MAOISM is broadly defined as a variant of Marxism that places greater emphasis on the peasantry and, while “orthodox” Marxist-Leninists see this group as equal to the industrial working class, with its specific emphasis on anti-imperialism, Maoism can be dismissive of workers’ movements in the developed world.

It contains a cult-like veneration of the leader which puts the Soviet Union under Stalin to shame, although that’s possibly been recently exceeded in North Korea.

In Julia Lovell’s book charting the history of Maoism from 1920s China to the present day, she argues that its origins lie in the violent suppression of the Chinese Communist Party and labour movement in 1927, with the brutality of these events leading to Maoism’s emphasis on armed struggle as opposed to trade unionism.

The book’s wider scope focuses on Maoism outside China, including in the West, with Maoism influencing the anti-war and civil rights protests of the 1960s and 1970s.

Lovell covers the Korean war, the tragic events in Indonesia in 1966, the Vietnam war and the horrors of Pol Pot in Kampuchea.

It’s significant that Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh was not a Maoist and sided with the USSR in the Sino-Soviet split and it was Vietnam that liberated Kampuchea from the Pol Pot regime.

Lovell also traces the conflict in Peru in the late 1980s and early 1990s led by the Shining Path guerillas but probably the most successful Maoist movement outside of China was that led by Prachanda which in 2007 overthrew the Nepalese monarchy.

Yet China never gave material assistance to most of these liberation movements and this was even the case with the Nepalese Maoists who controlled areas bordering China.

Lovell argues that despite market reforms, Maoism still influences Chinese policy and cites the change to the country’s constitution which lifts the limits of two presidential terms in office, arguably making Xi Jinping president for life.  

She believes that in the light of recent disputes between China and the West — largely provoked by the latter — that our ruling class needs to take a new look at Maoism.

That begs the question of whether those opposed to imperialism should also be taking a look at it.

Maoism is published by Bodley Head, £25.