LI Da (1890-1966)
One of the earliest and most important Marxist philosophers and disseminators of Marxist
theory more generally in China. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of China and
played an important role in the Marxist education of Party members, including Mao Zedong.
From their already existing Japanese translations, Li Da retranslated many Russian and German
works on philosophy and Marxist theory into Chinese. Li’s own most important work was his
Elements of Sociology (1st ed., 1935), which is said to have had a great influence
on Mao. In the young Soviet Union there were some major struggles in philosophy, and by the
1930s a standard “New Philosophy” became dominant there. Li Da helped popularize that
standardized version of Marxist philosophy and theory in China.
During the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution Li Da was heavily criticized for having failed to
proclaim the absolute and total originality of Mao’s contributions to Marxist philosophy
and theory. However, Mao—like everyone else—had to learn a lot of his theoretical views from
his predecessors. Mao did make great contributions to Marxism, but he was able to do so in
part because of the earlier great ideas he learned from Marx, Engels, Lenin and others.
An important book about Li Da is: Li Da
and Marxist Philosophy in China (1996), by Nick Knight.
In March 1966, Li Da responded to Lin Biao’s theory that Mao Zedong
Thought was the pinnacle of Marxist-Leninist theory in characteristically forthright
manner. On being informed—possibly rather nervously—by one of his research assistants
that this theory originated from Vice Chairman Lin, Li responded:
“I realize that, and I don’t
agree! This notion of a ‘pinnacle’ is unscientific, and does not conform to dialectics.
Marxism-Leninism is developmental, and so is Mao Zedong Thought. If you compare them
to a pinnacle, then there is no direction in which they can develop from there. How
can Marxism-Leninism have a ‘pinnacle’? I can’t agree with violations of dialectics,
regardless of who utters it.”
—From Nick Knight, Li Da and
Marxist Philosophy in China (1996), p. 23. [While strictly speaking Li Da was
correct here, he might better have recognized that revolutionary theory can very well
reach temporary “pinnacles” as of a given time, which later can and should be
surpassed. Revolutionary theory, too, advances by periodic leaps which must be
recognized and defended. —S.H.]
LI Peng (1928-2019)
A revisionist Chinese politician best known as the “Butcher of Beijing” for his central role
as Premier of the People’s Republic of China in the Tiananmen
Square Massacre in 1989.
Li’s father, the early Communist revolutionary
Li Shuoxun, was executed by the Guomingdang when Li Peng was still a boy. He was then raised
by Zhou Enlai and his wife, Deng Yingchao. Li was trained as an
engineer in the USSR and worked at an important national power company upon his return to China.
Because of his connections to Zhou Enlai he escaped any serious political criticism during the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the other mass movements from the 1950s through the
1970s. When Deng Xiaoping returned to power a year or two after
Mao’s death in 1976, Li Peng was given a series of more and more important government positions,
culminating in his elevation to be China’s fourth Premier in 1987, a post he retained until 1998.
For the five years after that he was the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s
Congress.
In 1989 Deng Xiaoping was still the “Paramount
Leader” of the capitalist roaders controlling the so-called Communist Party of China, and Li Peng
was only number three in the hierarchy, behind Zhao Ziyang, the
nominal Party General Secretary. But Li resolutely followed Deng’s instructions in violently
suppressing the protesters in Tiananmen Square, while Zhao Ziyang raised criticisms of that crackdown,
but from a bourgeois democratic standpoint. This meant that Zhao Ziyang was soon forced out of power
by Deng. However, Deng did not then replace Zhao with Li Peng—presumably because Li’s image was
severely tarnished by his role in suppressing the masses in Tiananmen (even though at Deng’s own
direction). Instead, Deng chose the Party lackey, Jiang Zemin, to be
the new Party General Secretary, perhaps also in part because Jiang was more enthusiastic about
transforming Chinese state-capitalism into something closer to Western-style monopoly capitalism than
Li Peng was.
LI Tso-p’eng (1916-?)
A General and high ranking political cadre in the People’s Liberation Army of China, who is known
both as the author of an influential article summing up one aspect of Mao’s military concepts
“Strategy: One Against Ten, Tactics: Ten Against One” (1964), and also later for his conspiratorial
involvement in the failed coup attempt by Lin Biao.
The Strategy and Tactics article appeared in an
abridged English translation in Peking Review,
1965, issues #15 & #16, and was also issued as a 43-page pamphlet in English in 1966. Excerpts
from it were published in the RIM magazine, A World to Win, #16 in 1991, online at:
https://www.bannedthought.net/International/RIM/AWTW/1991-16/strategy_One_Against_Ten_Tactics.htm
(The AWTW editors seemed not to be aware of Li’s role in the conspiracy to overthrow
and even murder Mao!)
