Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism Eight Essays

Maurice Meisner

ISBN 10: 0299084205 / ISBN 13: 9780299084202

Published by University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin, 1982

About this Item

255 pages; Ex-Library copy with usual identifiers. Minor smudge to exterior edge of pages, top edge. Covers in VG condition but minor bumps to corners. A few pages have minor creasing to bottom corners. ; - We offer free returns for any reason and respond promptly to all inquiries. Your order will be packaged with care and ship on the same or next business day. Buy with confidence. Seller Inventory # HVD-35248-A-0

Bibliographic Details

Title: Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism Eight Essays

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin

Publication Date: 1982

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Good+

Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket

Edition: First Edition; First Printing.

About this title

Synopsis:

"Whatever historical judgments one wishes to make about Mao Tse-tung and the Maoist era," Maurice Meisner writes, "that era will be recorded as one of the great utopian episodes in world history, and the history of Maoism will remain relevant for those who seek to understand the fate of Marxism and the role of utopianism in the modern world, whatever their political persuasions. In an age which suffers from a paucity of utopian imagination, it is perhaps a history worth recalling." In this volume, Meisner makes an important contribution to understanding the Maoist era in the history of Chinese Communism by exploring the utopian strains in the thought of Mao Tse-tung. Believing that an activistic utopianism is essential to the vitality of Marxism in the contemporary world. Meisner argues that it was precisely Mao's utopian departures from orthodox Marxism-Leninism that transformed the inherited body of Marxist theory into a doctrine relevant to the needs of revolution in the modern Chinese historical environment. He argues further that it was Mao's visionary utopianism in the years after 1949 that was responsible, in large measure, for molding much of what has been distinctive about the postrevolutionary history of the People's Republic of China. In examining the nature of Maoist utopianism, Meisner employs cross-cultural and comparative perspectives to analyze the relationship of Maoism to the original writings of Marx and Engels, early nineteenth-century Western European socialist theories, and classical Russian Populist thought. He also discusses the idiosyncratic character of Mao's utopian vision, the phenomenon of the cult of Mao, and the fate of Maoist utopianism in post-Maoist Chinese Marxist ideology.