Quotations of Chairman Mao, or rather affectionately known as the Little Red Book, is the embodiment of the Chinese Communist Party’s rather successful foray into ‘creating a global language of Maoist revolution’. A government institution, the International Bookstore, distributed more than 800,000 copies of the Little Red Book in 14 languages to 117 countries during the first year of the Cultural Revolution; and between 1966 to 1971, it was printed just over one billion times. The canonical revised edition first appeared in 1965, and contains over 400 quotes arranged into 33 thematic chapters, presenting extracts from Mao Zedong’s writings and speeches from 1929-64. The global influence of Maoist thought is not only testified by the sheer number of the Little Red Book in circulation, but also how it inspired actions and influenced thoughts among leftist groups around the world.

The background to this is the rising status of China as the ‘leading non-white revolutionary country in the world’ following the Sino-Soviet split, and Mao’s scathing anti-revisionist stance against the Soviet Union at the time. This sense of China as the rightful, dutiful successor to lead the socialist revolution in the world was accentuated by well-publicised visits of famous activists such as W. E. B. du Bois, Elaine Brown and Huey Newton, the latter two being leaders of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the United States. The starting point of my research seeks to understand how their particular experience in China impacted on how they conceive of their own activism and what it should try to achieve. Memoirs and published accounts of their experience in China will be consulted. A focus on the movement of these activists will constitute part of the transnational approach of this project.

Developing this further, my research will look into how Maoist thought is adapted by the American New Left in the 60s and 70s, looking at the specifically community-oriented activism it has engendered and its effect of encouraging an Afro-Asian solidarity. I am particularly interested in specific instances where the ‘travelling theory’ comes into play, that is the ‘dislocation and creative appropriation that attended the translation of Maoist thought into different cultural contexts.’ Existing research on the global reach of Maoist thought has suggested, among many things, the way the Little Red Book ‘provided a textual basis for Third World solidarity in the heart of the First World’ in the case of America and the non-Chinese activists’ selective appropriation of Maoist thought for developing strategies of direct actions. My work will contribute to an understanding of which particular aspects of Maoist thought appealed most strongly to Afro-Asian radicals and the reasons for it, while pointing to the ruptures between the totality of Maoist thought and its appropriated form in another political context. The scope is limited to the inter-relations between Maoist thought, its appropriation by Afro-Asian American radicals, and its wider interactions with New Left activism in general.

My research aims to enrich historiography of the American New Left by honing in on specific tenets or concepts of Maoist thought that were taken up by Afro-Asian activists which can be shown to influence their programs and activities. An important contribution by Mao is that his insistent support for black liberation struggle had the effect of encouraging Asian Americans to unite with their African American counterparts. Organisations such as I Wor Kuen and the Third Arm are modeled after not only the Little Red Book, but the BPP and other Maoist-inspired political groups as well. I’d argue that the inspiration for these Maoist organisations is never straightforward, but multifarious and complex, as well as contextualised by local conditions. By looking into how these organisations came into being, their professed ideologies, the people behind them and uncovering their inter-relations, I hope to be able to project a network of activism that admits of transnational influence.

Many community-oriented organisations sprang up in the period from 1967 to 1971, formed by radical students and working-class youths. This included social services such as childcare programs and health clinics, as well as ideologically-based bookstore, low-cost hotel and even paramilitary-style organisation. These organisations often have concrete goals that serve very much ‘local’ needs. This particularly localised style of activism is inspired by Mao’s ‘Serve the People Edict,’ and his view that one must take part in the revolution to learn the ‘theory and methods of revolution.’ Yet, this also brings about the problem of prioritising ‘the local’ at the expense of the ideological and the international. For instance, the BPP has been criticised for its ‘short-sighted application’ of Maoist thought and overlooking the ‘questions of revolutionary philosophy and ideology.’ This is another aspect of this project’s discussion on the ‘dislocation’ of Maoist thought in another cultural context. Thus, we can see the limits of ‘exporting revolution’ and the importance of unique cultural contexts to the transpiration of political ideologies.

Project Proposal – Maoist Thought and the American New Left