From 1967 until his downfall immediately following
the attempted military coup by Lin Biao, General Li Tso-p’eng was the 1st political commissar of the
Navy. He had authority over the naval air base at Shanhaikuan and aided Lin and his family and
closest circle in their escape by air from that base. (However, the plane crashed in Mongolia, and
all aboard it were killed.) Li himself was soon arrested and then brought to trial for his
substantial role in the conspiracy.
“Seeing that his scheme had been exposed and that his last day was coming, Lin
Piao hurriedly took his wife and son and a few diehard cohorts to escape to the enemy, betraying
the Party and the state. In the early morning of 2:30, September 13, 1971, the Trident jet No.
256 carrying them crashed in the vicinity of Ondor Han in Mongolia. Lin Piao, Yeh Chun, Lin
Li-kuo [Lin Biao’s son], and all other renegades and aboard were burned to death. Their death,
however, could not expiate all their crimes. After Lin Piao’s unsuccessful betrayal and defection,
Huang Yung-sheng, Wu Fa-hsien, Li Tso-p’eng, and Ch’iu Hui-tso destroyed many evidences
to cover up their own criminal acts.” —“Document No. 24 of the CCP Central Committee,” a Party
document about the whole Lin Biao conspiracy, June 1972. [Emphasis added.]
LIBERAL SENSIBILITIES — Capitalist-Imperialist Exploitation Of
Liberal sensibilities, in the U.S. or “social welfare” sense of the term ‘liberalism’ [see
entry below], are simply the attitudes of liberals which favor certain
kinds of quite limited reforms within capitalist society, but no more than that! Of course we
revolutionaries also favor and promote struggles for reforms within capitalist society, but we do it not
merely to win those very partial, limited, and precarious reforms, but also—and even more importantly—as
a means of promoting the general struggle of the masses which can take on a revolutionary character in
times of extreme social crisis. (See: REFORMS—Struggles For)
Of course the ruling bourgeoisie does not like to make any concessions to the people, not even in the
form of extremely limited and temporary reforms. However, the bourgeoisie has discovered that it can in
certain ways make use of these “liberal sensibilities” or desires for small reforms, to promote
their own continued rule. (How clever of the bastards!)
The most common and persistent way they do this is
through fooling people into supporting their exploitative and oppressive social system through
enthusiastic participation in bourgeois elections. These basically
fradulent elections are held at regular intervals in bourgeois
democratic society, and for the primary purpose of fooling the masses into believing that they are in
charge of society (and thus are also themselves responsible for its horrible failings).
But there are also other ways in which the
capitalist-imperialist ruling class “exploits” (makes use of) liberal sensibilities in order to build
support for its international wars and economic exploitation. See the quotation below for one recent
example.
[The “ISAF”, mentioned in the following CIA report, refers to the International
Security Assistance Force, the formal name of the American imperialist military alliance which waged
war in Afghanistan from 2001 until 2021.]
“Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers
in humanizing the ISAF role in combatting the Taliban because of women’s ability to speak personally
and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their
fears of a Taliban victory. Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to
share their stories with French, German and other European women could help to overcome pervasive
skepticism among women in Western Europe towards the ISAF mission.” —CIA Analysis Report, March 11,
2010. Quoted in the London Review of Books, Sept. 9, 2021, p. 3.
[The CIA thus proposed to opportunistically use
one liberal sensibility, namely that women should have equality with men (which of course they
should), as a means of building support for the U.S. imperialist war in Afghanistan. And they
did indeed follow through with this plan, not only in Europe but worldwide. Even a decade later, as
the U.S. adventure in the country finally collapsed in defeat in August 2021, after 20 years of
imperialist war and murder, many liberals—including in the U.S. itself—were still being brought to
support the continued presence of American troops and the continuation of the war in
Afghanistan, because of the CIA campaign of publicization of the Taliban treatment of women. Liberals
are easily manipulated in this way because they only have a very narrow and limited reformist
perspective. Certainly Afghanistan is in dire need of social revolution, for a great many
reasons—including achieving real equality for women. But support for the domination of the country
by U.S. imperialism only adds another major obstacle to achieving this overall transformation in the
interests of the people. And even the full equality of women itself cannot possibly be achieved in
any bourgeois society! —S.H.]
LIBERALISM [Classical sense]
One of the primary and still widely dominant political ideologies of the ruling bourgeoisie in
capitalist society. The basic ideas arose with the development of capitalism, were further refined
in the 17th and 18th century (as for example in the very influential writings on political
philosophy by John Locke), and became fully elaborated in the 19th
century (especially in the works of Jeremy Bentham and
John Stuart Mill). Only as capitalism entered periods of
intensified crisis—such as during the 20th century with its Great
Depression in the 1930s and two ultra-destructive inter-imperialist world wars—did classical
liberalism come under major challenge by fascism as the best way to
ideologically manage capitalist society and maintain the class rule of the bourgeoisie.
