A Word From Comrade Mao on Bourgeois Elements

As Comrade Mao said many times throughout his life, the cause of Socialism cannot be secured, cannot be successful, unless bourgeois ideas, i.e., opportunism and reactionism, are weeded out from the movement and the party. As history has shown us time and time again, revolution is a long and arduous road with many roadblocks and other obstacles along the way, but internal elements often are the hardest to identify while being the most difficult to purge. Our revolution may be in its infancy, but still the bourgeois elements are propping themselves up amongst us, like carbon monoxide these ideas are invisible to the plain eye, and by the time you know they are there it’s already too late.

It is a most important task that we learn to identify and rid ourselves of bourgeois elements, ideas, and people who have decided to betray their class in the fight for liberation. Without this we are sure to lose the fight as we don’t, yet, have the power or numbers to battle against the bourgeoisie on two fronts, one of them being internal.

Ridding Ourself of Bourgeois Elements

When we speak of bourgeois elements, we are speaking of opportunism and reactionism. Let me explain these in simple terms: opportunism is when a proletarian, i.e., a member of the working class, betrays their class by working and siding with the bourgeoisie even though it is not in their best interest, because they are lulled away from revolution by a promotion, or a position of relative power, etc., while reactionism is encompassing of all conservative elements that are reactionary in nature, i.e., liberalism, conservatism, fascism, revisionism, etc., who pretend as though they are fighting for the working class; a most relevant example of reactionism in play is the American Communist Party which are nothing but liberals, conservatives, and neofascists who are doing the disgusting work of tricking the proletariat into joining them while they steal their money and waste their time.

The first task in identifying and purging bourgeois elements is to be able to do that with ourself. To let oneself continue on the path of revolution while clinging to bourgeois ideals is most disgraceful. Spotting these elements is not an easy task, but the best practice is on yourself. Think about your actions rather than your words—are you doing the work necessary of you in during this early stage of the revolution, do you find yourself in disagreement with the teaching of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao, are there actions that you take that put your class at a disadvantage, etc.?

Think deeply about yourself and your actions, always be willing to criticize yourself and take the advice of a comrade if they give it. None of us are perfect, but we all must be willing to learn at every given opportunity. Once you have identified these bourgeois wrongdoings, you must take action to rid yourself of those wrongdoings—whether they be thoughts or actions—, for that is the only way that we can become the revolutionaries that we must be in order to defeat the bourgeoisie.

Identifying and Criticizing Bourgeois Elements in Comrades

Once you have learned to spot and rid yourself of bourgeois elements, only then can you begin the important work of helping comrades rid themselves of these elements. As Mao says in “Combat Bourgeois Ideas in the Party”, once we see the inklings of bourgeois ideas in the movement, we must take haste to criticize them, for it is possible to help educate our comrades and get them to see the negatives of their actions or thoughts.

In this way, we can purge the bourgeois elements from the movement, but not rid ourselves of a potential good comrade. This is vital to a movement that is small in numbers, for we need as many good comrades as we can get. What is not acceptable, and must be completely ridden from the movement, is reactionism.

Parties like the American Communist Party and their cadres, reformists and revisionists, and all other parties or individuals who fail to rid themselves of their liberal, conservative, populist, or fascist ideals must be dealt with accordingly—they must not be allowed to poison the movement with their pernicious, destructive, and mistaken beliefs, ideas, and actions.

Why we Cannot Allow These Elements to Find a Stronghold in our Midst

As I have tried to show through my histories of the Russian Revolution and the failed German Revolution through contrasting a successful uprising with a failed one, the importance of holding party cadres to a strict ideological line is paramount. The German Communists failed before the revolution even began because the delegates of the KPD and USPD could not agree on the steps, the Communist KPD wanted to lead the mass body of workers, at least 500,000, in armed uprising against the liberal government that had betrayed the proletariat, while the moderates of the USPD wanted to negotiate with the government; this meant that the workers were without direction and were subsequently put down by the oppressive government.

Now compare that with the successful October Revolution led by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, under Lenin’s guidance, were the only party that refused to take part in the liberal provisional government, the only party that, at every step, refused to take part in a government that supported the imperialist World War I, the only party that showed through their actions that they were truly the party of the toilers, willing to represent their interests over the imperialist interests of the bourgeoisie. What this allowed them is a large and loyal base that grew exponentially within the year of 1917, all the way to the point of revolution where they were met with almost no initial resistance allowing them to take the capital in less than two days with minimal fighting.

We can see a clear difference in the organization of two revolutions, and, with that, two wildly different results. What we need to learn from both successful and failed revolutions is that the successful revolutions require the party members to be disciplined; they don’t allow bourgeois elements to poison the revolution, they help misguided comrades fix the error of their ways, and they adhere strictly to the principles of Marxism-Leninism. These three things are crucial to every revolution that has been won in history: the Russian Revolution, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. All of the previously stated movements followed those three necessaries as well as they could, and to that point they were able to succeed.

In our day and age, we must be even more strict. In the United States, there will no doubt be intruders from inside the government trying to infest us and interfere with the workers’ movement, there will be reactionaries, as there already are within the ACP, there will be moments of opportunism where comrades side against their class, as there already is within the labor aristocracy. It is our responsibility to ensure the working class takes power, and to do that, we must rid ourselves of reactionism and opportunism.

On Combating the Internal Bourgeoisie

We have learned that the importance of identifying and purging bourgeois ideas inside ourselves and others is of upmost importance. There is no successful revolution without doing this, without taking prudent action against these elements, without making certain that our ranks are filled with the most loyal and disciplined comrades who are prepared to lead the toiling masses in their struggle for power and freedom against the bourgeoisie. This task is not always an easy one, but it is a most important one, for without it we are doomed to fail before we even begin the revolution.

It is now, in its infant stages, that we must learn to identify these bourgeois elements and must begin the process of rooting them out of our comrades, or, if it must be, rooting those comrades who refuse criticism and refuse to change their ways from the movement. A mistake that has the potential to kill a revolution is to allow revisionism, opportunism, and reactionism when it has reached its latter stages and a physical power struggle is taking place.

We first learn how to do this by rooting these elements out of ourselves, doing this ensures that we are of the upmost capability to carry out the revolution and to spot and criticize these elements in other members. Everyone taking this action ensures that the entirety of the movement is disciplined and loyal to the principles of Socialism in the fight for liberation of the oppressed. This is not something that we can gloss over or dismiss as a secondary task, it is of the highest importance that we develop the successful revolutionary principles that have allowed other states to be toppled and Socialism to be built in place of capitalism: strictness within the movement, cadres that are educated and loyal to Marxist-Leninist principles, removal of reactionary peoples/ideas from the movement, criticism of opportunistic actions or thoughts taken by comrades that can be purged without their removal, and a belief in democratic-centralism allowing the goals of the party and movement to topple the goals of any one individual.

It is these principles that our past comrades have taught us and it is these principles that must be embraced fully by all cadres if we are to build a successful revolutionary movement of our own.

All glory to the revolution! All glory to the revolutionaries!

Thank you,

Comrade Drew