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Mao Zedong

 
Who2 Biography: Mao Zedong, Political Leader
 
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Mao Zedong
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  • Born: 26 December 1893
  • Birthplace: XiangTan, Hunan Province, China
  • Died: 9 September 1976 (Natural causes)
  • Best Known As: Head of the People's Republic of China, 1949-76

Mao Zedong (also Mao Tse-Tung) was the world's most prominent Chinese communist during the 20th century. Mao's Red Army overthrew Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949, and the communists seized power of mainland China. Ruthless and ambitious, Mao turned China into a world military power and created a cult of personality, forcing the distribution of his image and his "Little Red Book" (a collection of political maxims) upon the Chinese people. His campaign to export communism made China a threat to the West and led to confrontations in Southeast Asia and Korea. Under Mao's rule China endured a series of economic disasters and political terrorism, but for more than 25 years Mao was China, as far as the rest of the world was concerned. After his death, leaders like Deng Xiaoping steered the country away from pure communism, and the Cult of Mao began to disappear. These days Mao is ranked among the worst of 20th century dictators. alongside Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

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Political Biography: Mao Zedong
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(Mao Tse-tung)

(b. Shaoshan, Hunan Province, 26 Dec. 1893; d. 9 Sept. 1976) Chinese; chairman of the Chinese Communist party 1935 – 76, paramount leader of the People's Republic of China 1949 – 76 Mao Zedong was the single most influential figure in Chinese politics in the twentieth century. Even after his death, his legacy for Chinese politics was immense — indeed the continued use of the term "post-Mao" China to define the current epoch is testimony to his importance and standing. As Mao was also a crucial player in global politics for three decades, he was quite simply one of the most important leaders in the world.

While many other Chinese Communist leaders spent some time in France or Moscow, Mao's formative political experiences were all in China. The young Mao spent much of his spare time travelling in the local countryside, talking to the local peasants about their problems. Like many of his generation, he was later inspired by opposition to the oppressive Confucian family system. In many ways, the translation of Ibsen's A Doll's House was more of an inspiration to Mao's generation than translations of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Indeed, Mao did not have a particularly good knowledge of the major Communist texts, and in later life often made a virtue out of his experiences with the Chinese people, extolling the importance of "seeking truth from facts" at the expense of book-learned socialism.

Whilst enrolled as a mature teacher-training student in Changsha in 1913, Mao first became involved in political organization and mobilization under the influence of his first mentor, the philosopher Yang Changji. In 1918, Yang helped Mao secure a job under the Marxist theoretician, Li Dazhao in the Beijing University library, which marked Mao's conversion from liberal to Marxist. Nevertheless, although Mao was a founder member of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, he still did not have a firm understanding of the basics of Marxism at this time.

On Moscow's instructions, the Communists joined a United Front with the Nationalists in the early 1920s, and Mao was placed in charge of the peasant work department where he undertook a study of the situation in rural Hunan. Mao became convinced that the peasantry and not the urban proletariat would be the source of revolution in China. This view was antithetical to the official party line, and resulted in much criticism from both Moscow and the party leaders in Shanghai. Mao retained a fierce grudge against his critics during this period, particularly those who he felt were isolated from the real revolution and struggle in the Chinese countryside.

When the Nationalists installed a new national government in Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek abandoned the united front and moved against the Communists. Mao led one of a number of failed Communist uprisings (in Changsha), and the defeated troops escaped to the mountains of Jiangxi Province. Joined over the years by other sympathizers, and the remnants of another abortive set of rebellions in 1930, the Communists established a Soviet headquarters at Ruijin, where Mao devised the strategy that was later to bring the Communists to power. In addition to his formula for rural-based revolution, Mao developed a mobile warfare guerilla strategy built on a cohesive, disciplined, and democratic Red Army.

Mao was temporarily displaced from power as the Nationalists increased their attacks and forced the Communists to retreat. The heavy losses of the early days of the Long March out of Jiangxi proved the wisdom of Mao's mobile strategy, and although Wang Ming still claimed the mantle of Communist leadership from the safety of Moscow, Mao was effectively leader of the Chinese Communists from the Zunyi Conference of January 1935 to his death in 1976.

