What the Chinese took from Marxism–Leninism was what also
appealed to many political activists and intellectuals in Southeast
Asia. First and foremost was a theory of history that explained their
humiliation at the hands of Western imperialism, assured them of their
inevitable triumph over it, and provided them with the revolutionary
model by which this would be achieved. It gave them, in other words,
both an intellectually satisfying worldview and a blueprint for political
action. Imperialism, Lenin had argued, was the last internationalist
phase of monopoly capitalism, seeking control over resources for its
industries and markets for its products. It would be defeated at its
weakest point, where its contradictions were most glaring, and that
was in its colonies. Revolution would be achieved through mass action
by peasants and workers led by the dedicated cadres of communist
parties. What was taken on faith was Marx’s belief that communism,
as a mode of economic production, would prove superior to capitalism,
so that the sooner a society adopted communism, the more rapidly it
would catch up and overtake imperialist capitalist states. Proof lay in
the rapid industrialisation of the Soviet Union, which had enabled it
to defeat Nazi Germany. Such a view led to disastrous attempts to
speed up economic development by ‘by-passing’ the capitalist mode of
production entirely—a notion Marx would have found bizarre. Exam-
ples include the Great Leap Forward in China and Khmer Rouge
agrarian communism in Cambodia.
In terms of international relations, the Marxist–Leninist world-
view was global in conception, and class- rather than nation-based.
The revolutionary leap from capitalism to communism was believed to
be universal and inevitable, even though it would take place separately
in each society (nation-state). The historical significance of each revo-
lution lay in its contribution to this global historical process. This
internationalist cause united workers across the world. By their revo-
lutionary efforts the proletariat would seize state power (exercised by
the communist party through dictatorship on the workers’ behalf)
leading ultimately to the communist utopia, to which all would
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia