Hear me out, then you can decide for yourself.
In short, Maosim is a political tendency that seeks to eidetically or at least theoretically insert the tactics of the Chinese revolution into a non-China setting.
There were Maoist groups in the US, MIM is still around, but...
Mao was not a Maoist, he was a Marxist-Leninist, see my other posts for the M-L perspective. He developed and institued a strategy of building a Peple's Liberation Army, PLA, establish associations to distribute needed goods to people and provide medical and legal access for the poor and workng people of China -- and through that recruit revolutionaries from the people to the Party. The PLA was an autonomous unit, which kept its autonomy in the united front against the Japanese and won some great battle victories.
You cannot build a PLA in the United States -- it is not wise, because it is also illegal, I can't even begin to discuss it on this forum, or ever. I do not use or advocate violence and I was arrested and thrown in jail for my work -- and I was not doing ANYTHING ILLEGAL!
So, if you want to brush up on Maoist understanding, read Mao's
On Practice,
Combat Liberalism and
On Subjectivism and Lui Shao-chi's
How to be a good communist. And then find a "Maoist" Party to join.
Then you can be a Maoist.
Thanks for the query.
To the resident M-L: Do you view post-Stalin, pre-Gorby USSR, as qualitatively different from USSR at the time of Stalin, like some "anti-revisionist" movements do, event to the extent of withdrawing support from it?
In short, yes.
Part of the problem with the Stalin "cult of personality," something that was a matter of fact, was that everything became "Well, Stalin says...." and there was the currying of favor and the desire to be in the inner circle, which Staln himself could USE, but did not like.
My position on the Kruschev secret speech (Kruschev, as you may recall, was the Political Commissar -- the counterpart to Marshal Zhukov -- at the Battle of Stalingrad, so he was no slouch and had proven himself in revolutionary struggle) was that is was an attempt to divorce the Party thinking from the Stalin "cult" and begin the task of contructing a post-war world socialism. Contrary to popular belief, Stalin, as commissar of nationalities (a job nobody else wanted) revived a lot of regional culture and language that the Tsars had subjugated.
Anyway, to keep the international offensive going, and to get out of the "Well, what would Stalin say?" I think Kruschev blew the whistle on the Pre-WWII purge trials. My Position, anyway.
The problem with post-Stalin USSR was that there was NO announced Communist International, and so where could Communists discuss the next steps in the international socialist movement? They chose the forum of "Cominform" which was an information service, not equipped to deal with socialist revolutionary offensive but more for a trade and information exchange. This is the forum where the Sino-Soviet split happened.
None of this was a reason for abandoning the support of existing soviet republlics, like USSR and China, which was a condition for admission to Comintern, and in spite of the absence of Comintern, Castro pointed out in his 1973 "Speech to the 4th Conference of Non-Aligned Nations" that the Sino-Soviet split was unprinicpled, and that calling USSR "imperialist" was misplaced. The USSR did not do the things an imperializing country does, but DID invest expertise and manpower in many international projects like the Aswan Dam.
Thanks for the query.
. No, but I wanted to come up with some sort of "themed" name for the serials, since that is the fun sort of thing to do with serial threads. 
