The Anti-Imperialist legacy of Mao-Era China is one of the most impactful and important tasks to be studied in the present day when it comes to reflections on Mao's China, however, ever since the death of Chairman Mao, his powerful words of Anti-Imperialism have been slandered and attacked by Revisionists, Dogmatists and Reactionaries of all kinds, in an attempt to guide Anti-Imperialist youth away from Maoism, and along a politically degenerated and falsified path. Contrary to what some would have you think, against all odds and all setbacks, China 1949-1976 was a truly anti-imperialist country, with this only being destroyed by the Revisionist Rat Deng Xiaoping.

The articles criticism of Mao Zedong begin with contrasting between a Lenin and Mao quote on imperialism quote from Lenin being

"under present-day international conditions there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics. That is to say, only the dictatorship of the proletariat can offer a way out for the nationally oppressed peoples of the world."^[1]

contrasted with the quote from Mao

"The task of Africa as a whole is to oppose imperialism and those who follow imperialism, not to oppose capitalism or to establish socialism… The current revolution in Africa is to oppose imperialism and carry out national liberation movements. It is not a question of communism, but a question of national liberation."^[1]

Now at the surface level, this seems like Lenin and Mao disagree here, and if Lenin had only wrote that quote, and Mao had only said that, they would be correct, however, as is common with revisionist views of Mao, this is not the full context, in the same document the RCI gets their Lenin quote from, the Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, this document states

Consequently, one cannot at present confine oneself to a bare recognition or proclamation of the need for closer union between the working people of the various nations; a policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance, with Soviet Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation movements. The form of this alliance should be determined by the degree of development of the communist movement in the proletariat of each country, or of the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement of the workers and peasants in backward countries or among backward nationalities."^[3]

The trotskyist writing the article for the RCI has used an old revisionist tactic, taking quotes out of context to make Mao look revisionist and promote their own distorted view of Lenin. Obviously if you only look at the surface level quotes without their full context, it is going to show a difference of opinion between Lenin and Mao, but once you look closer, you’ll find that they are almost identical on this question.

So why does the RCI do this? To misguide their own readers, in the present, regardless of the readers opinion, the self proclaimed communists that have recruited the most people outside, rather than engaging in endless internet bickering, are Trotskyists, while this is regrettable due to the attempts at liquidation of the US Maoist movement, that had it not been attacked ruthlesslyby the PDRLites, would likely have been able to respond to this sham article. It is now the task of the ordinary Red and Anti-Imperialist Youth to do this task of attacking Trotskyist Revisionism wherever it emerges and whatever slander it heaves upon Revolutionaries and upon Maoism.

The RCI writer continues their article,

"Many revolutionaries around the world consider Mao Zedong an anti-imperialist hero primarily because the 1949 Chinese Revolution, which communists hold as the second most important event in history after the 1917 Russian Revolution, threw off the yoke of imperialism in China and served as an inspiration to oppressed and dominated people around the world.
But one must ask: did the regime born out of the revolution – the People’s Republic of China with Mao Zedong at its head – pursue a communist policy to combat imperialism internationally?"^[1]

A fine question! Any genuine Communist is to be opposed to Imperialism and support the struggles of oppressed peoples around the world. But now, let's take a look at what they say next.

"If Mao had modelled himself on Lenin, i.e. if he had acted as a revolutionary who worked to overthrow capitalism internationally, then at the earliest possible moment, he would have striven to refound an international organisation of communists with the fullest support that the CCP, now governing a continent-sized country, could muster. This was what Lenin and Trotsky did with the Communist International, the formation of which as a worldwide party of socialist revolution, they placed the highest importance upon, despite all the difficulties facing the besieged Soviet republic at that time."^[1]

While not wrong in of itself, this statement forgets to take into account that the leader of the world proletariat at this point was still the USSR, while trotskyists and I could sit and debate for hours about whether it could genuinely be considered that, from the perspective of the CPC, there was no point in creating their own communist international, since they were more focused on consolidating the People's Republic of China, and had the USSR as a model to look to for socialism as almost all Communist parties did at that time. Thus it was not considered in China. However, the RCI article unfortunately continues to spread falsehoods and ignore conditions instead of genuine critique.