From the end of the Long March in 1935 throughout the subsequent war against Japan, Mao and his colleagues planned their military and revolutionary strategy from Yanan in Shaanxi Province. Through a combination of exploiting their nationalist credentials, moderate social and economic reform, political cohesion and mobilization, effective guerilla military tactics, and the concomitant failings of the nationalists, the Communists surprised perhaps even themselves by establishing a new People's Republic on 1 October 1949.

Having won the revolution in the face of apparently insurmountable odds, Mao became convinced that there was nothing that the Chinese people could not achieve if they were correctly educated and mobilized. Whilst other leaders argued for a slow and stable process of economic development based on Soviet Leninist principles, Mao argued for a Chinese solution entailing mass mobilization to bring about the simultaneous political development of the Chinese people, and rapid economic change.

Mao's first radical experiment saw the rapid collectivization of the countryside. The early successes of this policy led on to the Great Leap Forward — a mass campaign to communize the Chinese population as soon as possible, and in the process unleash the enthusiasm of the masses in economic production. China would surpass Britain's level of development in fifteen years and China would be pushed to the verge of real Communism. The result was somewhat different. The Great Leap collapsed into a great famine, resulting in the deaths of 40 million Chinese between 1961 and 1963.

Instead of accepting the errors of his strategy, Mao instead blamed the failings of local officials, the peasants' poor understanding of socialism, and the failings of some of his leadership colleagues. When these leaders, notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, intervened to marginalize his Socialist Education Campaign from 1962 to 1964, Mao became convinced that if his correct vision of the Chinese revolution was to succeed, then the party had to get rid of these "capitalist roaders".

Thus, Mao unleashed the revolutionary enthusiasm of the Chinese students who had been indoctrinated in loyalty to his name in a Cultural Revolution against class enemies. The result was chaos. Communist leaders at all levels were arrested, and many lost their lives. Countless others also died as the student Red Guards became ever more vindictive and imaginative in defining ways to identify class traitors, and parts of the country descended into virtual civil war. By 1971, Mao had been forced to rely on the military to restore order, and purged two of his closest political allies, Lin Biao and Chen Boda, as the system lurched uncertainly back towards a semblance of stability.

Mao grew ever more ill during the 1970s, and his political role in these years remains unclear. Many believe that his radical followers, the Gang of Four, exercised power in Mao's name, although it is likely that he still had the final word on major issues. Despite the arrest of the Gang of Four, and Deng Xiaoping's ascension to power in 1978, the party did not feel able to criticize Mao directly for the Cultural Revolution until 1981. Even then, the party took great care to show that his many great deeds vastly outweighed his errors. Chen Yun's appreciation of Mao's career is closer to the truth: if he had died in 1956, the party could have remembered Mao as a great revolutionary hero. As he died in 1976, "there is nothing that we can do about it".

 
Military History Companion: Mao Tse-tung
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Mao Tse-tung (correctly Mao Zedong) (1893-1976), Chinese revolutionary leader and theorist of people's war, was born in Shaosan, Hunan province, in central China, the son of relatively affluent peasants. As a student in Changsha, he became involved in radical politics. In 1921, Mao became one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and rapidly became one of the leaders of the movement. The alliance between the CCP and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) broke down in 1927. In that year the KMT leader, Chiang Kai-Shek, bloodily purged the communists and the CCP carried out a series of abortive uprisings. The Chinese civil war had begun.

By 1931 the CCP established fifteen base areas in the countryside; the Kiangsi soviet was established in November. Mao was at this stage only one among a number of CCP leaders, engaged in a battle for power with rivals, but his success in building up CCP administrations in the base areas brought him to prominence. Mao was a dedicated revolutionary who suffered personally as a result of his commitment.

It was the Long March which established Mao as the leader of the CCP. The fifth KMT offensive threatened to extinguish the CCP, so the communists marched some 6, 000 miles (9, 654 km) to Yenan from October 1934 to the summer of 1935. Even then, had it not been for Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the KMT forces might have defeated Mao. Instead, an uneasy alliance was patched up between the rivals allowing all Chinese to concentrate on the common enemy.

