ABSTRACT
In the case of Mao Tse-tung—and it is the case of the most celebrated utopian prophet of our age—one encounters a vision of the future which contains both eutopia and outopia. This chapter discusses a preliminary inquiry into the history and nature of the Maoist vision of the future and examines the function of both its utopian and dystopian strains in contemporary Chinese historical development. The revolutionary utopian menace comes from the vast non-Western areas of the world where radical utopianism has "withdrawn" and where industrialism and liberalism have yet to triumph. A survey of the literature on the latter, it is fair to say, would reflect the dominant antiutopian and antirevolutionary proclivities and, correspondingly, a high value placed on the virtues of social "stability" and "equilibrium." During the revolutionary years, there was nothing at all utopian about the Maoist vision of the future.
