I was once enamored of Chairman Mao. His philosophy was introduced to me by a Black Panther from Philadephia named Van in 1969. Van gave me the little red book and a red and gold Mao button. I had been flirting with Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism, and Maoism seemed a logical step forward, as he had been the only successful revolutionary since Lenin.
Van was subsequently purged from the Panthers when they abandoned Mao for Kim il Sung, as if he was actually different from Mao.
We joined our little cadre with Bob Avakian’s Bay Area Revolutionary Union, which soon dropped the Bay Area and became just “RU”, but remained a splinter group, one of many, in the ever splintering left, all vying for recognition by the Black Panthers.
We spent time studying and discussing “Fanshen”, a book about the land reform activities in a Chinese village after the Maoist takever, with its author, Bill Hinton, who was an observer in the village.
He (Hinton) made no bones about the abuses of power by those in charge of redistributing the land, but could not see why it happened, and neither could the rest of us. We thought that revolutionaries should always act in the best interests of the people and never saw how absolute, and absolutely corrupting was the power that was taken by the revolutionaries.
But, Maoism, and other Marxist permutations, was loosing favor as the libertinism (not libertarianism) in the wake of Woodstock was becoming the dominant cultural theme, and the left discovered how to take over the system from within, by quietly getting into decision making positions in the media, the government, and large foundations, getting control of information and interpretations, large amounts of cash, education, and government power.
They had radicalized large numbers of young people through the anti-war movement, and those are their footsoldiers in the long march through the West’s institutions.
They increasingly have control of the guns, from which Mao’s version of political power grows, but it was a horrible strategic mistake on the part of the administrations officials to openly embrace Mao. We now have that as a club to use against them in the same way the left has always used the fascism club against their enemies.
Mao used the post war chaos in China, the war weakened state of the Koumintang government, the unwillingness of the West to fight another war so soon after the big one, and Chinese cultural xenophobia to take over and murder millions in the process.
Communism/socialism always seems to produce a Stalin, a Hitler, a Mao, or a Kim il Sung. It’s the dirty little secret that the left tries to ignore - that communism/socialism places absolute power in the hands of a few individuals, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, or as Dune author Frank Herbert put it “Power attracts the corruptible. Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible. This is the danger of entrenched bureaucracy to its subject population. Even the spoils systems are preferable because levels of tolerance are lower and the corrupt can be thrown out periodically. Entrenched bureaucracy seldom can be touched short of violence. Beware when Civil Service and Military join hands.”
Obama’s proposed domestic force is that joining hands of the civil service and the military. Can we be anything but afraid?
The whole idea of communism is to cajole people to fight for their cause by suborning them or fooling them with lies or by threats and intimidation or blackmail. Communism could never be popular if it were strictly voluntary. They need power and control as well as slaves to do their bidding and carry out their plans while the head guys never get their hands dirty and keep their skirts clean. That is how it works. They always must have zombie underlings to do the dirty work.
And the left produces madmen and assassins. Every single assassin throughout history has been a terrorist, a communist or a far left radical liberal.
I have long maintained that you cannot understand “Them” until you understand what “they” think.
One of the books I found invaluable in this respect was David Horowitz’s book “Radical Son”. As a window into the mindset of liberal thinking, it has few parallels. One of the key things I took from that book is that Liberalism lacks introspection. They NEVER sit back and think “Am I sure I am on the right track? Is this the correct course of action?” This is something most conservatives practice on a regular basis, because we have to. We are constantly presented with the opinion that we are wrong, and as such, have many opportunities for reflection.
I forced myself to read “Rules for Radicals”, and I found it to be one of the most reprehensible books I have ever read. But as a viewpoint of liberalism, it is peerless.
I can see that you have a special insight into this, and that you understand all too clearly what is going on. Thanks very much for your insight.