Did Mao Ze Dong´S Policies Follow Maoism

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Mao Ze-Dong was a unique communist dictator because he took the Marxist ideas and twisted them in a way that he considered would fit Chinese society. Thus, Maoism was born. Mao also believed in destruction as a means to progress, and the following quote by the Chairman himself clearly reflects this: “Progress is born in chaos. And originality comes from destruction”. In addition to this, Mao sought to “empower” the peasants, and thus established what he called a democratic dictatorship; a ruse to fool the people into thinking they had a say in affairs. However, did all of his policies follow Maoism? Certain measures such as the great leap forward, the establishment of people´s communes, and the hundred flower campaign may not have followed his declared ideology to the letter. The great leap forward was launched in 1958 and was an affront to Soviet aid to communist China, as they decided to forego Russian expertise in order to follow Mao´s new approach. This can be considered Mao´s twist of the 5 year plans, as they had just completed their first one with favorable results. As Mao said “Our theory is made up of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism combined with the concrete reality of China. We must be able to think independently.” This new approach towards improving Chinese economy follows Mao´s ideas on Communism, that it must be applied taking the Chinese background into consideration and not as a flawless formula. In addition to this, the practices followed in the great leap forward would also follow Mao´s views on destruction. One of their main goals was to increase their steel production, and the way they did this was by smelting all possible objects and refining them into steel. This only resulted in poor quality steel and lack of tools and other items to perform other tasks. Although they did follow Mao´s philosophy on destruction, the results were
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