Lovell’s survey of the history of Maoism concentrates heavily on Maoism as a practical political phenomenon and on its effectiveness as a way of promoting China’s leadership in the world. China in recent decades has not concentrated on spreading that same kind of ideological political influence. But Lovell emphasizes that even during the previous period, China also used developmental aid and loans on favorable terms to build relationships in the Global South nations.
But, as she discusses in the video, she also sees Maoism as a recurring and enduring influence in Chinese politics. In a 2021 article, she observes:
Mao’s theory and practice were publicly marginalized in China shortly after his death and the purge of his closest Cultural Revolution lieutenants, the so-called “Gang of Four.” But although the Chinese Communist Party has long abandoned the utopian turmoil of Cultural Revolution-era Maoism in favor of an authoritarian capitalism that prizes prosperity and stability, the Great Helmsman has left a heavy mark. The CCP’s official 1981 judgment on the Mao era contained only mild criticism of two of its most disruptive and destructive campaigns, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s portrait still hangs in Tiananmen Square in the center of the capital. In the middle of the square, his embalmed body lies in state. “Mao’s invisible hand” (as one recent book puts it) remains present in China’s party-state - for example, in the deep politicization of its judiciary; the supremacy of the party over other interests; the intolerance of dissident voices; and an adaptive “guerrilla style” of policy-making. (2) [my emphasis]
She describes China’s there as “authoritarian capitalism.” This is a problem that is widespread: how to characterize China’s economic system.
During the decades from roughly 1972-2011 where China was viewed as a strategic ally, though also a competitor, Western public and journalistic language tended to annoint China as an honorary capitalist country. Even though China has been ruled since 1949 by the Communist Party of China which has consistently described its ideology as Marxism-Leninism and runs an economy with wide-ranging public ownership and state control over the private economy that it describes as “socialism.” It pursues protectionist policies, subsidies economic development according to a very active “industrial policy,” and maintains strict capital controls. It’s economic system wouldn’t come close to meeting the neoliberal standards of economic management that would qualify a country to join the European Union. (3)
Part of the confusion in terminology comes from the long-standing convention of describing capitalist economies as “market” economies. In his last book published during his lifetime, John Kenneth Galbraith in the last of his books published during his lifetime sardonically mocked this designation:
[I]n reasonably learned expression there came "the market system." There was no adverse history here, in fact no history at all. It would have been hard, indeed, to find a more meaningless designation - this a reason for the choice. Markets have been important in human existence at least since the invention of coinage, commonly ascribed to the Lydians in the eighth century B.C. A respectable span of time. In all countries, including the former Soviet Union, as also in what is still by some called Communist China, they had a major role. (4) [my emphasis]
In these days where Western countries are developing an updated picture of China in the context of the New Cold War (or whatever history winds up labelling our era), Lovell’s account of Maoism provides a helpful background for understanding the continuities of Chinese foreign policy in particular, even though the ideological context has changed drastically.
She notes at the end that today, any ideological “soft power” of China is considerably less significant for its influence as its “hard power” of economics and military power. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are not today on the cutting edge of Chinese influence.
She sumarized the current situation in 2021:
What does this partial revival of Maoist practice mean for China’s relationship with the world beyond its borders? Xi Jinping has pushed harder on foreign policy than any of his predecessors since Mao. He and his close advisors are the first leaders since Mao to talk confidently of the international relevance of the Chinese/CCP model. The surging economic, political, and military might of the country suggests that the projects of Xi and his CCP - inflected as they are by their Maoist heritage and emerging at a time when China is far more globally powerful than it was under Mao — will have a growing impact on international politics and institutions. [my emphasis]
Other reviews of Maoism: A Global History
Ben Margulies:
Lovell, a scholar of Chinese history whose previous work includes an account of the First Opium War, takes a broad view of Mao across time and space, rather than isolating him within the most garish manifestations of his rule in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. On the one hand, she demonstrates that Maoism developed long before the 1960s, and has lasted long after the Cold War. (5)
Alex De Jong:
When Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown visited Beijing in 1970, she noted with surprise, “Old and young would spontaneously give emotional testimonies, like Baptist converts, to the glories of socialism.” (6)
Andrew Nathan:
Mao often served as a symbol for activists who did things their own way, including the Black Panthers in the United States and the Shining Path in Peru. (7)
Notes:
(1) Julia Lovell on the Rise of Maoism. USC U.S.-China Institute YouTube channel 03/12/2021.
(2) Lovell, Julia (2021): Maoism as a Global Force, 48. In: Pieke Frank N. & Iwabuchi, Koichi (eds) (2021): Global East Asia: Into the Twenty-First Century. Oakland: University of California Press.
(3) Barry Naughton (2017) grapples with this definitional problem in: Is China Socialist? Journal of Economic Perspectives 31:1, 3–24.
(4) Galbraith, John Kenneth (2004): The Econolmics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time, 6. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin.
(5) Margulies, Ben (2019): Book Review: Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell. LSE Blog 05/16/2019. <https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2019/05/16/book-review-maoism-a-global-history-by-julia-lovell/> (Accessed: 2024-15-03).
(6) De Jong, Alex (2019): Maoism and Its Complicated Legacy. Jacobin 11/30/2019. <https://jacobin.com/2019/11/maoism-global-history-julia-lovell-book-review> (Accessed: 2024-24-02). Review of Lovell’s book.
(7) Nathan, Andrew J. (2019): Review. Foreign Affairs 12/10/2019. <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2019-12-10/maoism-global-history> (Accessed: 2024-15-03).
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