Historian Says Maoism's Multiform Nature Helped It Spread Across Diverse Regions

Julia Lovell, a historian and professor of Chinese history and literature at Birkbeck, University of London, said in an interview with Le Monde that Maoism was able to take root in very diverse regions and periods because of its multiform, contradictory and malleable nature.

She said the ideology benefited from the historical contingency of the decolonization era, which made Mao a figurehead of anti-imperialism, 50 years after his death, according to the interview.