Editing Maoism (section)

=== United States ===
After the tumultuous 1960s (particularly the events of 1968, such as the launch of the [[Tet Offensive]], the [[assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.]], [[Columbia University protests of 1968|nationwide university protests]], and the election of Richard Nixon), proponents of Maoist ideology constituted the "largest and most dynamic" branch of [[American socialism]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Elbaum |first=Max |date=1998 |title=Maoism in the United States |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/maoism-us.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124171902/https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/maoism-us.htm |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-23 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Twombly |first=Matthew |date=January 2018 |title=A Timeline of 1968: The Year That Shattered America |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/timeline-seismic-180967503/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035343/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/timeline-seismic-180967503/ |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-23 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref> From this branch came a collection of "newspapers, journals, books, and pamphlets," each of which spoke on the unreasonability of the American system and proclaimed the need for a concerted social revolution.<ref name=":0" /> Among the many Maoist principles, the group of aspiring American revolutionaries sympathized with the idea of a protracted people's war, which would allow citizens to address the oppressive nature of global capitalism martially.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Marks |first1=Thomas A. |last2=Rich |first2=Paul B. |date=2017-05-04 |title=Back to the future – people's war in the 21st century |journal=Small Wars & Insurgencies |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=409–425 |doi=10.1080/09592318.2017.1307620 |issn=0959-2318 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Maoism was a major influence on the [[New Communist movement]].

Mounting discontent with racial oppression and socioeconomic exploitation birthed the two largest, officially-organized Maoist groups: the [[Revolutionary Communist Party, USA|Revolutionary Communist Party]] and the [[Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist) (United States)|October League]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Leonard |first1=Aaron J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eP5JBgAAQBAJ&q=revolutionary+communist+party+scholarly+articles&pg=PT8 |title=Heavy Radicals - The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists: The Revolutionary Union / Revolutionary Communist Party 1968-1980 |last2=Gallagher |first2=Conor A. |date=2015-02-27 |publisher=John Hunt Publishing |isbn=978-1-78279-533-9 |language=en |access-date=2020-11-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035324/https://books.google.com/books?id=eP5JBgAAQBAJ&q=revolutionary+communist+party+scholarly+articles&pg=PT8 |archive-date=2021-01-24 |url-status=live}}</ref> However, these were not the only groups: a slew of organizations and movements emerged across the globe as well, including [[I Wor Kuen]], the [[Black Workers Congress]], the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization, the [[August Twenty-Ninth Movement]], the Workers Viewpoint Organization, and many others—all of which overtly supported Maoist doctrine.<ref name=":0" />

Orchestrated by ''[[National Guardian|The Guardian]],'' in the spring of 1973, an attempt to conflate the strands of American Maoism was made with a series of sponsored forums titled "What Road to Building a New Communist Party?" The forums drew 1,200 attendees to a New York City auditorium that spring.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Elbaum |first=Max |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PSJaDwAAQBAJ&q=%E2%80%9CWhat+Road+to+Building+a+New+Communist+Party&pg=PA108 |title=Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che |date=2018-02-06 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78663-459-7 |language=en |access-date=2020-11-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210223073024/https://books.google.com/books?id=PSJaDwAAQBAJ&q=%E2%80%9CWhat+Road+to+Building+a+New+Communist+Party&pg=PA108 |archive-date=2021-02-23 |url-status=live}}</ref> The central message of the event revolved around "building an anti-revisionist, non-Trotskyist, non-anarchist party".<ref>{{Cite web |title=MIM Notes |url=https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn.php?issue=070 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035301/https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn.php?issue=070 |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-23 |website=www.prisoncensorship.info}}</ref> From this, other forums were held worldwide, covering topics such as "The Role of the Anti-Imperialist Forces in the Antiwar Movement" and "The Question of the Black Nation"—each forum rallying, on average, an audience of 500 activists, and serving as a "barometer of the movement's strength."<ref name=":1" />

The Americans' burgeoning Maoist and Marxist–Leninist movements proved optimistic for a potential revolution, but "a lack of political development and rampant rightist and ultra-leftist opportunism" thwarted the advancement of the greater communist initiative.<ref name=":1" /> In 1972, Richard Nixon made a landmark visit to the People's Republic of China to shake hands with Chairman Mao Zedong; this simple handshake marked the gradual pacification of east–west hostility and the re-formation of relations between "the most powerful and most populous" global powers: the United States and China.<ref>{{Cite web |last=CDT |first=Posted on 04 21 09 10:42 AM |title=RealClearSports - Richard Nixon - Mao Zedong |url=https://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/famous_political_handshakes/nixon_mao.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035254/https://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/famous_political_handshakes/nixon_mao.html |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-23 |website=www.realclearpolitics.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Frankel |first=Max  |date=1972-02-21 |title=HISTORIC HANDSHAKE: President Nixon being welcomed by Premier Chou En-lal. At the left is Mrs. Nixon. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/21/archives/a-quiet-greeting-no-airport-speeches-plane-stops-in-shanghai-an.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035334/https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/21/archives/a-quiet-greeting-no-airport-speeches-plane-stops-in-shanghai-an.html |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-23 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Nearly a decade after the Sino-Soviet split, this newfound amiability between the two nations quieted American-based counter-capitalist rumblings and marked the steady decline of American Maoism until its unofficial cessation in the early-1980s.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Saba |first=Paul |date=22 May 1981 |title=End of the Line for American Maoism |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/wv-end-maoism.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035242/https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/wv-end-maoism.htm |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-23 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

