Mao Zedong Thought

Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought is a variety of Marxism-Leninism that Mao Zedong developed for realizing a socialist revolution in agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. The philosophical difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism-Leninism is that the peasantry are the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than the proletariat. This updating and adoption of Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary represents urban Marxism-Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. The claim that Mao Zedong had adapted Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions evolved into the idea that he had updated it in a fundamental way applying to the world as a whole.

From the 1950s to until the Chinese economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, Maoism was the political and military ideology of the Communist Party of China and of Maoist revolutionary movements throughout the world. After the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union each claimed to be the sole heir and successor to Joseph Stalin concerning the correct interpretation of Marxism-Leninism and ideological leader of world communism.

In the late 1970s, the Peruvian Communist Party, Shining Path developed and synthesized Maoism to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, a contemporary variety of Marxism-Leninism that is a supposed higher level of Marxism-Leninism that can be applied universally.

At the turn of the 20th century, the contemporary Chinese intellectual tradition was defined by two central concepts (i) iconoclasm and (ii) nationalism.

Iconoclasm and anti-Confucianism

By the turn of the 20th century, a proportionately small yet socially significant cross-section of China's traditional elite (i.e., landlords and bureaucrats) found themselves increasingly skeptical of the efficacy and even the moral validity of Confucianism. These skeptical iconoclasts formed a new segment of Chinese society, a modern intelligentsia whose arrival--or as historian of China Maurice Meisner would label it, their defection--heralded the beginning of the destruction of the gentry as a social class in China.

The fall of the last imperial Chinese dynasty in 1911 marked the final failure of the Confucian moral order and it did much to make Confucianism synonymous with political and social conservatism in the minds of Chinese intellectuals. It was this association of conservatism and Confucianism which lent to the iconoclastic nature of Chinese intellectual thought during the first decades of the 20th century.

Chinese iconoclasm was expressed most clearly and vociferously by Chen Duxiu during the New Culture Movement which occured between 1915 and 1919. Proposing "the total destruction of the traditions and values of the past," the New Culture Movement was spearheaded by the New Youth, a periodical which was published by Chen Duxiu and was profoundly influential on the young Mao Zedong, whose first published work appeared on the magazine's pages.

Nationalism and the appeal of Marxism

Along with iconoclasm, radical anti-imperialism dominated the Chinese intellectual tradition and slowly evolved into a fierce nationalist fervor which influenced Mao's philosophy immensely and was crucial in adapting Marxism to the Chinese model. Vital to understanding Chinese nationalist sentiments of the time is the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed in 1919. The treaty aroused a wave of bitter nationalist resentment in Chinese intellectuals as lands formerly ceded to Germany in Shandong were--without consultation with the Chinese--transferred to Japanese control rather than return to Chinese sovereignty.

The negative reaction culminated in the May 4 incident in 1919 during which a protest began with 3,000 students in Beijing displaying their anger at the announcement of the Versailles Treaty's concession to Japan. The protest took a violent turn as protesters began attacking the homes and offices of ministers who were seen as cooperating with, or being in direct pay of, the Japanese. The May 4 Incident and Movement which followed "catalyzed the political awakening of a society which had long seemed inert and dormant."

Another intellectual event would have a large impact not only on Mao, but also on the Chinese intelligentsia. The Russian Revolution elicited great interest among Chinese intellectuals, although socialist revolution in China was not considered viable option after the May 4 incident. Afterwards "[to] become a Marxist was one way for a Chinese intellectual to reject both the traditions of the Chinese past and Western domination of the Chinese present."

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