Differences between Maoism and Soviet Leninism

[ArrowLance]

I'm looking for a good article/book that I can use as a source for a paper I am writing for a World Histories class.

Any resources that identify historical and/or theoretical differences would be much appreciated.

[Joe_Germinal]

Maoism was nothing more than the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions. Nonetheless, Mao had some criticisms of soviet economics which you can read in his book A Critique of Soviet Economics.

The Chinese Communist Party also broke with the USSR over Khrushchev's revisionism, you can read their reasons in their statements published as "The Origin and Development of the Differences between the Leadership of the CPSU and Ourselves"

[red cat]

Maoism was nothing more than the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions.

Maoism is a qualitative development over Marxism-Leninism. See the threads on Maoism for details.

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

When you say "Soviet Leninism", to what are you referring, specifically? Does Stalin count into that category for you?

If so:

1) Class struggle continues throughout the socialist period
2) Socialism can be achieved but not consolidated in one country
3) Increase in the popular agency of the people
4) Break with the mechanical understandings of social/econ development

For starters.

[Raúl Duke]

Maoism has a focus on the peasantry...
Leninism doesn't

Maoism has the "New Democracy" theory which includes the "national bourgeoise" as part of the anti-imperialist coalition controlled by the party.
Leninism does not have this idea and most likely, in theory, is against it (alliances with the bourgeoise)

[Joe_Germinal]

Maoism has the "New Democracy" theory which includes the "national bourgeoise" as part of the anti-imperialist coalition controlled by the party.
Leninism does not have this idea and most likely, in theory, is against it (alliances with the bourgeoise)

It's true that Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not ally with the bourgeoisie following the October Revolution (indeed there was little reason to), but he wasn't totally against it in theory, provided that this alliance could be used to create divisions among the bourgeoisie (like dividing the national against the international bourgeoisie). As Lenin said in Left Wing Communism:

"The more powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skillful and obligatory use of any, even the smallest, rift between the enemies, any conflict of interests among the bourgeoisie of the various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, and also by taking advantage of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally, even though this ally is temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this reveal a failure to understand even the smallest grain of Marxism, of modern scientific socialism in general."

No doubt it is impossible to say whether Lenin would have supported the CCP's New Democracy; it is possible to discern that he was not against such alliances in all cases.