What is Marxism?

Marxism is no ideology that newly emerged, but it is one of the most misunderstood ideologies in human history. It is the ideology we root our thinking in as communists, so we need to get a clear understanding of what Marxism means by definition. Confucius once said: “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.”¹ This is especially true for scientific terminology since Marxism is a scientific world outlook.

Marxism

The Italian Marxist Antonio Labriola made a mistake in 1897, despite his otherwise achievements for the propagation of Marxism in Italy, when he reduced Marxism to historical materialism:

“Historical materialism is in a certain sense all there is to Marxism.”²

Historical materialism is dialectical materialism applied to analyze society. Only mentioning historical materialism lets this term being stuck in limbo.

What Labriola got right is this point:

“Marxism is not, and will not be, confined to the writings of Marx and Engels. The name stands even now as a symbol and compendium of a many-sided tendency and a complex theory.”³

There are some who reject Lenin, Stalin, Mao and other Marxist theoreticians, because they claim that Marxism would be only what Marx and Engels said. This is turning Marxism from a science into some ideology rooted in personal authority instead of facts. This approach even led to absurdities like some even rejecting Engels and talking about “Engelsism”⁴, ignoring their unity in world outlook and in their methodology.

Luckily Labriola saw that Marxism as a theory is objective, scientific and therefore not limited to the writings of Marx and Engels only but also all who follow their world outlook and approach.

The German revisionist Georg Fülberth delivers a lackluster definition of Marxism when defining it the following way:

“Under Marxism the following should be understood:

1. a historical-materialist analysis of economics and class relations;
2. a theory of politics based on the former;
3. a political practice in the perspective to abolish the capitalist society.”⁵

This definition is lackluster, as already said. The reason is that Fülberth only sees historical materialism to be valid, just like Labriola. He leaves out half of what Marxism is composed of: The natural scientific part.

Stalin defined Marxism in the holistic way that is correct:

“Marxism is the science of the laws governing the development of nature and society, the science of the revolution of the oppressed and exploited masses, the science of the victory of socialism in all countries, the science of building communist society.”⁶

This definition is correct though it does not mention dialectical and historical materialism explicitly. The “laws governing the development of nature and society” are analyzed through dialectical and historical materialism.

Stalin defined dialectical and historical materialism this way:

“Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party. It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic.

Historical materialism is the extension of the principles of dialectical materialism to the study of social life, an application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the phenomena of the life of society, to the study of society and of its history.”⁷

The living core, the “essence” of Marxism in some sense, is dialectical and historical materialism. Based on this methodology Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao made their analyses of society, economic relations as well political superstructure.

Leninism

If Marxism is composed like that, why is it common to speak of Marxism-Leninism? Because Leninism is a development of Marxism into a higher stage, mainly due to the rise of imperialism (as proven by Lenin in his work “Imperialism as the highest Stage of Capitalism” especially).

Stalin defined Leninism in the following way in “Foundations of Leninism”:

“Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. Marx and Engels pursued their activities in the pre-revolutionary period, (we have the proletarian revolution in mind), when developed imperialism did not yet exist, in the period of the proletarians’ preparation for revolution, in the period when the proletarian revolution was not yet an immediate practical inevitability. But Lenin, the disciple of Marx and Engels, pursued his activities in the period of developed imperialism, in the period of the unfolding proletarian revolution, when the proletarian revolution had already triumphed in one country, had smashed bourgeois democracy and had ushered in the era of proletarian democracy, the era of the Soviets.”⁸

A year later Stalin clarified some confusion among the Komsomol about Marxism and Leninism:

“Leninism is not Lenin’s teaching minus Marxism. Leninism is Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. In other words, Leninism includes all that was taught by Marx plus Lenin’s new contribution to the treasury of Marxism, and what necessarily follows from all that was taught by Marx (teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat, the peasant question, the national question, the Party, the question of the social roots of reformism, the question of the principal deviations in communism, and so forth).”⁹

Lenin can be called with no exaggeration the most important Marxist theoretician or even the “pinnacle of Marxism” because he combined an expansive and holistic work with the concrete practice of the socialist revolution.

