The Third World’s Maoist Revolution: Maoism, African-American Activism, and Naxalism during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) A thesis presented by James Gethyn Evans To The Committee on Regional Studies—East Asia In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts In Regional Studies—East Asia Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2020 James Gethyn Evans i James Gethyn Evans Abstract Mao Zedong’s articulation of his Theory of Three Worlds served as a Cold War alternative to U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). This Maoist-styled Third World forged an ideological justification for establishing relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Maoist-sympathizing states, Marxist-Leninist parties, and individuals that were previously unaligned. This thesis argues that Mao Zedong Thought, or Maoism, became decoupled from the CCP’s own interpretations, and should instead be understood as a vocabulary for global Third World solidarity during the 1960s and 1970s. On the one hand, Maoism’s global appeal allowed the CCP to project the PRC as a leader for newly- independent states and organizations fighting against colonialization and imperialism. At the same time, Maoism was actively adapted by local actors outside the PRC to promote their own domestic political ambitions and to indicate their participation in a global movement that was facilitated through the language of Maoism. This thesis examines two examples of how Maoism served as an ideological framework for the global Third World. First it explores how the CCP and the Black Panther Party leveraged their interpretations of each other’s struggles to advance their respective domestic goals within a global Third World context. Second, it considers the contrasting case of the Naxalite movement in India. While the Naxalites used Maoism to advance their local revolutionary agenda, the CCP initially encouraged the Naxalites as a means to support the CCP’s claims to lead the Third World, but then abandoned the Naxalites when those same ambitions could be realized by instead supporting the Indian state. Through these examples, this thesis indicates that although the CCP had a specific agenda for promoting Maoism internationally, Maoist discourse circulated beyond the CCP’s control, where it was adapted to local conditions and became a foundational grammar for a global Third World. ii James Gethyn Evans © 2020, James Gethyn Evans, All rights reserved. iii James Gethyn Evans Acknowledgments This thesis quite simply would not have been possible without the support of my advisors, co- workers, friends, and my husband. Academically, I am entirely grateful for the encouragement of my advisors, Arunabh Ghosh and Nara Dillon, who have both steered my academic journey and allowed me the flexibility to experiment across disciplines. Susan Pharr, Grzegorz Ekiert, Ya- wen Lei, Alastair Iain Johnston, Zhang Mo, Wang Dan, Cai Jing, and Fu Chao all gave me the opportunity to enroll in their classes while I still worked full-time as an administrator. Sunil Amrith, Ben Wilson, Carter Eckert, Tony Saich, Arne Westad, Daniel Koss, and Elizabeth Perry helped me talk through and clarify parts of my research. Sarah Bramao-Ramos, Keisha A. Brown, and Kyle Shernuk also provided invaluable feedback on early drafts of the thesis. At the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies—for which, along with the Harvard University Asia Center, I am grateful for supporting my research, language training, and professional growth—I am eternally indebted to my co-workers for their encouragement. In particular, Dan Murphy, Julia Cai, Mark Grady, Nick Drake, Caitlin Keliher, Marian Lee, Jennifer Rudolf, Karen Thornber, Mark Elliott, and Michael Szonyi, as well as Holly Angell, Rosie Cortese, Harriet Wong, and Cris Martin for providing a supportive network over the past five years. Roderick MacFarquhar (whose advice to “go for it!” will forever stick with me), Rudolf Wagner, and Steven Goldstein acted as my academic guardians and sources of unwavering humor in the corridors of CGIS South Building. Nancy Hearst gave me the honor of my own carrel in the Fung Library, and provided me with archival resources that were fundamental in writing this thesis. Lastly, to Kurt and Pam, for welcoming me to the U.S. with such open arms, and to my family back home in the UK, who are not quite sure what it is exactly that I have been doing for the last few years, but have encouraged me, nonetheless. I thank them all. Lastly, to Kyle, without whom I would be neither at Harvard, nor on this side of the Atlantic, I owe a gratitude that can never be repaid. This thesis was completed during COVID-19. Please excuse incomplete citations or references, which I have noted with “COVID-19.” iv