Superphysics
Imperialism And All Reactionaries Are Paper Tigers
8 minutes • 1521 words
All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying. But in reality they are not so powerful.
From a long-term point of view, it is the people who are really powerful, not the reactionaries.
"Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong" (August 1946), SelectedWorks, Vol. IV, p. 100.The law of the unity of opposites states that everything has a dual nature.
Imperialism and all reactionaries also have a dual nature.
- They are real tigers and paper tigers at the same time.
Historically, the slave-owning class, the feudal landlord class, and the bourgeoisie [capital owners] were vigorous, revolutionary, and progressive before they gained state power, and for some time afterwards.
- They were real tigers.
But after some time, because their opposites grew in strength step by step.
- These were the slave class, the peasant class, and the proletariat [working class]
- These struggled more fiercely.
These ruling classes changed step by step into the reverse. They changed into reactionaries and became backward people into paper tigers.
Eventually they were overthrown, or will be overthrown, by the people.
The reactionary, backward, decaying classes retained this dual nature even in their last life-and-death struggles against the people.*
Superphysics Note
On the one hand, they were real tigers. They devoured people by the tens of millions.
The cause of the people’s struggle went through a period of difficulties and hardships. Along the path there were many twists and turns.
To destroy the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism in China took the Chinese people more than 100 years and cost them tens of millions of lives before the victory in 1949.* Look!
Superphysics Note
Were these not living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers? But in the end they changed into paper tigers, dead tigers, bean-curd tigers.
These are historical facts. Have people not seen or heard about these facts?
There have been tens of thousands of them! Hence, imperialism and all reactionaries, looked at in essence from a long-term strategic point of view must be seen for what they are – paper tigers.*
Superphysics Note
On this we should build our strategic thinking.
On the other hand, they are also living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers which can devour people. On this we should build our tactical thinking.*
Superphysics Note
All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. This is because they are divorced from the people. Hitler was a paper tiger and was overthrown.
The tsar of Russia, the emperor of China and Japanese imperialism were all paper tigers. They were all overthrown.
U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.
Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (November 18, 1957).“Lifting a rock only to drop it on one’s own feet” is a Chinese folk saying to describe the behaviour of certain fools.
The reactionaries in all countries are fools of this kind. In the final analysis, their persecution of the revolutionary people only serves to accelerate the people’s revolutions on a broader and more intense scale.
Did not the persecution of the revolutionary people by the tsar of Russia and by Chiang Kai-shek perform this function in the great Russian and Chinese revolutions?
"Speech at the Meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. in Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution" (November 6, 1957).U.S. imperialism invaded China ’s territory of Taiwan and has occupied it for the past nine years. A short while ago it sent its armed forces to invade and occupy Lebanon.
The United States has set up hundreds of military bases in many countries all over the world. China ’s territory of Taiwan, Lebanon and all military bases of the United States on foreign soil are so many nooses round the neck of U.S. imperialism.
The nooses have been fashioned by the Americans themselves and by nobody else, and it is they themselves who have put these nooses round their own necks, handing the ends of the ropes to the Chinese people, the peoples of the Arab countries and all the peoples of the world who love peace and oppose aggression.
The longer the U.S.aggressors remain in those places, the tighter the nooses round their necks will become.
Speech at the Supreme State Conference (September 8, 1958).Imperialism will not last long because it always does evil things. It persists in grooming and supporting reactionaries in all countries who are against the people, it has forcibly seized many colonies and semi-colonies and many military bases, and it threatens the peace with atomic war.
Thus, forced by imperialism to do so, more than 90 per cent of the people of the world are rising or will rise up in struggle against it. Yet imperialism is still alive, still running amuck in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In the West, imperialism is still oppressing the people at home. This situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism.
Interview with a Hsinhua News Agency correspondent (September 29, 1958).Riding roughshod everywhere, U.S. imperialism has made itself the enemy of the people of the world and has increasingly isolated itself.
Those who refuse to be enslaved will never be cowed by the atom bombs and hydrogen bombs in the hands of the U.S. imperialists.
The raging tide of the people of the world against the U.S. aggressors is irresistible. Their struggle against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys will assuredly win still greater victories.
"Statement Supporting the Panamanian People's Just Patriotic Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism" (January 12, 1964), People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All Their Lackeys, 2nd ed., pp. 9-10.If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.
Speech at the Supreme State Conference (September 8, 1958).Over a long period we have developed this concept for the struggle against the enemy: strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously.
This also means that we must despise the enemy with respect to the whole, but that we must take him seriously with respect to each and every concrete question.
If we do not despise the enemy with respect to the whole, we shall be committing the error of opportunism.Marx and Engels were only two individuals, and yet in those early days they already declared that capitalism would be overthrown throughout the world.
But in dealing with concrete problems and particular enemies we shall be committing the error of adventurism unless we take them seriously.
In war, battles can only be fought one by one and the enemy forces can only be destroyed one by one. Factories can only be built one by one. The peasants can only plough the land plot by plot. The same is even true of eating a meal.
Strategically, we take the eating of a meal lightly - we know we can finish it.
But actually we eat it mouthful by mouthful. It is impossible to swallow an entire banquet in one gulp. This is known as a piecemeal solution. In military parlance, it is called wiping out the enemy forces one by one.
Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (November 18, 1957).I think that the international situation has now reached a new turning point. There are 2 winds in the world today:
- the East Wind
- the West Wind
There is a Chinese saying:
The East Wind is prevailing over the West Wind. The forces of socialism have become overwhelmingly superior to the forces of imperialism.