"Instead, Mao’s regime was content with forming loose and mutable ‘bilateral relations’ with leftist organisations around the world where they deemed that such relations benefited their national interests. At times, they supplied arms and funds to foreign groups abroad. But this aid was only forthcoming when it suited China’s geopolitical interests. This was at all times the axis of Mao’s policy, and not the struggle against world imperialism."^[1]

While after the Sino-Soviet split, the formation of a new Comintern was unfortunately never done, for the reason the Chinese believed it simply wasn't the time to do so. In fairness to them, for a large number of the imperialist countries, the situation wasn't as optimal for a revolution as the many semicolonial countries. So with hindsight it is a much larger error than it was seen as when the CPC ultimately decided against it.

As for the claim of "But this aid was only forthcoming when it suited China’s geopolitical interests. This was at all times the axis of Mao’s policy, and not the struggle against world imperialism." this can be easily disproven by the response of People's Daily in to a somewhat similar accusation of imperialism by CPUSA

"The position of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people on the Caribbean crisis was very clear. We supported the five just demands of the Cuban Revolutionary Government, we were against putting any faith in Kennedy’s sham “guarantee”, and we were against imposing “international inspection” on Cuba. From the outset we directed the spearhead of our struggle against U.S. imperialism, which was committing aggression against Cuba. We neither advocated the sending of missiles to Cuba, nor obstructed the withdrawal of socalled offensive weapons. We opposed adventurism, and we also opposed capitulationism."^[4]

If China only supplied funding and arms to groups that benefited its foreign policy, why did it supply the Cuban Revolutionaries, who later became a pawn for Soviet Social-Imperialism (read: "Cuba, the Evaporation of a myth" for more elaboration)^[5], and besides, even if this was the case, where is the problem, didn’t the USSR in the period of both Lenin and Stalin do the same with friendly communist parties? What was the harm in this?

The article goes on to claim that Mao betrayed the Communist Party of Burma and instead promoted friendly relations with the capitalist Burmese Government, however, the document (collected works of Mao Zedong volume 6) that the article links appears to be broken, for me, and since I cannot read Chinese, this claim, is neither Verifiable nor Unverifiable for me, but I will try to explain to the best of my ability. The quote reads

“There are radicals among the Chinese diaspora in Myanmar. We admonished them from interfering with Myanmar’s internal politics. We teach them to follow the laws of their host countries and not to contact the armed parties that oppose the Burmese government. We do not organise communist parties among the Chinese diaspora. Those they have organised have disbanded already. We do the same in Indonesia and Singapore. We instruct the Chinese diaspora in Burma not to get involved in political activities inside Myanmar, only those that were approved by the Burmese state, such as ceremonies and nothing else. Otherwise this would put us in an awkward position and make it hard to do things.” (Conversations with Burmese Prime Minister U Nu, 11 December 1954, Chinese Mao Zedong Collected Works Vol 6).^[6]

The reason for these talks with the Burmese were to ease Sino-Burmese tensions caused by Kuomintang Remnants fleeing into Burma following the Chinese civil war, when this was raised by Burma at the UN, the PRC began to talk with the government of Burma to ensure that there would be no pointless conflict between China and Burma, and ensure that the Burmese government did not cozy up to US imperialism, which would have been even more disastrous than a merely unaligned, semifeudal burma. (not to say that is any better, but it was better than a reactionary stronghold on the border of china) Its also worth mentioning that following increased tensions between Burma and China, Mao ramped up support for the Communist Party of Burma.

The RCI continues to make cynical claims that Mao's advice led to the mass murder of Communists in places such as Indonesia, but following the advice of Mao, the Communist Party of Indonesia reached 3.5 Million members, the Chinese had no control of when the Communist Party initiated Revolution, which is not and never will be something controlled from outside the domestic proletariat of any nation, Proletarian Revolt is of the Proletariat, not imposed from outside, to ignore this is to fall in line with people such as Blanqui.The article also claims that in 1954 Zhou Enlai forced Ho Chi Minh to surrender positions against US Imperialism.

“Because the imperialists are afraid of China's "expansion," they absolutely will not allow Vietnam to achieve a great-scale victory. If we request too much [at the Geneva conference] and if peace is not achieved in Indochina…. Therefore, we must isolate the United States and break up its plans; otherwise we will fall into the trap prepared by the U.S. imperialists. Consequently even in a military sense we will not be able to seize [parts of] Vietnam.”^[1]

However, this again ignores the context, given that China had just fought a brutal war against US aggression in Korea, immediately getting into another one would prove disastrous.

