Maoism - any different from Marxism?

[man in the red suit]

is Maoism any different from Marxism? I thought that Mao was just a Marx follower.

[peaccenicked]

Maoism is basically a popularism,
Stalin too was popular.

[guerrillaradio]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 10:01 am on May 11, 2002
Maoism is basically a popularism,
Stalin too was popular.

?? Explain if you will...I'm interested...

[peaccenicked]

When a revolution retreats into nationalism, it abandons its internationalist principles, or it pays lip service to them.
The leadership cannot achieve socialism with national boundaries especially if they are surrounded by the dominant world market.
Popularism is the only way out. Moaists start by popularising Marxism in peasant based economies.
They have some success as they are skilled propagandists
and have shown themselves to be able to bring the peasantry into armed struggle.
Even Castro survives on this sort of popularism.
Marxism, strives to put its principles first and avoid pragmatism.
Lenin said if he had to choose between the truth and marxism, he would choose the truth.
There are no short cuts to freedom.

[guerrillaradio]

So Maoism is nationalistic popularist Marxism??

[honest intellectual]

Maoism is anti-bourgeois and anti-"decadant", unlike Marxism. Mao outlawed anything he saw as a "bourgeois luxury", including competitive sports, pets etc.

peaccenicked, Stalin was by no means populist. He worked for the intrests of a minority of one. Mao was not quite as bad, but certainly far from popularist

[peaccenicked]

I think we have to apply chomsky here.
Indeed Stalin was a dictator who created a climate of fear but only a minority of the people displayed opposition. The 'manufacture of consent' was a
massive part of the Stalinist programme. Stalin wanted to be loved as well as feared. The iconisation of Lenin was done so he could bask in his glory. Even the stalinists on this site show that the duping of the population went deep. Stalin also duped many talented cultural intellectuals in the West.
The industrialisation and the propaganda value of its successes gave the impression that the climate of fear was somehow necessary.
Stalin in common with Mao and Castro played the nationalist card to get the people to identify with the social gains of the revolution as a matter of national pride. This makes it easier to ostrasize critics.
The history is complex as there was an anti traditionalist
element in these dictatorships but I am trying to point to the most general development.