So, I’m currently reading On Contradiction, just got done with Chapter 3
And I came across this banger “The dogmatists do not observe this principle; they do not understand that conditions differ in different kinds of revolution and so do not understand that different methods should be used to resolve different contradictions; on the contrary, they invariably adopt what they imagine to be an unalterable formula and arbitrarily apply it everywhere, which only causes setbacks to the revolution or makes a sorry mess of what was originally well done.”
Mao Zedong in On Authority, Ch. 3, par. 8
Mao Zedong would have completely been against modern-day MLMs and saying stuff like “China is capitalist because they don’t do XYZ”
Ultras/Maoists are pure moralists. Anyone who knows a lick of Marxian theory knows that the purpose of nationalizing industry under a dictatorship of the proletariat is to resolve the contradiction between socialized production (big industry) and private appropriation (due to private ownership). Hence, it makes no sense to nationalize small industry as this would be introducing socialized appropriation on top of private production.
Everyone was in agreement on this. The Manifesto only recommends initially extending state ownership over the biggest enterprises and then encouraging rapid economic development so that small industry can become big, and so they can gradually be nationalized. In The Principles of Communism Engels is clear that markets are necessary for small industry to transform itself into big industry, and thus private property cannot be abolished in one stroke but only gradually alongside the development of the forces of production. Even Lenin said multiple times it would be “economic suicide” to nationalize the small producers and we must “learn to live alongside them.”
This is why Marx even believed a dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary. A state is a tool of class oppression, so you cannot have a state without class distinctions and one class oppressing another. Marx says clearly in Conspectus on Bakhunin’s State and Anarchy that the reason for the DOTP is that private property will still exist exist for some time, and thus class distinctions will still exist, so the state is necessary to enforce the role of the proletariat over other classes.
Ultras/Maoists don’t care about any of this because they are pure moralists and don’t understand, or don’t even care about, historical materialism. For them, “private property = morally bad,” and therefore it should all be outlawed as quickly as possible. They will tell you they don’t believe in nationalizing all private property in one stroke, but if you talk to them long enough you realize they still believe in nationalizing all enterprises regardless of their level of development, but just recognize doing this will take a little bit of time, maybe a few years.
They don’t actually understand that the reason Marx and Engels believed it cannot be done in one stroke is not simply because nationalizing everything is a time-consuming process, but because you cannot nationalize small industry without introducing contradictions to your economy that would be detrimental towards its development, so all you can do is encourage development until more small industries develop into big industries so they can be nationalized.
Ultras/Maoists simply refuse to ever read a word of Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Mao, and if you try to explain this to them it completely goes over their heads and they genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about because they don’t read anything, and will often just resort to calling you an evil immoral revisionist capitalist roader for daring to question the complete nationalization of all economic sectors regardless of their level of development.
This is because they are not Marxists but moralists. The ultraleft and Maoism should be understood to be a variation of utopian socialism and not Marxism.