Maoism

Maoism explores the ideology of Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader of the communist party of the twentieth century, and how he managed to turn his doctrine into a mass-adopted phenomenon that continues even today, under different forms and shapes.

Powerful dictators don’t just show up one day and take over their countries. Instead, they manipulate their people to view them as saviors ready to address all the problems they may have and fix the damage that was done before. As such, Mao focused on peasants and built communism by having them as his main audience.

Mao opened his arms to them and turned his back on the few rich. After all, he was looking to popularize his doctrine and spread it across China, not make friends with those who were well-off. The overall sentiment of unfairness and jealousy people have about those who are wealthy helped him do that.

As such, exploiting these feelings and beliefs by addressing them out loud made peasants feel understood and revenged. They were ready to follow and back up Mao, their savior, in his endeavors. To attract more followers, he then showed importance toward women.

In public, he was putting emphasis on females and their rights. He seemed ready to protect them and acknowledge their importance. Backstage though, he was nothing more than a dictator exercising his cruelty on them.

Other people he was violent with were his opponents. However, he wasn’t afraid to show this to the public, as he was executing them in front of large audiences.

At first, Mao had tensions with Russia. After Stalin died, the country went through a process of destalinization, which also implied getting rid of the cult of personality. This didn’t go well with Mao’s ways, as he was relying on this left-winged method to promote himself as a communist leader. As such, Nikita Khrushchev, Russia’s new leader, was challenged to a “peaceful coexistence”. To address the international situation, Mao ordered the Chinese publishers to print out a billion copies of the Little Red Book, which was a compilation of his quotes meant to increase his popularity. Another way of spreading Maoism occurred when the Chinese leader tried to help the Indonesian Communist Party, or the PKI, to take over their country. Their unsuccessful attempt ended with the murder of half a million people. The reason? Communist propaganda can’t last without military backup, so the Indonesian army inhibited their movement. Maoism tried to go international through Africa as well, so he invited 111 African leaders to China to discuss business and foreign aid. Soon after these meetings, Tanzania’s leader came up with a plan to transform the country after Mao’s model. Needless to say, nationalizing the…