Editing Maoism (section)

== Components ==
=== New Democracy ===
{{Marxism–Leninism sidebar|variants}}
The theory of the [[New Democracy]] was known to the Chinese revolutionaries from the late 1940s. This thesis held that for most people, the "long road to [[Socialist mode of production|socialism]]" could only be opened by a "national, popular, democratic, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution, run by the communists".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Amin |first=Samir |date=October 2009 |title=The Countries of the South Must Take Their Own Independent Initiatives |url=http://www.forumtiersmonde.net/fren/index.php/activitesactions/249-the-countries-of-the-south-must-take-their-own-independent-initiatives |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723131304/http://www.forumtiersmonde.net/fren/index.php/activitesactions/249-the-countries-of-the-south-must-take-their-own-independent-initiatives |archive-date=23 July 2011 |access-date=22 February 2011 |publisher=The Third World Forum}}</ref>

=== People's war ===
{{see also|People's war}}

Holding that "[[political power grows out of the barrel of a gun]]",<ref>{{Cite web |title=Quotations From Chairman Mao |url=http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch05.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126042155/https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch05.htm |archive-date=26 January 2021 |access-date=1 April 2018 |publisher=Peking Foreign Languages Press}}</ref> Maoism emphasises the "revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures", which Mao termed a "[[people's war]]". Mobilizing large parts of rural populations to revolt against established institutions by engaging in [[guerrilla warfare]], Maoist Thought focuses on "surrounding the cities from the countryside".

Maoism views the industrial-rural divide as a major division exploited by capitalism, identifying capitalism as involving industrial urban developed [[First World]] societies ruling over rural developing [[Third World]] societies.<ref>Alexander C. Cook, "Third World Maoism" in A Critical Introduction to Mao. Cambridge, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Cambridge University, 2011. p. 290.</ref> Maoism identifies peasant insurgencies in particular national contexts as part of a context of world revolution, in which Maoism views the global countryside as overwhelming the global cities.<ref name="Mao. Cambridge 2011. P. 289-290">Alexander C. Cook, "Third World Maoism" in A Critical Introduction to Mao. Cambridge, England, UK; New York, New York, USA, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 289–290.</ref> Due to this [[imperialism]] by the capitalist urban First World toward the rural Third World, Maoism has endorsed [[National liberation (Marxism)|national liberation]] movements in the Third World.<ref name="Mao. Cambridge 2011. P. 289-290" />

=== Mass line ===
{{main|Mass line}}
Building on the theory of the [[vanguard party]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lenin |first=Vladimir |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ |title=Lenin's Collected Works |date=1961 |publisher=Foreign Languages Publishing House |volume=5 |location=Moscow |pages=347–530 |translator-last=Fineberg |translator-first=Joe |chapter=What Is To Be Done |orig-date=1902 |translator-last2=Hanna |translator-first2=George}}</ref> by [[Vladimir Lenin]], the theory of the [[mass line]] outlines a strategy for the revolutionary leadership of the masses, consolidation of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]], and strengthening of the party and the building of [[Socialist mode of production|socialism]]. The mass line can be summarised as "from the masses, to the masses". It has three components or stages:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Short Definitions of the 'Mass Line' and a 'Mass Perspective' |url=http://massline.info/sum1p.htm |access-date=15 June 2014 |website=massline.info}}</ref>
# Gathering the diverse ideas of the masses.
# Processing or concentrating these ideas from the perspective of revolutionary Marxism, in light of the long-term, ultimate interests of the masses (which the masses may sometimes only dimly perceive) and in light of a scientific analysis of the objective situation.
# Returning these concentrated ideas to the masses in the form of a political line which will advance the mass struggle toward revolution.

These three steps should be applied repeatedly, reiteratively uplifting practice and knowledge to higher and higher stages.

