“Marxism is scientific truth and fears no criticism…. Carrying out the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend will not weaken, but strengthen, the leading position of Marxism in the ideological field…. [I]t is only by employing the method of discussion, criticism, and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas and overcome wrong ones, and that we can really settle issues.”
Mao Zedong
“On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”
February 27, 1957
When Mao launched the Hundred Flowers Campaign, China was in the throes of socialist construction. The distance between that time and now might call into question the validity of using that movement—the impetus for it, how it was carried out, what it achieved—as an example or model for what we hope to accomplish with the launch of our new journal, Material. However, because the ambition of Material is to foster the same kind of creative, non-sectarian, and sharply critical debate/discussion in what we might loosely call and broadly define as the “socialist camp,” we find the reference to be insightful and useful. What was at stake for China then was no less than the future of the socialist state and whether it would stagnate, fall into bureaucracy, allow the counter-revolutionary ideas to take hold in the superstructure, and propagate a road to capitalism. Our stakes today are different, but no less dire, and hampered by the lack of a socialist state with which to root our efforts.
We believe that today, what is lacking in the field of political and activist theory is a place for principled discussion and debate. On the one hand there is an impetus towards driving non-antagonistic contradictions among the revolutionary Left into antagonistic ones, undermining the possibility for principled unity. On the other hand, elements of the liberal left want to deny that there are meaningful antagonistic contradictions among the people in the interest of a false social democratic unity. Hence, the movement as a whole has become increasingly marginalized, opening the way for attacks from the Right, whose discourses about the so-called conspiracy of “wokeness,” the threat of “cancel culture,” and the Left’s supposed opposition to “free speech” are recycled variants of the anti-communist propaganda of yesteryear. This counter-insurgency in thought corresponds to very real material processes: the banning of critical histories from public and school libraries, the support of the most reactionary elements in the global peripheries, violent attacks on oppressed and exploited peoples.
Activists or intellectuals belonging to post-Marxist, anarchist, Trotskyist organizations, or those adhering to progressive, pro-people orientations also strive to address current problems. Some of these points of view may contribute to grappling with and grasping these problems. Material, through the determined adherence of its editorial team to Maoism, will be providing a platform for some of these viewpoints.
The Right’s counter-insurgency in thought cannot be left unopposed, and Material aims to help build the capacity for this opposition by carving out a space of insurgent thought where we can all learn from each other and, in struggling together, hopefully contribute to revolutionary theory and thereby assist in carrying out revolutionary practice. Our editorial framework is guided by a Maoist perspective, and because of this perspective, this journal is a platform for contending schools of thought with non-antagonistic contradictions. That is, a platform for revolutionary communist thought: the kind of thinking that agrees that capitalism cannot be reformed, that actual revolutionary work is required, and that collaboration with any kind of liberal or conservative thinking is exactly that: collaboration.
Material is a journal by and for revolutionary participants, rather than sequestered academics or intellectuals. However, writing in language with the content and purpose of engaging a readership that covers the span of revolutionary and proletarian intellectuals does not preclude the concept of rigor—rigor that is applied in ways that are useful and relevant—for our goal is what we believe to be the most important purpose in any action today: to be of use to those grappling with the tasks of changing the world.
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This inaugural issue of Material contains four original articles we found relevant for thinking our way through the current conjuncture. The authors do not come from identical theoretical traditions, though there is some overlap in their shared commitment to a non-dogmatic approach to revolutionary communism.
“Against Dogmatism, Against Historical Fetishism” by Omar Dekhili is an excerpt from a longer, book length project about the problematic of dogmatism. Many of us are familiar with the ways in which dogmatism creeps into the movement. Most from the Maoist tradition have witnessed the dogmatism of the Avakianites and, most recently, the cultishness of the Gonzaloites. But dogmatism and sectarianism is not a symptom of Maoism; it has emerged in a variety of Marxist movements. Dekhili’s article seeks to grasp the reasons for dogmatism’s manifestation as well as understand it as a proper phenomenon, in order to build movements inspired by past revolutionary experiences so as to realize their current goals, rather than stagnate in the habit of lamenting a fossilized past.
