Hi! Long time lurker, first time poster. Been discussing stuff with MLs of all stripes recently, and have come across a common statement used by a lot of Maoists which frustrates me.
They seem to always fall back on statements like "The CPC allows billionaires in their ranks, so they are revisionist."
Maoists have often used this as a kind of "gotcha" argument against more traditional MLs, or "Dengists" as they love to label us.
It's frustrating, because...I don't disagree really, allowing members of the bourgeoisie to hold political power is pretty much the definition of revisionism. The problem is, this feels more like a way to silence dissent or discussion rather than facilitate it. Feels like an overly simplistic hard line that simplifies history into binary divisions. Often followed by an implied "China is revisionist, therefore Maoism is the only working form of socialism."
I'm reaching out to people to see if anyone has any ways to combat this, in a way that encourages discussion rather than it just devolving into insults or truisms hurled back and forth without thought.
Perhaps a little strangely, this paragraph evoked in me the memory of "All Cops Are Bastards (Including "Socialist" Ones!)" discourse I was subjected (and sometimes contributed) to in online anarchist circles.
An example of what I'm talking about
All virtue signaling and no substance beyond sloganeering. All cops means all cops! Wow, so true! The cool-ass slogan says "all cops", why wouldn't that include north Korean or Chinese cops?
As if "police" serve nearly the same function under a dictatorship of the proletariat as they do under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The nonsense 'police protect the interests of capital and private property, that is their sole purpose'... I've heard it often from those aforementioned anarchists. Extrapolating the roles and actions of the Amerikan police onto the socialist world is just another example of the ultra (and the orientalist)'s incredible aptitude for projection.
Sorry, fellow Amerikans! The rest of the world is not so fucking savage as we are. DPRKorean police actually serve the people, you know, like law enforcement should in civilized society? Chinese police protect striking workers!
Amerikan cops are the ones murdering black folk en masse, not Chinese ones, not Iranian ones, not Korean ones, not Russian ones... take your "all cops" and shove it.
edit: (ACAB is still a good slogan tho and all Amerikan cops most certainly are, even the kindest ones)
Exactly! I could not have said it better myself.