=== Cultural Revolution ===
The theory of cultural revolution - rooted in Marxism-Leninism thought<ref name=":7" /> - states that the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat do not wipe out bourgeois ideology; the class struggle continues and even intensifies during socialism. Therefore, a constant struggle against bourgeois ideology, traditional cultural values, and the social roots that encourage both of them must be conducted in order to create and maintain a society in which socialism can succeed.

Practical examples of this theory's application can be seen in the rapid social changes undergone by post-revolution Soviet Union in the late 1920s -1930s<ref>{{Cite journal |last=David-Fox |first=Michael |date=1999 |title=What Is Cultural Revolution? |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0036-0341.651999065 |journal=The Russian Review |language=en |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=181–201 |doi=10.1111/0036-0341.651999065 |issn=0036-0341}}</ref> as well as pre-revolution China in the New Culture and May Fourth movements of the 1910s-1920s.<ref name=":5">{{Citation |last=Mertha |first=Andrew |title=Rectification |date=2019-06-25 |work=Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi |publisher=ANU Press |doi=10.22459/acc.2019.33 |isbn=9781788734769 |s2cid=242980910 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Both of these sociocultural movements can be seen as shaping Maoist theory on the need for and goals of Cultural Revolution, and subsequently the mass cultural movements enacted by the CCP under Mao, which include the Great Leap Forward, the Anti-rightist movement of the 1950s, and the [[Cultural Revolution|Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s-1970s]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Li |first=Xing |date=2001 |title=The Chinese Cultural Revolution Revisited |journal=[[China Review]] |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=137–165 |issn=1680-2012 |jstor=23461931}}</ref>

The social upheavals that occurred from the New Culture Movement - as well as the May Fourth Movement that followed it<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Luo |first=Zhitian |date=2019-10-02 |title=Wholeness and individuality: Revisiting the New Culture Movement, as symbolized by May Fourth |journal=Chinese Studies in History |publisher=Informa UK Limited |volume=52 |issue=3–4 |pages=188–208 |doi=10.1080/00094633.2019.1654802 |issn=0009-4633 |s2cid=211429408}}</ref> - largely focused around the dismantling of traditional Han Chinese cultural norms in which the majority of the populace were illiterate and largely uneducated.<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schwarcz |first=Vera |title=The Chinese enlightenment: intellectuals and the legacy of the May Fourth movement of 1919 |date=1986 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-05027-4 |publication-place=Berkeley}}</ref> This consequence of this social dynamic was that political and economic power largely resided in the hands of a small group of educated elites, and Han Chinese culture formed around principles of respect and reverence for these educated and powerful authority figures. The aforementioned movements sought to combat these social norms through grassroots educational campaigns which were focused primarily around giving educational opportunities towards to people from traditionally uneducated families and normalising all people to be comfortable making challenges towards traditional figures of authority in Confucian society.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hon |first=Tze-ki |date=2014-03-28 |title=The Chinese Path to Modernisation: Discussions of "Culture" and "Morality" in Republican China |journal=International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=211–228 |doi=10.18352/hcm.470 |issn=2213-0624 |s2cid=56325531 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

The cultural revolution experienced by the Soviet Union was similar to the New Culture and May Fourth movements experienced by China in that it also placed a great importance on mass education and the normalisation of challenging of traditional cultural norms in the realising of a socialist society. However, the movements occurring in the Soviet Union had a far more adversarial mindset towards proponents of traditional values, with leadership in the party taking action to censor and exile these "enemies of change" on over 200 occasions,<ref name="emg" /> rather than exclusively putting pressure on these forces by enacting additive social changes such as education campaigns.

