Hi! Long time lurker, first time poster. Been discussing stuff with MLs of all stripes recently, and have come across a common statement used by a lot of Maoists which frustrates me.
They seem to always fall back on statements like “The CPC allows billionaires in their ranks, so they are revisionist.”
Maoists have often used this as a kind of “gotcha” argument against more traditional MLs, or “Dengists” as they love to label us.
It’s frustrating, because…I don’t disagree really, allowing members of the bourgeoisie to hold political power is pretty much the definition of revisionism. The problem is, this feels more like a way to silence dissent or discussion rather than facilitate it. Feels like an overly simplistic hard line that simplifies history into binary divisions. Often followed by an implied “China is revisionist, therefore Maoism is the only working form of socialism.”
I’m reaching out to people to see if anyone has any ways to combat this, in a way that encourages discussion rather than it just devolving into insults or truisms hurled back and forth without thought.
One of the stars on the PRC’s flag is for the petite bourgeoisie. It’s a continuation of new democracy (https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/New_Democracy) started under Mao.
Maoists don’t care about any of this, yesterday I had one tell me Chinese people were “literally fleeing” the countryside after the communes were disbanded. When I pointed out they were now staying in the countryside (since at least 2018) because the level of development was catching up to that of the cities, they suddenly disengaged.