This talk looks at the rise of the New Communist Movement (Maoism) from its beginnings in the early 1970s to its collapse in the early 1980s. This current of revolutionary thought and its organizational expressions captured the largest numbers—mostly students—out of the radicalized movements of the 1960s. The talk examines some of the reasons for its appeal, what the successes and limits of its practice were, and why it was unable to sustain its appeal in the period of reaction beginning in the 1980s.