AHC: More succesful Maosim

Your challenge is to have revolutionary Maoist groups sieze power in more places throughout the world than IOTL. Goodluck!

As a preliminary exercise, maybe it'd be better to consider why certain states would be better disposed to Maoism.

It's important to note that that classical Maoism stresses highly violent class struggle as a means to level a population into an ideologically malleable aggregate. Sure, Papa Joe committed great atrocities, but he did not necessarily pit certain socio-economic strata against one another as Mao did.

Mao's Stalinist-like economic hyperactivity simply could not work with the vast peasant population of China and the strong resistance to collectivism. Eventually, Mao's purges and bizarre economic policies further impoverished an already impoverished nation.

Mao's inabilty to pit different social groups against one another for the purpose of ideological domination must be considered when placing hypotheses about ATL Maoist states. I am not altogether convinced that Maoism can provide a stable government, given the inherent instability of a state after its intellectual, military, and political leadership have been murdered. Mao's shortsighted "Hundred Flowers Campaign" gutted the academic structure of a country already imprisoned under an autocratic and psychopathic leader.
 
Last edited:
Well, the Communist Party of New Zealand is notable for being one of the few parties to choose Maoism rather than the Moscow line in the West during the Sino-Soviet split. Given New Zealand's economy, and Maoism's promise of an agricultural solution for revolution, this isn't unexpected.

We could, with a little oomph, push the CPA into the same position, and possibly even the CPC.

This may lead to a greater Maoist periphery in the late 1960s and early 1970s; with a larger "street fighting" attitude in the (now Maoist) CPA at least.

* * *

It is however pure fancy to imagine the CPNZ hiding in its bastion in the Dunedin Soviet, supported by poor farmers, from the trepidations of the comprador elite in Wellington and Auckland after the success of the "Long Hitchhike" delaying action.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Last edited:
thanks for the input so far. gotta admit sam, i dont know much about new zealand politics. Sounds like an interesting place for a revolution though...
 
In some ways, you could argue that Maoism was more successful than the Moscow Marxist-Leninism. There was a huge shift away from the Soviet line after incidents like the Prague Spring, and a lot of the youth groups and terrorist organizations we now associate with leftism looked up to the example of Mao. Traditional Soviet M-L became discredited after its revolutionary fervor died down, and China was seen as the path to world revolution.

Not to mention, most active militant Communists groups today are Maoist in nature, especially in the third-world. I can't really name any pro-Soviet example group, but places like India and Nepal have active Communist movements and Nepal has actually undergone a Maoist revolution as of late. So Maoism has actually succeeded pretty well all things considered. Now, in comparison to the Soviet line (which pretty much inspired every subsequent Marxist revolution, China included :rolleyes:) they might be lacking, but Maoism has been able to carry on, with or without the now-capitalist China.

To make Maoism more "successful", DPRK victory in the Korean War with Chinese involvement is a good start. Make the USSR a static socialist state concerned with its nationalist tendencies. Make decolonization even worse, maybe even slower. Revolution in India, or have India as we know it disintegrate. Make the PRC not suck basically, avoid disastrous decisions that took away crucial years of socialist development. Avoid the proto-North Korean tendencies.
 
Last edited:
Actually, Chinese peasants were relatively OK with collectivism per se - note that collectivizing the farms did not require the sort of mass murder that accompanied it in Russia [1]: but then collectivizing was a standard Communist maneuver, and could not be called "Maoist." Now the Great Leap Forward, that was all Mao, and a good deal more irrational than Stalinist industrialization, which at least recognized that you can't build a national steel industry in people's back yards and that there is some need for actual scientists and engineers. Mao was a nut.

On the other hand, foreign revolutions that call themselves Maoist don't necessarily have to carry out the same sort of nutiness that Mao himself imposed on his country and fellow revolutionaries...

Bruce

[1] Which may have something to do with the fact a certain amount of small-scale peasant capitalism never ceased in China
 
I can't really name any pro-Soviet example group, but places like India and Nepal have active Communist movements and Nepal has actually undergone a Maoist revolution as of late. So Maoism has actually succeeded pretty well all things considered.

