At work, I was having some casual political small-talk with a coworker I thought was a liberal, and I threw out the “maybe we should make everyone do a year or two of customer service or retail before they officially become citizens” take.
She responded with “That’s literally Maoism.” She then explained to me that the central pole holding up the umbrella of Maoist philosophies is that the government has the responsibility to create moral citizens by requiring them to directly serve their country, such as farming or millitary service.
This feels correct, but I also feel like I am missing a lot.
My broadest possible understanding is that Mao Zedong Thought’s main innovation was seeing rural peasantry as a potentially revolutionary population, as opposed to previous communist movements’ reliance on an urban proletariat.
The thing you were talking about bears some similarities to the Down to the Countryside Movement, but I don’t know that I would call that the central pillar of MZT.
Didn’t the peasant also play a large part in the Russian Revolution, too?