Summary of the book "Maoism" - By Julia Lovell
Key Concepts in this book:
- Maoism can be boiled down to a few essential ideas.
- The film Red Star Over China was a worldwide success and has had a profound impact on how Mao – and Maoism – are viewed.
- China's and the Soviet Union's competition offered rationale for Mao's increasingly extreme domestic policies and foreign investment.
- Mao's rhetoric emboldened Indonesian Communists to confront the Indonesian military, giving them an excuse to react.
- China's attempts in Africa failed to promote Maoist-style politics, but they did provide one major victory for the country.
- In the 1960s and 1970s, China's investment in Southeast Asia played a key part in the tragic regional strife.
- Maoism has impacted a wide spectrum of groups and individuals in the West.
- Shining Path started as a peasant uprising. Peasants, on the other hand, faced the brunt of the movement's heinous violence.
- Maoism in India demonstrates that rural populations are almost invariably the hardest hit by Maoist insurgency.
- Since the chairman, China has had its most Maoist leader in Xi Jinping.
- Anyone looking to bone up on Chinese history.
- Followers of leftist politics.
- Those interested in transnational historical arcs.
Maoism is a strong combination of party-building discipline, anti-colonial insurrection, and never-ending revolution. It has had a significant impact on global insurgency, insubordination, and intolerance over the last 80 years. Simply said, it is one of the most important stories of this and previous centuries.
In a variety of ways, Mao developed earlier types of Marxism. But it is Maoism's flexibility that has made it so dynamic throughout the decades: practitioners, whether autocrats or factory workers, may cherry-pick the concepts that work best for them.
During the Cold War, Maoism provided a meaningful option to Soviet-style Communism and US-style capitalism to countries and communities all over the world. Maoism has remained a powerful force for revolutionary insurgents since the conclusion of the Cold War.
- In this summary, you'll discover about an American journalist's part in the development of the Mao cult.
- Maoist China's complicity in different genocides around the world.
- And Eldridge Cleaver's choice words for China's chairman.
1. Maoism can be boiled down to a few essential ideas.
Mao Zedong was not the founder of communism in China. However, the government's ruthless crackdown on Communists in Shanghai, which began in 1927, radicalized the movement. It was evident to the Communist leadership that they would require an army to survive. Mao believed that the only way to proclaim the superiority of Communist principles was through violence.
The main point is that Maoism may be reduced to a few essential concepts.
Maoism is based on a number of principles, not the least of which is violence. In the Marxist-Leninist tradition, Mao was also the first to prioritize peasants. Peasants were the major audience for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was the first Communist party to succeed in inundating the countryside with its ideology and attracting peasant recruits.
Maoism's early years were marked by a strong emphasis on feminism. This feminism was revolutionary, and it contributed to the global propagation of Mao's views. Mao, on the other hand, was not only a serial philanderer, but he was also nasty to his wives and girlfriends. On the Long March, the Communists' desperate escape across China, his second wife was forced to give up the baby, who died later.
However, Mao's ostensible goal of empowerment wasn't limited to women. His political group was also a strong supporter of anti-imperialism around the world. The growth of the CCP paralleled a significant decolonization drive in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. As a result, China was able to establish itself as the epicenter of the burgeoning anti-imperialist movement.
Although Maoism is ostensibly aimed at empowering the disadvantaged, it has darker aspects. People who opposed Mao's authority were purged on a regular basis, paraded in front of large crowds, and publicly reviled for days at a time. Many people were executed after days of torture. In China, this mix of deception and coercion became known as thought reform, and it formed the backbone of Maoist China.
Purges like these are crucial to Maoist ideology. The process was dubbed "continuous revolution" in official Maoist propaganda. When Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution in 1967, the largest of these purges began. The revolution's goal was to save Communism in China by eradicating the country's last capitalist and traditional elements. During this ten-year social experiment, millions of Chinese people died of starvation or were killed.
Despite the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution, Mao's speech has inspired revolutionaries and insurgents all over the world. Individuals can prevail merely by using their willpower, rather than preparation or expertise, according to Maoist theory.
