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Maoism |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.06 sec. |
MaoismVariation of Marxism and Leninism developed by Mao Zedong. It diverged from its antecedents in its agrarian focus: Mao substituted the dormant power of the peasantry (discounted by traditional Marxists) for the urban proletariat that China largely lacked. The Maoist faith in revolutionary enthusiasm and the positive value of the peasants' lack of sophistication as opposed to technological or intellectual elites fueled the Great Leap Forward of the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and '70s. The disastrous consequences of both upheavals led Mao's successors to abandon Maoism as counterproductive to economic growth and social order. Maoism was embraced by insurgent guerrilla groups worldwide; under the Khmer Rouge it became Cambodia's national ideology. Maoism Marxism-Leninism as interpreted by Mao Tse-tung (1893--1976), the Chinese Marxist theoretician and statesman: distinguished by its theory of guerrilla warfare and its emphasis on the revolutionary potential of the peasantry |
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just as Stalinism and Maoism were linked to Das Kapital, but to explain the horrors of China's man-made famines or the Soviet gulag solely by invoking the writings of Karl Marx would be to miss the main point. The revelation that building national identity from, so to speak, the ground up would not by itself ensure economic progress and social harmony lay behind the collapse of Maoism and the launch of the reforms. Such subjects and themes--as well as the agitatory, autocritical quality of his figurative language, which always seems to be struggling to justify itself--could certainly have been illuminated by a fuller explication of his early identification with Communist ideals, Maoism, and various left-wing groups. |
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