Mao was a theorist as well as a practitioner of revolutionary war, writing On Protracted War in 1938. His experiences in the 1920s convinced him that the Russian model of revolution was inappropriate for China; given the overwhelmingly agricultural nature of Chinese society, the revolution had to be based on the peasant, not the industrial worker. Mao realized that the solution had to be in part military, as ‘power grows from the barrel of a gun’. The problem Mao faced was how to defeat the conventional KMT forces with a guerrilla army. His solution was to look to the intangible (as opposed to material) factors of time, space, and will. The communists would trade space for time (as in the Long March) and use the time bought to create political will, to indoctrinate and mobilize the people. In a famous analogy, Mao saw the guerrillas as fish swimming in the sea of the peasantry. The peasants sustained them, just as the sea sustained the fish. Thus it was essential for the Red Army to behave correctly in its relations with the peasantry, which came as a pleasant surprise to peasants used to the behaviour of other armies.

In addition to its military role the Chinese Red Army was a political instrument of revolution. The establishment of base areas allowed the CCP to set up as an alternative government and begin to win over the peasants by a mixture of judicious reforms (concerning landholding, rents, and the like) and education. With the ‘sea’ of peasants mobilized, Mao believed, the enemy would be swept away in the resulting human tidal wave.

Mao's achievement was to take the elements of irregular warfare that would have been familiar to the Spanish guerrillas of 1808 to 1814 and link them to a specifically revolutionary political aim. He identified three phases of war. In the first, the guerrillas were on the strategic defensive, seeking to disperse their forces to avoid presenting a target to the enemy. The aim was to begin to mobilize the population. Mao's tactics were influenced by Sun-tzu. In 1930, Mao summarized his tactics as ‘Divide our forces to arouse the masses, concentrate our forces to deal with the enemy. The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.’ Mao's approach has been described as the ‘war of the flea’. The analogy is with a large, shaggy dog, which, bitten by the nimble pest, puts up his hind leg to scratch the flea bite, only for the flea to jump away and bite the dog somewhere else. The dog, like the conventional army, is always reacting to actions initiated by the flea/guerrilla. Conversely, a major feature of many successful counter-insurgency campaigns has been the building up of an effective intelligence system to allow government forces to seize the initiative.

Mao's second phase was when a stalemate was reached: the guerrillas were not yet strong enough to win the insurgency but were too strong to be destroyed by the opposition forces. In the final stage, they turned themselves into a conventional army and defeated the enemy forces, at least in part, in open battle.

The truce with the KMT broke down in the summer of 1946. The CCP had made good use of the previous nine years: by this time it claimed to have a 900, 000-strong army, backed by a militia of over 2, 000, 000, drawn from a communist-controlled population of 90, 000, 000. The communists equipped themselves with Japanese arms, captured by Soviet forces in the brief Soviet campaign in Manchuria in August 1945. Mao's forces then employed a mixture of guerrilla and conventional warfare against the KMT forces, which numbered about 3 million. The communists won a major campaign in Manchuria in October 1948, followed by the Hsuschow campaign in north China (November-December 1948). Mao entered the capital, Beijing, on 21 January 1949 and founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in October of that year.

Mao's leadership of the PRC falls outside the scope of this article, although it should be noted that if it were not for Stalin he would be the greatest mass-murderer in history. He represents one more swing of the millennial Chinese pendulum between ferocious centralization and anarchy, although his Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, echoing the Taiping rebellion of a century earlier, was a bizarre effort to combine both. As a military leader, Mao was one of the greatest theorists and practitioners of revolutionary guerrilla war in history—if not the greatest. His style of insurgency, while not infallible, has proved to be eminently exportable and capable of being adapted to non-Chinese circumstances.