In this broad classical sense of the term,
liberalism includes both those who call themselves “liberals” in the U.S. (in the
social-welfare sense) and also those who call themselves “conservatives”. Liberals in this
classical sense favor private (non-state) capitalism, generally with minimal levels of government
regulation, and ideally laissez-faire capitalism (though many
admit there needs to be some limited degree of government intervention or regulation at
times).
In politics classical liberals support
“pluralism” and multiple political parties as opposed to
authoritarian or fascist trends which call for more uniformity, centralism and rigid political
organization of the bourgeois ruling class, and for the total suppression of political parties
and organizations of other classes—especially the working class. However, there is much less
difference between liberals and fascists on these issues than is often supposed. The “multiple”
bourgeois parties under classical liberalism almost always agree on the most important issues for
the capitalist class and virtually always unite as one party when their class rule is threatened
by a rebellious working class or by another capitalist power. The plethora of separate “interest
groups” generally set their petty differences aside when confronted by the issue of their
continued class rule. And, most essentially of all, even when the ruling class is operating under
classical liberal ideology and institutions such as bourgeois
democracy, it will certainly ignore those ideas and institutions when it becomes “necessary”
to forcibly suppress any serious challenge to their continued control of society.
Classical liberalism is also contrasted with
social democracy (or so-called
democratic socialism), though these blend into each
other. In recent decades, in particular, social democracy has moved toward classical liberalism
to such a degree (by abandoning any call for bourgeois nationalization, for example), that there
is scarcely any difference at all between them any more.
LIBERALISM [Maoist sense]
Liberalism, in the Maoist sense, means individualist or self-centered or petty-bourgeois behavior
in contrast to the appropriate standards of political behavior for a communist. Its basic
tenets are elaborated in a famous essay by Mao himself, “Combat
Liberalism” (Sept. 7, 1937), SW 2:31-33, which is available in full at that link and also at
other locations on the Internet, including:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm
This article, though short, is a very important essay for Maoists to re-read periodically
as a personal reminder of the standards of political behavior which we expect of our comrades and
of ourselves.
Although this Maoist sense of the term ‘liberalism’
is somewhat different and much more specific than classical liberalism (see entry above) or
liberalism in the social welfare sense (see entry below), they all share the common focus
on bourgeois individualism and at least a partial indifference to the welfare and fate of other
people. Most of the characteristics of a person within our own ranks who we Maoists criticise for
liberalism are also characteristics of liberals in the other two senses as well, but in even more
extreme form in those other senses.
Some of the things which Mao calls liberalism may
be viewed as violations of the requirements of democratic
centralism, such as disobeying orders or flouting party discipline.
Other types of liberalism demonstrate a laziness
reflecting an indifference to the welfare of the masses. Such as letting things slide, working
half-heartedly, or with an “employee mentality”.
Many types of liberalism are ways of behaving
as if one were only a liberal and not a communist at all. Such as ignoring or papering
over serious differences and errors which are harmful and should be criticized.
And most types of liberalism in the Maoist sense
demonstrate a reluctance to fully engage in the absolutely necessary political struggle in
class society, not only directly against the enemy, but also against bourgeois ideas and activities
of the masses, of our comrades and also of our own selves and within each of us. Communists must
be people who are always willing to struggle against what goes against the interests of the
people and against what is therefore very wrong.
LIBERALISM [U.S. or “social welfare” sense]
A variety of liberalism in the classical sense, which sees
that capitalism does have some quite “unpleasant features” which—it absurdly believes—can be
reformed or regulated away. Liberals completely fail to understand that there is a capitalist
ruling class running society, and that little or no significant or lasting measures of reform
are possible under this system. In the U.S. bourgeois political system there has been little
electoral success since World War I for reformist movements calling themselves “socialist”. So
instead, U.S.-style liberalism is sort of a watered-down version of European
social democracy, which normally strongly avoids the word
‘socialism’. (Which is just as well since it is not genuine socialism
anyway!)
Just as social democracy has moved to the right
in Britain and Europe, so liberalism has moved to the right in the U.S. as the world capitalist
economic crisis has continued to develop. While the conservatives pioneered the wave of
neoliberalist domestic policies under Reagan, the liberal
Democratic party under presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama has mostly continued those very
same policies, including the destruction of the welfare system and the continuing destruction
of the labor union movement. Internationally, liberals are as promotive of U.S. imperialist wars
as are conservatives—and sometimes even more so. The recent liberal president, Barack Obama, was
at war with much of the world, just as the liberals John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson launched and
hughly extended the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia.
No matter what they may claim, liberal politicians
promote the interests of the capitalist ruling class—both domestically and in foreign affairs—just
the same as the conservatives do, and perhaps even more determinedly.
