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.
Maoism generally refers to MLM, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. This is confusing because it is not something Mao ever believed or forwarded, but is a later construction by formations like the Shining Path (complete with Chairman Gonzalo) who named their work after Mao because they liked (their interpretations of) some of his salient approaches.
You will need a dedicated glossary to read and understand MLM publications, they use their own internal references for things and they are sometimes references to the CPC under Mao and even in those cases they can still be imbued with a specialized MLM meaning (like the “mass line”).
But the short of it is that Maoists tend to pose themselves as anti-revisionists above all who seek revolution through a protracted people’s war. They appreciate the CPC’s military strategy of embedding with the countryside people and fighting a direct violent revolution from this basis, with their own modifications. They are hyper-critical of all other tendencies and their writings are often dense and obscurantist when doing so. There are, however, existing MLM or MLM-ish armed revolutionary projects with some level of foothold, more than many other tendencies. The Naxalites in India and the CPP in the Philippines, and much respect to both for actually doing the work.
In the West, Maoists are known for being very pessimistic and not very active, which aligns in many ways with MLMs holding to the (arguably correct) line that the imperial core has no revolutionary potential. In the West, MLMs are known to focus on reading groups and trying to figure out how they can assist movements outside their countries, in the periphery, including the CPP.
I recommend searching for information about MLMs since many people still think “Maoism” means “what Mao enthusiasts in China believe”. And because I have in no way provided a comprehensive description.
Western Maoists… I wish they’d focus on reading groups. They’re giant crank magnets that actively harm the left. But… they attract slightly less cranks and cultists than the Trots, so. And at least they sometimes do things, the MLs often can’t even get book clubs together.
I think communist groups in the west in general are crank magnets, unfortunately. Reason number 7398 that internal organizing is the most important part of running an org. Always a few folks trying to push some wromg ideas, and hard.
Yeah, that’s probably true. The kinds of people in the West both open to leftism and willing to organise, tend to be more prone to being cranks than the general population, so you end up with any communist group that exists being a magnet for cultist and moralist nut jobs who just prefer a hammer and sickle over a crucifix, and academic cranks with very hyperspecific opinions on obscure details of Marx’s writing.
It’s just that Maoists in particular do have quite a reputation for cultish behaviour and being crank magnets.
The most common problematic behavior I’ve seen with western Maoists is how much effort and stress they impose on themselves and each other through internal criticism that is more about attacking each other than being constructive. It breeds a “everyone is in my business so I’m going to be in theirs” mentality and disunity, which is ironic because they speak in terms of criticizing each other to avoid disunity.
But I’ve also seen Trots and MLs do this. Especially Trots though. If a Trot ever offers to mentor you, run.
So basically, they give demcen a bad name and act like gossipy shame-each-other church ladies. Yeah, that sounds like what I know about 'em. Tbf, the only Maoist I actually know… I put up with him for the cuddles, he’s lucky he’s cute.
(His name is Comrade Cuddles. Complete crank. Won’t shut up about Mao’s tactics. Ask him any political question, get a Mao quote. He’s lucky he gives good hugs. But honestly, you’d be silly to expect anything else from a 🐼.)
Yeah, MLs totally can do most of the same crankish stuff, but Maoists and Trots have a well earned reputation for it.
Don’t need to tell me that, every leftist I’ve ever run into who felt “off” and not worth my time, was a Trot. I’m unlikely to get much out of spending time with a fellow leftist who thinks Stalin made worse mistakes than stopping in Berlin, and I know that and try to avoid Trots in general. They don’t like the USSR, so I don’t like them. (That’s all aside from the general cultishness and crank magnetism of Trot parties, of course, that’s yet another reason to avoid them. Mormon missionaries in red shirts with “comrade” on their name tags, trying to sell you a newspaper. It’s surreal.)
Critical support for Comrade Cuddles even though he just called me a revisionist.
He calls me a revisionist about five times an hour, join the club. Usually because he doesn’t like my cuddling technique. He says I “suck in bed” meaning that a night’s worth of cuddling is less enjoyable than he’d hoped, and I have to stifle a laugh, he’s so innocent and adorable. He calls everyone a revisionist. He sharpens his claws on my Soviet flag because he’s still mad about the Sino-Soviet Split. He eats my bamboo kitchen implements. He throws me out of the bed so he can hold a party meeting with all the other teddy bears. He’s the worst comrade ever. And a really bad roommate, for a teddy bear.
But the hugs are really good, okay? He can call me a revisionist and chew up my cutting board all he wants if I get those sweet panda bear hugs. And a 🐼 who’s a stereotypical Maoist is funny and very cute. At least he knows who Lenin was. Unlike another stuffed bear in a red shirt who I only ever get as far as “peace, land, hunny!” with.