Maoism–Third Worldism

Maoism–Third Worldism (MTW) is a broad tendency which is mainly concerned with the infusion and synthesis of Marxism—particularly of the Marxist–Leninist–Maoist persuasion—with concepts of non-Marxist Third Worldism, namely dependency theory and world-systems theory.

There is no general consensus on part of Maoist–Third Worldists as a whole. However, the majority of proponents typically argue for the centrality of anti-imperialism to the victory of global communist revolution as well as against the idea that the working class in the First World is majority-exploited (sometimes arguing that it experiences no exploitation at all) and therefore it is not a part of the international proletariat.

In academic discourse, Maoism–Third Worldism is sometimes synonymous with dependency theory or dependencism.

Theory

Maoism–Third Worldism is theoretically defined by a variety of political principles which emphasize the enormous economic, social and political divisions which exist currently between the "overdeveloped" First World and the "underdeveloped" Third World. This is expressed through the lens of Maoist theory and practice, but brought into a new international understanding of imperialism and class in the context of the world which has been divided into two distinct camps, namely the exploited countries (the Third World) and their exploiters (the First World).

Global people's war

However, the foundations of Maoism–Third Worldism extend to encapsulate a great many strategic and theoretical developments in Marxist theory over the 20th century. Among them is the understanding of a global people's war being necessary as a military strategy for bringing an end to the historically unequal relationship built between the First and Third Worlds. This strategy includes the systematic delinking of the exploited economies of Third World countries from the parasitic First World and the unification of international forces to deprive the imperialist countries of resources and wealth extracted from Third World countries.

Though this strategy has been drawn from several historical sources such as Che Guevara's Message to the Tri-Continental, it has most famously drawn on a quote from Lin Biao's speech Long Live the Victory of People's War! in 1965:

Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be called 'the cities of the world', then Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute 'the rural areas of the world'. Since World War II, the proletarian revolutionary movement has for various reasons been temporarily held back in the North American and West European capitalist countries, while the people’s revolutionary movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America has been growing vigorously. In a sense, the contemporary world revolution also presents a picture of the encirclement of cities by the rural areas. In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples who make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. The socialist countries should regard it as their internationalist duty to support the people’s revolutionary struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

See also

• Black radical tradition
• Non-Aligned Movement
• Third-Worldism
• Third World socialism
• Three Worlds Theory
• Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat

Further reading

• Accumulation On A World Scale, Samir Amin.
• Back on Track: The Object of Third Worldism, Klaas V.
• Divided World, Divided Class: Global Political Economy & The Stratification Of Labour Under Capitalism, Zak Cope.
• Eurocentrism and the Communist Movement, Robert Biel.
• Foreign Trade and the Law of Value, Part I, Anwar Shaikh.
• Foreign Trade and the Law of Value, Part II, Anwar Shaikh.
• Imperialism & Unequal Development, Samir Amin.
• The Law Of Worldwide Value, Samir Amin.
• Long Live the Victory of People’s War!, Lin Biao – via Marxists Internet Archive.
• Message to the Tricontinental (Two, Three, Many Vietnams), Che Guevara – via Marxists Internet Archive.
• Unequal Exchange, a Study of the Imperialism of Trade, Arghiri Emmanuel.
• Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism, Samir Amin.
• Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, J. Sakai.
• The Worker Elite: Notes on the "Labor Aristocracy", Bromma.