See also:
UTOPIANISM
“Though it is difficult to recall, there was a time when liberalism
was identified with cheerfulness.... At the high-water mark of its recent political
influence, liberalism is depressed, disappointed, deflated.” —Michael Gerson, a
bourgeois commentator, in the Washington Post; quoted in The Week, Oct.
8, 2010, p. 16. [Although Gerson himself seems to be a “moderate”, even most political
liberals themselves today show little confidence in their own perspective, and very
little enthusiasm or hope that a significantly better world will come about through the
implimentation of the policies of their elected leaders. They are suffering a crisis of
faith because of the long-term failure of their own program, and the obvious fact that
it has arrived at a dead end. —S.H.]
LIBERATION THEOLOGY
A movement that developed primarily in Roman Catholic countries during the world political
radicalizations of the 1960s, and is sometimes considered to be a form of Christian socialism.
It seeks to reinterpret Christian doctrine and activities from the perspective of the poor,
downtrodden and oppressed, and thus has a pro lower class political character as well as a
religious character. Theologians of this school view poverty itself as the result of sin,
the sin of exploitation by the capitalists and the sin of the class war that the rich wage
against the poor. Liberation theology was especially popular for a time in Latin American
countries which had formerly been colonies, and which it viewed as still suffering from
“post-colonial deprivation”.
One of the founders of liberation theology
was the Peruvian Dominican theologian, Gustavo Gutiérrez Merina (1928- ), who sought
to blend Marxism with Catholic social thought. His book, A Theology of Liberation:
History, Politics, Salvation (1971), was very influential among liberal Latin American
Catholics. Another influential work in this sphere was Liberation Theology, by the
Brazilians Leonardo and Clodovis Boff.
While basically just a Catholic reformist
movement there were a few cases of guerrilla warfare engaged in by renegade Catholic priests
and their associates. From the 1970s on liberation theology spread to some African countries,
where it focused on condemning apartheid and other forms of racism. Liberation theology also
inspired similar reformist trends such as Black theology, gay theology, etc. While liberation
theology still exists, especially in Brazil, it seems to have lost much of its original
radical force. In part this is due to the ferocious crackdown on this trend by
ultra-reactionary popes and the Catholic hierarchy.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask
why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” —Dom Hélder Câmara,
a Brazilian Archbishop.
LIBERMAN, Evsei Grigoreivich (1897-1981)
Soviet revisionist economist and a leading capitalist-roader
who created the plan for so-called “reforms” to the economy of the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Most
importantly he proposed that profits, along with sales levels, be used as the primary
indicator of enterprise success, and also that bonuses be paid to workers and management based on
the profit levels achieved. These proposed “reforms” were implemented in the USSR in 1965, in what
has been called either the Liberman Reform or the (First) Kosygin Reform (after Alexei Kosygin,
the new Soviet Premier after the overthrow of Khrushchev). Similar “reforms” were also implemented
in East Germany.
However, the Liberman Reform was quite unsuccessful
in revitalizing either of these increasingly moribund economies. This became completely evident by
the early 1970s. Instead of backing off, this led to further “reforms” in the direction of capitalist
market methods in 1973 and 1978, each of which made the Soviet economy even worse off.
Among Liberman’s works are:
• “Means to Raise the Profitability of the Socialist Companies” (Russian: 1956).
• “Plan, Benefit and Prisms”, published in Pravda (Russian: 1962),
which became the basis for the Soviet “reforms” of 1965.
• Economic Methods and the Effectiveness of Production,
English edition, 1973. The word ‘profit’ (or profitability, etc.) appears 180 times in this book! Available online at:
https://www.bannedthought.net/USSR/Economy-CapitalistEra/EconomicMethodsAndTheEffectivenessOfProduction-Liberman-1973-OCR-sm.pdf
LIBOR
The London Interbank Offered Rate, usually referred to just as LIBOR, was a benchmark short-term
interest rate for loans between banks overseas (especially in Europe), which are made in U.S.
dollars. The interest rates for Eurodollar and other loans made to corporations and individuals
was then based on (and normally higher than) the LIBOR rate, which meant that the LIBOR rate was
similar in function to the prime rate within the U.S., i.e.,
setting a floor on interest rates for those sorts of loans.
However, there was a major scandal which first
came to light in 2008 about the LIBOR rate when it was found that English and European banks
were rigging the rate in order to fraudulently increase their profits. For more than a decade
efforts were made to rehabilitate the LIBOR rating system despite continuing suspicions about
it. But finally, belatedly, in January 2022, this LIBOR system was finally euthanized by
regulators, and abandoned. [For more details see: “Libor, Hailed and Scorned,
is Dead at 52”, New York Times, Jan. 13, 2022.]
