Extinction of capitalism and the rise of socialism, a full-time student. In junior high school, due to online rumors that the “Spark Manual” was leftist, I later crossed the wall to the tg platform, observed various organizations for a long time, and studied the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. I noticed that the association’s “ideological struggle” route, and the critique of the ideological struggle route in the second issue of the “Inevitability Newspaper” by the Anti-Revisionist Society, made me feel confused. I have some understanding of the “Middle and Unfinished Revolution” of the association, but I still find it difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood, so I posted on the forum.
Appendix: Now, I want to talk about the shortage of revolutionary talents and the issue of actively learning skills needed by the study groups to overcome the fear of difficulties. Yes, these comrades feel painful about the shortage of talents in the group, and this pain is justified. Such phenomena of pain are manifested in many ways within the group. However, these comrades are constrained by the “ideological struggle” route that prioritizes student work, which makes it impossible to find a way out of this unbearable situation. It can only be attributed to personal ideological consciousness issues: you cannot take the initiative to learn this, cannot overcome the troublesome and fear of difficulties, and should learn the skills needed by the group. This vicious circle is like being caught in a ghost wall, not understanding that the talents we need come from society (mainly referring to workers), that is, from the integration of the communist movement with the working class. On the contrary, we have many talents promoted from society, but we are not good at discovering and utilizing them. Currently, the fundamental problem is that we refuse to do their work. When the small group’s branch (which actually violates the group’s route) was doing worker work, it was found that some workers were dissatisfied with the existing full-time system and willing to organize and resist this despotic system. This situation will inevitably deepen with the economic decline of the middle-revisionist despotic government and the increasing greed of the masses for its various systems, laws, and officials. The masses will increasingly realize that the despotic system is becoming unbearable, but at the same time, no one is there—no political leaders (referring to leaders of the workers), no skilled organizers to conduct extensive worker work, not even a decent popular booklet for the working class. Revolutionary organizations have fallen far behind the workers. Workers want to organize, but our revolutionary groups remain indifferent, immersed in personal ideological cultivation, trapped in the mud of improving personal consciousness. This is truly infuriating. Yes, comrades, if we cannot discover and utilize talents from the workers’ work, making them work for the group (communist movement) or providing some help, we will only feel that the number of people is decreasing and that moving forward is becoming more difficult. Oh, we have no one who can do this! Ultimately, under the pressure of the leadership’s petty-bourgeois fear of trouble and difficulties “criticism,” we are forced to learn various skills and knowledge, spending a lot of time on such work, and repeatedly hitting walls because we do not know how to practice. The more time we spend on this, the more we shrink the worker work we urgently need—this is a political crime! Moreover, in this situation, the shortage of people will only worsen. Young students detach from the large-scale social production, learning these skills and correcting their individualism while entering the social production. The expansion of student work and the ideological struggle route lead to a large accumulation of skill learning within the group, mainly because young students’ consciousness is not high enough. This falls into a dead end of increasing ideological transformation, delaying actual worker work more and more. This is the complete absurdity and error of the bolded words above.
The usual method of the publication is to cultivate a batch of qualified cadres through personal ideological transformation, and then these cadres complete revolutionary tasks. So, I have to ask: what are these so-called cadres? What kind of cadres can complete revolutionary tasks? How do they acquire the skills to deal with the police of the despotic government? How do they organize workers and improve workers’ political consciousness? How to ensure the continuity of the organization in the revolutionary movement? The publication touches its head and shouts that as long as the consciousness is high enough, it’s enough. Once personal thoughts, organizational discipline, revolutionary skills, and worker work are improved, members can rely on extremely high personal consciousness not to reveal organizational secrets when caught by the police, and the organization can continue. As long as the human problem is solved, it’s fine. The publication honestly states that, but let’s look at how the “cadres” cultivated by the group actually are: they have no experience in worker work, obey the leadership’s personal calls, have no ideas for revolutionary work, and are stuck in the strange circle of personal ideological transformation—completely detached from the proletarian masses. So, where do true revolutionaries come from? They come from the proletarian revolutionary movement, only by engaging in or participating in specific mass movements and work, and persistently cultivating their revolutionary skills and tactics in the mass movement, can they become qualified revolutionaries. Not participating in broad mass movements means they cannot gain these valuable revolutionary experiences. The newspapers say that transforming thoughts can solve the handicraft industry, which is simply nonsense. Revolutionaries cultivated this way are theoretically weak, unstable, narrow-minded, and inexperienced in fighting the police of the despotic government. They are clumsy and unqualified as proletarian revolutionaries—merely pitiful handicraft workers. From this, it is clear that the publication has expanded handicraft industry rather than shrunk it. The reality is a sharp knife; nothing better reflects the harm of the publication than the reality of the group. This is the entire mistake of the publication.
Second, Liu Shaoqi said that by observing each person’s stance, attitude, speech, and actions on political issues, one can understand which class’s views, preferences, emotions, hopes, interests, and demands they mainly represent at that time. With this, and given how much he emphasizes “self-cultivation,” Liu Shaoqi would surely conclude: 1. Individuals must constantly examine whether their behavior conforms to the standards of “high cultivation and high consciousness,” similar to Confucian and Mencian “self-reflection three times a day” and “think thrice before acting”; 2. Any speech or action, even details of personal life, if not meeting the “high cultivation” standard, then Liu Shaoqi can be sure that their backward thoughts dominate, that they do not represent the proletariat, that they are representatives of petty-bourgeoisie or bourgeoisie, and can be targeted for struggle; 3. To achieve his own “progress in cultivation” or “promote others’ cultivation,” he must find ways to improve his “struggle against backward thoughts” within the organization. “Backward thoughts” are his objects of struggle (he might argue that the struggle is not against individuals but against “backward thoughts on individuals”—of course, no matter how he argues, the organizational issue is reduced to personal consciousness); 4. To combine this “struggle for personal cultivation” with the political route struggle within the organization. Thus, Liu Shaoqi successfully mixes the issues of understanding and ideological consciousness (although he deliberately mentions “the roots of epistemology,” but everyone knows this is another smokescreen trick), suppresses moderate members leaning towards revolution, and muddles the “organized” nature of intra-party struggle, making it disorderly, leading to “mutual struggles over personal issues” among moderate members, preventing them from approaching the revolutionaries.
—Anti-Revisionist Society “Inevitability Newspaper” Issue Two