Maoism, also known as Mao Zedong Thought (simplified Chinese: 毛泽东思想; traditional Chinese: 毛澤東思想; pinyin: Máozédōng sīxiǎng), is a political theory derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976). Its followers, known as Maoists, consider it as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxism. Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding ideology of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It fell into disfavour in China in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping introduced sweeping reforms.

Maoism is also used to refer to Mao's belief in the mobilization of the masses, particularly in large-scale political movements; it can also refer to the egalitarianism that was seen during Mao's era as opposed to the free-market ideology of Deng Xiaoping; some scholars additionally define personality cults and political sloganeering as "Maoist" practices. Contemporary Maoists in China criticize the social inequalities created by a capitalist and "revisionist" Communist party.

Sumantra Bose is Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics. He specialises in the study of ethnic and national conflicts and their management, with a particular focus on the Indian subcontinent (especially Kashmir) and the former Yugoslavia (in particular Bosnia and Herzegovina). His publications include States, Nations, Sovereignty: Sri Lanka, India and the Tamil Eelam Movement (Sage, 1994), Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention (Oxford University Press, 2002), Kashmir: The Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (Harvard University Press, 2003) and Contested Lands: War and Peace in Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus and Sri Lanka (Harvard University Press, 2007).

Bose is the son of Sisir Kumar Bose a pediatrician and Krishna Bose née Chaudhuri, professor of English, writer and politician, and a grandson of Sarat Chandra Bose.Sugata Bose (Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University)is his elder brother and Sarmila Bose (b. 1959) is his elder sister.

Saloth Sar (19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998), better known as Pol Pot (Khmer: ប៉ុល ពត), was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot became leader of Cambodia on April 17, 1975. During his time in power he imposed agrarian socialism, forcing urban dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects. The combined effects of forced labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of approximately 21% of the Cambodian population. In all, an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) died as a result of the policies of his three-year premiership.

In 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, Pol Pot fled to the jungles of southwest Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge government collapsed. From 1979 to 1997, he and a remnant of the old Khmer Rouge operated near the border of Cambodia and Thailand, where they clung to power, with nominal United Nations recognition as the rightful government of Cambodia. Pol Pot died in 1998 while under house arrest by the Ta Mok faction of the Khmer Rouge. Since his death, rumours that he was poisoned have persisted.

Mallojula Koteswara Rao (26 November 1956 – 24 November 2011 ), commonly known by his nom de guerre Kishenji, was a Politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the group's military leader.

Kishenji was born into a poor family in Pedapalli (in the district of Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh) which eked out a living on priesthood in near by temples. His father was a freedom fighter and, also vice-president of the state branch of the Congress Socialist Party. In 1973, after a BSc mathematics degree from Government Degree College, Peddapalli, he moved to Hyderabad to pursue law.

He launched the Radical Students Union (RSU) in Andhra Pradesh. He became a full-time member of the People's War Group in 1974. During the Emergency in 1975, he went underground to take part in the revolution. Several things motivated him: Writer Varavara Rao, who founded the Revolutionary Writers Association, India’s political atmosphere and the progressive environment in which he grew up. When he joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), his father left the Indian National Congress saying, two kinds of politics cannot survive under one roof. His father believed in socialism, but not in armed struggle.

Koteswara Rao was a retired principal of the Regional Engineering College at Warangal which is now National Institute of Technology, Warangal

Rao was born in Sangamjagrlamudi, a small village located near Tenali,Andhrapradesh. He pursued a degree in civil engineering from a college in Guindy, Madras in 1947, graduating in 1951.

He applied for post of junior lecturer at Andhra University in 1955 and later engaged in post graduate studies and pursued his masters at the University of Iowa in 1960. Three years later he completed a PhD.

Rao was appointed as a principal of the Regional Engineering College at Warangal (RECW), and was principal during its transition to National Institute of Technology, Warangal in 1986.

He was also appointed as a member of the committee to enhance the quality of graduation in engineering.^{[citation needed]} The committee advised the government on the national regulatory exam for graduate entrance, the Graduate Aptitude Test for Engineers.