Bibliography

  • Mao Tse-tung, Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (Beijing, 1971).
  • Ellis, John, A Short History of Guerrilla Warfare (London, 1975)

— Gary Sheffield

 
US Military Dictionary: Mao Zedong
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Mao Zedong (1893-1976) also Mao Tse-tung

Chinese statesman, leader of the Chinese Communist Party (1931-76) and chairman of the People's Republic of China (1949-59). As the architect of China's communist revolution, Mao developed the modern form of revolutionary insurgency. He defeated both the occupying Japanese and the Kuomintang nationalist forces to create the People's Republic in 1949. In 1950 Mao sent Chinese forces to aid North Koreans when U.S. and U.N. troops crossed the 38th parallel. Initially Mao followed the Russian communist model, but later gave the Chinese brand his own stamp and came to see himself in competition with the Soviets. In 1972 he and Zhou Enlai met with Richard M. Nixon in Beijing in an attempt to improve relations with Americans in order to gain advantage over Soviet Communists.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

 
Biography: Mao Zedong
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Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was a Chinese statesman whose status as a revolutionary in world history is probably next only to that of Lenin.

More than anyone else in recent times, Mao Zedong, with his supple mind and astute judgment, helped to reshape the social and political structures of his ancient and populous country. In doing so, Mao is likely to influence the destiny of the "third world" as well. Highly literate and sensitive, he was dedicated to a relentless struggle against inequality and injustice; thus at times he was capable of utter ruthlessness. He lived through reform and revolution in the early years of China's awakening nationalism, accepting at first the philosophies behind both movements. With the onset of the warlords' reaction after the revolution of 1911, disillusionment drove him to radicalism. This occurred at a time when Wilsonian self-determination was being ignored at the Paris Peace Conference and the messianic messages of the Russian October Revolution had attracted the attention of Chinese intellectuals, as China itself was passing through a period of traumatic cultural changes. Skeptical of Western sincerity and iconoclastic toward Confucianism, Mao sought inspiration from Marx's class struggle and Lenin's anti-imperialism to become a Communist.

Born in Hunan on Dec. 26, 1893, Mao Zedong did not venture outside his home province until he was 25. Up to then, his formal education was limited to 6 years at a junior normal school where he acquired a meager knowledge of science, learned almost no foreign language, but developed a lucid written style and a considerable understanding of social problems, Chinese history, and current affairs. He was, however, still parochial in the sense that he had inherited the pragmatic and utilitarian tradition of Hunan scholarship with the hope that somehow it would help him in his groping for ways and means to strengthen and enrich his country.

Mao's visit to Peking in 1918 broadened his view. Although his life there was miserable, he was working under the chief librarian of Peking University, who was one of the pioneer Marxists of China. On his return to Hunan in the following year, Mao was already committed to communism. While making a living as a primary schoolteacher, he edited radical magazines, organized trade unions, and set up politically oriented schools of his own in the orthodox manner of Communist agitation among city workers and students. With the inauguration of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in 1921, of which Mao was one of the 50 founder-members, these activities were pursued with added energy and to a greater depth.

Meanwhile, the major political party, the Kuomintang (KMT), was reorganized, and a coalition was formed between the KMT and CCP on antiwarlord and anti-imperialist principles. Mao's principal task was to coordinate the policies of both parties, an ill-suited role on account of his lack of academic and social standing. In 1925, when the coalition ran into heavy weather, Mao was sent back to Hunan to "convalesce."

Champion of the Peasants

An unfortunate result of this rebuff was that he was completely left out of the nationwide strikes against Japan and Britain in the summer of that year, during which many of his comrades made their mark as leaders of the trade union movement or party politics. A by-product of his "convalescence" was that he discovered the revolutionary potential of the peasants, who had in such great numbers been displaced and pauperized by the misrule of the warlords. From then on Mao switched his attention to this vast underprivileged class of people. He studied them, tried to understand their grievances, and agitated among them.

Mao's newly acquired knowledge and experience enabled him to play a leading role in the peasant movement led by both the KMT and CCP. By 1927 he was in a position to advocate a class substitution in the Chinese Revolution. Instead of the traditional proletarian hegemony, Mao proposed that the poor peasants fill the role of revolutionary vanguard. Shortly after the publication of his Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan, the KMT-CCP coalition broke up and the Communists were persecuted everywhere in the country.