“The Marxist Framework and Attitude on Social Investigation and Class Analysis” by Dani Manibat is a position paper developed through discussions from within the milieu of Marxist and National Democratic youth organizers in the Philippines. Intended to sharpen a theoretical understanding from which to launch social investigation and class analysis [SICA], this article begins with the axiom that “without social investigation and class analysis, there can be no living and scientific revolutionary theory, and there can be no real revolutionary movement.” We whole-heartedly agree with this assessment and hope readers find this text readily useful in their organization work.
“Notes for a Critique of Dimitrov, the Orthodox Line on Fascism, and the Popular Front Strategy” by D. Z. Shaw is a critical examination of the traditional Dimitrov analysis of fascism and an argument for the “Three Way Fight” analysis developed by Marxists who came out of the New Communist Movement and anarchists. Due to the contemporary fascist resurgence and the growing unity between reactionary movements, discussing and thinking our understanding of fascism is necessary. Although some readers who uphold Dimitrov’s analysis might not be convinced by the “Three Way Fight” analysis, it will hopefully challenge them, while also providing a useful exposition of an important current of anti-fascist thought. Moreover, Shaw’s article is driven by a committed anti-fascist ethos: what is most important about analyzing fascism is, in the last instance, generating a practice for fighting it.
T. Derbent’s “Lenin and the War” is the first part of an extended essay, the second part of which will be in the next issue of Material. Some readers might be familiar with Derbent’s larger body of work, which is largely focused on the analysis of revolutionary strategy. This particular article considers Lenin’s use of Clausewitz, and how this use informed his understanding of strategy and tactics. As with his work in general, here Derbent is focused on the need for revolutionary movements to develop coherent military strategies if they seek to overthrow capitalism.
Along with these original articles, we have added a fifth article by Mao Zedong: “A Dialectical Approach to Inner-Party Unity.” We chose this short piece because it provides a succinct description of how to differentiate between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, which in some ways is the theme of this inaugural issue and part of the impetus behind the launch of this journal. In every issue we plan to include an article from the past that we feel is relevant today.
We have also included art by Filipino artist Brayan Barrios and poetry by Inuk author Jamesie Fournier, by the late Indian poet and songwriter Gaddar, and by Belgian writer W. Muncer. In the future we hope to include more arts and culture selections (including fiction and literary essays) as we believe in the importance of the cultural sphere for any living revolutionary movement.
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Currently the production of issues of Material will function on an ad hoc basis. Although the hope is to build up a “slush pile” of submissions (please see our submission guidelines at the back of this issue), and thus turn it into a quarterly, at the moment, successive issues will be released when we have accumulated enough articles. Moreover, since quality and rigor is important to us, we need to have more than just a simple slush pile. Although we are not attempting to replicate academic standards, we have done our best to balance an appreciation of scholarship with an appreciation for organizational practice. That is, while we are not abiding strictly to academic oversight, we are still drawing on some elements of peer-review—with the “peers” being comrades and fellow travelers with a good combination of being “red and expert”—to assure some level of quality. The composition of our Advisory Board should explain the kind of peer reviewing and scholarly oversight to which we are committed: Sonny Africa, the executive director of the IBON Foundation; Amit Bhattacharyya, journalist and retired professor of history at Jadavpur University; Julie de Lima, chairperson of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines Peace Panel; K. Murali, author and scholar; Steven Osuna, professor in the department of Sociology at the California State University – Long Beach; and Larissa Wynn, proletarian feminist activist. Their consultation and continued advisory contribution has been and will be invaluable.
In any case, we hope to reach a point in Material’s publication where we can put out calls for special themed issues and transform it into a periodical with a more frequent and regular release schedule. Until then, happy reading!
D. Jin
J. Moufawad-Paul
M. Van Herzeele