LIFE — Origin Of
Specific details surrounding the origin of life are appropriate to the sciences of chemistry
and biology, and not revolutionary science. But, as materialists we view the origin of
life as having been of necessity a natural process, based originally on natural chemical
and physical processes.
“With regard to the origin of life, therefore, up to the present,
natural science is only able to say with certainty that it must have been the result
of chemical action.” —Engels, Anti-Dühring (1878), MECW 25:68.
“If life and death cannot be transformed into each other, then please
tell me where living things come from. Originally there was only non-living matter on
earth, and living things did not come into existence until later, when they were
transformed from non-living matter, that is, dead matter.” —Mao, “Talks at a Conference
of Secretaries of Provincial, Municipal and Autonomous Region Party Committees” (Talk of
January 27, 1957), SW 5:368.
LIFETIME INCOME
The amount of money earned by a worker over his or her entire life. Because of the existence
of inflation in capitalist countries, to be of any practical use the value of lifetime income
must be stated as the sum of the constant (inflation-adjusted) dollars for each year’s income.
Unfortunately, the government-reported inflation rates understate the actual level of
inflation, especially for the lower sections of the working class. (See:
CONSUMER PRICE INDEX) This means that
calculations of lifetime income by bourgeois economists are actually somewhat invalid, since
not all of the actual inflation over the years is properly adjusted for.
Of more interest than the value of any
individual person’s lifetime income are the changes that occur in the average lifetime
incomes over time. The study below, though by bourgeois economists and summarized in rather
formal academic language, shows that the average lifetime incomes of American male workers today
has fallen considerably as compared to the similarly inflation-adjusted lifetime incomes of
workers in the past couple generations. This reflects both the growing exploitation of the
working class and the long-developing capitalist overproduction crisis (which began around 1973)
which is leading the bourgeoisie to do their utmost to take out their growing problems on the
backs of the working class.
“Using panel data on individual labor income histories from 1957 to 2013,
we document two empirical facts about the distribution of lifetime income in the United
States. First, from the cohort that entered the labor market in 1967 [1957?] to the cohort
that entered in 1983, median lifetime income of men declined by 10%-19%. We find little-to-no
rise in the lower three-quarters of the percentiles of the male lifetime income during
this period. Accounting for rising employer-provided health and pension benefits partly
mitigates these findings but does not alter the substantive conclusions. [Moreover, in
recent decades it is health and pension plans which are being cut back or eliminated in
the most rapid way. So, far from ‘mitigating’ the real income decline, this is now
worsening it! —Ed.] For women, median lifetime income increased by 22%-33% from the 1957
to the 1983 cohort, but these gains were relative to very low liftime differences in
income during the early years in the labor market. Partial life-cycle profiles of income
observed for cohorts that are currently in the labor market indicate that the stagnation
of lifetime incomes is unlikely to reverse. Second, we find that inequality in lifetime
incomes has increased significantly within each gender group. However, the [partially]
closing lifetime gender gap has kept overall lifetime inequality virtually flat. The
increase within gender groups is largely attributed to an increase in inequality at
young ages, and partial life-cycle income data for younger cohorts indicate that the
increase in inequality is likely to continue. Overall, our findings point to the
substantial changes in labor market outcomes for younger workers as a critical driver
of trends in both the level and inequality of lifetime income over the past 50 years.”
—Fatih Guvenen, Greg Kaplan, Jae Song, Justin Weidner, “Lifetime Incomes in the United
States over Six Decades” (summary), April 2017, online at:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23371?ulm_campaign=ntw&ulm_medium=email&ulm_source=ntw
[Because of the inadequate inflation adjustment mentioned in the introduction to this
entry, the situation is actually worse than these authors state; the real average lifetime
income for men has been falling even faster than they say, and the real average lifetime
income for the American working class as a whole is not just “stagnating”, but has actually
been significantly declining, and at a faster pace. They are correct, however, in
identifying the youngest workers as the greatest victims of this process. —Ed.]
LIMIT [Mathematics]
1. A number whose numerical difference from
the value of a mathematical function is arbitrarily small for all values of the independent
variables that are sufficiently close to but not equal to given prescribed numbers or that
are sufficiently large positively or negatively. [Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,
10th ed. (1993)]
2. A number that for an infinite sequence
of numbers is such that ultimately each of the remaining terms of the sequence differs from
this number by less than any given positive amount. [Ibid.]
A simple example of this second sort of
limit is the sequence 1/2, 3/4, 7/8, 15/16, 31/32, ... which, though it never quite reaches
the limit value of 1, becomes ever closer to it, with the difference between the value of
the terms and 1 becoming ever smaller.
The concept of a limit, though it initally
appears quite abstruse, is essential in formulating the differential and integral
calculus in a logically coherent manner.