2. The film Red Star Over China was a worldwide success and has had a profound impact on how Mao – and Maoism – are viewed.
China was in the midst of a civil war in 1936, pitting Mao's Communist Party against Chiang Kai-Nationalist shek's government. Communist forces were holed up in caverns in the northwest of the country at the time, attempting to rebuild their army following a series of defeats over its nationalist rivals.
Mao had an American guest during this critical era. Edgar Snow was an American copywriter who had washed up in Shanghai and managed to work his way up to the position of respected English-language journalist via chance and dexterity.
Snow spent four months interviewing Mao about his background, politics, and strategy. The conditions were difficult – they were living in lice-infested tunnels – and Mao's editors scrutinized every word Snow wrote. However, it was well worth the effort for both parties. Red Star Over China, the book Snow eventually wrote, depicted Mao as an approachable, honest, and hilarious leader — and nationalist to boot.
The main point here is that Red Star Over China was a worldwide hit and has had a tremendous impact on how Mao – and Maoism – are viewed.
For one thing, it transformed Snow into a China expert over night. Franklin Roosevelt consulted him in developing a China strategy five years after the book was published. Government officials, guerrillas, and students from all around the world studied it after that.
Furthermore, hundreds of young Chinese students were persuaded to abandon their studies to join Mao in the caves of northwest China once the book was translated into Chinese. The book was also translated into a number of other languages, potentially motivating millions of insurgents and guerrillas around the world, including in Malaysia, Russia, India, and the Philippines. Some argue that the book was more influential in furthering Maoist thinking than Mao's own writings.
The book's legitimacy is jeopardized, however, due to the editing process – as well as Snow's opulent treatment at the camp. He didn't have to pay for much while he was there, and he was treated with respect by top commanders and adoration by children everywhere he went. Later, similar type of welcome would be extended to international dignitaries in order to divert attention away from facts that contradicted the narrative.
3. China's and the Soviet Union's competition offered rationale for Mao's increasingly extreme domestic policies and foreign investment.
In 1966, a Chinese publishing business published a new global map, with China at the center. Starting in the late 1950s, Mao was portrayed as the savior of world revolution, fighting imperialism, capitalism, and Soviet revisionism. The propaganda would highlight an increasingly visible difference between China and the Soviet Union by developing a global cult for the chairman.
This Sino-Soviet split has far-reaching consequences. As the two contended for influence in the developing world, it pushed the Soviets toward imperial overreach, and it fanned militant nationalism across the Communist bloc, particularly in Vietnam and Cambodia. The author even claims that the Sino-Soviet split marked the start of the Cold War's end.
The main point is that competition between China and the USSR provided legitimacy for Mao's increasingly extreme domestic policies and foreign investment.
Ideology was the dividing line between the two powers. Following the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union went through a period of de-Stalinization. Nikita Khrushchev, the new leader, was anxious to purge the country of Stalin's prevalent personality cult. This procedure did not sit well with Mao, who was a follower of Stalin's personality cult. To express his dissatisfaction, he created international squabbles in order to directly undermine Khrushchev's policy of "peaceful cohabitation" with the United States and other capitalist nations.
Such diplomatic insults also assisted Mao in fostering jingoistic fervor at home, providing justification for the Great Leap Forward. What began as a plan to rapidly industrialize China's predominantly rural civilization ultimately devolved into widespread hunger. As rural communities were obliged to produce grain to feed the city, tens of millions of people died of famine. During this time, however, China's international aid increased dramatically. By the end of 1960, when the famine was at its worst, China's foreign aid had increased by more than 50%.
Meanwhile, the Maoist cause was glorified in novels, journals, and leaflets distributed by the propaganda machine. The CCP published the Little Red Book, a collection of Mao's quotations, in 1964 and distributed over a billion copies around the world. China offered scholarships to insurgents and guerrillas to train in Beijing as Mao began to challenge Soviet-style Communism in the minds of global revolutionaries.
