I actually want to chalk it up to how many Maoists set up bookstores and independent publishing houses in the 80s. You know how Trots do newspapers? MLM types did underground magazines, pamphlets, books, posters, they had a full media rollout. It could also be how those first MLMs were a confusing mixture of crust punks, black liberation orgs, leftist college professors, and bookstore operators. And I guess any insular political group will develop their own terminology, especially if the only people reading their literature are...themselves.

I have to wonder how much Bob Avakian himself is responsible for so much of American MLM tactics, because the RCP was the biggest Maoist name in town for decades. Could also be how much of Maoists used to be connected to things like the west coast punk scene? A lot of their tactics always seemed about making as huge of a shock as possible, like that one guy who got arrested in the flag burning court case, he'd always show up at protests with a severed pig's head on a leash.