LIN Biao [Old style: LIN Piao] (1908-71)
High-ranking military and political leader in revolutionary China who proved to be the
worst sort of careerist, and who betrayed the revolution and even attempted to assassinate
Mao.
Lin was born in Wuhan, in Hubei province,
and was the son of a factory owner. He was educated at the Wampoa Military Academy where
he became radicalized. When he graduated in 1926 he joined up with the Communist Party to
fight the Guomindang. He became commander of the Northeast People’s Liberation Army in
1945. In 1959 he was appointed Minister of Defense, and—apparently just for careerist
motives—made a very strong show of supporting Mao and opposing the capitalist-roaders
during the early years of the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution. This led to his appointment as the Vice-Chairman of the Party at the 9th
Party Congress in 1969, and Mao’s designated heir. But by 1971, Lin’s health was
deteriorating, and there were hints that he might be removed as Mao’s designated successor.
Fearing his personal grandiose career hopes were flitting away, and along with his son and
a few close supporters, he drew up a plan with the code name “Project 571” to assassinate
Mao during a train journey from Shanghai to Beijing, and then seize power in a military
coup. This plot was uncovered, and in September 1971 Lin tried to escape by air to the
revisionist Soviet Union. However, his plane crashed in Mongolia and he was killed.
In the years after his death a massive
political campaign to criticize Lin Biao together with Confucius took place in China.
There are indeed many lessons to be learned about how, especially after the seizure of
political power, the revolutionary proletariat must be alert for careerists and
unprincipled opportunists. Not only must communists be trained to be “honest and above
board” in putting forward their own views, but revolutionary parties must carefully avoid
awarding and promoting those who are mere opportunist toadies. “Yes men” are far more
dangerous to the revolution than those who at times honestly and openly disagree with the
party leadership. In reality, we should be highly suspicious of those who never
disagree with us! Either such people are just not thinking on their own, or else they
have ulterior motives for always agreeing with us. Either way, they should never be
promoted to high office in a revolutionary party or government.
See also:
ANTI-LIN BIAO, ANTI-CONFUCIUS CAMPAIGN,
SEPTEMBER 13 INCIDENT (1971)
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-65)
Sixteenth president of the United States who—because of the exigencies of the Civil
War—issued the Emancipation Proclamation which stated that as of January 1, 1863, all
slaves in states or parts of states then in rebellion were free. (Later the U.S.
Constitution was amended to make slavery illegal everywhere in the country.) Lincoln’s
central goal in the Civil War was to defeat the rebellion of the southern slave states
and hold the country together—and not to end slavery. However, in the midst of
that desperate war he understood that declaring the slaves free in the South and allowing
them to join the federal army would strike a major blow at the Confederacy. Lincoln did
oppose slavery, though he (along with most of the white ruling class power structure then
and still today) was also a racist himself. It was more the force of events as they
developed which led to the Emancipation Proclamation. This is an interesting example of
how someone whose own views are still quite backward in many respects can nevertheless
sometimes end up playing a quite positive historical role.
“I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of
bringing about the social and political equality of the white and black races
[applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of
negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white
people.
“And inasmuch as they cannot
so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and
inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position
assigned to the white race.” —Abraham Lincoln, campaigning in Illinois against
Stephen Douglas in a U.S. Senate race two years before being elected President.
Quoted in Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (1995), p.
184.
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I
would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it;
and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do
that. What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps
to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would
help to save the Union.... I have here stated my purpose according to my view of
official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal
wish that all men, everywhere could be free.” —Abraham Lincoln, letter of Aug. 22,
1862, to Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune; quoted in James W. Loewen, Lies
My Teacher Told Me (1995), p. 174.
“If slavery isn’t wrong, then nothing is wrong.” —Abraham Lincoln,
letter to Albert Hodges, April 4, 1864; quoted in James W. Loewen, ibid., p. 174.
“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the
fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor
is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has
its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied
that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital
producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community
exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor
themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large
majority belong to neither class—neither work for others nor have others working for
them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are
neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers
nor hired. Men, with their families—wives, sons, and daughters—work for themselves
on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to
themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or
slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle
their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy
or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class.
No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.” —Abraham
Lincoln, “1861 State of the Union Address”, Dec. 3, 1961, online at:
http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/historicspeeches/lincoln/stateoftheunion1861.html
[Many
“progressives”, social
democrats and revisionists like to quote those
first two sentences, but the whole passage here shows that Lincoln was by no means
anything like a Marxist. His views were more representative of the outlook of the
contemporary petty-bourgeoisie, which—as an independent lawyer—was indeed his own
objective class position. —Ed.]
