On the Birthday of Comrade Mao Zedong: Revolution, Errors, and the Dialectic of Socialist Continuity

By Bisharat Abbasi

Today we commemorate the birth of Comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893- 1976) one of the greatest revolutionary figures of the twentieth century and a giant of anti-imperialist history. Mao was not merely a Chinese leader; he was a world-historical figure who fundamentally altered the global balance of forces by smashing semi-colonial subjugation, defeating imperialism and feudalism, and founding the People’s Republic of China in 1949. For the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Mao’s victory demonstrated that imperialism was not invincible and that the peasantry, under proletarian leadership, could become a revolutionary force. Without Mao, there is no New China; without Mao, there is no Chinese sovereignty; without Mao, there is no socialist road in the most populous country on earth.

Mao’s achievements are monumental and cannot be erased by bourgeois propaganda or “left” idealist moralism. He unified a fragmented, colonised, and war-torn China; expelled Japanese imperialism; defeated comprador capitalism and landlordism; carried out land reform that liberated hundreds of millions of peasants; built an independent industrial base under siege; established China’s political sovereignty; and ensured that China would never again be humiliated by imperialist powers. Mao also made lasting theoretical contributions to Marxism by creatively applying dialectical and historical materialism to the concrete conditions of a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society. His emphasis on mass line, contradiction, and revolutionary praxis enriched Marxism as a living science rather than a dogma.

At the same time, Marxism is not a religion, and Mao is not a prophet. Socialism advances not through blind worship but through criticism and self-criticism, correction, and development. Mao himself repeatedly insisted that contradictions exist under socialism and that mistakes are inevitable in a long historical transition. The Great Leap Forward and especially the Cultural Revolution contained serious errors; errors that disrupted productive forces, weakened institutions, and at times confused revolutionary vigilance with political chaos. These mistakes were real, material, and costly, and to deny them is to betray Marxism itself.

Here lies the historical greatness of Comrade Deng Xiaoping. Deng did not take the Khrushchevite path of liberal denunciation and historical nihilism. He did not demonise Mao in order to dismantle socialism, nor did he weaponise Mao’s errors to justify capitulation to imperialism. Instead, Deng upheld a dialectical evaluation that remains a model of Marxist maturity: Mao was 70 percent correct and 30 percent mistaken. This formulation was not a slogan; it was a scientific judgement aimed at preserving revolutionary legitimacy while correcting historical errors.

Unlike Khrushchev, who used Stalin’s mistakes to liquidate proletarian dictatorship and open the door to capitalist restoration, Deng Xiaoping defended Mao’s revolutionary core while decisively correcting the errors that had emerged in a specific historical phase. Deng restored collective leadership, rebuilt institutions, re-centred economic development as the primary task, and reoriented socialism towards the liberation and expansion of productive forces—the very material foundation of communism that Marx emphasised. Deng understood that poverty is not socialism, that egalitarian misery is not revolutionary virtue, and that without development, sovereignty itself becomes hollow.

The dialectical continuity between Mao and Deng is not a contradiction but a dialectical unity. Mao made China stand up; Deng made China develop. Mao secured political independence; Deng ensured material strength. Mao founded socialism under conditions of siege; Deng defended socialism under conditions of reform and opening. This is why China did not collapse like the Soviet Union, why it did not surrender to neoliberal shock therapy, and why it remains the most significant anti-imperialist force in the contemporary world system.

To honour Mao today is not to freeze history in 1966, nor to romanticise chaos in the name of “permanent revolution.” It is to understand Mao historically, defend his revolutionary essence, acknowledge his mistakes without liberal hysteria, and recognise Deng Xiaoping’s indispensable role in correcting those mistakes without destroying socialism itself. This is Marxism as science, not as theology; as praxis, not as moral spectacle.

For the Global South, Mao and Deng together represent a profound lesson: national liberation, socialist transition, and economic development are inseparable moments of a single historical process. Those who separate them—whether liberal imperialists or ultra-left idealists—serve reaction, not revolution.

On this day, we salute Comrade Mao Zedong for giving China dignity and independence, and Comrade Deng Xiaoping for ensuring that socialism did not perish in dogma but advanced through correction, development, and historical wisdom.

Long live Marxism-Leninism.

Long live socialist China.

History is not neutral—and it is not finished.

Bisharat Abbasi — M.Phil Philosophy Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Sindh (Pakistan). Research interests: Marxism, Marxism–Leninism, Third World Marxism, and Postcolonial Studies from a Global South, anti-imperialist perspective.