The year 2024 is a monumental year in the history of communist parties around the world.
This is because China has surpassed the Soviet Union, which lasted 74 years since 1917, to become the world's longest-running communist country.
For decades, Western countries have had no doubt that China has gradually integrated itself into the world order by embracing capitalism.
Some even believed that the capitalist order would bring a wave of liberal democracy to China.
But it turned out to be a naive belief.
Now, China is moving beyond a period of hiding and building its power on the world stage and is attempting to rise again.

Since the mid-to-late 20th century, China has been hiding its diplomatic history from the Mao Zedong era to avoid revealing its ambitions on the world stage.
Because he knew very well how much the history of the time, which had made world leader Mao Zedong cry, would arouse his alarm.
And now the history that had been successfully concealed is being unsealed.
"Maoism" begins with a critical reinterpretation of "Red Star Over China," the dramatic world debut of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, and traces the history that left a deep red mark on almost every continent, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Western Europe, the United States, Tanzania, and Peru.
It is safe to say that "Maoism" is a groundbreaking and incisive historical critique that will open new eyes to the past and present of Chinese diplomacy.

The following year, Snow, fascinated by Mao Zedong, compiled his impressions of the Communist Party and interviews with its leaders into Red Star Over China.
In the book, Mao Zedong and his colleagues are portrayed as idealistic patriots, democrats with a sense of humor, and advocates for human equality.
--- p.98

But the influence of 『Red Star Over China』 did not stop there.
Translated into Chinese, the book persuaded young, educated liberals and patriots, both inland and abroad, to abandon the comforts of capitalist cities and make the long journey to the northwest to join Mao Zedong's revolution.
--- p.99

However, the credibility of 『Red Star Over China』 was damaged by the vested interests of the author and the protagonist.
Both wanted the book to resonate globally for different reasons.
--- p.121

Snow is a clumsy and compromising character, both as a happy-go-lucky boy adventurer and as a defender of indomitable revolutionaries.
His book, Red Star Over China, can be read as a concise and pure celebration of idealism, but it also reveals darker motivations: his own desire to create a global hit, his leftist leanings, and the secret ambitions and manipulations of those who invited him.
Nonetheless, Edgar Snow is praised by critics in both China and the West as the author of the most outstanding documentary literature written by an American correspondent in the 20th century.
--- p.135

Of the world's 2.7 billion people, one-third, or even half, could disappear.
… … If the worst happens and half of humanity dies and only the other half survives, imperialism will be scorched, the world will become socialist, and within a few years there will be 2.7 billion people again.
--- p.193

The crucial contradiction in the Cultural Revolution lies precisely here.
The Cultural Revolution, while aspiring for global solidarity and liberation, was an event that instead gave rise to ruthless xenophobia and authoritarianism.
--- p.210

In places like South Asia and Peru, Maoism persisted for decades after Mao Zedong's death.
Maoism has the talent to spread relentlessly throughout the world, like a virus dormant in the human body.
It is precisely this history, this very character, that we are now trying to trace around the world.
--- p.220

However, I believe that Mao Zedong and his ideas also had an impact on the tragedy at that time.
Indonesia was a country that China considered a touchstone for its foreign policy during the post-Soviet period (the period after China broke away from the Soviet Union).
This is because China has made Indonesia a key strategic target to export the wisdom and superiority of the Maoist model.
In the early 1960s, Indonesian Communist Party leaders were intoxicated by the bellicose rhetoric of Mao Zedong's revolution.
Maoism encouraged and inspired them to fight against the Indonesian military, which ultimately provided the pretext for the horrific events of 1965.
Without Maoism, the disaster in Indonesia in 1965 would have been difficult to imagine.
--- p.227

As the cases of Peru, India and Nepal have shown again and again, 'higher Maoism' provides an effective military strategy for overthrowing the state.
But once in power, there are many problems.
The Maoism that Tongogara and others learned in the 1960s left ZANU with a conspiracy-filled, totalitarian political model in which the party and its top leader were always right, could eliminate those the party designated as "enemies of the people," and military interests were paramount.
--- p.318

The communist country of China appeared to be actively pursuing modernization on the surface, but it was still stuck in its old ways.
For example, Vietnamese delegations that frequently visited Beijing often recalled the processions paying tribute to the empire.
In this way, China's attitude toward Vietnam was a mixture of socialist philanthropy and Confucian imperialism.
--- p.371

A similar argument could be made about the spread of the Cultural Revolution to Western Europe and North America.
Mao Zedong and his supporters envisioned the Cultural Revolution as a global grassroots movement capable of overthrowing "Yankee imperialism" and countries allied with the United States.
But in the long run, the fervor for the Cultural Revolution divided the radical left and, from the 1980s onwards, helped neoliberals consolidate their power.
In the late 1960s, political instability in the United States and parts of Europe led people to gradually shift their focus to maintaining order and to forming a consensus in favor of the long-standing right-wing regime.
Ultimately, this laid the foundation for the rise to power of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom.
Since then, this trend has not significantly reversed.
--- p.383

