{"id":2326,"date":"2017-09-27T14:28:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T18:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/?p=2326"},"modified":"2017-09-27T14:28:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T18:28:30","slug":"alessandro-russo-mao-on-uprising-and-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/alessandro-russo-mao-on-uprising-and-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Alessandro Russo | Mao on Uprising and Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alessandro Russo<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here are some preliminary remarks regarding the role uprising plays in Mao\u2019s political theorizing and strategy formulation and on the relationship between uprising and revolution.<\/p>\n

1.<\/p>\n

A first step is to link what follows with the seminar\u2019s first session. Revolution in Marxism is the core concept of a broadly based and articulated cultural matrix of politics. It is not merely a radical transformation of a system, whether it be the unmaking of a state or overthrow of a government, and its substitution by another. Nor is it a simple seizure of power in Weberian terms positing politics as “… the pursuit for a portion of power or for influencing the division of power…” Rather, revolution is the end-point of a series of \u2018historical\u2019 contradictions pitting advanced social classes against their backward counterparts, production forces against modes of production, competing ideologies or even \u2018world views\u2019 against each other. It is a concept in Marxism that sits at the junction of an idea of history, economics and philosophy and clearly entails a form of political organization. Revolution means revolutionary organization, revolutionary party.<\/p>\n

More schematically put while forcing somewhat Foucault\u2019s concept to highlight its nature as a space of knowledge having its own unitary character, Marxian revolution was part of a \u2018revolutionary episteme.\u2019 At least through the 1960s of the Twentieth Century, it is possible to point to the existence of a \u2018revolutionary culture,\u2019 of a robustly constituted cultural space for revolutionary politics wherein revolution occupied a central place.<\/p>\n

2.<\/p>\n

What place did uprising occupy in this revolutionary episteme for Mao? \u00a0Uprising, rebellion, or what he often called \u2018disorder\u2019 disorder, are constituents of Mao\u2019s thinking. As he was wont to say, \u201cThere\u2019s no need to be afraid of disorder\u201d, or when there is \u201cGreat disorder under the heavens, the situation is excellent.\u201d His optimism depended on the fact that rebellion for him was the condition that released the political potential of the masses. It was disorder, even in its \u2018excessive outbreaks,\u2019 that made possible the development of mass political intelligence \u2500 of the ordinary people\u2019s capacity to influence the \u2018affairs of the state.\u2019<\/p>\n

It is inevitable that such a political capability bears an element of disorder vis-\u00e0-vis a certain ritual order. In the hierarchical rituals (\u2018pecking order\u2019) of a given social condition, the political existence of the masses (a generic term Mao liked to use) does not have a pre-constituted place. Its appearance thus inevitably leads to a more or less pronounced and protracted disorder. For Mao, revolt, uprising, riots and the like were the immanent condition for the political appearance of the popular masses \u2500 their advent dis-ordering the extant ritual order.<\/p>\n

3.<\/p>\n

Uprising for Mao was neither an end in itself nor a means. The idea of a Mao as \u201cLord of Misrule\u201d has no basis in fact. It was coined by an eminent Sinologist in no way associated with critical theory even if he had a certain influence with some critical theorists. There is no hint in Mao of the idea that revolt is a \u2018Carnival-like interregnum\u2019 in the social order after which everything returns to the normal status quo.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Mao viewed rebellion as having a specific relation to the space of revolutionary political culture. Yet the relationship is not that of a means to an end. For example, it is not a prerequisite for the \u2018seizure of power.\u2019 The victory of 1949 was the result of a political and military invention \u2500 the \u2018long <\/span>protracted people\u2019s war\u2019 \u2500 that even had philosophical consequences. It was thus essentially different from an uprising.<\/p>\n

When Mao took the first step in what would become the People\u2019s War by going to the Jinggang Mountains in 1929, he also distanced himself from the directives on insurrection issued by the Communist Party. In effect, several defeats in the latter half of the 1920s were linked to a certain view of uprising. Mao had decided that the border regions offered the possibility of establishing \u2018liberated areas\u2019 as spaces needed for the existence of a people\u2019s politics. Despite outbreaks of disorder and excesses, Mao viewed the advent of the masses on the political scene as a fundamental component of revolutionary strategy throughout the People\u2019s War.<\/p>\n