Establishment of Soviets

Some survivors of the party went underground in the cities, to continue their struggle as a working-class party; the rest took up arms to defy the government and eventually to set up rural soviets in central and northern China. One of these soviets was Mao's Ching-kang Mountain base area between Kiangsi and Hunan, where he had to rely chiefly on the support of the poor peasants.

Under conditions of siege, the autonomy of these soviets threatened to disrupt the unity of the revolutionary movement, breaking it up into small pockets of resistance like premodern peasant wars. Doctrinally, this development was anything but orthodox Marxism. The center of the CCP, located underground in Shanghai, therefore assigned to itself the task of strengthening its leadership and party discipline. A successful revolution, in its view, had to take the course of a series of urban uprisings under proletarian leadership.

In its effort to achieve this, the center had to curb the growing powers of the soviet leaders like Mao, and it had the authority of the Comintern behind it. Its effort gradually produced results: Mao first lost his control over the army he had organized and trained, then his position in the soviet party, and finally even much of his power in the soviet government.

The Long March

The years of this intraparty struggle coincided with Chiang Kai-shek's successes in his anti-Communist campaigns. Eventually Chiang was able to drive the Communists out of their base areas on the Long March. The loss of nearly all the soviets in central China and crippling casualties and desertions suffered by the Communists in the first stages of the march were sufficient evidence of the ineptitude of the central party leadership. At the historic Tsunyi Conference of the party's Politburo in January 1935, Mao turned the tables against the pro-Russian leaders. On that occasion Mao was elected, thanks mainly to his support from the military, to the chairmanship of the Politburo.

During the low ebb of the revolutionary tide and the hardships of the Long March, those who might have challenged Mao fell by the wayside, largely through their own fault. By the time the Communists arrived at Yenan, the party had attained a measure of unity, to be further consolidated after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. This was the first truly nationalist war China had ever fought, in which the nation as a whole united to face the common foe. However, from 1939 onward, as the war entered a long period of stalemate, clashes began to occur between KMT and Communist troops.

By early 1941 the united front between the KMT and CCP had come to exist in name only. This new situation called for the emergence of a Communist leader who could rival Chiang in his claim to national leadership in the event of a resumption of the civil war. But this could not be done so long as the CCP remained under the Russian wing.

Events in the early 1940s helped the CCP, in its search for independence, to become nationalistic. Russia, preoccupied with its war against Hitler, was unable to influence the CCP effectively, and soon the Comintern was dissolved. Mao seized this opportunity to sinicize the Chinese Communist movement in the famous rectification campaign of 1942-1944.

Leader of the Chinese Communists

The personality cult of Mao grew until his thought was written into the party's constitution of 1945 as a guiding principle of the party, side by side with Marxism-Leninism. Under Mao's brilliant leadership the party fought from one victory to another, till it took power in 1949.

Mao's thought now guided the Communists in their way of thinking, their organization, and their action. In giving their faith to Mao's thought, they found unity and strength, an understanding of the nature, strategy, and tactics of the revolution, a set of values and attitudes which made them welcome to the peasant masses, and a style of work and life which differentiated them from the bureaucrats and the romantic, culturally alienated intellectuals.

But Mao's thought had very little to say on the modernization and industrialization of China, on its socialist construction. Therefore, after 1949 the CCP was left to follow the example of Russia, with Russian aid in the years of the cold war. The importance, and relevance, of Mao therefore declined steadily while China introduced its first Five-Year Plan and socialist constitution. Once more the pro-Russian wing of the CCP was on the ascendancy, though still unable to challenge Mao's ideological authority. This authority enabled Mao to fight back by launching the Socialist Upsurge in the Countryside of 1955 and the Great Leap Forward in 1958. The essential feature of these movements was to rely upon the voluntary zeal of the people motivated by a new moral discipline, rather than upon monetary incentives, price mechanism, professionalism, and the legalism of gradual progress. The failure of the Great Leap Forward impaired Mao's power and prestige even further. His critics within the CCP attributed the failure to the impracticability of his mass line of socialist construction; in his own view, the failure was due to inadequate ideological preparation and, perhaps, abortive implementation by the pro-Russian wing of the CCP.

