Named after the Chinese revolutionary and leader Mao Tse-Tung (or Mao Zedong, 1893–1976), Maoism is the transposition of the theory and practice of Marxism to apply to the conditions not of the urban proletariat, but of the Chinese peasantry.

Mao’s theories which guided the Chinese revolution to victory in 1949, particularly his theory of people’s war, represent a fusion of many aspects of his thought: his confidence in the fundamental revolutionary strength of the peasantry, his grasp of the dialectical philosophy, his complete freedom from the kind of philistinism which invests excuses to condemn the armed struggle of the oppressed nations.

Maoism emphasizes "revolutionary mass mobilization" (physically mobilizing the vast majority of a population in the struggle for socialism), the concept of New Democracy, and the Theory of Productive Forces as applied to village-level industries independent of the outside world (see Great Leap Forward).

Maoism departed from other strands of Marxism in its understanding of peasantry: not as a class incapable of achieving political consciousness but as one with a dormant but tappable source of revolutionary energy. Maoism harbored other idiosyncrasies, including its conception of contradictions and of permanent revolution.