondary to their competitive relationship. This is why we see Amerika in both China’s and Russia’s back yards making territorial threats in recent days (in the South China Sea and Ukraine respectively). At first, just getting access to Chinese labor after crushing socialism in 1976 was a great boon to the Amerikan imperialists. But they are not going to stop there. Russia and China encompass a vast segment of the globe where the Amerikans and their partners do not have control. As Lenin said one hundred years ago, imperialism marks the age of a divided world based on monopolies. Those divisions will shift, but throughout this period the whole world will be divided between different imperialist camps (and socialist camps as they emerge). And as Cope stresses, this leads to a divided “international working class.”

While there is probably a labor aristocracy in all countries, its role and importance varies greatly. MIM line on the labor aristocracy has been developed for the imperialist countries, where the labor aristocracy encompasses the wage-earning citizens as a whole. While the term may appropriately be used in Third World countries, we would not equate the two groups. The wage earners of the world have been so divided that MIM began referring to those in the First World as so-called “workers.” So we do not put the labor aristocracy of the First World within the proletarian class as Bromma does.

We caution against going too far with applying our class definitions and analysis globally. In recent years, we have distinguished the First World lumpen class from that of the lumpen-proletariat of the Third World. In defining the lumpen, Bromma “includes working class people recruited into the repressive apparatus of the state – police, informants, prison guards, career soldiers, mercenaries, etc.”(p.5) This statement rings more true in the Third World, yet even there a government job would by definition exclude you from being in the lumpen-proletariat. In the imperialist countries, police, prison guards, military and any other government employee are clearly members of the labor aristocracy. This is a point we will explore in much greater detail in future work.

The principal contradiction within imperialism is between exploiter and exploited nations. Arghiri Emmanuel wrote about the national interest, criticizing those who still view nationalism as a bourgeois phenomenon as stuck in the past. After WWII the world saw nationalism rise as an anti-colonial force. In Algeria, Emmanuel points out, the national bourgeoisie and Algerian labor aristocracy had nothing to lose in the independence struggle as long as it did not go socialist. In contrast, it was the French settlers in Algeria that violently opposed the liberation struggle as they had everything to lose.(6) In other words there was a qualitative difference between the Algerian labor aristocracy and the French settler labor aristocracy.

It is the responsibility of people on the ground to do a concrete analysis of their own conditions. We’ve already mentioned our use of the term “First World lumpen” to distinguish it from the lumpen of the Third World, which is a subclass of the proletariat. To an extent, all classes are different between the First and Third World. We rarely talk of the labor aristocracy in the Third World, because globally it is insignificant. It is up to comrades in Third World nations to assess the labor aristocracy in their country, which in many cases will not be made up of net-exploiters. Bromma highlights examples of exploiter workers in Mexico and South Korea. These are interesting exceptions to the rule that should be acknowledged and assessed, but we think Bromma goes too far in generalizing these examples as signs of a shift in the overall global class structure. While we consider Mexico to be a Third World exploited nation, it is a relatively wealthy country that Cope includes on the exploiter side, based on OECD data, in his major calculations.

Everything will not always fit into neat little boxes. But the scientific method is based on applying empirically tested laws, generalizations, percentages and probability. The world is not simple. In order to change it we must understand it the best we can. To understand it we must both base ourselves in the laws proven by those who came before us and assess the changes in our current situation to adjust our analysis accordingly.

Book Review: The Chinese Civil War 1945-49
by Michael Lynch
Osprey Publishing
2010

This is one in a series of “Essential Histories” published by Osprey: “A multi-volume history of war seen from political, strategic, tactical, cultural and individual perspectives.” On the positive side, the book includes a lot of excellent revolutionary art and some useful historical facts that demonstrate the political positions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the failures of the Guomindang (GMD). But overall this book is not recommended because its pretended objectivity leads to a lack of valid political analysis. The author goes to great lengths to paint both the CCP and GMD as equal evils fighting for control of China.

Lynch frequently falls back on psychoanalysis of political leaders when the facts are difficult to explain. For instance, several times he claims Stalin feared a communist China and so tried to keep it divided and get Mao to compromise with Nationalists, but no evidence is offered, beyond Stalin’s advice to Mao, which Mao did not take when he thought it was inappropriate for the conditions in China.(p76) Further, there is an entire chapter devoted to psychoanalysis of Mao and Chiang Kai-shek. (For a more political, and less psychological, account of Stalin’s history we recommend MIM Theory 6: The Stalin Issue.)