“LINKS IN A CHAIN (Of DEVELOPMENT)”
On more than one occasion, Lenin referenced the importance of grasping the correct link in a chain
of development:
“... the whole of political life is an endless chain consisting of an infinite
number of links. The whole art of politics lies in finding and gripping as strong as we can the
link that is least likely to be torn out of our hands, the one that is most important at the
given moment, the one that guarantees the possessor of a link the possession of the whole
chain.” —Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?” (1902)
“... You must be able at each particular moment to find the particular link in
the chain which you must grasp with all your might in order to hold the whole chain and to
prepare firmly for the transition to the next link; the order of the links, their form, the
manner in which they are linked together, the way they differ from each other in the historical
chain of events, are not as simple and not as meaningless as those in an ordinary chain made by
a smith.” —Lenin, “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government” (1918)
LIQUIDATIONISM
1. The dissolution, termination or purposeful destruction of a revolutionary party
by those who are no longer revolutionaries, or the advocacy of such action. This has
sometimes been advocated by revisionists within socialist or communist parties on the
supposed grounds that social revolution is no longer necessary, and therefore that
revolutionary parties to lead such a revolution are no longer necessary. Obviously this
is an extreme form of right opportunism and betrayal of
the revolutionary goal.
2. The termination of the revolutionary struggle by those who have become revisionists
(whether or not this also involves formally dissolving the revolutionary party that had
been leading such a struggle). In many cases the revolutionary party is not actually
dissolved, but instead it is transformed into a reformist or other type of bourgeois
party.
“Liquidationism—an opportunist trend that spread among the
Menshevik Social-Democrats after the defeat of the 1905-07 Revolution [in Russia].
“The liquidators demanded the
dissolution of the illegal party of the working class. Summoning the workers to give
up the struggle against tsarism, they intended calling a non-Party ‘labor congress’
to establish an opportunist ‘broad’ labor party which, abandoning revolutionary slogans,
would engage only in the legal activity permitted by the tsarist government. Lenin and
other Bolsheviks ceaselessly exposed this betrayal of the revolution by the liquidators.
The policy of the liquidators was not supported by the workers. The Prague Conference
of the R.S.D.L.P. which took place in January 1912 expelled them from the Party.”
—Note 7, LCW 17.
LIU Shaoqi [Oldstyle: LIU Shao-ch’i] (1898-1969)
High ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party who during the period of socialism was
the leader of those in the Party taking the capitalist
road toward the restoration of capitalism in China. He was overthrown by the Maoist
revolutionaries during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Liu was born in Hunan Province to a
moderately rich, land-owning peasant family. He was educated in Changsha and Shanghai
(where he learned Russian). In 1921-22 he went to study in Moscow, and while there joined
the newly-formed CCP. He returned to China and became a labor organizer in Shanghai. His
orientation was always more toward the cities than the countryside. He was elected to the
CCP Politburo in 1934 and became its expert on matters of organization and Party structure.
In 1939 he wrote his notorious book on “self-cultivation”, How to Be a Good Communist.
In 1943 he became Secretary General of the Party, then Vice-Chairman in 1949. While Mao was
still Chairman of the CCP, Liu became Chairman of the People’s Republic of China in 1958
(i.e., head of state).
Liu advocated and did his best to institute
all sorts of “reforms” tending in the direction of restoring capitalism, such as promoting
production above political consciousness; financial incentives and bonuses (as opposed to
moral incentives); easing of the restrictions on the market economy (rather than tightening
them and steadily restricting the “law of value”); promoting
rewards for “loyal cadres” and special treatment for the children of high Party officials;
and, in general, promotion of a new privileged strata within the Party and State. As the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution developed in the mid 1960s Liu led the sly and
semi-camouflaged resistence to it. This had the effect of more and more turning the GPCR
against him and his minions as its primary target. In 1967 Liu was informally removed
from power, and in October 1968 he was formally “expelled from the Party forever, and
stripped of all his positions in and outside the CCP.” He died in November 1969 while
under house-arrest back in Hunan. In 1980 he was “rehabilitated” by Deng
Xiaoping’s gang of revisionists who seized control of the CCP after Mao’s death in
1976.
A sympathetic bourgeois biographer,
Lowell Dittmer, said of him: “Liu’s life may be viewed as an attempt to combine order with
revolution and equality with economic efficiency and technocratic values.” But for Liu
“order” meant a turn toward bourgeois rule, “equality” meant an end to class struggle, and
“efficiency and technocratic values” meant the capitalist marketplace. Liu Shaoqi was
not a personal opportunist; he was quite sincere and dedicated in his advocacy of
revisionism. He was all the more insidious and dangerous
to the cause of communist revolution because of this.
See also:
“BOMBARD THE HEADQUARTERS”
LIU Qing [Old style: LIU Ching] (1916-78)
Chinese revolutionary writer, born in Wubu County, Yulin, northern Shaanxi Province, originally
named Liu Yunhua. Liu is the author of numerous writings, including novels, short stories and
articles, most of which are still only available in Chinese. He joined the Chinese Communist
Party in 1936, at the age of twenty. Two of his novels have been translated into English.
