Mao Tse-tung Thought, the Last Struggle for Succession, and the Post-Mao Era

In a letter to Joseph Bloch, dated 21–22 September 1890, Friedrich Engels wrote: “[W]e make our history ourselves, but in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed, even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one.” The phrase, “the political ones, etc.,” refers to the superstructure and the forms of social consciousness of a society as distinguished from its economic base or the mode of production.