The Critique of Global Maoism: Criticism, Self-Criticism, and the Combahee River Collective

What does solidarity look like after the dissolution of the working class, under conditions where would-be comrades are outright antagonistic to one another's interests? At the conclusion of their 1977 "Black Feminist Statement," the members of the Combahee River Collective raise the question of power, solidarity, and reactionary politics, which they boil down to the question of "criticism and self-criticism as an essential element of our practice." In this essay, I propose to read this understudied line both as a reformulation of Maoist theories of vanguard politics and a claim about the role of criticism in political organizing. In so doing, I show how the Collective rethinks critique as a specifically Marxist, specifically collective enterprise, meant to grip a group of people and forge commitment and solidarity through conflict.