J. Moufawad-Paul

Continuity and Rupture

Moufawad-Paul's 2016 book Continuity and Rupture: Philosophy in the Maoist Terrain provides a philosophical analysis of the theoretical foundation of Maoism, the Marxist school of thought developed by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong. Moufawad-Paul argues that the political ideology of Maoism, despite being formulated in the 1960s, only achieved full theoretical maturity in 1988 in Peru.

Synopsis

The book is introduced as an attempt by Moufawad-Paul to reclaim Maoism, as a contemporary political ideology and contest the negative conceptualizations by Trotskyists and Anarchists in the political left. For Moufawad-Paul, Maoism must be understood as being both a continuation of Leninist political, philosophical and strategic positions, while simultaneously, acting as a rupture from the dogmatic orthodoxy and theoretical limits of standard Marxism–Leninism, thus Maoism is characterized as both continuity and rupture. Throughout the work, Moufawad-Paul offers a critique of contemporary and historical Maoist organizations, such as The Revolutionary Communist Party USA, The Shining Path, The Naxalite insurgency in India, and The New People's Army, as well as contemporary Marxist intellectuals, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, and Tom Clark (author of State and Counter-Revolution).

Reception

J. Moufawad-Paul's work received a positive reception among Marxist critics.

Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and social activist Gabriel Kuhn both provide positive blurbs of the book in the cover section.

Hamayon Rastgar in Marx and Philosophy gave a positive review of the book, writing, "Moufawad-Paul makes an appealing case for a return to the revolutionary kernel of communism through understanding the most contemporary stage of the development of the ideology and science of revolution, namely Maoism." Nicholas Marlatte wrote a positive review for Socialist Studies. In The Platypus Review, Marc Todoroff concluded that the book presented a persuasive defence of protracted people's war and revolutionary violence: "War is present; war is being waged against us. It is important to understand that socialism or barbarism really means 'socialism or planetary destruction.' State monopoly on violence cannot be allowed to persist."

The website Struggle Sessions (associated with the Red Guards) published a negative assessment of Moufawad-Paul's work in 2018.