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The Emergence of Global Maoism: China's Red Evangelism and the Cambodian Communist Movement, 1949–1979
The Emergence of Global Maoism examines the spread of Mao Zedong's writings, ideology, and institutions when they traveled outside of China. Matthew Galway links Chinese Communist Party efforts to globalize Maoism to the dialectical engagement of exported Maoism by Cambodian Maoist intellectuals. How do ideas manifest outside of their place of origin? Galway analyzes how universal ideological systems became localized, both in Mao's indigenization of Marxism-Leninism and in the Communist Party of Kampuchea's indigenization of Maoism into its own revolutionary ideology. By examining the intellectual journeys of CPK leaders who, during their studies in Paris in the 1950s, became progressive activist-intellectuals and full-fledged Communists, he shows that they responded to political and socioeconomic crises by speaking back to Maoism―adapting it through practice, without abandoning its universality. Among Mao's greatest achievements, the Sinification of Marxism enabled the CCP to canonize Mao's thought and export it to a progressive audience of international intellectuals. These intellectuals would come to embrace the ideology as they set a course for social change. The Emergence of Global Maoism illuminates the process through which China moved its goal from class revolution to a larger anticolonial project that sought to cast out European and American imperialism from Asia.
- GenresChina
342 pages, Hardcover
Published March 15, 2022
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February 25, 2025
A competent intellectual history of Polpotism that unfortunately fails to live up to claims of "Global Maoism."
Southeast Asian studies is a field besieged by appropriations of Southeast Asian agency- be it colonial-era scholarship claiming that Southeast Asia was "Indianised" in classical period, or more recent accusations that Southeast Asia lacks true agency in its participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative. In this monograph, Galway unfortunately contributes to this body of injustice by providing a fair and well-researched description of how the intellectuals and intellectualism behind Democratic Kampuchea formed, and then later slamming it under the label of "Global Maoism".
This claim is made on some fairly unconvincing claims:
1. the experiences of Cambodian leftist sojourning were similar to some of the experiences of Chinese leftist sojourning (a commonality shared by Vietnamese and Indonesian leftists).
2. Cambodian leftist theory ended up similar to Maoist theory. Again, this does not necessarily prove anything especially when the similarities are as specious as a proliferation of "us vs them" thinking. The similarities in urban vs rural revolution are slightly more convincing, but still do not prove anything.
3. Polpotist practice ended up similar to Maoist practice. Again, this does not prove anything. Pol Pot might have been learning from Maoist practice, but so was every other state in the region.
Ultimately, the book presents useful and important information in an unfair framing. The book does narrate a limited extent of actual "Red Evangelism" (such as the printing and distribution of Maoist propaganda in Cambodia by Chinese diplomats), but it becomes very clear that this played a relatively peripheral role, especially relative to nationalist impulses built from colonial race science and inflamed by rivalry with Vietnam. Small things, like translating Maha Lout Ploh to "Super Great Leap Forward", do not help.
Read for coursework.
Southeast Asian studies is a field besieged by appropriations of Southeast Asian agency- be it colonial-era scholarship claiming that Southeast Asia was "Indianised" in classical period, or more recent accusations that Southeast Asia lacks true agency in its participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative. In this monograph, Galway unfortunately contributes to this body of injustice by providing a fair and well-researched description of how the intellectuals and intellectualism behind Democratic Kampuchea formed, and then later slamming it under the label of "Global Maoism".
This claim is made on some fairly unconvincing claims:
1. the experiences of Cambodian leftist sojourning were similar to some of the experiences of Chinese leftist sojourning (a commonality shared by Vietnamese and Indonesian leftists).
2. Cambodian leftist theory ended up similar to Maoist theory. Again, this does not necessarily prove anything especially when the similarities are as specious as a proliferation of "us vs them" thinking. The similarities in urban vs rural revolution are slightly more convincing, but still do not prove anything.
3. Polpotist practice ended up similar to Maoist practice. Again, this does not prove anything. Pol Pot might have been learning from Maoist practice, but so was every other state in the region.
Ultimately, the book presents useful and important information in an unfair framing. The book does narrate a limited extent of actual "Red Evangelism" (such as the printing and distribution of Maoist propaganda in Cambodia by Chinese diplomats), but it becomes very clear that this played a relatively peripheral role, especially relative to nationalist impulses built from colonial race science and inflamed by rivalry with Vietnam. Small things, like translating Maha Lout Ploh to "Super Great Leap Forward", do not help.
Read for coursework.
Displaying 1 of 1 review