“We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.”
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/quotes.htm
For a better context, see this: https://hexbear.net/comment/3563148
It makes more sense to “support” Putin because this conflict is not happening in a vacuum and its outcome also is important to the conflict between Russia and NATO. Wagner winning would probably represent – at best – another 1993 and may in fact be much worse depending on the influence of genuine Nazis. Mutual destruction would also, much more directly, represent another 1993 because it would mean NATO can roll in whether via tanks or corporate stooges and take over.
Third campism is trot bullshit and should not be supported.
Also the comment right below that one:
To be fair, most Western leftists never read Mao so they never understand why Trotskyism will never work in the third world (yes I consider Russia to be a third world resource colony to the neoliberal West).
Mao gave a special place to the (Chinese) Trotskyists and equated them to 汉奸 (lit. Han Traitors, or traitor to the Chinese people), which is probably the worst insult you can ever get from someone like Mao.
The Trotskyists wanted the Chinese communists to do Lenin’s “revolutionary defeatism” by abandoning collaboration with the national bourgeoisie (i.e. the KMT), but instead act on defeating the KMT government right when the Imperial Japanese Army was rampaging through China. According to the Trotskyists, solidarity with the working class of other countries is all that is needed, and they were willing to let the Japanese imperialists conquer the mainland if that could lead to some universal solidarity among the oppressed class.
This is how fascism wins. The Chinese Trots were hated throughout the country and it would take until the 1970s to see a small resurgence among the Hong Kong leftists.
This is why those of us who grew up reading Chinese history just roll our eyes when we see Western leftists calling for “revolutionary defeatism” in Russia because the exact same thing happened to China more than 80 years ago! The defeat of the bourgeois government in Russia means the victory of the fascists and Western imperialists.
Once again, read Mao (start with the Selected Works of Mao Zedong).
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Same link: “As for unjust wars, World War I is an instance in which both sides fought for imperialist interests; therefore, the Communists of the whole world firmly opposed that war. The way to oppose a war of this kind is to do everything possible to prevent it before it breaks out and, once it breaks out, to oppose war with war, to oppose unjust war with just war, whenever possible.”
The quote OP pulled out is – look at it! – an incredibly slippery quote to use out of context and could be used to justify almost anything if applied foolishly.
In the words of a much smarter person: https://hexbear.net/comment/3563148
Tbh I’m not sure I’d turn to Mao for advice on this. His foreign policy wasn’t always that great
(invading Vietnam,Sino-Soviet split) and he’s also writing for an entirely different context. Speculating based on an extremely general quote like that is also pretty dubious in the first place.Sino-Soviet split
This is a, uh, contentious topic, but I’m going to keep saying it was pretty much entirely Khrushchev’s fault.
Deng: [He laughs]. Listen, they can call me anything they like in the West, but I know Khrushchev well; I dealt with him personally for ten years, and I can assure you that comparing me to Khrushchev is insulting.
Khrushchev only ever brought pain to the Chinese people. Stalin, on the other hand, did some good for us. After the founding of the People’s Republic, he helped us to build up an industrial complex that is still the foundation of the Chinese economy. He didn’t help us for free — fine, we had to pay him — but he helped us. And, when Khrushchev came to power, everything changed. Khrushchev broke all the agreements between China and the Soviet Union, all the contracts that had been signed under Stalin — hundreds of contracts. Oh, this conversation is impossible. Our backgrounds are too different. Let’s say this: you keep your point of view, I’ll keep mine, and we won’t say anything more about Khrushchev.
https://redsails.org/deng-and-fallaci/
Granted Deng was in charge when the PRC invaded Vietnam, so grain of salt, but I think it’s worth considering.
i still don’t understand the finer points of the split tbh, i know that china and mao did not like the comprehensive sovietization going on as it looked and felt imperialist (capital export, to say nothing of the commanding heights of the economy composed almost entirely of soviet experts/bureaucrats) but i can’t find any sources on how the chinese planned to execute de-sovietization and even less on why khrushchev would throw a shitfit over it.
all i can find is that the withdrawal of soviet funds and expertise really fucked up the chinese economy and was the principal factor behind the recession of 1960, which again begs the question, how did the chinese plan on de-sovietizing if it ended up fucking them up so bad? and why would such a proposition piss of khrushchev to the degree that it did?
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When I cited this as a contentious issue, I was reflecting on Alaskaball having good arguments. I remember your arguments as well, but they are not any good.
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That doesn’t make sense. Let us take for granted that I am a moron, that wouldn’t mean that your arguments were poor or that you were a moron by proxy if you persuaded me. Rhetoric is not a matter of stratified, isolated tiers in which only a moron may persuade a moron, only an average person can persuade an average person, and only a le intellectual can persuade a le intellectual. This should be plain from the existence of sophists who persuade people who are less clever than them, though their overall intelligence shouldn’t be exaggerated from that fact.
If you’re going to try “witty repartee,” it should be coherent, or else brevity becomes non-sequitur.
invading Vietnam
Mao was already dead when China invaded Vietnam.
My mistake
But Mao still set a lot of that in motion and his post-split relations with Vietnam were pretty weird and inconsistent.
he’s also writing for an entirely different context. Speculating based on an extremely general quote like that is also pretty dubious in the first place.
One day my (Hex)Bear Brethren will apply this to the “social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism” quote
"social democracy is the moderate wing of facism
Do you disagree with this
In the context of the U.S. in 2023? Absolutely. Even Stalin backtracked on that during WWII.
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I think there’s an element of “Marx replacing God” here, too, mixed in with a lot of quick-trigger hostility towards questioning the leftist canon due to folks growing up eyeballs deep in anticommunist propaganda.
This isn’t a religion and the works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc. are not gospel. Every one of those leaders were fallible human beings who even by internal leftist opinions each made significant mistakes. The default response to basically any social theory from 100+ years ago should be “are we sure this all remains true today, and in my specific circumstance?”, not “every word of this is universally applicable in perpetuity.”
idk, I can’t speak Chinese so I like, literally have no idea.
I speak chinese and i probably wouldn’t understand him too, apparently he had a really thick regional accent
It wasn’t a “regional accent” it was an entirely different language. Remember that Doonesbury character that was introduced as being from the same village and being the only one who could understand him in his old age?
I’ve heard Mao speak Mandarin and it’s bizarre. I can’t imagine ruling a country without even being able to communicate with people. Imagine coming from Arkansas, speaking only Arkansasese, and only being able to talk to other Arkansans (who come from the same part of the state as you).
truly he was the boomhauer of china
Post Sino-Soviet Split, Mao’s Three Worlds theory would probably have him siding with the Ukraine? China post Sino-Soviet split had horrible foreign policies, remember Mao and Nixon shaking hands wasn’t just a photo op.
Mao wrote a whole thing about how nuclear weapons are basically not a big deal so I’m not sure he’s the one to go to here
IDK I kind of wonder what the point of nukes is tactically when you’ve already flattened entire urban areas with conventional bombs and dump cancer all over the countryside and still fail to win.
yeah there isn’t much tactical advantage because we would all be dead but just because it’s dumbass doesn’t mean it won’t happen
true. if you’re already in a war of extermination against the great satan, nukes aren’t qualitatively different. but if you’re not already then um maybe they’re not a paper tiger.
as a rule for life I would suggest never get into a war of extermination. Ugly business those
