Part II: A Summary of Mao’s Criticisms of Stalin by Topic

The task now is to sum up Mao’s criticisms of Stalin in all the above comments. It should first be recognized that there are clearly some important changes of viewpoint over time, and even some outright inconsistencies if the changes of views over time are not allowed for.
Moreover, a few early statements by Mao sound almost religious in their devotion, such as that “Stalin is the savior of all the oppressed” and “Comrade Stalin is the leader of the world revolution. This is an extremely important circumstance. Among the whole human race, this man, Stalin, has appeared, and this is a very great event. Because he is there, it is easer to get things done. As you know, Marx is dead, and Engels and Lenin too are dead. If there were no Stalin, who would give the orders?” [Both quotes are from Mao’s “Speech at a Meeting of All Circles in Yan’an to Commemorate Stalin’s Sixtieth Birthday” (Dec. 21, 1939)] Was this sort of grossly excessive praise and obeisance toward Stalin necessary in the international communist movement at that time? If so, this is in itself a very strong implicit criticism of Stalin. At any rate, by 1957 Mao was saying that Stalin’s “personality cult was metaphysics; no one was permitted to criticize him.” [“Speech at the Congress of Communist Parties and Workers’ Parties in Socialist Countries” (Nov. 18, 1957)] That’s quite a different point of view!
Nevertheless, despite some changes in views over the years—mostly, it seems, in a considerably more critical direction—there is still a more or less unified general critical evaluation of Stalin that Mao presents in most of these collected comments. These, we feel, are the main themes:
While Stalin kept to a materialist stance in philosophy, his understanding and application of dialectics was much more uneven. He failed to recognize the centrality of the concept of contradiction in dialectics, and often failed to recognize the existence of important social and class contradictions.
Specifically, Stalin failed to understand that even after the collectivization of agriculture class contradictions still existed in the countryside, and class struggle would continue there.
And more generally, Stalin failed to recognize that even after the basic construction of socialism in the USSR, class struggle still continued, and the contradiction between the socialist and capitalist roads still continued—not only in society generally, but also within the Communist Party.
Because of this lack of appreciation of the continuation of class struggle in socialist society, Stalin tended to reduce the threat of capitalist restoration within the USSR to just the possibility of armed attack by foreign imperialism (though that was indeed a legitimate and serious worry).
Within the USSR, Stalin had a “paternalistic” approach toward the masses, and sought to change and run society for them, instead of using the mass line method of mobilizing the masses to change and run society for themselves. Stalin did not use the mass line either in politics or in economic work.
Specific examples: Stalin failed to rely on the masses in suppressing counter-revolutionaries and enemy agents, instead relying almost entirely on the security agencies to do this. Similarly, Stalin failed to rely on the masses to ward off the danger of a general capitalist restoration. Even in economic work he tended in later years to rely more on cadres and technology than on the masses.
Stalin confused contradictions among the people with the contradictions between the people and the enemy. Specifically, he unjustly imprisoned or executed a great many people.
Within the Soviet Union, the CPSU and the International Communist Movement, Stalin insisted on complete obedience from everyone, and would brook no criticisms from anyone. He was suspicious and mistrustful of those whose complete obedience and total agreement he questioned.
In his relations with other countries, including China, Stalin often acted as a “great nation chauvinist”, and even at times like an imperialist might act.
Stalin promoted the construction of an inappropriate and metaphysical personality cult around himself as an individual. [This criticism is unfortunately somewhat ironic, given that Mao later did this as well!]
In economics, Stalin seriously neglected agriculture and light industry, and put lopsided emphasis on heavy industry.
Similarly, Stalin gave insufficient attention to raising the living standards of the masses (especially the peasants).
Stalin seemed to be at a loss as to how to transform cooperative production in agriculture into state production, and how to transform the peasantry into agricultural workers.
More generally, after the early transformations of industry and agriculture, Stalin seemed to resign himself to the continuation of the existing relations of production and did not try to further transform them in the direction of communism.
Stalin did not show sufficient vigilance in the period before the German attack on the Soviet Union, and grossly miscalculated as to when that attack might occur. Nevertheless he did successfully lead the Soviet Union and the world in defeating Hitler.