The most prominent example of a Maoist application of cultural revolution can be seen in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s wherein Mao claimed that "Revisionist" forces had entered society and infiltrated the government, with the goal of reinstating traditionalism and capitalism in China.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wu |first=Yuan-Li |date=1968-03-01 |title=Economics, Ideology and the Cultural Revolution |journal=[[Asian Survey]] |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=223–235 |doi=10.2307/2642569 |issn=0004-4687 |jstor=2642569}}</ref> Leaning more on the example of the Soviet Union, which involved the silencing and subjugation of adversarial political forces to help bring about a cultural change, Mao called for his followers to speak openly and critically about revisionist forces that they were observing in society and to expel them, assuring them that their actions would be endorsed by the party and that their efforts would in no way be interfered with.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Macfarquhar |first1=Roderick |author-link=Roderick MacFarquhar |url= |title=Mao's Last Revolution |title-link=Mao's Last Revolution |last2=Schoenhals |first2=Michael |author-link2=Michael Schoenhals |date=2006-12-31 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-04041-0 |doi=10.4159/9780674040410}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=October 2024}} This warrant granted to the public ultimately lead to roughly ten years in which those seen as "Revisionist" forces - largely understood to mean landlords, rich peasants, and the so-called "bourgeoise academic"<ref>{{Citation |last=Thornton |first=Patricia M. |title=Cultural Revolution |date=2019 |work=Afterlives of Chinese Communism |pages=55–62 |editor-last=Sorace |editor-first=Christian |series=Political Concepts from Mao to Xi |publisher=ANU Press |isbn=978-1-78873-476-9 |jstor=j.ctvk3gng9.11 |editor2-last=Franceschini |editor2-first=Ivan |editor3-last=Loubere |editor3-first=Nicholas |jstor-access=free}}</ref> - were publicly criticised and denounced in places of gathering, and in more extreme examples had physical violence inflicted on them, including being beaten, tortured, and/or killed for their perceived crimes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Xiuyuan |first=Lü |date=1994 |title=A Step Toward Understanding Popular Violence in China's Cultural Revolution |journal=[[Pacific Affairs]] |volume=67 |issue=4 |pages=533–563 |doi=10.2307/2759573 |issn=0030-851X |jstor=2759573}}</ref>

Beginning in 1967, Mao and the PLA sought to restrain the mass organizations that had developed during the early phase of the Cultural Revolution, and began reframing the movement as one to study Mao Zedong Thought rather than using it as a guide to immediate action.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=133}}

=== Contradiction ===
Mao drew from the writings of Karl Marx, [[Friedrich Engels]], and [[Vladimir Lenin]] in elaborating his theory. Philosophically, his most important reflections emerge on the concept of "contradiction" (''maodun''). In two major essays, ''[[On Contradiction]]'' and ''[[On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People]]'', he adopts the idea that contradiction is present in matter itself and thus also in the ideas of the brain. Matter always develops through a dialectical contradiction: "The interdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things and the struggle between these aspects determine the life of things and push their development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist".<ref>Mao Tse Tung, [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm "On contradiction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124172339/https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm |date=2021-01-24 }}, Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1967, p. 75.</ref>

Mao held that contradictions were the essential feature of society, and a wide range of contradictions dominates society, this calls for various strategies. Revolution is necessary to resolve the fully antagonistic contradictions between labour and capital. Contradictions within the revolutionary movement call for an ideological correction to prevent them from becoming antagonistic. Furthermore, each contradiction (including [[class struggle]], the contradiction holding between relations of production and the concrete development of forces of production) expresses itself in a series of other contradictions, some dominant, others not. "There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions".<ref>Mao Tse-Tung, "[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm On contradiction] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124172339/https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm |date=2021-01-24 }}", Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung, op. cit., p. 89.</ref>