There are some valuable facts in this book. Lynch points out that Nazi Germany supplied most of the GMD weapons until 1936. And goes on to offer a good explanation of the reasons behind the CCP alliance with GMD in 1936, which was driven by the CCP to fight the Japanese invasion and end Nazi aid to GMD. This effectively weakened the GMD while also focusing on the principal contradiction in China at the time: the Japanese invasion. Lynch also does a good job explaining the CCP’s strategic ties to the United $tates to get their support against Japan. Many purists criticize Mao for meeting with Amerikan leaders and allying with the GMD against Japan, but to Lynch’s credit he gives a reasonable account of the strategic value of these actions.

The book describes in detail the strongly peasant-based armies of both the nationalists and communists, and Lynch notes that the nationalists had to coerce participation from the peasants, but he doesn’t explain why the communists didn’t have to force participation.(p21) This is an important point in the correctness of the CCP political line, and a key to Lynch’s failed analysis of the politics of the revolution. In fact, the title of the book, “Chinese Civil War”, indicates that the author fundamentally missed the revolutionary nature of the CCP’s struggle. Lynch admits that even defeated soldiers joined the CCP to later become dedicated PLA soldiers, but then he claims the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was unscrupulous in recruiting methods without offering evidence to back this up.(p25)

Calling the peasants “helpless victims” of both the communists and nationalists,(p63) Lynch gives extensive examples of nationalist brutality to soldiers and peasants. The one CCP example is of interrogation of CCP soldiers suspected of betraying the movement. The author quotes Mao on the value of informing on your comrades in spite of persynal feelings of friendship.(p68) Lynch seems to find Mao’s position distasteful, but communists know that we must always put political line first and not be liberal with comrades just because we have persynal feelings. Further, a staunch supporter of the U$A, Lynch never mentions the use of torture by imperialist countries even when not at war. Interrogation of people suspected of military sabotage can be criticized from Lynch’s armchair, but his equation of this with the GMD torture of their soldiers and the general masses is outrageous even by his standards.

Lynch condemns the CCP as being non-humanitarian for their strategic military calculations to abandon some villages they had controlled when threatened with invasion from the GMD.(p28) This is a particularly underhanded criticism when Lynch fails to point out the significantly better conditions in the villages occupied by the CCP. How can it be a humanitarian failure if the CCP wasn’t, in the first place, improving the conditions in the village and far superior for the peasants compared with the GMD?

Further in this vein of attacking the CCP’s tactics during war, Lynch does not like the CCP’s decision to exercise strict control of Harbin once they won that city. But he does concede that in 1947 the CCP successfully stopped an outbreak of bubonic plague, which he admits was a remarkable achievement.(p37)

We do get some very useful facts about the CCP support among the general Chinese masses: “A key factor in the PLA’s harassing of the Nationalists was the amount of help they received from local civilians, who destroy telegraph and telephone lines and tore up sections of railway in order to disrupt GMD troop movements.”(p36) But Lynch doesn’t attempt to explain why the masses spontaneously supported the CCP because this does not fit with his overall theory of both the CCP and GMD coercing the people.

Lynch expresses surprise that Mao gave his commanders free reign to adjust military tactics since he was the “ultimate military authority.”(p43) This apparent contradiction is actually a good hint that Mao understood the importance of evaluation of local conditions to determine tactics. For revolutionaries there is a difference between line, strategy and tactics, one that Lynch fails to grasp. Line is set by the communist party and is meant to be carried out by everyone until it is proven incorrect. Strategy is informed by line and dictates general orientation to implement line. Tactics are determined by combining strategy with local conditions. It was correct political line for Mao to allow his commanders to determine military tactics. (See MIM Theory 5: Diet for a Small Red Planet for more on this question.)

Ultimately Lynch attributes the CCP victory to the GMD’s failure in military tactics and “morale” with little mention of the political line of the CCP. He does concede that GMD did not live up to expectations as a party of the people as it was originally envisioned by Sun Yat-sen. The GMD under Chiang became a party of the political elite as evidenced by 90% of their money coming from Shanghai.(p84) “It was Chiang’s strategic and political and economic failures that [made possible Mao’s victory].”(p88) In the end, Lynch doesn’t even consider the correctness of the CCP political line, resulting in the support of the broad mass of the Chinese people, as the driving force behind the victory of the revolutionary forces.