Please describe Nepalese Maoism. Is there such a thing as "soft Maoism" that merely stresses certain tenets such as agricultural self-sufficiency without Chairman Mao's societal implosion?
 
Julius Nyerere considered himself a "Maoist" when it came to economics, and although he wrecked his country's agricultural production, he was not the massacre-y type. For every Holy Text, whether by Moses, Marx, or Mao, there are many interpretations.

Bruce
 
Please describe Nepalese Maoism. Is there such a thing as "soft Maoism" that merely stresses certain tenets such as agricultural self-sufficiency without Chairman Mao's societal implosion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Nepal_(Maoist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Prachanda_Path

The Party was instrumental in ending the monarchy and establishing democracy within Nepal; cooperation is instrumental. Among other things, the nationalism in Maoism is present here as well as the use of violence. They could be described as "soft Maoism" considering they ceased hostilities to participate elections for the Assembly, in which they won.
 
In some ways, you could argue that Maoism was more successful than the Moscow Marxist-Leninism. There was a huge shift away from the Soviet line after incidents like the Prague Spring, and a lot of the youth groups and terrorist organizations we now associate with leftism looked up to the example of Mao.

I think you'll find that the shift away from the Soviet Line was largely to do with an abhorrent disgust at the Soviet Union's actions towards the Czechoslovak example of a democratising post Stalinist communist party. The Australian CP broke with Moscow as it was in favour of democratising reformism. Some could consider this a move to the right; but to conflate the Australian Party's rightward movements towards respectability and quietescence with the Czechoslovak party moving _rightward_ by reinstituting party and workers democracy is incredible. (One could argue that the Moscow line SPA moved just as far right as the CPA, while maintaining a Moscow doctrinaire attitude).

Moreover, while Maoism may have been vibrant in Australia and Italy, it was actually CP splits towards the broadly Nagy-Dubcek position of workers democracy that were fruitful in terms of _proletarian_ revolution rather than a party coup d'etat. (For example, the Workers Control Collective which brought together Anarchists, CP, SP and Maoists in Australia; or the Autonomia in Italy which were far more important than Maoism, and were quite clearly a CP-split with partisan memories and SP workers control stuff).

Not to mention, most active militant Communists groups today are Maoist in nature, especially in the third-world. I can't really name any pro-Soviet example group, but places like India and Nepal have active Communist movements and Nepal has actually undergone a Maoist revolution as of late.

Both are as removed from Maoism as Lenin was from IId International reformists. Both Nepalese and Indian maoists mobilise around a democratised rural proletariat rather than a peasantry per se. (In this sense, one could accuse them of following the line broadly established by the Vietnamese Worker's Party in 1945-1975 of placing the rural proletariat at the centre of strategy; in particular the VWP line after the horrific failure of "rural labourers are peasants" Maoist style land restructuring which was quickly shut down).

So Maoism has actually succeeded pretty well all things considered.

For the reasons I just noted above this is equivalent to considering that Kautsky succeeded because of the Lenin-Trotsky success in hemogenising the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets behind a Bolshevik line.

To make Maoism more "successful", DPRK victory in the Korean War with Chinese involvement is a good start.

Only if the Maoist line wins in the DPRK. The DPRK was riven with four competing lines:
1) A Soviet line, from those in the Soviet Union during the war
2) A Maoist line, from those in China during the war
3) A natively developed line, from those who spent the war under Japanese occupation
4) The Kim Il-sung line.

The success of the Kim Il-sung line was tenuous for quite some time. (Personally, I feel that the nativist line was most thoroughly grounded in the conditions of the actual Korean proletariat and offered the best case for genuine revolution by workers for workers lead by workers. Such is revolution).

* * *

Whether Maoism is Maoism if it is as distantly removed from the actual tenets and practices of the CP under Mao is slightly more than a semantic debate. One could postulate a world dominated by Hoxhaites with Albania as the motherland of socialism—would this still be a triumph of Maoism?

yours,
Sam R.
 