The principal contradiction should be tackled with priority when trying to make the fundamental contradiction "solidify". Mao elaborates on this theme in the essay ''[[On Practice]]'', "on the relation between knowledge and practice, between knowing and doing". Here, ''Practice'' connects "contradiction" with "class struggle" in the following way, claiming that inside a mode of production, there are three realms where practice functions: economic production, scientific experimentation (which also takes place in economic production and should not be radically disconnected from the former) and finally class struggle. These are the proper objects of economy, scientific knowledge, and politics.<ref>Cfr. Mao Tse-Tung, [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_16.htm "On practice. On the relation between knowledge and practice, between knowing and doing"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210211062705/https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_16.htm |date=2021-02-11 }}, Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung, op.cit., p. 55: "Man's social practice is not confined to activity in production, but takes many forms&mdash;class struggle, political life, scientific and artistic pursuits; in short, as a social being, man participates in all spheres of the practical life of society. Thus man, in varying degrees, comes to know the different relations between man and man, not only through his material life but also though his political and cultural life (both of which are intimately bound up with material life)".</ref>

These three spheres deal with matter in its various forms, socially mediated. As a result, they are the only realms where knowledge may arise (since truth and knowledge only make sense in relation to matter, according to Marxist epistemology). Mao emphasises&mdash;like Marx in trying to confront the "bourgeois idealism" of his time&mdash;that knowledge must be based on empirical evidence. Knowledge results from hypotheses verified in the contrast with a real object; this real object, despite being mediated by the subject's theoretical frame, retains its materiality and will offer resistance to those ideas that do not conform to its truth. Thus, in each of these realms (economic, scientific, and political practice), contradictions (principle and secondary) must be identified, explored, and put to function to achieve the communist goal. This involves the need to know "scientifically" how the masses produce (how they live, think and work), to obtain knowledge of how class struggle (the central contradiction that articulates a mode of production in its various realms) expresses itself.

[[File:Mao Zedong in Red.svg|thumb|Mao Zedong Thought is described as being Marxism–Leninism adapted to Chinese conditions, whereas its variant [[Marxism–Leninism–Maoism]] is considered universally applicable]]

=== Three Worlds Theory ===
In 1974, China announced its [[Three Worlds Theory]] at the UN.<ref name=":Laikwan">{{Cite book |last=Laikwan |first=Pang |title=One and All: The Logic of Chinese Sovereignty |date=2024 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=9781503638815 |location=Stanford, CA |doi=10.1515/9781503638822}}</ref>{{Rp|page=74}}

Three Worlds Theory states that during the [[Cold War]], two imperialist states formed the "first world"—the United States and the Soviet Union. The second world consisted of the other imperialist states in their spheres of influence. The third world consisted of non-imperialist countries. Both the first and the second world exploit the third world, but the first world is the most aggressive party. The first- and second-world workers are "bought up" by imperialism, preventing socialist revolution. On the other hand, the people of the third world have not even a short-sighted interest in the prevailing circumstances. Hence revolution is most likely to appear in third-world countries, which again will weaken imperialism, opening up for revolutions in other countries too.<ref name="emg">[http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm#maoism "Maoism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210211005551/https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm#maoism |date=2021-02-11 }}. Glossary of Terms. ''Encyclopedia of Marxism''.</ref>

=== Agrarian socialism ===
Maoism departs from conventional European-inspired Marxism in that it focuses on the agrarian countryside rather than the urban industrial forces—this is known as [[agrarian socialism]]. Notably, Maoist parties in Peru, Nepal, and the Philippines have adopted equal stresses on urban and rural areas, depending on the country's focus on economic activity. Maoism broke with the framework of the Soviet Union under [[Nikita Khrushchev]], dismissing it as "[[state capitalist]]" and "[[Marxist revisionism|revisionist]]", a pejorative term among communists referring to those who fight for capitalism in the name of socialism and who depart from [[Historical materialism|historical]] and [[dialectical materialism]].

Although Maoism is critical of urban industrial capitalist powers, it views urban [[industrialisation]] as a prerequisite to expanding [[economic development]] and the socialist reorganisation of the countryside, with the goal being the achievement of rural industrialisation that would abolish the distinction between town and countryside.<ref>John H. Badgley, John Wilson Lewis. Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia. Stanford, California, USA: Stanford University Press, 1974. p. 249.</ref>