Recent stirrings in Tibet bring up an opportunity to expose the white-washed history of that part of the world presented in the imperialist countries, and could potentially help build the multinational anti-imperialist movement in China. But there is much interference on the part of the oppressor nations that threaten genuine people’s movements there.

The disproportionate attention paid to Tibet by the bourgeois press is a product of a decades long campaign by the CIA to destabilize China, dating back to when the country was a stronghold of socialism in the world. Today, China’s rise towards an imperialist competitor keeps the Tibet card a useful one in the hands of a meddling Uncle $cam.

The imperialists are encouraging divisions within China, nothing new there in the last 50 years. But why are amerikkkans, in the name of humyn rights, waving the Tibetan flag and demanding change in China? More importantly, why are these same white people not waving the flag of the Lakota people who recently declared sovereignty from a state that actually committed large-scale land grabbing and genocide against them? Why are these same white people not crying out at the injustice of a system that imprisons young Black men at rates far above any other country in humyn history?

Last year the China scare was about toy safety, not Tibetan humyn rights. Amerikkkans fear Chinese toys, just like they fear Mexican labor and work hard to secure their share of stolen Aztlán by militarizing the border with Mexico and filling u$ prisons with Mexican citizens. Is it any wonder that only 10% of Mexicans have a positive view of the United States? (1)

As upper class Tibetan wimmin stated in 1960, “Those people in Tibet who talked about ‘independence’ always had some foreign connections. Why do so many British and American writers concern themselves with Tibetan ‘independence.’ Is it for the good of the Tibetans or for their own good?” (Strong, p. 113) This question remains very relevant today. And while we cannot give a good analysis, nor less offer short-term solutions, for the conflicts between Tibetans and Uighurs and Hans in China today, we can warn against those who have the historical honesty to condemn Tibetan feudalism, but will fuel the flames of conflict between the various peoples of China.

With the largest population of any country, China is still a predominately peasant society with a rapidly growing proletariat. The interests of these oppressed classes are the same; in opposition to the current capitalist regime and to foreign imperialism. Teaming up with foreign intelligence agencies to pit one group of oppressed against another does not liberate anyone. Anti-Han propaganda was the tool of the slave owners in the 1950s, and to this day remains beneficial to those who wish to exploit all the people of China.

Popular calls taken up by the white nationalists in relation to Tibet are those of local control and preserving the culture. New Age hippies claim to feel spiritual connections to the cultures of the Himalayan region with little regard to whether the people who live there are better off or not. It is hard to see what they find so appealing about the worship of god-kings, the starvation of serfs and the physical torture of humyn slaves that made up the social systems of Tibet and Nepal in the 20th century. But white people will vehemently defend the “right” of these cultures to stay frozen in time. In commentary on a BBC article on Tibet today, a Kanadian writes about the inherently peaceful nature of the people of Tibet, ignoring decades of history of struggle against starvation, oppression and torture. Unlike this Kanadian, we do not believe that races exist, nor that some are born more peaceful than others, we believe all people strive for peace and will resist when they are oppressed.

Today, the construction of the railway through Tibet is one topic of controversy, with opponents saying it will only help exploit the region and will not benefit the people. This is a likely outcome in a capitalist country that has fully developed into its role as the sweatshop and dumping ground for the First World. But isolation and localism is not the answer, despite the hippies’ dreams. We do not wish to witness a repeat of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which has led to horrible losses for the oppressed people of those regions on both sides of local conflicts.

A comparison to events in the Soviet Union also gives an interesting lesson in the differences in handling national conflicts between a socialist state that serves the people and an imperialist state claiming socialism but really exploiting them. The Dalai Lama claimed that amerikkka offered to finance a holy war against Communist China in the early 1950s (see Strong, p.45), similar to what the amerikkkans did in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union decades later. The defense of Afghanistan from the social-imperialist Soviet Union was a successful rallying cry for the people of the region, even with u$ backing. In contrast, the resistance in Tibet to a socialist China, serving the interests of the people, was never made up of more than a minority of aristocratic Tibetans and their slaves. Even the Dalai Lama opposed this interference by the CIA.

