Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Babu Ram Bhattarai did not invent Maoism.

A brief primer (courtesy: Slate online magazine)

http://www.slate.com/id/2095043

explainer
What's a Maoist, Anyway?
How to tell Nepal's Maoist rebels from garden-variety Communists.
By Brendan I. Koerner
Posted Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004, at 3:23 PM PT

The guerrilla insurgents who've been fighting the Nepalese government since 1996 are usually referred to as Maoists. How does Maoism differ from garden-variety communism?

Maoism has a more rural bent than the ideologies espoused by Marx and Lenin. Marxism-Leninism, as the Soviet version of communism is often called, held that urban workers should form the revolutionary vanguard. Mao Zedong, on the other hand, believed that Communist revolutions should gestate among the rural peasantry, who would later join with their proletariat comrades in the cities to form classless paradises. Indeed, the bulk of Mao's rebel force was drawn from China's hinterlands, where the vast majority of the population lived in abject poverty similar to that of modern-day Nepal.

This idealization of the peasant masses goes hand-in-hand with a distrust of urban industrialization, which Maoism views as a potential source of bourgeois elitism. Perhaps the defining moment of Maoist thought was the Great Leap Forward of 1959, in which rural collectives were urged to produce steel in backyard furnaces; if the people needed to produce nonagricultural products, the rationale went, best to do it in small batches and out in the sticks.

Up until that point, China's strain of communism wasn't terribly different from the Marxism-Leninism practiced next door in the Soviet Union. But Mao had grown to believe that the U.S.S.R. was veering toward capitalism under Nikita Khrushchev and was suspicious of the Soviets' urban industrialization program. Mao's rural alternative, the Great Leap Forward, was, of course, an epic catastrophe, and led to a famine that killed millions. (Mao blamed the failure on inclement weather.)

A third feature of Maoism is the idea that the bourgeois menace is ever-present, so party officials must always be vigilant to prevent the revolution's corruption. During Mao Zedong's reign, this meant constant violent purges and "re-education" of suspected counterrevolutionaries, culminating with the Cultural Revolution of 1967-1977, in which millions were harassed or killed for not being Maoist enough. (Mao died in 1976; the Cultural Revolution was declared over the following year.)

Though the Chinese government has never condemned Maoism, it's clear that the nation's leaders no longer embrace the Great Helmsman's far-left ideas. Mao would likely have a conniption if he saw modern-day Shanghai or heard that the Chinese government was considering adding a provision to the constitution to guarantee private property rights.

Mao's teachings influenced revolutionaries in several nations with large rural populations, but the Nepalese insurgency is perhaps the last Maoist movement left. The "ultra-Maoist" Khmer Rouge, whose antiurban purges in the 1970s left at least 1.7 million Cambodians dead, has essentially evaporated. And save for one tiny faction, Peru's Maoist Shining Path has dissolved since the arrest of its founder, Abimael Guzman (aka "President Gonzalo"), in 1992.

Explainer thanks Brantly Womack of the University of Virginia.
Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

The difference between Mao and Prachanda or BRB's Maoism have difference.
In my observation, Mao tried Maoism in the search of solution and that finally
was dead in 1977, the Maoism is being tried here in Nepal in the search of
power. Once BRB/Prachanda are given singha durbar, they will forget the
Maoism they were preaching to rural masses. Prachanda in one hand runs
his rheoteric messages that he is towards communist dictatorship (I forgot his
own words), but BRB frequently writes that peoples should not be scared of
Maoists's policy towards Open Market, he says they are not towards destroying
it and he also says he is not against other political parties. Is it a Maoism,
to go with clear existence of other political parties ? Thats faking and making
Girija ullu, thats it. Period.

GP

Here's what Maoism means:

Maoism is one of the most complex of all communist ideologies that are there. Mao-ism is a blend of Marxism, Leninism, a bit of Stalinism, a bit of nationalism and Mao Zedong thought. Marx didn't consider the peasants to be a true revolutionary force, he counted more on the urban workers. However, when teh Communist Party was established in China in 1920/21 as a part of the then ruling party, Guomin Dang or GMD or KMT, there were not many industrial workers in China. The majority was still in the rural areas. The CCP was mainly funded by the Comintern, established by Stalin to export revolutions abroad, so it remained basically loyal to the Soviets, and worked with the Nationalist government to unite the nation.

However, after defeating the warlords, i.e., the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek became wary of the communists so when the communists reached Shanghai, Chiang ordered his troops to kill them. After this, the communists retreated to the countryside, Jiangxi, Jianggagnshan areas. This is when Mao took over, somehow managed to make the party independent of the Comintern and realized that the only way to establish a communist country would be by organizing the vastly ignored peasants. So he altered Marxism to fit the Chinese conditions- workers were replaced by peasants. It was hard to motivate and organzie the peasants, sometimes it took upto 6 months to convert them. However, with the land reforms and a solid indoctrination programs, pretty soon the majority of the peasantry became loyal to the Communists. Also, at the same time, a new literary revolution was gripping the cities. Intellectuals were debating the merits/demerits of both socialism and capiatalism. The Nationalist governmnet, after the unification became more and more corrupt and power blind. This led many intellectuals such as Ding Ling, Qiu Qiubai and others (Lu Xun, the most famous of all Chinese writers did not join the Communist Party) were vigorously promoting communism. For them, Russia represented the model for a new, better, strong and unified China. So they went to Yan'an where the Communists had made a base, and joined the Communist party. This is where Chairman Mao released his guidelines for the authors, writers and intellectuals- from now on, everything- arts, literature etc.- will be for the masses. No burgeoise element in those will be tolerated.