As we will see, this propaganda campaign was successful in sowing revolutionary seeds far away from China.
4. Mao's rhetoric emboldened Indonesian Communists to confront the Indonesian military, giving them an excuse to react.
The Indonesia that evolved from Dutch colonialism and later Japanese rule during WWII was a violent place. Sukarno, a statesman who had previously led the country's independence campaign against the Dutch, became the country's postwar leader. According to the author, he was able to maintain control in the late 1950s by playing Indonesia's Communist Party, or PKI, and its army against each other.
Communists in Indonesia were subjected to mass brutality by Indonesian Army execution squads from 1965 to 1966. At least 500,000 people were slaughtered, many of whom were tortured in front of their relatives. The United Kingdom and the United States played a major role in the Indonesian Army's financial and equipment support.
The crucial lesson here is that Mao's rhetoric pushed Indonesia's Communists to confront the Indonesian military, giving them an excuse to react.
In the 1950s, the PKI made major gains, owing to Maoist policies such as grass-roots education and rent reductions for peasants. Seeds, equipment, and fertilizer were also supplied. China provided direct financial assistance throughout.
The PKI began ratcheting up its rhetoric against the army in the early 1960s, aided by Mao's aggressive political approach. However, without the backing of the military, Maoist tactics and rhetoric would be catastrophic.
An attempted coup was staged in Indonesia on October 1, 1965. Seven generals were kidnapped and murdered in their beds. While there is no consensus on who carried out the coup, the author is of the opinion that it was orchestrated by the PKI. Suharto, a surviving general, rapidly mobilized the residual army in the aftermath. He blamed the coup on the PKI and ordered his army to hunt down and execute his Communist foes, as well as anyone else suspected of sympathizing with the left. Within a year, at least 500,000 Indonesians had died.
According to the author, the coup bears an unmistakable Maoist mark. For one thing, the Communist leaders believed that grit alone, rather than planning or operational efficiency, would allow them to prevail. As a result, the coup planners neglected to consider basic operational efficiency, such as establishing radio links between commands. Everything, predictably, went wrong — and quickly.
Foreign investments began to come into the country as a result, signifying the start of a new capitalist period. According to the author, Maoism inadvertently created an Indonesia in which labor unions had no influence and the military could operate with impunity as a result of the massacres - a far cry from the Communist goal.
5. China's attempts in Africa failed to promote Maoist-style politics, but they did provide one major victory for the country.
The CCP began inviting African leaders to China during the Great Leap Forward. Mao met 111 African representatives in the first half of 1960 alone. These connections quickly resulted in foreign aid. China offered to fund the Tan-Zam Railway, which runs from Tanzania's Dar es Salaam to Zambia's copper mines, in 1965. A $415 million interest-free loan was used to fund the entire construction project.
China gave out more than $24 billion in international aid to African countries between 1950 and 1978, and it wasn't just Tanzania and Zambia. However, the help did not achieve China's objectives. For example, Chinese funding to Tanzania and Zambia did not contribute to the development of solid governance institutions or loyal friends.
The essential point here is that China's efforts in Africa did not succeed in spreading Maoist-style politics, but they did provide China with one major victory.
Julius Nyerere, a Tanzanian, is often regarded with ushering China through Africa's gates. He was a skillful negotiator who contributed to the peaceful decolonization of Tanzania. He founded a political party and was elected president in 1962. He reigned for more than two decades.
In Tanzania, Nyerere brought Maoist political models with him. In his talks, anti-colonialism morphed into socialism, and he regularly cited Mao's self-reliance rhetoric. He even created a book of his own sayings, dubbed the "Little Green Book."
Then, in 1967, Nyerere introduced ujamaa, his version of Chinese collectivization, which included intentions to nationalize banks, collectivize rural Tanzanian villages, and re-educate young people in labor camps. Ujamaa, according to the author, failed and, like its Chinese equivalent, resulted in famine and poverty. Ujamaa preached women's equality, just as it did in China, but in actuality, women faced a double burden: caring for their families and dedicating themselves to farming.
