During the 1950s, Mao began to consolidate his particular vision of communist ideology, which in many ways distanced itself from the discourse of the founders of Chinese communism. Mao's ideas would be consolidated as an ideology of the Communist Party of China during the Japanese occupation, between 1938 and 1945. Mao's version of communism is called, outside China, "Maoism"; in the use of the Communist Party of China itself, the designation "Mao Zedong Thought" is preferred. Mao's ideas have had a great influence on the development of other communist movements, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
One of his main ideas was the vision of the peasants as the engine of the revolution. Traditionally, Marxist-Leninist ideas had seen industrial workers as the force that would lead to revolution. Mao realized that this was not the case in China, and that the revolution should be developed from the peasantry. At that time, China did not have a significant population of workers, but it did have a large mass of discontented peasants, which would end up supporting Mao's ideas. According to his theory, Marxism-Leninism should be applied to specific cases and specific situations. Mao started from the idea that the peasants should form the basis of the communist revolution, which was only possible if the political leaders absorbed the message of the revolution and made it understandable to the peasant population.
Mao also developed theories such as the three-phase strategy in guerrilla warfare and the concept of the democratic dictatorship of the people. He also defended the Cultural Revolution as a mechanism to prevent the restoration of capitalism. Between 1957 and 1960, Mao led an ambitious mass campaign called Great Leap Forward, developmentalist policy that marked the distance between Chinese and Soviet communism. The Great Leap Forward was a failure, and caused a great famine, which was aggravated by natural catastrophes.