4.<\/p>\n

The Cultural Revolution is obviously the most problematic point of this vision. What perhaps best encapsulates Mao\u2019s idea about rebellion having a place in revolutionary culture\u2019s space is his famous remark \u201c\u9020\u53cd\u6709\u7406”\u00a0zaofan you li<\/em>. The English translation, \u2018To rebel is justified,\u2019 is shy of the essential point. The French translation renders it perhaps a bit better, \u2018On a raison de se r\u00e9volter.\u2019 In his first Maoist work in the mid-Seventies, Badiou enthusiastically remarked on the philosophical-political merit of \u2018reason\u2019 for \u2018revolt\u2019. A little more digging may be helpful. The meaning is clear: revolt (zaofan<\/em>) has (you<\/em>) a reason (li<\/em>). Here li<\/em> certainly is \u2018reason, rationality\u2019 (as in lixing<\/em>) while also indicating a systematically argued reasoning as in lilun<\/em>, \u2018theory\u2019, rational discourse.<\/p>\n

Recalling that the original saying was formulated in a 1939 note of greetings on Stalin\u2019s sixtieth birthday it not simply of anecdotal interest. All the vast complexity of Marxism, wrote Mao, its principles, theories, teachings, can be read in zaofan you li<\/em>. What makes Mao\u2019s pithy remark effective is its argument: \u2018revolt\u2019 is intrinsic to Marxism\u2019s li<\/em>. For Mao, Zaofan<\/em> is perfectly compatible with the cultural space of revolutionary politics as consolidated in and since the October Revolution. Indeed, the maxim puts the latter\u2019s core meaning in a nutshell. Nor is it incidental that Mao is addressing Stalin, the supreme leader of the revolutionary episteme at the time (the greeting even vaguely hints at wanting to convince him of something).<\/p>\n

5.<\/p>\n

Mao reiterates this conviction at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. The masses, he said in 1966, \u201c\u2026must deal with the affairs of the State,\u201d even though it could not but lead to disorder in the given state of the governing equilibrium. Yet this disorder was nothing to fear. He held that it was not only compatible with an inventive political rationality but even saw it as an un avoidable condition.<\/p>\n

It surely appears correct to say that Mao was entirely convinced of this and remained optimistic for the first two years of the Cultural Revolution. For even when the disorders were at their height in mid-1967, Mao viewed the situation as a positive condition for the political self-education of the masses. By mid-1968, however, the wind had changed course. As documented by the \u2018final scene,\u2019 a radical turning point had been reached. The register and assessment of the \u2018excesses\u2019 were no longer what they had been, especially if compared to the 1927 essay on the Hunan peasant movement.<\/p>\n

In 1966, when Mao replied in writing to a letter of the first independent student organization, he had emphasized what he meant by zaofan youli<\/em>. The students had cited the famous saying in their missive and Mao had naturally responded that he fully supported them. He did, however, include several essential provisos. He invited the students to seek as much unity as possible on the issues and to allow those who had erred to correct their positions. Mao concluded his letter with a crucial insight: \u201cMarx said the proletariat must emancipate not only itself but all mankind. If it cannot emancipate all mankind, then the proletariat itself will not be able to achieve final emancipation. Comrades will please pay attention to this truth too.\u201d<\/p>\n

By \u2018all mankind\u2019 Mao clearly signaled that the student revolt must develop a universal agenda for its unfolding. Only by striving for universality could their movement find its rationale. The revolt had no preconceived \u2018reason\u2019 for being. It had to find it<\/em>. By itself, the revolt merely opened up a field of political possibilities that could just as readily collapse upon it.<\/p>\n