In the rest of Africa, China's efforts and expenditures did not fare any better, with disasters in Algeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and Zambia.
China's Africa expenditure, on the other hand, was clearly motivated by self-interest: the PRC wanted to win countries to its side in the UN dispute over which "China" – the Communist PRC or the Republic of China government located in Taiwan – should gain a UN seat. Beijing finally won out in 1971, thanks to the votes of several minor African governments.
When Mao died in 1976, politicians quietly attempted to refocus emphasis on the Chinese economy while downplaying revolutionary Maoism. However, as we'll see, Mao's spirit has survived.
6. In the 1960s and 1970s, China's investment in Southeast Asia played a key part in the tragic regional strife.
In American political circles in the 1950s, domino theory was all the rage. It was thought that if one country in a region became Communist, it would only be a matter of time before the rest followed suit. Vietnam posed the greatest threat to Asia. Because of this flawed notion, the United States wasted hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in Vietnam.
However, contrary to common opinion, the domino theory was not exclusive to the United States. China's leaders also believed that Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries were pawns in the global revolution. Some Cambodians, who live just west of Vietnam, were concerned that their neighbors aspired to rule the region.
The main point here is that China's investment in Southeast Asia contributed significantly to the tragic regional strife of the 1960s and 1970s.
China poured money and propaganda into North Vietnam. With substantial Chinese help, Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh was able to evict colonial French forces during the First Indochina War. Scholarships, military training, and supplies such as bullets were among the $20 billion in help offered. Importantly, the implementation of Chinese-style land transfer policies helped the Vietnamese peasantry win over significant swaths of the population.
However, after the Geneva Conference, which concluded the First Indochina War, relations between the North Vietnamese and China began to deteriorate. Zhou Enlai, Mao's second-in-command, persuaded the North Vietnamese to agree to divide the nation along the 17th parallel so that Zhou could portray himself as a sophisticated statesman. Communists in Vietnam hated the Chinese for pressuring them to accept a split Vietnam when they believed they could have militarily united the country.
However, Mao had a new follower in Southeast Asia at the time: Pol Pot. In Beijing in 1975, Mao met with the Khmer Rouge's leader. The Khmer Rouge had taken over Cambodia just two months before, commencing a violent Maoist-style collectivization process. The Khmer Rouge genocide is thought to have killed up to two million Cambodians. This catastrophe was made possible by China's financial support, which totaled a billion dollars.
Mao, on the other hand, did not live to see the Khmer Rouge's demise. His deputies walked back support for Pol Pot after he died in 1976. Vietnamese army entered Phnom Penh, a ghost town, in 1979. China has chosen not to intervene. The period of revolutionary Maoism sponsored by China has come to an end.
7. Maoism has impacted a wide spectrum of groups and individuals in the West.
Mao's notions of continual peasant revolution appealed to left-wing rebels, criminal megalomaniacs, and civil rights campaigners alike in Western Europe and the United States. Maoism's popularity has resulted in some good outcomes, such as concepts like serving the people and raising consciousness. Outside of China, this has resulted in the growth and strengthening of feminism, gay rights, and radical environmental movements.
The main point is that Maoism has inspired a wide spectrum of groups and individuals in the West.
Mao's anti-imperialist position resonated with many Black people who associated more with the developing world than with white America during the American civil rights movement. Many Black revolutionaries were drawn to Mao's idea of guerrilla warfare after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. "Because Mao Zedong is the baddest motherfucker on planet earth," said legendary Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver when asked why he had a poster of Mao on his wall.
The New Left in West Germany in the 1960s admired China's portrayal of itself as the vanguard of anti-imperialism. Members of West Germany's first political commune, for example, climbed to the top of a bombed-out church in West Berlin and poured Little Red Books down on passers-by.
The splintering of new left movements in the West was partly due to strong Maoist views. Not only that, but the savagery of groups like the Baader-Meinhof Gang, which hijacked a Lufthansa passenger plane in 1977, sparked public outrage. Indeed, in the 1980s, fear of extreme leftists aided neoliberals in Europe and the United States in consolidating power.