James Gethyn Evans Table of Contents § Introduction “We are the Third World”: Maoism and the Grammar for Global Revolution § Chapter 1 Maoism and Black Power: Mutual Manipulations of Mao Zedong Thought and African American Activism § Chapter 2 “Indian Revolutionaries with A Chinese Accent”? Interpretations of Maoism in India’s Naxalite Movement § Conclusion New Directions in Global Maoism v Introduction “We are the Third World”: Maoism as Global Revolution “[Mao’s] declaration pulls together into clear focus the revolutionary struggles and the liberation struggles of the people of the whole world, including the revolutionary struggle of the American people themselves.”1 – Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party, September 1970 “We are confident revolutionaries and the revolutionary people of India, guided by the thought of Mao Tse-tung will perform this world revolutionary task and, together with a great Chinese people and other revolutionary peoples of the world will overthrow the U.S. imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists and reactionaries of all kinds.”2 - Charu Mazumdar, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), November 1968 This thesis argues that Mao Zedong Thought, or Maoism, was a foundational grammar for global Third World solidarity in the 1960s and 1970s. On the one hand, Maoism served as a Sino- centric discourse leveraged by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to project its chairman, Mao Zedong, as a leader for states, organizations, and individuals fighting against colonialization and imperialism around the world. On the other hand, Maoism was actively adapted by local radical actors outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC) both to promote their own domestic political ambitions and to indicate their participation in a global revolutionary movement. As a result, while the CCP promoted Mao Zedong Thought among overseas revolutionary groups as a framework for replicating Maoist-style revolution beyond the PRC’s borders, these groups actively interpreted and adapted Mao’s writings in a manner that decoupled Maoism from the 1 Eldridge Cleaver, Commentary on Mao Zedong’s Statement: “Peoples of the World Unite to Destroy the American Aggressors and their Lackeys,” The Black Panther – Black Community News Service, vol 4, no. 29, ( June 20, 1970): 20. Reprinted in The Black Panther, vol. 5, no. 12 (September 19, 1970): 15. 2 Charu Mazumdar, “Develop Peasants’ Class Struggle Through Class Analysis, Investigation and Study,” Liberation, vol. 2, no. 1, (November 1968): 17. First published in Bengali in Deshabrati, October 17, 1968. James Gethyn Evans CCP’s own interpretations. Maoism therefore evolved outside the PRC not as a prescription for replicating revolution, but rather as a loose vocabulary for global Third World solidarity during the 1960s and 1970s. Mao’s “theory of three worlds” reframed existing discourses about the Third World with the PRC at its center and divided the globe into three “worlds” or “spheres” during the Cold War according to their relationship to colonialism and imperialism.3 Mao imagined the “three worlds” as an imperialist First World (the United States and the Soviet Union); an intermediate Second World (Western Europe, Canada, and Japan); and an anti-imperialist Third World, which was comprised of formerly colonized peoples. The CCP positioned the PRC as part of this Third World, with Mao declaring in 1974 that “We [the PRC] are the Third World.”4 In contrast to the Third World as commonly understood during the Cold War, in capitalist terms of relative economic development (with the First World comprising of the developed “West,” the Second World of the Communist bloc, and the Third World comprising of the underdeveloped states of Africa, Latin America, and Asia5), Mao’s Third World not only moved the PRC from the Second World to the Third World, but also recalculated the Cold War divide from capitalist-socialist to imperialist-anti-imperialist. In the context of the PRC’s worsening relations with the Soviet Union from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Mao’s three worlds theory also recast the Soviet Union as an imperialist power akin to the United States. Maoism was therefore promoted by the 3 Mao Zedong stated that “[t]he United States and the Soviet Union form the first world. Japan, Europe, and Canada, the middle section, belong to the second world. We are the third world” (Editorial Department of People’s Daily, “Chairman Mao’s Theory of the Differentiation of the Three Worlds is a Major Contribution to Marxism-Leninism,” People’s Daily, 1 Nov 1977. 4 Ibid. 5 Peter Worsley, The Three Worlds: Cultural and World Development (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984), 1. 2 James Gethyn Evans