8 Handshakes That Changed History
Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line
Max Elbaum
Maoism in the United States
First Published: Encyclopedia of the American Left, Second Edition, 1998
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
For a few brief years during the 1970s, advocates of the type of Marxism-Leninism promoted by the Chinese Communist Party constituted the largest and most dynamic trend on the U.S. socialist left. This self-described “New Communist Movement” (the term “Maoism” was then frowned upon) was overwhelmingly a creation of young people radicalized in the tumultuous 1960s. At its height, U.S. Maoism could claim a core of roughly 10,000 activists devoted to its mission of constructing a new, “genuinely revolutionary” vanguard party to supplant the Communist Party USA and other allegedly reformist groups of the Old or New Left.
MAOISM WITH ITS CREATIVE APPLICATION
GONZALO THOUGHT IS DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE PERUVIAN PEOPLE!
HERE, LIKE IN THE WHOLE WORLD, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR CAPITULATION, PEACE ACCORDS OR TRUCES AT ALL!
MAOISM WITH ITS CREATIVE APPLICATION
GONZALO THOUGHT IS DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE PERUVIAN PEOPLE!
HERE, LIKE IN THE WHOLE WORLD, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR CAPITULATION, PEACE ACCORDS OR TRUCES AT ALL!
U.S. partisans of “Mao Tse Tung Thought” were never able to unite into a single Maoist party. But the largest radical newspaper of the time, the 20,000-plus circulation Guardian, was a proponent of New Communist goals from 1971 to the end of the decade. Additionally, the various Maoist cadre organizations (which ranged in size from a few dozen to more than 1,000 members) produced dozens of other newspapers, journals, books and pamphlets which reached thousands beyond the Maoist ranks. The New Communist Movement was the most racially diverse sector of the U.S. left with the highest proportion (25-30% or more) of African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos and Asian Americans in its leadership and membership ranks. Several thousand New Communist activists rooted themselves in industrial jobs and working class communities, and some played central roles in local and even occasional nationwide struggles. These included support for major strikes, such as the May 1972-February 1974 walkout in Texas and New Mexico by 4,000 mainly Chicana women at Farah Co. (then the largest U.S. manufacturer of men’s and boy’s pants); and mass mobilizations against the initial high court decisions rolling back affirmative action (Bakke vs. Univ of California, 1977-78).
Beginning in the late 1970s – as the Chinese party ever more openly abandoned its earlier advocacy of anti-imperialism and social revolution – the Maoist trend began to disintegrate almost as rapidly as it arose. For a time, the depth of Maoism’s crisis was obscured by the energy of a few “second wave” efforts at party building, which generally avoided the extreme ultra-left tactics and over-inflated rhetoric that characterized Maoism’s early days. But these late-’70s initiatives never attained the size or influence of their predecessors. To the contrary, the always-contentious relationships among the different Maoist groups became even worse. The largest organizations experienced splits and large-scale membership losses if not total collapse. Maoism’s (and China’s) prestige on the broader Left plummeted. By the middle of the 1980s Maoism as a viable trend had disappeared, although various small organizations espousing offshoots of Maoist ideology continued to exist on the fringes of the U.S. Left.
Teaching children ‘to take action as global citizens’ in an ‘interdependent world’ and to ‘think about the world more holistically’ are the focus of several Crayola lessons provided in partnership with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), one of the organizations responsible for the creation and implementation of the national Common Core State Standards.
Crayola, Lego Education, Apple, and Disney (among others), as members of P21 (Partnership for 21st Century Skills) entered into a ‘strategic partnership’ with the Council of Chief State School Officers in 2010.
According to P21′s Executive Chair, Kathy Hurley, CCSSO and P21 work very closely on Common Core, as well as CCSSO’s Next Generation Learner program, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act re-authorization.
Hurley is also Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for Pearson Education. Pearson, in partnership with CCSSO, has been instrumental in implementing Common Core in many states by creating and providing resources and employing educators to provide professional development training.
The U.S. Department of Education hosted the launching of P21 and Crayola’s Champion Creatively Alive Children program in 2011.
Crayola lessons, like other Common Core material, are designed to create, in children’s minds, a biased perspective of the world — globalization over national sovereignty, interdependence over self-reliance, and social and economic equity governed by a few over social and economic freedom governed by self.
Another Crayola recommended book, An Attainable Global Perspective, provides a glowing report on Maoism as an alternative to capitalism.
From Robert Hanvey’s An Attainable Global Perspective:
“Maoists believe that while a principal aim of nations should be to raise the level of material welfare of the population, this should be done only within the context of the development of human beings, encouraging them to realize fully their manifold creative powers. And it should be done only on a egalitarian basis—that is, on the basis that development is not worth much unless everyone rises together; no one is to be left behind, either economically or culturally. Indeed, Maoists believe that rapid economic development’s not likely to occur unless everyone rises together . . .”
DANETTE CLARK
Danette Clark is a mom, former paralegal turned business operator, researcher, and writer. She has contributed to Klein Online and RBO2.com.
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