Mao Zedong thought / / by Wang Fanxi ; edited, translated, and with an introduction by Gregor Benton.

• Superior document: Historical materialism book series ; Volume 210
• VerfasserIn: Wang, Fanxi, 1907-2002,
• TeilnehmendeR: Benton, Gregor,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Historical materialism book series ; Volume 210.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

Wang Fanxi, a leader of the Chinese Trotskyists, wrote this book on Mao more than fifty years ago. He did so while in exile in the then Portuguese colony of Macau, across the water from Hong Kong, where he had been sent in 1949 to represent his comrades in China, soon to disappear for decades into Mao’s jails. The book is an analytical study whose strength lies less in describing Mao’s life than in explaining Maoism and setting out a radical view on it as a political movement and a current of thought within the Marxist tradition to which both Wang and Mao belonged. With its clear and provoking thesis, it has, since its writing, stood the test of time far better than the hundreds of descriptive studies that have in the meantime come and gone.

Table of Contents

Introduction -- Gregor Benton -- Preface -- Foreword -- 1. On the Personality Cult -- 2. The Sources and Components of Mao Zedong Thought -- 3. Mao Zedong Thought and 'Mao Zedong Thought' -- 4. A Brilliant Tactician -- 5. A Middling Strategist (Pt 1): New Democracy and Permanent Revolution -- 6. A Middling Strategist (Pt 2): Armed Revolution and Revolutionary Strategy -- 7. Theory and Practice -- 8. Art and Literature: Policy and Creativity -- 9. Self-Reliance and 'Communism in One Country' -- 10. Mao’s Position in History: On Outstanding Personages -- Appendices -- 1. Seven Theses on Socialism and Democracy (1957) -- 2. Thinking in Solitude (1957) -- 3. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1967) -- 4. The 'Criticize Lin Biao, Criticize Confucius' Movement (1974) -- Bibliography.