The [[Black Panther Party]] (BPP) was another American-based, left-wing revolutionary party to oppose American global imperialism; it was a self-described Black militant organization with metropolitan chapters in [[Oakland, California]], New York, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles, and an overt sympathizer with global anti-imperialistic movements (e.g., Vietnam's resistance of American neo-colonial efforts).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vietnam War |url=https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210211015440/https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history |archive-date=2021-02-11 |access-date=2020-06-24 |website=HISTORY |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Oliver |first=Pamela |date=19 October 2017 |title=Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panthers – Race, Politics, Justice |url=https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/racepoliticsjustice/2017/10/19/black-against-empire-the-history-and-politics-of-the-black-panthers/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035229/https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/racepoliticsjustice/2017/10/19/black-against-empire-the-history-and-politics-of-the-black-panthers/ |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Hermidda |first=Ariane |title=Mapping the Black Panther Party - Mapping American Social Movements |url=https://depts.washington.edu/moves/BPP_map-cities.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213212029/https://depts.washington.edu/moves/BPP_map-cities.shtml |archive-date=2021-02-13 |access-date=2020-06-24 |website=depts.washington.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Earl |first=Anthony |title=Black Panther Party |url=https://web.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200704132738/http://web.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm |archive-date=2020-07-04 |access-date=2020-06-24 |website=web.stanford.edu}}</ref> In 1971, a year before Nixon's monumental visit, BPP leader [[Huey P. Newton]] landed in China, whereafter he was enthralled with the [[Eastern world|East]] and the achievements of the Chinese Communist Revolution.<ref name=":2">Ren, Chao (2009) ""[https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=constructing Concrete Analysis of Concrete Conditions": A Study of the Relationship between the Black Panther Party and Maoism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210222022414/https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=constructing |date=2021-02-22 }}," Constructing the Past: Vol. 10 : Iss. 1, Article 7.</ref> After his return to the United States, Newton said that "[e]verything I saw in China demonstrated that the People's Republic is a free and liberated territory with a socialist government" and "[t]o see a classless society in operation is unforgettable".<ref name=":3">Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (New York: Writers and Readers Publishing Inc., 1995), 323.</ref> He extolled the Chinese police force as one that "[served] the people" and considered the Chinese antithetical to American law enforcement, which, according to Newton, represented "one huge armed group that was opposed to the will of the people".<ref name=":3" /> In general, Newton's first encounter with anti-capitalist society commenced a psychological liberation and embedded within him the desire to subvert the American system in favor of what the BPP called "revolutionary [[intercommunalism]]".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Vasquez |first=Delio |date=2018-06-11 |title=Intercommunalism: The Late Theorizations of Huey P. Newton, 'Chief Theoretician' of the Black Panther Party |url=https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/06/11/intercommunalism-the-late-theorizations-of-huey-p-newton-chief-theoretician-of-the-black-panther-party/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124035204/https://viewpointmag.com/2018/06/11/intercommunalism-the-late-theorizations-of-huey-p-newton-chief-theoretician-of-the-black-panther-party/ |archive-date=2021-01-24 |access-date=2020-06-24 |website=Viewpoint Magazine}}</ref> Furthermore, the BPP was founded on a similar politico-philosophical framework as that of Mao's CCP, that is, "the philosophical system of dialectical materialism" coupled with traditional Marxist theory.<ref name=":2" /> The words of Mao, quoted liberally in BPP speeches and writings, served as a guiding light for the party's analysis and theoretical application of Marxist ideology.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chao |first=Eveline |date=2016-10-14 |title=Let One Hundred Panthers Bloom |url=https://www.chinafile.com/viewpoint/let-one-hundred-panthers-bloom |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205005009/https://www.chinafile.com/viewpoint/let-one-hundred-panthers-bloom |archive-date=2021-02-05 |access-date=2020-06-24 |website=ChinaFile |language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Mao Tse-Tung Memorial Meetings Poster.jpg|thumb|1978 [[Revolutionary Communist Party, USA|Revolutionary Communist Party USA]] poster commemorating Mao's legacy.]]
In his autobiography ''[[Revolutionary Suicide]],'' published in 1973, Newton wrote:
<blockquote>Chairman Mao says that death comes to all of us, but it varies in its significance: to die for the reactionary is lighter than a feather; to die for the revolution is heavier than Mount Tai. [...] When I presented my solutions to the problems of Black people, or when I expressed my philosophy, people said, "Well, isn't that socialism?" Some of them were using the socialist label to put me down, but I figured that if this was socialism, then socialism must be a correct view. So I read more of the works of the socialists and began to see a strong similarity between my beliefs and theirs. My conversion was complete when I read the four volumes of Mao Tse-tung to learn more about the Chinese Revolution.<ref name=":3" /></blockquote>