ABSTRACT
Maoist China solved the ‘peasant problem’ that was at the heart of the tragic decline of the Central Empire over two decisive centuries. What is more, Maoist China reached these results while avoiding the most tragic deviations of the Soviet Union: collectivisation was not imposed by murderous violence as was the case with Stalinism; oppositions within the party did not give rise to the establishment of a terror. Maoism’s successes did not settle ‘definitively’ (in an ‘irreversible’ fashion) whether China’s long-term perspectives would work out in a way favourable to socialism. These successes explain why post-Maoist China, committing its development thenceforward to its ‘opening’ within the new capitalist globalisation, was able to avoid destructive shocks similar to those that followed the collapse of the USSR. Maoism has contributed in decisive fashion to ascertaining exactly the stakes in and the challenge represented by globalised capitalist/imperialist expansion.