Defending the socialist legacy

The bourgeois press repeatedly mentions the “liberation” of Tibet in quotation marks. Yet if we do a very cursory comparison of China’s role in the liberation of Tibet and the United $tates role in the “liberation” of Iraq we see that it is really the “liberation” of Iraq that is a farce. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) didn’t interfere militarily in Tibet until they had the full support of the people in defeating the feudal clique, and even waited 8 months after defeating the Tibetan military to negotiate an agreement before stepping into Tibet proper. (Strong, p. 44) Large sections of the rebel armies even joined the PLA instantly, as they had been forced by warlords to fight.

The rebels in Tibet were carrying out a terrorist campaign on the people and waging armed conflict against the PLA in its struggle to maintain the social hierarchy of Tibet under the Dalai Lama. They were rebelling against the changes that were taking place in Tibetan society, changes that communists in China understood to be the natural resolution of internal contradictions within that society. It was that understanding that led to Mao’s successful policy in Tibet and the PLA truly being a force of liberation in supporting the will of the people. It took another 8 years after the official “liberation” for the feudal government’s power to crumble within Tibet, ending in the rebellion of 1959, which the PLA easily quelled with the support of the masses. Within a year of that battle the former serfs and slaves were active participants in local government, learning to read and write, organizing production both as independent farmers and collectives, none of which they had ever done in previous history. (Strong pp. 57-60)

In contrast, Amerikkkans claimed that they would be welcomed by Iraq with open arms, and yet 5 years later Iraqis have bombed the Green Zone multiple times in the last week, killing 3 u$ soldiers in the attack today. The Green Zone is where agents of the foreign occupation (or “liberation”) are forced to cordon themselves off to feel safe from the people of Iraq. Amerikkkan soldiers must patrol outside the Green Zone and fear for their lives every time they drive down the street. Meanwhile, the country continues to be in violent chaos with economic security at the lowest it’s been in decades.

The current Chinese regime only helps to promote historical amnesia in relation to the accomplishments of socialism in China. The politically lazy can look at the riot police in Tibet right now and confirm what they’ve been told about political totalitarianism in China since 1949. Even self-identified anarchists are choosing the former slave-owning god-king (whatever happened to “No gods, No masters!”?) Dalai Lama over Mao Zedong who encouraged the mobilization of millions of people with his call to “Bombard the Headquarters” during the Cultural Revolution. Once again, white nationalism trumps political consistency.

Freedom of Religion

One common complaint against the current Chinese regime is the repression of religious groups, or any large organization independent of the government. This is used by the bourgeois press to feed into the myth of the abolishment of religion under the Communist Party of China. One “Living Buddha” had this message for the people of the world:

Here in Tibet, people used religion to exploit other people. Living Buddhas thought how to get more lands and serfs and treasure. This is not the Buddha’s teaching. When the big monasteries oppress the small ones, and the upper lamas oppress the poor lamas, this is not freedom of religion… We are now learning that only by abolishing exploitation can we abide by the teaching of Sakyamuni. It was through the Communist Party that the people got freedom of religion. Because of this I can now serve the people and follow truly the teachings of Buddha. (Strong, p. 96)

Material Conditions

Prior to the liberation of Tibet, the population was 90% serfs and 5% slaves, most of whom faced starvation, malnutrition, physical abuse and lacked any persynal freedoms. (Strong, p. 52) As the class structure was transformed under socialism, the production of grain and livestock both doubled from 1959 to 1970 following reorganization and the introduction of science.(3) Not only were persynal freedoms greatly expanded via the abolition of slavery and feudalism, but questions of life and death were dealt with in an effective way.

And we remember now how the lords told us tales of the Communists and the tales were not true… We began to know it when the PLA first built the highway. The lords said the highway was only for the good of the Hans. But the working people found the highway a benefit, and those who worked on the road got paid in money wages, as well as food and clothes and shoes, and they bought themselves golden ear-rings and mules. (Strong, p. 150)

This quote comes from a time when capitalism and trade had much potential for bringing progress to the region. This may not be true today, as the productive forces of the region were unleashed with the land reforms and reorganization following 1959. More likely, increased access to Tibet by the current Chinese regime will mean more stealing of resources and dumping of toxins in the region. But it does go to show that utopian isolationism is not in the best interest of Tibet, or any other nation in the world.

Those who take up the anti-Chinese banner calling for a return to theocracy for Tibet are supporting a backward step to feudalism for that country. Even people pretending to oppose feudalism but stoking the flames of nationalist conflict between Tibet and China are serving the interests of the CIA. Revolutionaries need to focus on the anti-imperialist struggle and avoid pitting oppressed nations against each other.