Then came the Japanese invasion of China, and the Nationalists' inability to fight the Japanese. Instead of focusing on the Japanese, the Nationalist governmnet was still fighting the Communists. This infuriarated the Chinese intellectuals and the urbanm dwellers. So they went to Yenn'an and joined the communist party. Furthermore, the urban workers, whose republic the Chinese Communist Party was set to establish, but who were so far unaffected by the communist doctrine, suddenly started staging strikes and joined the Communists. Now the communist party had all starta of the society supporting it. Still the Communist party was operating from its Yenn'an base. Yenn'an days, often romaticinzed in the western media, especially by Endgar Snow was an interesting phase in the Chinese communism's history because its where Chairman Mao came up with his thoughts: On Intellectuals, on class enemies, on arts and ON GUERILLA WARFARE. This is where he could crystalzie his "Non Chung Wei Cheng Shi" - villages sorrounding the cities- doctrine. And on that aim, the PLA- People's Liberation Army- headed by Peng Dahuai, Zhu De, Chen Yun etc. was organized. And in 1949, the red army took control of Beijing.

Maoism shares many similarities with the Russian brand of communism than Marxism. However one striking difference is, in Russia, the Communist party took the land from the peasants and established the people's communes during the revolution, in China, the communists actually gave the land to the peasants which they took away from them only after 3 years of the establishmnet of the PRC. Because Chairman Mao and other veterans of the Communist Party were impressed by the Paris Communes, and at the same time, they feared that private ownership of land will make the peasantry idle and even more dangerous, make them petty burgeoise. So the state had to take away the land. The first thing that Deng Xiaoping did when he started his economic reforms in the late 70s was to give the land back to the peasants, so taht China would have a pety burgeoise class, a must for to achieve the aims of the economic reforms.

To summarize, Maoism was a movement, more than an ideology that helped to establish the People's Republic of China. Instead of seeing it as a doctrine or philosophy in itself, I see it as a mixture/blend of various schools of communist thoughts +_ nationalism.

Saavar-Sandarva Smagari for those who are interested:

1. Mao's China and After- Maurice Meisner*
2. The Gate of Heavenly Peace- Jonathan Spence
3. China: A New History- John K. Fairbank*
4. An Intellectual History of Modern China- Merle Goldman and Leo Ou Fan Lee
5. Mao Zedong- Jonathan Spence
6. Mao: A Life - Philip Short*



* Highly reccomended if you are interested in learning about China and Maoism.

A third feature of Maoism is the idea that the bourgeois menace is ever-present, so party officials must always be vigilant to prevent the revolution's corruption. During Mao Zedong's reign, this meant constant violent purges and "re-education" of suspected counterrevolutionaries, culminating with the Cultural Revolution of 1967-1977, in which millions were harassed or killed for not being Maoist enough. (Mao died in 1976; the Cultural Revolution was declared over the following year.)

Continuing Revolution, this was one of the reasons for the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. Different opinions on this one exists. However, I agree with Meisner view that the accounts of the Cultural Revolution that are in circulation today are of those people who were "victims" of the revolution. So these accounts cannot be trusted wholeheartedly. I have met many people, who do not even want to renmember it to people who will talk passionately for hrs. explaining how much they benifited from the revolution. But for the most part, people did suffer.

The purging etc. were to ensure that noone violates the mass line or the party's line. Deng Xiaoping was purged and sent to countryside 3 times. This purging of the leaders is not a part of Mao Zedong thoughts but something that got institutionalized outside of the thoughts framework after the bureaucrtic reforms of the early 60s.

Mao tried Maoism in the search of solution and that finally
was dead in 1977, the Maoism is being tried here in Nepal in the search of
power.

GP jyu,

Hoina, Mao was looking for power too. He wasn't looking for any solution but the communist solution or his solution to the Chinese problems then. And he succeeded.

a must for to achieve the aims of the economic reforms. = a must to

The features of a Maoist state is:

1. No Private Property
2. No Elections
3. Continuing Revolution
4. The Dictatorship of the Proleteriat and the People's Democratic Dictatorship
5. Leninist State Model

The Nepali brand of Maoism is the Yennan days and the Fanshen days Maoism.

intellectuals such as Ding Ling, Qiu Qiubai and others (Lu Xun, the most famous of all Chinese writers did not join the Communist Party) were vigorously promoting communism= this led intellectuals such as Ding Ling, Qiu Qiubai and others (Lu Xun, the most famous of all Chinese writers did not join the Communist Party but he was sympathetic to them) to vigourously promote communism through the literay magazines being published from Shanghai, and through novels.


aaru error haroo padhdai aafai sachyaudai janu hola..