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I didn't say communist, I said Marxist. You can be the 1st without the 2nd. But you can't be a Marxist and reject everything Marx said. Sort of like you can't rightly call yourself a Christian if you think Jesus was wrong about everything, or a Platonist while rejecting the ideas of Plato.So, you reject the self-identification of Mao as a Communist?
Mao certainly did consider himself a Communist. In his June 1975 meeting with Pol Pot (the guy in charge of the genocide in Cambodia), Mao gave him the gift of some 30 books by Karl Marx and urged Pol Pot to "continue the path towards socialism".
I honestly don't get the idea of reclaiming Communism from the likes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
To wit: in the southern suburbs of the city where I live, there is a small band of Neo-Nazi. On occasion, they get a permit to broadcast on an FM band, where they talk about Jewish conspiracies and play Heavy Metal (or as they call it "Aryan Rock"). On occasion, they are also interviewed by journalists who will ask them likely "why the f*** are you a nazi?" or "Do you deny the holocaust?" Their answer is mostly along the lines that for them being Nazis is about protecting workers rights and wages, that they are against environmental pollution and that they are against bureaucracy. The follow-up question that never materializes, though, "but why call yourself a Nazi then?" The policy points that they typically mention are fairly mainstream points, which can be found in many political parties, so it kinda leaves the impression of a hidden agenda in using the swastika as their symbol of choice.
Similarly, if you believe in workers right, redistribution, equality and what have you - why associate yourself with the bloodstained banner of Communism? Why not do as e.g. the German Greens have done and simply use a new banner that isn't associated with several genocides?
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