Atlas / Comparisons / Bolsheviks vs Maoism
Bolsheviks and Maoism
Measured distance across six axes
Different families with real common ground. They agree within three points on EC, CU, AU, SC, CH. They diverge by eight points or more on ID.
Axis by axis
| Axis | RSDLP(b) | Mao Zedong Thought | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −09 | −10 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −05 | −02 | 3 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +08 | +10 | 2 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +07 | +09 | 2 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −07 | +04 | 11 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +10 | +10 | 0 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
RSDLP(b) · ID −07
Internationalist and class-based rather than national: membership was defined by relation to production, not descent.
- Programme textThe Comintern was founded in 1919 on the premise that the revolution was not national.
- Documented act or statuteCoded −7 rather than lower because 'former people' were disenfranchised by class origin in the 1918 constitution.
Mao Zedong Thought · ID +04
Coded moderately positive: class background was hereditary in practice and determined life chances.
- ScholarshipClass labels assigned in the land reform were inherited and governed schooling, marriage and employment for decades.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Bolsheviks
1903–1924 · Russia
A disciplined vanguard party seizes power in the name of the working class and imposes socialism from above.
Maoism
1949–1976 · China
Peasant-based revolution, continuous class struggle after the seizure of power, permanent mobilisation against the party's own institutions.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
Open in the atlas