Atlas / Comparisons / Chavismo vs Maoism
Chavismo and Maoism
Measured distance across six axes
The same broad family. They agree within three points on EC, AU, SC, ID. No axis separates them by eight points or more.
Axis by axis
| Axis | PSUV | Mao Zedong Thought | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −08 | −10 | 2 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +02 | −02 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +09 | +10 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +08 | +09 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +03 | +04 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +04 | +10 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
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.
PSUV · CH +04
Coded positive: an attempted coup in 1992 followed by twenty-five years of contested elections.
- Documented act or statuteThe movement's founder led a failed military coup in 1992 before being elected in 1998.
Mao Zedong Thought · CH +10
Coded at the ceiling because the regime repeatedly used mass mobilisation to attack its own institutions.
- Documented act or statuteThe Cultural Revolution from 1966 closed universities and destroyed party and state bodies from below on the leader's instruction.
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.
Chavismo
1999– · Venezuela
Bolivarian socialism of the twenty-first century, anti-imperialism, popular power organised 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