Today Maoism speaks to the world's poor more fluently than ever

This article appeared in the British Guardian and was picked up by the Kasama Project. While many in the US are treating Maoism as an insignificant and outdated ideology this article, one of the best I’ve seen in a western newspaper, proves that the ideology is far from dead and may soon become a major influence on some countries’ politics. It names Nepal and India as the two major spots right now. In China there are two Maos, “George Washington Mao” the father of the country and the real Mao, whose works are still being read.

It goes on to say there is little chance of a Maoist movement from the US Midwest, and yet there are a few of us out here ready to do what we can if a major Marxist rebellion of any kind takes place;  -សតិវ អតុ

Aside from the bland icon of the new China, there is a much more dangerous Mao, whose ideas retain their vitality;

• · By Pankaj Mishra
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 July 2011 19.33 BST

In 2008 in Beijing I met the Chinese novelist Yu Hua shortly after he had returned from Nepal, where revolutionaries inspired by Mao Zedong had overthrown a monarchy. A young Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, Yu Hua, like many Chinese of his generation, has extremely complicated views on Mao. Still, he was astonished, he told me, to see Nepalese Maoists singing songs from his Maoist youth – sentiments he never expected to hear again in his lifetime.
In fact, the success of Nepalese Maoists is only one sign of the "return" of Mao. In central India armed groups proudly calling themselves Maoists control a broad swath of territory, fiercely resisting the Indian government's attempts to make the region's resource-rich forests safe for the mining operations that, according to a recent report in Foreign Policy magazine, "major global companies like Toyota and Coca-Cola" now rely on.
And – as though not to be outdone by Mao's foreign admirers – some Chinese have begun to carefully deploy Mao's still deeply ambiguous memory in China. Texting Mao's sayings to mobile phones, broadcasting "Red" songs from state-owned radio and television, and sending college students to the countryside, Bo Xilai, the ambitious communist party chief of the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, is leading an unexpected Mao revival in China.
For more click here.