Speaking of this, I can introduce you to a historical event that should help you understand this issue.
Here’s the situation: in the early 20th century, within the German Communist Party, there was a so-called “opposition faction,” or the “left wing” of the German Communist Party. They called themselves the “principled opposition,” opposing the German Communist Party Central Committee’s proposal to recognize all means of struggle during the alliance process with the German Independent Social Democratic Party. They believed this proposal was leading people back to parliamentary struggle. On the surface, this opposition faction didn’t seem problematic. But in fact, Lenin evaluated them as suffering from the “left-wing infantilism” in the full sense of the term. Why did he say that?
This opposition faction had serious confused views regarding the relationship between leaders, the party, the class, and the masses. We can clearly sense this from some of their statements:
They were so confused as to separate the leader of a class, the party of a class, and the masses of a class, considering the leader purely as a leader detached from the class and the party, unrelated to the masses. They believed that once the leader gained power, the masses would lose their rights, completely ignoring the connection between the leader and the masses. Lenin responded to them as follows:
Now, regarding the issue of leaders, if you ask whether worshipping leaders is a good thing, I can answer that in proletarian organizations, revolutionary leaders themselves arise from the trust of the masses. Anyone who claims to be a leader without speaking Marxism, without speaking truth, without serving the revolution or the people, has been overthrown in history. Lin Biao, during the Cultural Revolution, tried to establish his prestige by riding on Chairman Mao’s authority, promoting restorationist reactionary trends, but in the end, he was exposed by the people and condemned forever, with even the Chinese revisionists hardly able to rehabilitate him. Deng Xiaoping, after restoration, arrogantly boasted about commanding the Huaihai Campaign and attending the Zunyi Conference, but now most people in the country know the bad deeds he did, and few really believe him.
Only Chairman Mao truly gained the trust of the Chinese people and the peoples of the world to become our leader. So, no matter how much reactionaries, liberals, and fascists slander him, they cannot erase Chairman Mao’s wise image among the masses. Even the Chinese revisionists can only pretend to revere Chairman Mao as a deity without daring to directly overthrow him. This is the proletarian leader. How can we not admire, respect, and learn from such a leader? I think you should now understand this issue.
However, leaders are not casually made. I hope you don’t hold an overly naive attitude, thinking that some people with higher theoretical knowledge are “leaders.” In fact, to truly judge whether someone is a leader, one must start from the fundamental class standpoint and whether their actions serve the people, not from theoretical level, technical ability, or slick words.
Next, what is the relationship between leaders and authority? If you ask how to distinguish between superstition of authority and worship of leaders, I can only say this is a confusing issue. Because in society, authority is also class-based. From an organizational perspective, a leader is the authority of a party. From the state perspective, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the authority of the proletariat. All authority that benefits the proletariat and serves the proletariat is naturally to be respected and is always sincerely accepted. Reactionary authority, bourgeois authority, on the other hand, harms the proletariat and the masses and should be overthrown.
What you said about not upholding truth and yielding to authority is also a confused issue. Because in fact, truth—for us, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought—is the most scientific and revolutionary authority in our ideology. This authority should naturally be respected and learned from. Here, truth and authority are not purely opposing things but have a unified aspect. When is truth opposed to authority? That is under capitalism, where bourgeois authority rejects truth. Because today’s capitalist society is completely rotten and declining, the bourgeoisie no longer represents the direction of social development. To maintain capitalist society, the bourgeoisie manipulates various fallacies—idealistic and metaphysical fallacies—to deceive and numb the masses. At this time, truth and authority are opposing things. Worshipping bourgeois authority means one cannot uphold truth; upholding truth—Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought—means one cannot worship bourgeois authority. The most obvious bourgeois authority in today’s society is academic cliques, those useless people sitting in high positions enjoying privileges and spouting nonsense. For example, a certain professor at Peking University arrogantly claims that farmers don’t know how to farm and should be eliminated. Can such authority be trusted? No.
Also, the most obvious bourgeois authority today is the revisionist government. The revisionism it promotes, the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, is pure fallacy. People numbed by this viewpoint cannot see the truth of Chinese society and cannot join or uphold the revolution.
Having talked this far, you should have a clearer understanding of the relationship between authority, leaders, and truth, and understand how to solve the problems you mentioned. We should respect proletarian leaders and proletarian authority, uphold proletarian truth on this basis, and oppose bourgeois leaders and bourgeois authority; only by opposing them can we uphold truth.
You might find these words difficult to understand at first and not know how to achieve this. It’s actually simple: study earnestly, study Marxism. Without the right skills, you cannot do good work; only by struggling with yourself ideologically, transforming your thinking, and learning to transform your worldview can you distinguish who is proletarian, who is bourgeois, which views serve the proletariat, which serve the bourgeoisie, and identify truth and fallacy, bourgeois authority and proletarian authority.
If there are errors in my views, I welcome criticism and correction.
