Ideological+differences+Mao+and+Nasser

I. An explanation of what ideological difference means for the single party state leader a. Single party state leaders are often compared but depending on their ideology, their governments and structure can be quite different or similar. b. Right wing leaders tend to emphasize nationalism and have different views on property ownership of individuals. They also might try to spread their philosophy/ideology. They can also be an all-controlling government. They differ in social and economic policy. They tend to prefer traditions and are economically conservative. The Right supports a class system and emphasizes business and protecting business. c. Left wing leaders can also promote nationalism but tend to try to spread their philosophy. It also is an all-controlling government. It differs because it focuses on social policy and has very few/no property ownership of individuals laws because everything is state controlled. The Left also differs in the area of class because it doesn’t want a class system and wants everyone to be equal, relatively. II. An explanation for how ideological differences applies to Mao and Nasser a. Mao is clearly left wing because his whole government is based on the principles of communism/Marxism. He nationalized every industry and had severe land reform. He is clearly a communist, though not a Marxist because he had a few deviations from true Marxism. However, Mao is clearly left wing. b. Nasser is not as easily classified since he doesn’t really fit into any category perfectly. He believes in Pan-Arabism and is known to be a nationalist. He rejects Western capitalism but also rejects communism. He is to some extent a socialist, but he believes firmly in preserving the traditions of the Arab world. He didn’t have many ties with the Western world and was friendly with the Soviets, but he wasn’t a communist. III. An analysis for how similar these two leaders are based on this criterion. a. They are similar because they each had a left wing ideology, although Mao was much more extreme left wing than Nasser was (he was only a bit of a socialist). They also both were all controlling, performed land reform to varying success b. Not very similar because Nasser wasn’t as hardcore about social equality and was much more about maintaining the status quo/Arab traditions. He was more isolated in politics than Mao was, and overall doesn’t fit into a political camp as well either. Also, Nasser was extremely anti-communist whereas Mao was a devout Marxist. Nasser didn’t see communism as compatible with the Arab culture. So clearly their ideology is quite different.