ABSTRACT
Such was the situation in Yan’an in the early 1940s which saw the birth of the ideological system known as Mao Zedong Thought, an adaptation of MarxismLeninism. Indeed, Leninism is itself an adaptation of the ideas of Karl Marx to economically ‘backward’ conditions in which it is necessary to formulate a revolutionary role for the peasants. Mao Zedong Thought in the 1940s constituted a further accommodation to what was seen as a temporary situation in which certain elements of capitalism could still be promoted.
