--- On Mon, 8/3/09, Sujeet Bhatt <sujeet.bhatt at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Sujeet Bhatt <sujeet.bhatt at gmail.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Maoists not communists: Karat
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Monday, August 3, 2009, 3:09 AM
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/City/Kolkata-/Maoists-not-communists-Karat/articleshow/4844046.cms
>
> The Times of India
>
> Maoists not communists: Karat
[WS:] This point has a broader appeal that goes well beyond local Indian politics. Maoism is essentially a form of peasant populism closer to what Barrington Moore dubbed "catonism" (_Social origins of dictatorship and democracy_) than to communism in the Marxian sense.
The key difference is the power base - for communism it is industrial proletariat an urban white collar workers, for Maoism - it is peasantry. Marxist communism strove to build a modern industrial society sans bourgeoisie and bourgeois property relations. Maoism, otoh, strove for a rural society sans landowners and urban influences. The ultimate expression of Maoism was Pol Pot's policies of depopulating cities and forcibly removing their population to the countryside.
For that reason, Maoism is fundamentally a regressive if not reactionary movement - it its detrimental to the establishment of modern urban, industrial democracy. Instead, it tries to create a rural utopia by extolling mythical moral virtues of peasant life, just like reactionary 'catonists' did.
Wojtek