Maoism

A later term even adopted is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. There is an infertile debate going on if Mao Zedong Thought and Maoism are identical or not. In my opinion they can only mean the same, such as Bolshevism and Leninism were the same because just like there cannot be “two Lenins” there cannot be “two Maos”. Because of this dispute over the term I need to show some different positions in this debate to contextualize them and put them into contrast with the proper definition of Maoism.

Lin Biao (who later would betray Mao and die in an airplane crash in Mongolia on his escape from China) delivered a lackluster definition in 1966:

“Mao Tse-tung’s thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory.”¹⁰

This definition sounds nice in words, but it is objectively wrong and very superficial. The Communist Party of Peru (PCP) of Gonzalo delivered many definitions of Maoism, to express it nicely. In its document “On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism” from their 1st Party Congress in 1988 the definition is the following:

“What is Maoism? Maoism is the elevation of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third, and higher stage in the struggle for proletarian leadership of the democratic revolution, the development of the construction of socialism and the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship as a proletarian cultural revolution; when imperialism deepens its decomposition and revolution has become the main tendency of history, amidst the most complex and largest wars seen to date and the implacable struggle against contemporary revisionism.”¹¹

The document also rejects the continuity of Mao Zedong Thought and Maoism. The stance of “Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism” in the document effectively tries to devalue Marxism-Leninism – and with the implementation of “Gonzalo Thought” in another document also the Maoism part was devalued in fact¹².

In his 1988 interview with El Diario Gonzalo was unable to deliver a concrete definition of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism but was able to define “Gonzalo Thought” named after himself concretely:

“In sum, Gonzalo Thought is none other than the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete reality. This means that it is principal specifically for our Party, for the people’s war and for the revolution in our country, and I want to emphasize that. But for us, looking at our ideology in universal terms, I emphasize once again, it is Maoism that is principal.”¹³

Effectively that means that Maoism for him just means Gonzalo Thought. The arbitrary practice of the PCP with its “Jefatura” (a one-man centered leadership system around Gonzalo which effectively eliminated democratic centralism within the PCP) has shown that none of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao actually mattered for his practice. Therefore also the definitions of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism by the PCP are without any value. It is like the Bible says: “Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”¹⁴

Besides that, the PCP delivered in their document titled “The International Line” a contradicting definition of Maoism:

“Maoism is the application of Marxism-Leninism to the oppressed countries, of the strategic offensive of the world revolution, and of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.”¹⁵

If using this definition, then the universality of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism would be not given. That is fundamentally wrong. In short: The PCP failed to deliver a definition of Maoism that is correct.

The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) gave a good definition of Maoism in length¹⁶ which can and should be followed. A summarized version of it was later formulated by a new international alliance of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties a couple of decades later:

“Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is a comprehensive entity. Maoism is the present-day Marxism-Leninism. Denying Maoism is denying Marxism-Leninism. Maoism made distinct contribution regarding philosophy, political economy, social science, party building, New Democratic Revolution through People’s War, Socialist revolution, organisation and several other issues such as [the Great] Proletarian Cultural Revolution.”¹⁷

This might be acceptable as a short definition of Maoism.

Final remarks

In general Marxism-Leninism-Maoism often just gets called Marxism, just like Stalin often called Marxism-Leninism just Marxism. The reason is that there is only one correct continuity since Marxism is a scientific world outlook. Leninism and Maoism might be new stages that added some new content to the theoretical treasure of Marxism, but they used the same dialectical-materialist approach like Marx and Engels. That means that, as already shown, Leninism and Maoism did not break with Marxism in the slightest but expanded and developed it based on its own foundations.

I hope that the readers are now understanding the meaning of Marxism and is able to unravel the confusion about the terminology of Marxism in their own head as well in the heads of others.