Mao's "Little Red Book" of theoretical writings became both a guide to revolution and the "Bible" of the Chinese Communist Party--articulated his vision of the socialist or communist system he dedicated himself to imposing upon China:

"Communism is at once a complete system of proletarian ideology and a new social system. It is different from any other ideological and social system, and is the most complete, progressive, revolutionary and rational system in human history. The ideological and social system of feudalism has a place only in the museum of history. The ideological and social system of capitalism has also become a museum piece in one part of the world (in the Soviet Union), while in other countries it resembles "a dying person who is sinking fast, like the sun setting beyond the western hills", and will soon be relegated to the museum. The communist ideological and social system alone is full of youth and vitality, sweeping the world with the momentum of an avalanche and the force of a thunderbolt." [On New Democracy, January 1940, Selected Works, Vol. II]

This passage recalls Marx's own theory of the evolution of economic systems, in which capitalism represented a necessary phase in the process of fundamentally changing the nature of society. Unfortunately for China, and for Mao, the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria and the subsequent world war involving all of the world's major actors left China physically devastated and emotionally impaired. The Chinese Civil War pitting the Communist Party against the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, interrupted by the need to focus all military efforts against the Japanese, was resumed with a vengeance, and the communists prevailed in 1949. As head of the Communist Party, together with Zhou (the leader of the newly formed People's Republic of China), Mao was now free to implement his ideas of revolution.

Whereas Russia and the Soviet Union benefited from proximity to "the West," China was far more isolated geographically and culturally. Mao believed that the survival of the revolution, including the road to socialism, required a modernization of the economy. A China hopelessly mired in a rural, quasi-feudal system would be a China condemned to weakness and a state of vulnerability that others could exploit. China had to industrialize, while the process of rural, agrarian collectivization was implemented. As in the Soviet Union, the process of collectivization would prove fatal for tens of millions of Chinese. The process of industrialization, however, was the more essential for the eventual realization of his dream of a communist system. As he stated in a 1956 speech:

"Socialist revolution aims at liberating the productive forces. The changeover from individual to socialist, collective ownership in agriculture and handicrafts and from capitalist to socialist ownership in private industry and commerce is bound to bring about a tremendous liberation of the productive forces. Thus, the social conditions are being created for a tremendous expansion of industrial and agricultural production." [Speech before the Supreme State Conference, January 25, 1956]

The implementation of Mao's vision would take the enormously disastrous form of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962), his version of Stalin's policy of forcibly collectivizing the country's vast rural regions while converting China from an agrarian society into an industrial one--the needed measures for the process of socialization. As with Stalin's policies, Mao's led directly to tens of millions of deaths (estimates range from 15 to 45 million, with most credible estimates on the higher end).

Mao's ideological inclinations were more reactive than proactive. He learned as he went and adjusted accordingly, usually with adverse ramifications for China. The Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 set back his goal of thrusting China into the category of great powers by destabilizing the country's urban centers. Purges of anybody deemed an enemy of the proletariat, which could be anybody unfortunate enough to attract attention, decimated China's intellectual life while adversely affecting economic growth by virtue of the Revolution's practice of banishing intellectuals and white-collar officials to the rural farmland for "reeducation." In short, Mao's revolution ended where it began: in the fields. His death enabled his successor (following the "Gang of Four" episode), Deng Xiaoping, to seriously revolutionize China, but this time through the implementation of capitalist principles that, ironically, succeeded in turning China into the world's second largest economy.

Mao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary and communist political philosopher who became the leader of the Chinese communist revolution. He is widely recognized as the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, which became a communist nation after a brutal civil war in the 1949 against the Chinese Nationalism forces. He held undisputed authority over the nation until he died in 1979. His collected political and military methods are referred to collectively as Maoism.

Maoism describes someone should conduct and preserve a revolution. Many of the tenets were used by Mao during his own takeover of China. Mao believed that to truly be successful, a revolution and its army must respond to the needs of the people. Mao also believed that countries needed to be readied for communism by going through a period of quasi-democracy where material needs are met. It is also essential to a successful revolution that those who contradict the teaching of Maoism be removed or destroyed in order to remove their influence. Maoism also encouraged Cultural Revolution where all ideas compete with each other for dominance.

It is important to point out that Mao contradicted several of his own tenets while he tried to consolidate power, so historians are divided on whether these tenets are feasible in any situation.