Skip to content

The Principal Contradiction

Metadata

Highlights

workers have been thoroughly analyzed. What is expected of them has been determined by the demands of capital. Capitalist management systems are methodical executions of power over the labor force and work equipment. — location: 192 ^ref-63681

Discipline is the form that power takes in capitalist society. Without it, capitalist society cannot function. — location: 203 ^ref-13961

Like liberalism, socialist ideas and practices were backed by scientific theories, Marxist ones among them. — location: 215 ^ref-17121

With Lenin, dialectical materialism became synonymous with Marxism and was taken up by communist parties as a practical tool for analysis and strategic planning. — location: 247 ^ref-17062

For Mao, the revolutionary process was characterized by waves; setbacks on the long road to socialism were followed by steps forward, — location: 305 ^ref-54729

In a society of growing contradictions, it is not the revolutionary process that the CPC prioritizes, but harmony and stability. — location: 307 ^ref-19758

dialectical materialism is indeed the science of revolution. — location: 311 ^ref-64183

Circumstances in China weren’t all that different. The revolutionaries needed to break the chains that hindered the development of the productive forces. — location: 591 ^ref-15387

the fact that whenever a man was necessary he has always been found: Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, etc. … — location: 603 ^ref-24004

in studying any complex process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must devote every effort to finding its principal contradiction. Once this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved. — location: 620 ^ref-12131

According to the theory, the two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, were fighting for world domination. China saw the Soviet Union as the more aggressive of the two powers. The Soviet Union was no longer just “revisionist,” it was “social imperialist.” It was so dangerous that the Third World had to side with the Second World in supporting the USA in its fight against Soviet imperialism. — location: 659 ^ref-38874

by embracing the slogan “my enemy’s enemy is my friend,” China supported anti-Soviet movements in the Third World, even if they were allied to the USA. — location: 663 ^ref-61256

national interests of the socialist countries got in the way of having a common strategy against US imperialism in the 1960s and 70s. Their quarrels weakened the anti-imperialist movements that were shaking the world at the time. — location: 667 ^ref-56122

China was wrong in declaring the Soviet Union to be the aggressive and most dangerous “aspect” of what it regarded as the era’s principal contradiction: “USA vs. the Soviet Union.” China had allowed its national, as well as regional, contradictions to determine its analysis of the principal contradiction. — location: 669 ^ref-8827

national and regional contradictions must always be analyzed in light of the principal contradiction — location: 671 ^ref-39989

it is pointless to apply Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, which is based on the contradiction between colonial powers and colonies, to our situation, because this contradiction no longer exists. — location: 675 ^ref-14205

at certain times and places in capitalism’s development other contradictions have been more important in determining capitalism’s course. — location: 681 ^ref-10116

Capitalism’s crisis opened a “window of opportunity” between 1965 and 1975. Capitalism was vulnerable and radical change seemed possible. But the revolutionary movement was too fragmented: the Soviet Union and China were divided by political and ideological quarrels, the national liberation struggles were not able to unite, the newly independent countries of the Third World could not break the monopolies and escape the world market, and the New Left never managed to mobilize broad popular forces against imperialism, — location: 1426 ^ref-9223

China also exemplifies one of the world’s most important contradictions today, namely, the contradiction between the USA’s attempt to maintain its hegemony and the rest of the world’s attempt to strengthen national independence. — location: 1511 ^ref-55796

The contradiction between neoliberalism and nationalist governments has been the world’s principal contradiction since the financial crisis of 2007–08. — location: 1522 ^ref-37788

83 China, for example, uses plenty of energy and raw materials, but most of what China produces is exported to the USA, Europe, and Japan. It is the consumers in these countries who bear much of the responsibility for China’s carbon emissions. — location: 1648 ^ref-2596

this kind of Keynesianism is catastrophe-driven: it is only once the catastrophe is in full swing that capital calls upon the state to intervene, by which point it is too late to avoid severe consequences. — location: 1695 ^ref-1512

In order to create change, we must mobilize, organize, develop effective practices, and form alliances across social movements and national borders. In short, we need to develop an adequate strategy. — location: 1734 ^ref-18780

What all forms of material support have in common is that they can be put to immediate and concrete use. — location: 1822 ^ref-8459

We were so preoccupied with our analysis of the anti-imperialist aspect and of imperialism’s impact on the Third World that we forgot to analyze what was going on in the center. — location: 1850 ^ref-18732

The “capital vs. the state” contradiction replaced “USA vs. the socialist bloc” and “imperialism vs. anti-imperialism” as the world’s principal contradiction. — location: 1854 ^ref-5241

Glasnost and perestroika lead to the dissolution of the socialist bloc under neoliberalism’s economic, political, and military pressure. — location: 1873 ^ref-13105

Different movements have since tried to apply “Maoism” as a universal concept, but this is not a feasible approach either. — location: 1889 ^ref-35438

we must analyze the specific expressions of contradictions whenever and wherever we wish to be active. — location: 1890 ^ref-27532

current protest movements are often short-sighted and reformist; they demand jobs, cheaper gas and cell phones, a new government, a different president, or liberal reforms. Very rarely do they target the root problem: capitalism. — location: 1908 ^ref-31720

There is a need for socialist visions for the twenty-first century. And there is a need for organizations capable of realizing them. — location: 1910 ^ref-29391

the protesters’ criticism of China is not anti-capitalist or socialist. If it was, they wouldn’t have the West’s support. Most protesters criticize China from a liberal perspective. — location: 1928 ^ref-26049

I have often heard the argument that the best way to fight imperialism is to fight the capitalists in one’s own country, that when you weaken capital at home you are contributing to the global anti-imperialist struggle. But this is not how things work in the world of globalized capitalism. — location: 1946 ^ref-47090