Have African decolonization be delayed slightly, and make it more costly and (violently)contested. Sub-Saharan Africa might then prove fertile soil for Maoist movements, although I harbor few illusions about the ultimate course of such.
 
would anyone care to contribute to a list of countries that could've potentially gone "maoist," in an extreme or soft sense of the term, between 1949 and 1989?
 
would anyone care to contribute to a list of countries that could've potentially gone "maoist," in an extreme or soft sense of the term, between 1949 and 1989?
China, Somalia, Albania, and the Khmer Rougue. All of them were very different though, but they allied with Mao. The only one close to the clusterfuck that is Mao were the Khmer Rougue, who went above and beyond Mao, or slightly less than him depending on the POV, in wreaking havoc.
 
Whether Maoism is Maoism if it is as distantly removed from the actual tenets and practices of the CP under Mao is slightly more than a semantic debate. One could postulate a world dominated by Hoxhaites with Albania as the motherland of socialism—would this still be a triumph of Maoism?

Maoism has always been ideologically murky and depending on who you ask, a non-existent form of Marxism or not. I personally feel China's allies were not Maoist in nature and that actual Maoist practices are merely just anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist.

would anyone care to contribute to a list of countries that could've potentially gone "maoist," in an extreme or soft sense of the term, between 1949 and 1989?

In addition to what's already been said, Cuba could also fall under the Chinese sway if the PRC was more successful in the Korean War. Though they'd still be competing for influence against the stronger Soviet Union, Che and others showed pro-Maoist tendencies and provided an catalyst in Latin America for leftist revolution.
 
Only if the Maoist line wins in the DPRK. The DPRK was riven with four competing lines:
1) A Soviet line, from those in the Soviet Union during the war
2) A Maoist line, from those in China during the war
3) A natively developed line, from those who spent the war under Japanese occupation
4) The Kim Il-sung line.

What are some of the differences between Juche and (domestic) Maoism as the DPRK understands it (or understood it)?

I doubt that the Kim character cult is a distinguishing feature between domestic "original" Maoism and Juche, given that Mao himself also indulged in quite a bit of character cult behavior.
 
What are some of the differences between Juche and (domestic) Maoism as the DPRK understands it (or understood it)?

I doubt that the Kim character cult is a distinguishing feature between domestic "original" Maoism and Juche, given that Mao himself also indulged in quite a bit of character cult behavior.


Maoist China frequently practiced 'from below to above' mass action ( Down to the Countryside Movement, Red Guards). Jucheism do not have such sentiment.
 
What are some of the differences between Juche and (domestic) Maoism as the DPRK understands it (or understood it)?

I doubt that the Kim character cult is a distinguishing feature between domestic "original" Maoism and Juche, given that Mao himself also indulged in quite a bit of character cult behavior.

The DPRK eliminated non Jucheist factions after the war. As observed elsewhere Maoism is far more reliant on a participatory mass action. Maoism regularly went through internal crises of legitimation; and, was internally threatened by non-Maoist Chinese lines. In comparison the Korean party after the war lacked internal disunity, even to the miniscule and party lead extent in China. The DPRK certainly lacked an internal revolutionary movement which was harnessed by the Party against other bits of the Party.

yours,
Sam R.
 
The DPRK certainly lacked an internal revolutionary movement which was harnessed by the Party against other bits of the Party.

I always thought that Stalin essentially created Kim il Sung as a vassal for post-war Korea. Communists were unsuccessful in taking all of Korea, but at least Stalin was able to take half and have some control over the area by creating the Kim lineage.

Yet, as you say, the DPRK has a homegrown type of socialism that is neither Stalinist nor Maoist. Did the Juche break happen after Stalin? If so, did Stalin's death have anything to do with the break?
 
I *may* be wrong, but Kim was actually not a puppet of Staline - I think Staline had actualy a 'fifth column' party, but Kim's men took power on them and the others. So, he cozied to Staline maybe, but gained power by himself.
 
Top