Mao Zedong Thought and the Third World/Global South

Abstract

This essay takes up the question of the influence of Mao Zedong on Third World societies. The discussion proceeds in three parts: first, consideration of elements in Mao Zedong Thought that would account for its appeal beyond the Chinese revolution; second, the influence of Mao Zedong Thought in the heyday of Third World struggles in the 1960s and 1970s; third, the lingering commitment to Mao's legacies in postcolonial societies when it has all but been abandoned in the People's Republic of China except for the militant nationalism that it fostered. While Mao's legacies continue to exert some influence especially in agrarian societies subjected to the devastating consequences of global capitalism (especially India and the Philippines), the discussion suggests that this influence should be understood within the context of native ideological dispositions in societies placed similarly to revolutionary China within a globalizing capitalism in the post-Second World War period.

• Chinese Revolution
• Mao Zedong
• Maoism
• national liberation
• Naxalites
• Third World

Notes

¹ Quoted in Cheng and Manning (2003: 359).

² Since the appearance of Mao Zedong Thought in the 1940s, it has been conventional in Chinese Communist thinking (and scholarship on China) to draw a distinction between Mao Zedong Thought and Mao Zedong's thought. The former refers to the collective production of a body of thought in the Communist Party in which many participated, and the latter refers to the thought of Mao, the individual leader. I recognize this distinction in my stress here on ‘Mao Zedong Thought’. Nevertheless, since the two are almost impossible to separate in practice and in their presentation to the world outside, I use them interchangeably in this discussion. For a discussion of this problem, see Wylie (1980). For an in-depth study of the Party philosophers who contributed to the emergence of Mao Zedong Thought, see Knight (2005).

³ See, for example, New Crisis (1999), which lists Mao, along with Gandhi, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson and Winnie Mandela, and Che Guevara, as foremost Third World leaders of the twentieth century.

⁴ Mao Zedong (1940). An English translation is available in Mao Zedong (1965–7 II: 339–84).

⁵ For ‘On Contradiction’, see Mao Zedong (1965–7 I: 311–47).

⁶ Mao quotes Lenin in both essays.

⁷ See, for instance, ‘On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism’ (1935), in Mao Zedong (1965–7 I: 152–254).

⁸ Shu Riping also offers a useful survey of discussions of Mao's thought over the preceding ten years; such discussions achieved an unprecedented intensity in the early 1980s but have declined in recent years.

⁹ For differences among Chinese interpretations, see Shu Riping (1989: 6). For different interpretations among Euro-American analysts, see Modern China (1976–7).

¹⁰ For a discussion of these rhetorical tropes, see White (1973: 31–8).

¹¹ For ‘deterritorialization’ and ‘reterritorialization,’ see Deleuze and Guattari (1983).

¹² For a recollection, and continued reaffirmation, see Badiou (2005).

¹³ For the impact of Maoism in France and the United States, see Fields (1989) and Wolin (2010). Discussions of Maoism in Japan, the Philippines, India, Peru, etc. are to be found in Dirlik et al. (1997). Important insights into Maoism in Turkey may be found in Baydar and Ulagay (2011). One of the most interesting facts may be that Turkish Maoists learned their Maoism from Charu Mazumdar in India. The importance of Maoism for African Americans is discussed in Frazier (2006). For Maoism among Asian Americans, see Wei (1993).

¹⁴ An example of such devotion and the courage it inspired is the Turkish Maoist Melek Ulagay (see Baydar and Ulagay 2011). Needless to say, this does not apply to all, or even most, of those who moved in and out of these movements. See, for example, Sri Krishna (2007) for recollections on urban Maoists in India, many of whom came from upper-class families and elite universities. Some of the former Naxalites were to gain recognition in ‘postcolonial criticism’ and Subaltern Studies in later years.

¹⁵ Since 2006, the monarchy has been overthrown, and Maoists have entered the coalition government as respectable members dedicated to peaceful change. At the time, the Beijing government, while still under the neoliberal Jiang Zemin leadership in 2002, paid only lip service to the legacy of Mao Zedong and was anxious after 9/11 to join the United States in the condemnation of terrorism. In their case, terrorism signified activists of national minorities seeking liberation from the PRC. The support of Nepalese Maoists for ethnic minorities may have been a factor in their condemnation. See Boquerat (2006).

¹⁶ While the term ‘peasant’ is used widely by Maoist revolutionaries, ‘agrarian’ or ‘rural’ may describe the situation better, both because not all who live in the countryside are peasants and, more importantly, because in most of the cases that this discussion draws upon, the mobilization also included ethnic and tribal groups.

¹⁷ The discussion here draws on Starn (1997), Seth (1997) and Gungor (2005). I am grateful to Mr Gungor for sharing his thesis with me.

¹⁸ In addition to Boquerat (2006), see Rajmohan (n.d.) and Gyawali and Sharma (2005).

¹⁹ Revolutionary Worker (2003). For South Asia, see ‘Declaration of CCOMPOSA’, which was adopted by the Second Annual Conference of Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (2002). The participants included several groups each from India and Bangladesh, as well as Nepalese and Sri Lankan Maoist organizations.

²⁰ For six years, Pais served as head of the National Labour Institute in New Delhi. See also Roy (2011) for in-depth interviews with the Maoists.

²¹ Amin is the author of many works on the subject. Most directly relevant here may be Amin (1990).