6.<\/p>\n

Yet for many months Mao remained optimistic. Even in the most tumultuous moments, he thought the upheavals would eventually find the path to a universalist raison d\u2019\u00eatre. However, by his July 1968 meeting with the student leaders of Beijing\u2019s universities, he drew an altogether different conclusion. Not only were the student organizations not striving for \u2018the liberation of all humanity,\u2019 they were doing nothing critical even for overhauling the university. Their slogan was \u2018struggle-criticize-transform,\u2019 but they were just being swept up in an armed conflict as grotesque as it was lethal for the \u2018seizure of power\u2019 in the universities. Mao said: \u201cthis little civil war is to little avail.\u201d The very independent student organizations he had supported in the hope they would find a political \u2018reason\u2019 for being were engaged in extenuatingly senseless riots of unscrupulous youthful gangs.<\/p>\n

An appraisal of the political demise of those independent organizations, i.e. their self-inflicted defeat, remains to be accomplished. The climate of \u2018censorship\u2019 and \u2018removal\u2019 that for decades has been obscuring the Cultural Revolution makes such an investigation an arduous task. The two years comprising the mass phase of the Cultural Revolution hold a wealth of singular events. That the independent organizations numbered in the tens of thousands is surely food for thought. It is estimated that no fewer than ten thousand each published an independent journal. In those two years China enjoyed unparalleled freedom of the press and speech.<\/p>\n

How is it that this extreme extension of the principle of \u2018revolt\u2019 \u2500 the appearance of an unrestricted multitude of mass political subjectivities \u2500 failed to find a universalist grounding, i.e. a political rationality compatible with the potentialities it had possessed?<\/p>\n

It is notable that Mao was rather perplexed about assessing the situation in the meeting with the leaders of Beijing\u2019s Red Guards. How could they have wasted in the span of two years the political thrust that had initially seemed so promising? Mao said \u201cthere must be historical causes\u201d but provided no further comment. While his decision in the end to dissolve the factions and put paid to the experiment of the independent organizations was prompt, an appraisal of that political impasse has long remained in abeyance.<\/p>\n

7.<\/p>\n

The Cultural Revolution intended to test the mettle of the entire leadership of revolutionary political culture vis-\u00e0-vis a mass movement of indeterminate multitudes. It would aim first at the Communist Party, that culture\u2019s fundamental organizing principle. While lending his support for revolt to the students, Mao also warned them that the stakes in play were the liberation of all humanity. When it came to the Party, he decided upon a more radical course and placed its political authority in check. \u201cBomb headquarters\u201d meant that that organizing principle was to be rethought root and branch.<\/p>\n

Since no one knew what new organizing principle would emerge, Mao unreservedly threw his support behind the unrestricted propagation of political organizations that were established during the initial months of the Cultural Revolution. He clearly did not anticipate that the chances for the existence of mass political subjectivities would fade as readily as they did. Nor could he have foreseen that the myriad of independent political organizations would end up trapping themselves in a thoroughly formalistic antagonism without a trace of political or intellectual content. Nevertheless, Mao never ceased to attempt a rational appraisal of those events. After the mass movements from 1966 to 1968, the crucial problem for him during the long \u2018coda\u2019 of the Cultural Revolution up to 1976 was how its universality was to be reckoned.<\/p>\n

In other words, the \u2018revolt\u2019 failed to find its \u2018reason.\u2019 Upon their arrival on the political scene, the masses never found their place in the cultural space of revolutionary politics. The question Mao posited as that long decade came to an end was whether, given its internal constraints, the Cultural Revolution could be reappraised via a theoretical re-assessment of the very foundations of the revolutionary episteme.<\/p>\n

The dispute between Mao and Deng in the last two years of that decade essentially hinged on double-entry accounting \u2500 whether it was to cover the entire historical record of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. revolutionary culture\u2019s ideological and organizational space, or just the Cultural Revolution itself, its failings and its errors. Deng emerged the victor \u2500 not because China was on the verge of a collapse that he could prevent by dismissing the Maoist leaders after Mao\u2019s death, but because he managed to prevent that reckoning altogether.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alessandro Russo   Here are some preliminary remarks regarding the role uprising plays in Mao\u2019s political theorizing and strategy formulation and on the relationship between uprising and revolution. 1. A first step is to link what follows with the… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1644,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51803],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-2-13"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1644"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/uprising1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}