The article goes on and on with these quotes that are misinterpreted or have little evidence, and given this is a lengthy article, we simply do not have the time today to respond to every accusation made, the reader here can find the article and interpret their own opinion on it.

While the article makes a few valid points on Chinese foreign policy under Mao (most of which are largely, as usual, hindsight, rather than all of the info presented at the time) the most outrageous accusation is that Maoism, is somehow, Pro-Henry Kissinger

"To this day, the CCP refers to Kissinger as “an old friend of the Chinese people.” Indeed, he was an old friend of the bureaucracy, and later of the newly emerging Chinese capitalist class, the development of which the bureaucracy fostered.
We must ask our readers with sympathies towards Maoism: was Henry Kissinger not clearly an enemy of the proletariat and a defender of the most reactionary imperialist force on Earth? Is there anything genuinely ‘anti-imperialist’ in Mao’s policy that international communists can take guidance from? Unfortunately, anyone who answers this question in the positive is not a communist."^[1]

For one, to claim the modern day Social-Imperialist CPC has anything to do with Maoism is laughable, secondly, China didn't ever cozy up with US imperialism until after the death of Mao, when relations were officially restored in 1979, whereas Mao died in 1976.

And the most outrageous and reactionary statement of all

"Is there anything genuinely ‘anti-imperialist’ in Mao’s policy that international communists can take guidance from? Unfortunately, anyone who answers this question in the positive is not a communist."^[1]

No matter how much the RCI can claim to be anti-Imperialist, it musn’t forget, with this quote, it not only looks down at from the point of view of condescending saviors upon the Revolutionaries of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Palestine, India, Peru, Philippines, the list goes on and on, but it also sides with US Imperialism, Zionism, and the former Soviet Social-Imperialism. So I’d like to ask the RCI this, how can they claim to be the real anti-imperialists and spit in the face of the revolutionaries who follow Mao Zedong, while at the same time siding with Imperialist Aggressors at every turn possible!

Lets not forget, the RCI follows trotskyism, and despite their claims that he was a real revolutionary, at many times, Trotsky and trotskyists worked with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan against the USSR, is this genuine anti-imperialism? Is this what revolutionaries do? Or should I mention that the creators of US foreign policy for a significant amount of time, the people responsible for the brutal US imperialist aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, were former Trotskyists? That they were inspired by the need for control that Trotsky had? Is this the ¨anti-imperialism¨ that the RCI upholds?

What does the RCI truly do? Does it promote revolution aside from big words, while at the same time, siding with reformism? It’s flip-flopping from correctly stating Zohran Mamdani isn't a socialist, to "Zohran must treat the capitalists and their hangers-on as what they are: the class enemy. He should break completely with them—starting with their Democratic Party." It's a disgrace this party even includes "Revolutionary" in its name, if its going to side with a democrat in deeds while siding against the democrats in words.

Thus, now with all of this, can the RCI even have a section claiming Mao was a revisionist, while the RCI are revisionists both theoretically and in practice? Should we listen to what glorified social democrats have to say about revisionism? No, but they do serve as a good example of what not to do in studying marxism. They go so far as to claim China in the great proletarian cultural revolution had an out of control bureaucracy that wasn't being purged and attacked by the masses of red guards. These people do not understand anything that they are seeing, they are investigating and yet still lack the right to speak.

Time and time again, despite the slanders heaped upon Mao by revisionists and reactionaries alike, anti-imperialists and communists around the world have shown that only the light of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism can liberate the oppressed peoples of the world, whereas reactionaries will promote Trotskyism and other forms of revisionism at all times to direct people away from revolution and towards a perverted, delusional reenactment of it.

"Both dogmatism and revisionism run counter to Marxism. Marxism must certainly advance; it must develop along with the development of practice and cannot stand still. It would become lifeless if it remained stagnant and stereotyped. However, the basic principles of Marxism must never be violated, or otherwise mistakes will be made. It is dogmatism to approach Marxism from a metaphysical point of view and to regard it as something rigid. It is revisionism to negate the basic principles of Marxism and to negate its universal truth. Revisionism is one form of bourgeois ideology. The revisionists deny the differences between socialism and capitalism, between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. What they advocate is in fact not the socialist line but the capitalist line. In present circumstances, revisionism is more pernicious than dogmatism. One of our current important tasks on the ideological front is to unfold criticism of revisionism."
- Mao Zedong, Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work^[7]