Wall of Bronze, a fairly short book, enjoyed great popularity and was reprinted some
thirteen times in China from 1951 to 1976. The Builders, a much longer work, likewise
presents a fascinating, inspiring and deeply probing examination of daily life in a northern
Shaanxi village. (Both novels give the author’s name as “Ching.”)
“After the land was distributed among the tillers in the Land Reform
of the early fifties, two kinds of ‘builders’ appeared in China’s countryside. One wanted
to go it alone, to build up his family fortunes in the old way, looking out only for his
personal interests. The other wanted to build a society that would benefit all the people,
to form together, helping one another, advancing in stages from mutual-aid teams to
co-operatives, and on to more advanced forms. This novel describes the struggle between
these two trends.
“Liu Ching probes deeply into the
characters who populate his fascinating book: Liang Sheng-pao, the determined young
peasant who fights to make mutual aid a success; his father, old Liang the Third, who
wants only to build the fortunes of his own family; the pretty Kai-hsia, Sheng-pao’s
sweetheart, who is confused about her role in the new society; prosperous peasants who
connive to wreck the socialistic advance; poor peasants who rally round the standard that
is leading them forward ....” (from from the back cover of The Builders)
Both of these works leave no room for doubt that Liu was himself a “builder” of the socialist
road. Yet his life appears to have become deeply troubled during the Cultural Revolution. A
Chinese language wiki-style website provides some information (see
http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E6%9F%B3%E9%9D%92
[English translation needed]). Liu’s wife was killed, and he was put in prison from 1967
to 1969. In 1972, Zhou Enlai personally intervened to order that Liu be cared for; by this time,
however, he was already in poor health, and his powerful writing abilities had been disrupted
by emotional and physical strain. Liu died on June 13, 1978. Close to the people, an extremely
formidable observer and critic of bourgeois individualism and capitalistic tendencies, as well
as a champion of collectivism, hard work, self-reliance, initiative, daring, you name it —
virtually all of the social values of the Mao era — it stands to reason that he and his work
would have been thorns in the side of Mao’s opponents. Much remains to be learned from and about
Liu Qing. —JDL/XYJ
See also “A Writer’s Profile: Taking Roots Among
the People,” Peking Review, #38, Sept. 22, 1978, 15-17. Online at:
https://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1978/PR1978-38.pdf
“LIVING FROM PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK”
A pithy phrase that describes the economic situation of huge numbers of workers and families
in America and elsewhere in the world. Hundreds of millions of people have so little savings
and so little margin of error, that if they lose their jobs they become unable to pay their
mortgages or rent, or their car payments, or their credit card bills. Thus they quickly
become vulnerable to losing their homes or apartments, and cars and other possessions. And
in many cases they are forced to move in with their parents or friends, or of even being
forced to live out on the streets.
Bourgeois moralists say that this is the
fault of these people themselves, for “not saving for a rainy day”, for getting themselves
too deep into debt, and so forth. While it is true that people have not been saving money,
who is it that has been telling people that the good life is theirs for the taking and that
they should go out and spend all their money? The very same bourgeoisie. And while it is
true that people have gone way deeper into debt than they certainly should have, who has
told them that this is OK, and bent over backwards in order to make it easy for people to
do this? Again, the same bourgeoisie. To keep their system going the bourgeoisie absolutely
needs working-class people to spend their money and to go ever deeper into debt. In
effect, their economic system requires these things in order to function at all. But,
of course, this eventually leads to economic disaster and to real misery for the ordinary
people.
See also:
AMERICAN DREAM,
PRECARIOUSNESS OF THE PROLETARIAT,
PRECARIAT
“Even before the crisis hit, 70% of Americans were living from
paycheck to paycheck.” —John Hope Bryant, Bloomberg Businessweek, April 25,
2010, p. 68. This article claims, however, that this problem is mostly due to people’s
“financial illiteracy”, which is just another way of blaming them for the inherent
problem with the capitalist system—that workers are not (and cannot be) paid enough to
buy back all that they produce for the capitalists. —S.H.]
“50 percent of American households are so ‘financially fragile’ that
they say they certainly could not or probably could not come up with $2,000 to pay an
unexpected expense, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.” —Item from
the Wall Street Journal, reprinted in The Week, June 24, 2011, p. 20.
“In the United States, more than 60 percent of the work force lives
paycheck to paycheck. The average American is in five- to six-figure debt and often has
only cursory knowledge of how they got there.” —New York Times, National Edition,
May 12, 2024, p. 3. (Quote from the article Fire Your Job in the New York Times
Magazine in that issue.)