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name of peaceful coexistence that the oppressed people and nations should
give up their revolutionary struggle.” The general line of the socialist coun-
tries should be, in addition to striving for peaceful coexistence with capi-
talist countries, “support and assistance to revolutionary struggle of all the
oppressed peoples and nations.” In essence, the Proposal was a call for the
Soviet Union, at the head of the socialist camp, to give bolder support for
wars of national liberation in the “intermediate zone.” Moscow should not
pull away from such “proletarian solidarity” because of US threats, even
nuclear intimidation, nor out of fear of greater tension and confrontation
with United States imperialism.
Mao as Successor to Stalin as Helmsman
of the Communist Movement
CCP leaders, under the stern revolutionary supervision of Mao, took the ide-
ological debates with the CPSU very seriously. Ideology was not some sort
of post hoc justification for policies worked out after calculations of national
interest and power had been completed. A correct ideological analysis, as laid
out by the CCP under Chairman Mao’s guidance, was deemed the key to
political and thus historic success in the advance of humanity toward the
socialist-communist future. As recounted by the detailed memoir of Wu
Lengxi, CCP record-keeper on the polemical struggle with the CPSU, China’s
top leaders, Mao, Liu, Deng, Zhou, and the rest, spent a great deal of time
debating these polemics. Politburo or central leadership conferences debated
at length, for days on end, month after month, these various polemical state-
ments.^17 Mao participated actively in these meetings. He personally read and
commented on, frequently extensively, various theoretical statements. The
amount of time and energy devoted to developing these ideological polemics,
at a time when China was struggling to emerge from a catastrophic famine,
is amazing. Undoubtedly, it was Mao who dictated this focus on ideology. As
we have seen, even the top leaders who favored more production-oriented
policies felt compelled to join in the ideological chorus.
Mao saw himself as heir to Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin—the titans of
Marxism-Leninism. Lenin built his Bolshevik party on ideological debate.
These ideological battles worked: the tight revolutionary organization built
by Lenin succeeded in seizing power in 1917 and then creating history’s first
durable “proletarian state.” Stalin saw international power politics as a mani-
festation of class struggle, and like Lenin, fancied himself a theorist. From the
Leninist perspective, a successful revolutionary leader needed a correct theo-
retical analysis. Theory, ideology, was the key to historic success. With “cor-
rect” theory, all obstacles could be overcome, power seized, the revolutionary
reconstruction of society undertaken, socialism created, and the transition to