Had Majumdar not been so convinced of Maoist principles and so diligently promoted them, would China have so quickly hailed the May 1967 Naxalbari uprising as a triumph of the global Maoist revolution? Indeed, just five weeks after its occurrence, the People's Daily hailed the Naxalbari uprising as "the thunder of spring reverberating through India," and Beijing Radio called it "the forefoot of the revolution," praising it as proof that the application of Maoist strategy to the Indian revolution had been successful.
--- p.506

Those currently involved in or supporting the Maoist movement in India claim that they represent and mobilize those who have been forgotten or sacrificed by the Indian government and the powers that be (local lords, state-run and multinational corporations seeking to mine minerals in the jungles of central India).
--- p.521

The Indian government launched secret operations under code names such as 'Green Hunt', 'Greyhound' and 'Cobra', using special forces to root out the Maoists.
Using hunting or animal names as code names was tantamount to deliberately dehumanizing the target.
But the most vicious attack on the Maoists has been by the local self-defense force 'Salwa Judum', which was established in Chhattisgarh in 2005.
The Indian government translated Salwa Judum as 'Peace March', but Gondi experts said it is closer to 'Purification Hunt'.
--- p.524

Arundhati Roy's long essay, based on her own experiences, illustrates how India's jungle Maoists have conflated their struggle with the image of Maoism.
They promoted the ambiguous image and reputation of Mao Zedong as a rebel "leader" with a "vision," and used this to mobilize the indigenous people to fight against the government and corporations that had created the poor conditions for them.
--- p.528

Ten years later, the Maoists had gained decisive political power.
The People's Liberation Army, numbering around 10,000, was more than enough to suppress the firepower of the Nepalese police and military.
They soon gained control over an area equivalent to 80% of Nepal's territory.
The collapse of the Nepali monarchy and the establishment of a federal republic after 2006 was mainly due to their armed rebellion.
Between 2006 and 2016, two leaders of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) served as prime minister of Nepal on three occasions, and other senior party members held key government posts.
Although Nepal has not achieved its original ambition of taking control of the country and wielding absolute power, as the Chinese Communist Party has, it is now the only country in the world ruled by a 'self-proclaimed Maoist'.
--- p.541

(Nepal) The Maoists claimed that their election victory was due to the support of the people, but in fact they only used terror to make them politically obedient.
--- p.569

The influence of Maoist ideology on Nepal's leaders should not be overestimated.
Because the most influential Maoists in Nepal are all pragmatists, for better or worse.
--- p.580

Neo-Maoists accused the post-Mao regime of using the Nazi propaganda tactic of "a lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth" to ramp up its smear campaign against the Mao era.
Ultimately, their claims and interpretations of past and present, history, economy, society, and culture almost always boil down to nationalism, with anyone attacking Mao Zedong and his policies as a conspiracy to destroy Chinese pride.
In 2008, Zhang Hongliang argued that the greatest significance of the global economic crisis was to return the "Chinese nation" to its traditional position as the "center of the world."
--- p.609

Nationalist neo-Maoists have become a headache for the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Although the Chinese Communist Party actively utilized Mao Zedong's image to strengthen its historical legitimacy, Mao Zedong's actual policies were far from the creed of prosperity and stability that the Chinese Communist Party adopted after Deng Xiaoping's rise to power.
However, the neo-Maoists, who had been detecting 'anti-communist propaganda' and had been calling themselves guardians of Mao Zedong's legacy and the Chinese Communist Party, could not easily remain silent in the face of political repression by the authorities.
A full-scale attack on the neo-Maoists would have risked provoking claims that the current Chinese Communist Party had betrayed Mao Zedong.
--- p.611

Behind this dazzling facade, many who lost out in China's money-making frenzy after 1992 were caught up in a chaotic socioeconomic atmosphere.
Because of this, Bo Xilai was able to successfully revive Mao Zedong.
During his four years in Chongqing, Bo Xilai created a political model that was fundamentally different from that of other regions of China during the Reform Era.
Bo Xilai launched the famous "Praise the Red, Strike Down Corruption" campaign, cracking down on corruption (except for himself) and wealthy businessmen, using some of the confiscated wealth to reduce urban and rural inequality, build social housing and infrastructure, and raise wages.
--- p.615

Contemporary neo-Maoism has many different voices, but despite these differences, it has one thing in common.
That is, while the Chinese Communist Party absolutely does not recognize non-partisan political organizations or the activism of other political factions within the political landscape, it is relatively tolerant of the existence of neo-Maoism.
--- p.634

Yet, having dedicated much of his first five years in office to controlling and strengthening the Chinese Communist Party, Xi remains steeped in Maoist legacies: its symbolic meaning and idolatry, its secretive and opaque party structure that relies on military might, its aversion to political dissent, and its ambition to make China a global leader.

--- p.646