Cultural Revolution

At this juncture, the worsening Sino-Soviet dispute made its fatal impact. The condemnation of Russian "revisionism" cut the pro-Russian wing from its ideological source, and the withdrawal of Russian material aid practically sounded the death knell of China's attempt to emulate the Russian model. In the midst of this, Mao began his comeback.

The groundwork had been laid through the socialist education movement early in the 1960s, which started with the remolding of the People's Liberation Army under the command of Lin Piao. When this had been accomplished, Mao, with the help of the army and young students organized into the Red Guards, waged a fierce struggle against what he called the revisionists in power in his own party. This was the famous cultural revolution of 1966-1969. In this struggle it was revealed how elitist, bureaucratic, and brittle the CCP had become since 1949.

With Mao's victory in the cultural revolution, China became the most politicized nation of the world. No Chinese thought beyond the premises of Mao's thought - a state of affairs reminiscent of the Christianization of Europe in the Middle Ages. By this Mao hoped to whip up the unbound enthusiasm and altruistic spirit of the Chinese masses to work harder while enduring a frugal life. This may be the only way for a poor and populous country like China to accumulate enough capital for its rapid industrialization.

By the time Mao was in his late 70s, his lifework was essentially done, although he retained power until the end. Physically debilitated, suffering from a lifetime of effort and Parkinson's Disease, Mao's ability to rule in new and innovative ways to meet the demands of China's modernization grew increasingly enfeebled. To what degree his radical actions in his later years were due to his illness and age is a matter of debate among historians. His final years were marked by bitter maneuvering among his clique to succeed him upon his death. One of his final major acts was to reopen contact with the United States. In September of 1976, Mao died. Mao was undoubtedly the key figure in China in the 20th century and one of the century's most important movers and reformers. He had devoted his life to the advancement of a peasant class terrorized for centuries by those in power. However, in pursuit of his own goals, Mao himself could be violent and dictatorial. To Mao must go the credit for developing a revolutionary strategy of encircling the cities from the countryside, a mass line of political thought and application to bridge the chasm between the leaders and the led, and, finally, a strategy of permanent violent and nonviolent revolution to guard against the recurrence of that kind of bureaucratism which so far in history has always emerged once a revolution is over and revolutionaries have turned into reformers.

Further Reading

Mao's own writings, Selected Works (4 vols., 1961-1965), Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (1967), and Quotations from Chairman Mao (1966; 2d ed. 1967), have all been published in English in Peking. For Mao's own writings also consult Anne Freemantle, Mao Tse-tung: An Anthology of His Writings (1954), and Jerome Ch'en, Mao Papers: Anthology and Bibliography (1970).

An understanding of the historical background of Mao's revolutionary activities is provided by Jerome Ch'en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution (1965). Another biography is Stuart Schram, Mao Tse-tung (1966; rev. ed. 1969). Edgar Snow's books Red Star over China (rev. ed. 1968), which contains Mao's autobiography, and The Other Side of the River (1962) are both excellent works on Mao and the Chinese Communist movement. A brief guide to Mao, his views, and other people's views of him is provided in Jerome Ch'en, Mao (1969). See also Harrison Salisbury's The Long March (1987); Dic, Wilson's Mao Tse-tung in the Scales of History; and Brantly Womack's The Foundations of Mao Zedong's Political Thought 1917-1935 (1982).

Benjamin Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (1951), and Stuart Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tsetung (1963; rev. ed. 1969), are also outstanding works as is Siao-Yu, Mao Tse-tung and I Were Beggars (1961). Biographies of 500 leaders of the Communist movement in China, including Mao, are in Donald W. Klein and Anne B. Clark, Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921-1965 (2 vols., 1971).