The example of Kerala-born Singaporean Aravindan Balakrishnan is perhaps one of Maoism's most frightening, albeit indirect, connotations in the West. He had a cult following in 1970s London. The Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought was his name for his organization. At the height of the group's popularity, 25 of his fans lived together in Brixton. After a police raid in 1978, the commune disbanded, and no one remembered it until 2013, when a charity dedicated to assisting women in forced marriages received a call. It was a woman who claimed that she and two others had been held captive by Balakrishnan and his wife for decades, one of them, at 30, was born into captivity. Balakrishnan's psychological control tactics included Maoist-style self-criticism, with the women being beaten when they displayed "bourgeois inclinations," according to Balakrishnan.
8. Shining Path started as a peasant uprising. Peasants, on the other hand, faced the brunt of the movement's heinous violence.
Peru has arguably suffered the most as a result of the Maoist thought diaspora in the Americas. In the 1980s, the Shining Path insurrection, led by the portly professor Abimael Guzmán, was the most damaging conflict in the country. Revolutionary violence, as well as severe governmental reaction, wreaked havoc on rural populations. The struggle resulted in over 69,000 deaths and, according to the author, effectively ended Peru's democratic prospects.
The Shining Path was founded in 1969 in the impoverished Ayacucho region. Guzmán perceived a significant potential basis for revolutionary insurgency in the concentration of underprivileged ethnic groups and freshly educated students. His simple, forceful remedies, as he predicted, appealed to the region's disenfranchised ethnic minorities, who were clustered near the university where he was a philosophy professor.
The main point here is that Shining Path was formed as a peasant uprising. Peasants, on the other hand, faced the brunt of the movement's heinous violence.
In 1980, Guzmán began his revolt. An old farmer and his young hired worker were the first to die, killed as landowners by a rebel squad. Guzmán believed that any human cost was justified in the pursuit of the cause, hence murderous terror became a cornerstone of Shining Path strategy.
Shining Path won the hearts of peasant communities by treating them with dignity and providing them with opportunities they had never had before. The brutality, however, eventually alienated Guzmán's party from the peasantry. Girls were enslaved as child-bearing comfort ladies, while children were forced to become guerrillas against their will. Deserters were tortured and executed in front of the people.
The problem was exacerbated by the Peruvian government's utter ineptness during the first half of the 1980s. When the government finally intervened, it did so with a vengeance. Suspected guerrillas were tortured and raped to death by death squads that patrolled the countryside.
By 1992, the Shining Path had enslaved half of Peru's population, cholera was rife, and inflation had reached over 12,000 %. The administration, on the other hand, had altered its mind. Instead of burning, rapping, or killing, a new counterterrorism squad gathered and evaluated intelligence. The operation was successful after two years. Police attacked a residence in Lima in September 1992 and arrested Guzmán.
Shining Path is still active today, and the brutally turbulent 1980s have left an indelible mark. Following politicians were able to hijack democracy in Peru because of their fear of terrorism and counter-terrorism. During the Shining Path era, rural populations — the peasants championed by Mao and Guzmán – suffered disproportionately: 79 percent of those slain lived outside of urban areas. Once again, a Maoist movement has harmed those it was supposed to help.
9. Maoism in India demonstrates that rural populations are almost invariably the hardest hit by Maoist insurgency.
Since the Dalai Lama left Tibet to India in 1959, Sino-Indian relations have been tense for decades. However, in the continuous interaction between the superpowers, Maoism is possibly the most concerning issue. Politicians in India have referred to Maoist insurgents as the "greatest internal security concern facing our country" for nearly two decades.
Three factors enabled the Indian Maoist insurgency: an impatient, militant wing of the Communist Party of India, a serious socioeconomic crisis on the subcontinent, and the Chinese Communist Party's determination to promote a Maoist Indian revolution.
The main point here is that Maoism in India emphasizes that rural populations are virtually usually the ones who suffer the most from Maoist insurgency.