As MIM points out: “With China capitalist now, the possibility exists for Han Chinese to really exploit the Tibetans. However, the ‘Free Tibet’ movement wants to increase exploitation even more to make Tibet a semi-colony of the United $tates, England and the rest of the ‘West.’”

See MIM’s Tibet Page for more background info
Another recent article on Tibet from Monkey Smashes Heaven

notes:
(1) Global survey shows uptick in US image. Christian Science Monitor. April 2, 2008.
(2) US soldiers killed in Green Zone. BBC News. April 6, 2008.
(3) Hung Nung. Farming and Stock Breeding Thrive in Tibet. Great Changes in Tibet. People’s Republic of China, 1972.
Strong, Anna Louise. When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet. New World Press. Peking, 1960.

Mao Zedong: A Life
by Jonathan Spence

The author of this book, Jonathan Spence, teaches at Yale University. his awards include a Gugenheim and MacArthur Fellowship so it was of no surprise from the very first pages to read criticism of Mao with many false claims adding no sources to validate the slander found in this book. Spence’s ludicrous claims of Mao being disinterested in education ‘browsing through newspapers for months’ seemed humorous, I thought, who believes this shit? Mao was known for his intense study and his ground breaking theory reflects this.

As I navigated through the bullshit I found glimpses of history peppered throughout ’ a life’, I found interesting Mao’s early years pre-1920’s Chinese civil war. His Book Society Club and being editor of the progressive journal “New Hunan” seemed to build public opinion during these early years. I did enjoy reading in Chapter 4 of the formation of the Chinese Communist Party which was assisted by the Soviets, at this time Chinese were sent to Russia and France to study who would return to help build China. Spence did give a brief description of the Chinese Communist Parties first congress, which was ultimately held on a boat on a Zhejiang lake, and the secrecy that was needed at that time, the first congress decided they would focus on organizing factory workers for the immediate future.

In chapter 5 Spence points out that in 1925 British forces shot Chinese civilians demonstrating and sparked popular movements against imperialism. According to Spence, in 1925 communist party membership was under 1,000 but by 1927 it expanded to over 57,000. What Spence fails to point out is it took public opinion and the communist party to seize these opportunities to show the people, teach and guide them to action against the imperialists acts of atrocity to create over 57,000 members in the CCP.

In Chapter 5 Spence begins surprisingly well when describing how in 1926 Mao was one of those chosen to organize the peasants in the countryside including in his homeland of Hunan, which proved a success, and how the poorest of peasants seized power from the dominating landlords and how in the liberated areas women were no longer enslaved by husbands. The petty criminals, secret societies and even children began to partake in the new liberation areas. However, the credit was short lived as Spence got back to criticizing Mao’s attention to detail in his writings with tables and neat rows of figures on the size and location of each peasant association. Later in the book Spence even criticizes Mao in his later years for not being detailed in his writings as before.

Every now and then Spence will give Mao his due respect, one such instance is in chapter 6 when describing Mao’s guerilla episodes when Mao and his forces used the JiangXi county town of YongXin as their “center” and as a base for organizing “insurrection” in the neighboring counties. At this time Spence goes on to say “Mao was 34, lean from privation, rich with experience from his organizational work among the peasantry, and a storehouse of knowledge about communist and Guomindang party leaders.” Spence goes on to criticize the long march with much death and disaster, however he fails to note that had Mao not initiated the long march, the communist troops would have been wiped out by the Guomindang at “Jiangxi soviet” which was the new communist base area on the FuJian border.

There were three pages on Stalin and Mao’s meetings that were informational yet when discussing the cultural revolution Spence seems to limit this great achievement to closing brothels and construction of buildings. When discussing the Korean War Spence goes on to mention how Mao’s oldest son died in this war and goes on to say “when Mao was finally told of his son’s death by Peng DeHuai in person, he agreed to let the body remain in Korean soil, as an example of duty to the Chinese people.” This I think shows Mao’s character and what kind of leader he was.

Overall this was a horrible book about Mao, written with a blatant imperialist bias. I thought I could sort through the bullshit and pick out good information but I had many headaches attempting to do so, Spence often cites “facts” about Mao without any notes or references as to where he found these “facts.”