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Debating Maoism in Contemporary China: Reflections on Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

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Abstract

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Xi Jinping's frequent references to Mao Zedong, along with Xi's own claims to ideological originality, have fueled debate over the significance of Maoism in the PRC today. The discussion recalls an earlier debate, at the height of the Cold War, over the meaning of Maoism itself. This paper revisits that earlier controversy, reflected in arguments between Benjamin Schwartz and Karl Wittfogel, with an eye toward their contemporary relevance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2021

References

Notes

1 Roderick MacFarquhar, “Does Mao Still Matter?” in Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi, eds., The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018): Chapter 3; Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds., Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).

2 Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951). The Chinese Communist Party itself has always referred to Mao's ideological contributions simply as “Mao Zedong Thought” (毛泽东思想), in contrast to the “isms” (主义)of Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism. In coining the term “Maoism,” Schwartz was thus implying a degree of originality and importance that elevated Mao into the pantheon of leading Communist theorists.

3 Schwartz, 1951: 189.

4 Schwartz, 1951: 199, 2.

5 Elizabeth J. Perry, Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993).

6 Schwartz, 1951: 191.

7 Schwartz, 1951: 201.

8 Schwartz, 1951: 5. For classic statements of the totalitarian model, which presented the framework as equally applicable to Communist and fascist regimes, see Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Schocken Books, 1951); and Carl Joachim Friedrich, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956).

9 Schwartz, 1951: 5.

10 Peter S.H. Tang, Communist China Today (New York: Praeger, 1957); Richard L. Walker, China Under Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955); Richard L. Walker, The Continuing Struggle: Communist China and the Free World (New York: Athene Press, 1958); Franz H. Michael and George E. Taylor, The Far East in the Modern World (New York: Henry Holt, 1956).

11 Robert P. Newman, Owen Lattimore and the “Loss” of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992): 334-335.

12 Karl A. Wittfogel, “The Historical Position of Communist China: Doctrine and Reality,” The Review of Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (October 1954): 464.

13 Benjamin Schwartz, “On the ‘Originality’ of Mao Tse-tung,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 1 (October 1955): 74-75.

14 Schwartz, 1955: 76.

15 Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962).

16 On Wittfogel's role in the hearings, see Stanley I. Kutler, The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982): 201; and Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986): 165.

17 Karl A. Wittfogel, “The Legend of ‘Maoism,‘” The China Quarterly, No. 1 (January – March 1960): 76, 73. On the occasion of his sixtieth birthday in 1967, John Fairbank would “confess” to this “conspiracy” by composing some humorous doggerel that concluded with the lines: The files, when examined, will demonstrate

That this “Fairbank” so-called was a syndicate

Who were busy writing memos and in other ways

During Benjamin Schwartz's earlier phase. John King Fairbank, Chinabound: A Fifty-Year Memoir (New York: Harper and Row, 1982): 448.

18 Karl A. Wittfogel, “Peking's ‘Independence’,” The New Leader (July 20-27, 1959): 13.

19 Wittfogel, (Jan-March) 1960: 75.

20 Wittfogel, (April-June) 1960: 28-29.

21 Wittfogel, 1959: 17.

22 Wittfogel, 1959: 17.

23 Wittfogel, 1959: 17.

24 Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957).

25 Benjamin Schwartz, “The Legend of the ‘Legend of Maoism’,” The China Quarterly, No. 2 (April – June 1960): 35.

26 Schwartz, 1960: 36.

27 Schwartz, 1960: 36.

28 Schwartz, 1960: 42.

29 Xi Jinpiing, “Uphold and Properly Apply the Spirit of Mao Zedong Thought” (坚持与运用好毛泽东思想活的灵魂) in Talks on Governing the Country (谈治国理政) (Beijing: 2014): 25-31.

30 Benjamin I. Schwartz, Communism and China: Ideology in Flux (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968): 171ff.

31 Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: Contradictions Among the People, 1956-1957 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974): 317.

32 Schwartz, Communism and China: 171-172; Chris Buckley, “China Enshrines ‘Xi Jinping Thought,‘ Elevating Leader to Mao-like Status,” New York Times (October 24, 2017).

33 On the central role of “contradictions” in CCP ideology, see Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970): Chapter I.

34 The historical parallel is far from exact, however: at the 8th Party Congress in 1956, Mao's Thought was dropped from the Party Constitution.

35 Elizabeth J. Perry, “The Populist Dream of Chinese Democracy,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 74, no. 4 (December 2015); Chen Cheng, The Return of Ideology: The Search for Regime Identities in Postcommunist Russia and China (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016); Zeng Jinghan, The Chinese Communist Party's Capacity to Rule: Ideology, Legitimacy and Party Cohesion (New York: Palgrave, 2016).

36 That more than twenty major Chinese universities within a week of the 19th Party Congress had already established new departments for the teaching of Xi's Thought is further evidence of its political significance.

37 Full text: Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2020 New Year speech - CGTN

38 On Liu Shaoqi's leadership style, see Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shaoqi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1998).

39 Full text: Xi Jinping's speech at General Debate of UNGA - CGTN

40 Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics (New York, Basic Books: 1962): 118-119.

41 Mao Zedong, “Speech at a Supreme State Conference” (January 28, 1958). Quoted in John Bryan Starr, Continuing the Revolution: The Political Thought of Mao (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979): ix.