Maoism

Summary

Maoism is also sometimes called Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, or MLM, because the people who follow it describe Mao Zedong Thought, or Mao's ideas, as a continuation and development of the ideas from Marx to Lenin.

Maoists describe this as a continuation and development of the scientific process of understanding our socio-economic reality and finding a material solution for its problems.

While China itself retains its self-described ideological identity of being “Marxist-Leninist,” many Maoists believe that Mao's ideas represent an ideology of their own, with distinct principles, methods, and analysis.

At its core, Maoism emphasizes anti-imperialism, the revolutionary potential of peasants and oppressed rural populations, the mass line, and the idea that class struggle continues even after a socialist revolution takes state power.

Timeline

1. 1921

   Communist Party of China founded

   The Communist Party of China forms in the context of anti-imperialist struggle, labor unrest, and the spread of Marxism after the Russian Revolution.

2. 1927

   Rural revolutionary turn

   After severe defeats in the cities and the split with the Kuomintang, Chinese communists increasingly organize in rural base areas.

3. 1934-35

   Long March

   The Communist Party's retreat and regrouping becomes a central revolutionary narrative and helps consolidate Mao's leadership.

4. 1937-45

   War of Resistance Against Japan

   The Chinese communists expand their influence during the anti-Japanese war while developing Mao's ideas about mass mobilization and national liberation.

5. 1949

   People's Republic of China founded

   The Chinese Communist Party takes state power after a long civil war and anti-Japanese struggle.

6. 1958-62

   Great Leap Forward

   A major campaign of rapid collectivization and industrialization becomes one of the most controversial and devastating episodes of the Mao era.

7. 1966-76

   Cultural Revolution

   A turbulent mass campaign deepens Maoist debates about bureaucracy, class struggle, socialist transition, and the danger of capitalist restoration.

8. 1976

   Mao dies

   After Mao's death, China moves away from many Mao-era policies, while Maoist currents outside China continue to develop their own interpretations.

9. 1980s-90s

   International Maoist currents

   Maoist organizations, parties, and publications around the world consolidate distinct theories of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

10. 2000s-present

    Modern Maoist influence

    Maoism continues to influence debates about anti-imperialism, land reform, peasant struggle, national liberation, and socialist transition.

History

Maoists point out Mao's emphasis on how Marx originally believed that socialism would occur first in the “economically advanced countries,” the countries where capitalism had developed and created much wealth, and where most of the country is now employed by wage labor.

China's struggle for liberation from colonial powers and its alliance of members of the industrial working class and the peasant class, this alliance also being a feature of the Soviet Union's founding, made the conditions for socialism develop differently than in the advanced capitalist nations, where many socialist parties failed to gain real political power.

To Maoists, imperialism has an effect on the dialectical struggle between the classes and on the emergence of socialism.

Conversely, the domination of foreign capital and wealth over land and resources made the citizens of poorer countries, who were coming out of pre-capitalist economic and political systems, desire a better alternative to the ideology of the invading forces. Maoists argue that this made many oppressed people more likely to understand the necessity of socialism and, faced with imperialist violence, fight for national liberation.

Another focus of Mao Zedong's theory was the concept of protracted people's war. In Maoist history, this referred to a long revolutionary struggle shaped by the conditions of a largely rural, semi-colonial, and semi-feudal country rather than the conditions of an advanced industrial capitalist country.

For Maoists, this was not only a military idea, but a political and social one: the revolution had to be rooted among the masses, especially peasants and oppressed rural communities, rather than imposed from above by a disconnected leadership.

This connects to the Maoist concept of the mass line. The mass line means that revolutionaries should learn from the needs and experiences of ordinary people, organize those scattered ideas into a clearer political direction, and then return those ideas back to the people in a more conscious and organized form.

Another critical distinction of Maoist theory is the concept of continuous class struggle under socialism. Traditional Marxist-Leninist thought often assumed that once the vanguard party seized state power and abolished private property, the capitalist class was fundamentally defeated. Mao argued otherwise.

He theorized that the bureaucratic power of the new state apparatus could generate a new bourgeoisie right inside the communist party itself. To prevent the revolution from decaying into a new system of oppression, Maoists believe that the dialectical struggle does not end with the revolution. It continues through the process of socialist transition.