In India, Maoism erupted in 1962, gaining followers who were enraged by the Indian government's poor attempts at land reform, which benefitted landlords. Peasants revolted against acquisitive landowners in the village of Naxalbari in 1967. Eleven individuals were slain as local police reclaimed the village. Following the slaughter, a groundswell of support for Communism developed among students and disgruntled city people, who became known as Naxalites.
Two years later, the Naxalites broke away from India's main Communist Party. The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was their name, and it was from this organization that every succeeding Maoist faction in India arose. Mao later welcomed these Indian Communists to Beijing, lavishly entertaining them.
The government responded quickly to the group's insurgent activities in Naxal. By 1973, approximately 32,000 people had been arrested for naxalism, many of them had been tortured or held in solitary imprisonment. On the defensive, the Naxalites retreated to a base region where they could regroup and continue the revolution. They had relocated in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh by 1980.
The state of Chhattisgarh appealed to me for two reasons: its deep jungle and a populace that had been cruelly abused by the government and multinationals. By 1985, the Naxalites had taken possession of 20,000 acres of land that had previously been under government administration.
The authorities ignored the insurgent insurgents, who mostly kept to themselves, for decades. However, in the early 2000s, the government began awarding mining contracts to local companies, and the presence of Maoists became a threat to prospective earnings. To clear out insurgents who employed a scorched-earth strategy, the Indian government deputized army and police groups. Villagers suspected of sympathizing with the Maoists have been raped, tortured, and killed.
Industry has been the sole beneficiary of this escalating war. The rural communities of Chhattisgarh have been the evident losers.
10. Since the chairman, China has had its most Maoist leader in Xi Jinping.
China's politicians focused their efforts on de-Maoification after Mao's death in 1976. The economy began to be privatized slowly at first, then swiftly, and the communes were disbanded by 1982. The authorities allegedly mulched up to 90% of Mao's Little Red Book copies in storage. New editions illustrating the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward replaced them on book shelves.
However, Mao's legacy has witnessed a complex comeback in China in recent years. China has reasserted its global ambitions under Xi Jinping, renormalized criticism and self-criticism sessions, and reintroduced the personality cult. Furthermore, the Central Committee has repealed the two-term limit under Xi's leadership, thereby granting Xi lifetime control.
The primary message is that, since Chairman Mao, China now has its most Maoist leader in Xi Jinping.
De-Maoification was a long and difficult process. Without Mao, CCP politics would be impossible. Mao's six-meter-long image stayed in Tiananmen Square, and an official new document commissioned by Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping enshrined his legacy. Mao's ruthless response to opposition persisted, as evidenced by Deng's savage crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Mao began to infiltrate China's new consumerist grammar in the early 1990s. Taxi drivers began to display Mao images in their rearview mirrors, and Mao-themed eateries popped up all throughout Beijing.
Deng and his successors had a tense relationship with far-left print and electronic media. These neo-Maoists were adamantly anti-imperialists who held Mao in high regard as a hero. Intellectuals were distrusted, and any criticism of Mao's policies was condemned. The neo-Maoists put China's new government in a difficult position: crushing them would reveal its members as Maoist traitors; allowing them to operate freely would risk a popular uprising.
Xi rose to prominence as part of a new Chinese political class that spoke out against corruption while secretly laundering money and snatching wealth from opponents. Cultural relics from the Mao era, such as choirs singing revolutionary hymns, have also reappeared. The negative features of Maoism, like as the Cultural Revolution's aftermath, were brushed under the rug. The neo-Maoists, for the most part, are in favor of Xi.
Xi Jinping Thought is now taught in schools, and he is referred to as a "great leader." Xi's policies bear as little resemblance to Mao's as the man himself – yet the chairman's complex legacy lives on in China, as well as the rest of the world.
The key message in this summary is that, while Maoism originated in China, it has always been an universal ideology. Maoism is a collection of ideas; it has survived so long and influenced so many people because practitioners can pick and choose which ones work best for them.
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