Mao Zedong Thought

1965 Chinese poster, with text "Learning for the Revolution Utterly Comprehending the Mao Zedong Thought."

Mao Zedong Thought (MZT) is a tendency developed by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China more broadly which asserts itself to be an application of Marxism–Leninism to the national conditions of China.

Mao Zedong Thought, although developed for the Chinese context, held universal characteristics which would be developed into Maoism with the contributions of Abimael Guzmán of the Communist Party of Peru and others.

The CPC declared Mao Zedong Thought to be a higher stage of Marxism at the 9th congress of the Communist Party of China:

"Chairman Mao has integrated the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of revolution, has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the political, military, economic, cultural, philosophical and other spheres, and has brought Marxism-Leninism to a higher and completely new stage. Mao Tsetung Thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory."

Contributions

People's war

Main article: Protracted people's war

In contrast to many other Marxist–Leninist formations which sought to emulate the model of revolution done in the Russia (i.e. the "October Road") of a long period of mostly legal struggle leading to eventual insurrection in the cities, and then most likely followed by a period of civil war, Mao Zedong developed his own means of socialist revolution relevant to Chinese peculiarities known as protracted people's war.

With people's war, the Communist Party of China mobilized the peasantry under proletarian leadership to surround the cities from the country side through a protracted armed struggle under which the people's war would go from being on the defensive to the offensive in positional warfare. This strategy led to the victory of the socialist revolution in China in 1949 with the defeat of the Guomindang.

New Democracy

Main article: New Democracy

Mao transcended the traditional understanding of the state in Marxism by developing a third type of dictatorship — New Democracy. New Democracy represents a joint-dictatorship of all anti-feudal and progressive strata under the leadership of the proletariat to build up the country for an eventual transition to a conventional proletarian dictatorship. China would advance from New Democracy to a full socialist revolution by 1975 with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Continuation and intensification of class struggle under socialism

Main article: Intensification of class struggle under socialism

Mao was one of the few members of the international communist movement who recognized that class struggle would not only persist, but aggravate under under socialism and that sustained effort would be needed to eliminate the revived bourgeois class in the socialist society. Mao recognized that this was not what was happening in the Soviet Union, and that China was also in danger of following the capitalist path that Nikita Khrushchev and his followers had pioneered there.

See also

• Maoism
• Communist Party of China
• People's Republic of China (1949–1978)