overished China lacked those preconditions. In other words, Mao could not adopt in the early revolutionary years many of the basic tenets of orthodox communism because China lacked the large scale capitalist development and organization of modern industry which creates a collectivist pattern of social labor. There was no Marxist proletariat of any substance in China from which an urban revolution attacking a bourgeoisie could be built. Consequently, as Meisner (2006) points out, the intellectual commitment of the Chinese Communist Party to Marxism was offset by its recognition that China was not a typical modern industrial or capitalist state.
Mao's innovations included the development of the Long March and various campaigns undertaken by the Red Army (Snow, 2006). Occurring in the countryside, the Maoist revolution attacked rural landlords and rural social systems and did not penetrate into the cities. Efforts on the part of the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek in, for example, the Fifth Campaign of 1933, failed to prevent the increase of po
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