On the other hand, Stalin tended to be too frightened of the imperialist powers, way too cautious, and even attempted to prevent revolutions in other countries because he feared they might lead to the involvement of the USSR in a war. At several key points, he even tried to prevent the Chinese Revolution from proceeding.
Stalin did not do a good job in training and preparing his successors. (This, alas, also turned out to be true of Mao.)
If Mao had all these (and more) serious criticisms of Stalin, then why did he regularly repeat his “70% good, 30% bad” overall evaluation of the man? There seems to be two reasons: First, Stalin really did have some important positive aspects and really had led the Soviet Union to a number of important advances and victories. Among these were the massive and extremely rapid industrialization of the country; the completion of the socialization of industry; the collectivization of agriculture (though this was done in a very brutal way); and the victory over the horrendous attack by Nazi Germany (despite his lack of vigilance ahead of the German attack).
Secondly, Mao felt that while Stalin should in fact be criticized for his errors, that it was wrong to “knock him off in one blow”. What exactly was he getting at here? Mao evidently felt that after such a long period of undiluted praise and glorification of Stalin and the Soviet Union while he was in charge, the sudden total denunciation of him and the exposure all at once of the many major problems, mistakes and even crimes during the Stalin period, would all lead to tremendous disorientation on the part of many communists and their supporters around the world. And this is in fact what happened. Many western parties, as Mao later noted, lost huge numbers of members and much of their influence in the aftermath of Khrushchev’s not-really-so-secret total denunciation of Stalin.
Mao tended to emphasize praise and support for Stalin in his public statements, though he did openly acknowledge that Stalin had made some serious errors. This may have been so that people would have time to reorient themselves about the Stalin era and not lose heart because of Khrushchev's revelations. It was probably also due in part to the growing need to reaffirm Marxist principles and traditions in opposition to Khrushchev's ever-more-evident revisionism. On the other hand, at meetings with leading Party cadres, Mao's remarks tended to focus more on a variety of specific criticisms of Stalin, in philosophy, in political economy, with regard to Stalin's political leadership and his leadership of the international communist movement, and with regard to his attitude and behavior toward the Chinese revolution. While Mao still often repeated that Stalin should be upheld in the main, in these more private meetings most of his comments about Stalin were quite critical, and seem to have become more critical as time went on, partly in light of the unfolding experience of the Chinese revolution.
Sources
CMTTP
Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talks and Letters: 1956-1971, ed. by Stuart Schram, (NY: Pantheon, 1974).
CSE
A Critique of Soviet Economics, by Mao Tsetung, translated by Moss Roberts, (Monthly Review Press, 1977). With one exception, only passages directly referencing Stalin have been selected. But much of the rest of the material in this volume is also quite relevant in considering Mao’s attitude toward Stalin and the Soviet Union of the Stalin era. The documents here were written after Stalin’s death, and the Soviet textbook Mao was criticizing was also published after Stalin’s death. However, while the revisionists had seized political power in the USSR, the economic relations and the economic theories in place throughout the 1950s were still pretty much the same as in Stalin’s time.
MRP6-7
Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949, ed. by Stuart R. Schram, (M. E. Sharpe, 1992- ). As of 2006 the first 7 of 10 projected volumes in have been published. The first 5 volumes do not seem to contain any relevant direct comments on Stalin.
NE
*The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng, by Harrison E. Salisbury, (NY: Avon Books, 1992).
SSCM
The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward, ed. by Roderick MacFarquhar, Timothy Cheek, & Eugene Wu, Harvard Contemporary China Series: 6, The Council on East Asian Studies/Harvard University, (Harvard University Press, 1989).
SW1-3
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vols. I-III, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965).
SW4
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. IV, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961).
TMT
The Thought of Mao Tse-tung, by Stuart Schram, (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
UP
*Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War, by Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, (Stanford University Press, 1993).
WMZ1
The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. I, September 1949-December 1955, ed. by John K. Leung & Michael Y. M. Kau, (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1986).
WMZ2
The Writings of Mao Zedong 1949-1976, Vol. II, January 1956-December 1957, ed. by John K. Leung & Michael Y. M. Kau, (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1992).
Note: The items above marked with an asterisk should probably be considered somewhat less certain and reliable than the other sources listed.