Power grows from the barrel of a gun
Mao's dictum that revolutionary change rests ultimately on organized armed force. Political authority is grounded in military capacity.
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung
4 ideas
The mass line
Leadership should gather the scattered ideas of the masses, systematize them, and return them as policy. Authority claims legitimacy by channeling the people.
Continuous class struggle
The text insists revolution is ongoing rather than finished. Perpetual vigilance against bourgeois and reactionary tendencies is demanded.
The book as instrument of indoctrination
Distributed to hundreds of millions, the Little Red Book functioned as a portable catechism. It unified and disciplined thought during the Cultural Revolution.