Maoism

Maoism is the Communist ideology of Mao Zedong. Maoism is a form of Stalinism that dominated China from 1949 to the 1970s. Specific to Maoism are Mao's writings on guerrilla warfare, the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and Mao's Red Book. The key theme is that the proletarian revolution will be led by the party and the peasants--not the party and the industrial workers as Lenin argued.

Maoism became a trendy ideology among leftist extremists starting in the 1960s, who saw the poor of the Third World, rather than the white proletariat of the industrialized West, as having the most "revolutionary" potential. Maoism with its origins in China rather than Europe was thus deemed by these radicals to be more credible an ideology than the Soviet-line Old Left. The Maosists fought against the Soviet backed leftists in most countries around the world, with the usual result of two Communist parties that fought each other.

China gave up Maoism in the 1980s, and today no country is under its control. However, in recent years Maoists have been especially powerful as an insurgent movement in Nepal.

See also

• Khmer Rouge
• New Left

Further reading

• Alexander, Robert J. Maoism in the Developed World (2001) online edition
• Alexander, Robert J. International Maoism in the Developing World (1999) online edition