 
Political Dictionary: Mao Zedong
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(1893-1976) Leader of the Communist Party of China from 1934 until his death in September 1976 and Marxist theorist. Mao is now remembered primarily for his two greatest campaigns, the Great Leap Forward of 1958, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1965, both of which were disastrous failures. The first ended with one of the greatest famines in human history, the second deteriorated into bloody chaos. Yet it is not enough to write off ‘the thought of Mao Zedong’ as perverse or without substance. These two linked movements began from rational and intelligent attempts to create a humane and to some extent democratic alternative to Stalinism.

Mao was born in Hunan in 1893 into a family of prosperous farmers. By the time he reached his majority, China was plunged into the chaos which succeeded the fall of the imperial system in 1912, and at the same time plunged into a desperate revaluation of Chinese society and traditions. After some years of self-education he succeeded in entering one of China's new colleges as a mature student. There he came under the influence of the teacher Yang Changji (see Chinese political thought) who had been educated abroad in Germany and in Scotland and had created a philosophy combining elements of Western and Chinese thought. The main Western influences on Yang were Kant, T. H. Green, and the Scottish empiricists, and his philosophy stressed the importance for society of individual development in conditions of freedom. Through his teaching, Mao became passionately committed (like the young Marx) to this individualism, and to a belief in the power of consciousness in motivating action. At this time he had read little or no Marxism, but he had been introduced to socialist ideas through the translation of Thomas Kirkup's History of Socialism, which discusses the two alternative forms of socialism, the etatist and the communal. Mao read it ‘with wild enthusiasm’, and like most of his contemporaries agreed with Kirkup in approving the communal alternative; Mao was also profoundly impressed by the pragmatism of John Dewey, whose ideas were made popular in China via his student Hu Shi.

It was warlordism rather than capitalism which turned Mao into a Marxist; it was the possibility of uniting China through the mobilization of the masses by means of a Leninist cadre party which clearly attracted him. He worked briefly in the library of Beijing University, where the librarian Li Dazhao had just founded a Marxist group. From Li, Mao's ideas of the importance of consciousness were confirmed, and from then on his concept of leadership stressed the creation of consciousness rather than organization. This was at once the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of his thought.

In 1924 Sun Yatsen invited China's new Communist Party to join a United Front against the warlords, turning to the Soviet Union for the help which the West refused. Mao was more enthusiastic about this united front than many of his fellow Communists. With Soviet help Sun's successor Chiang Kai-shek defeated the warlords, but he then repudiated his Communist allies in a bloody coup in 1927. Mao had already been arguing within the alliance for the importance of the peasants in the revolution (China's industrial proletariat was then minuscule). Chiang's coup, rather than Mao's eloquence, persuaded the Communist Party of China of this; driven into the hills, they had no option but to depend on the peasantry, and Mao set about creating the Jiangxi Soviet, a revolutionary rural state within the state. This was destroyed in 1934, but a new base was found in north-west China. Soon it was involved in guerrilla resistance to the Japanese. There, Mao's ideas were further developed in the course of attempting to develop the wartime economy of this poor region. He repudiated the forced cooperatives created by his fellow leaders and turned for help to the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, a non-Communist movement which sought to bring appropriate technology to the villages. In these simple, democratic institutions Mao found the concrete form of his communal socialism.

Guerrilla warfare depended upon popular support. Mao opposed all attempts by his fellow leaders to force ideologically inspired policies upon the peasants, and in opposing them developed his mass-line theory of leadership, a process of mutual education between leaders and led. The close relation in Mao's mind between Marxist knowledge and mass-line action is shown in the last sentence of the key paragraph in his summary of the meaning of the mass line: ‘In the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily ‘from the masses to the masses’. This means: ‘Take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study, turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action. . . . Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge’ (Selected Works, iii. 119).

In power in 1949 Mao assumed that capitalism must be developed before socialism was attempted. However in 1953, under the threat from American hostility and the dependence on the Soviet Union thus made necessary, he accepted the Stalinist system in China's first five-year plan. Yet by 1959 in a series of speeches and documents he had condemned Stalinism, on five grounds. (1) It was counter-productive to impoverish the peasants in order to build industry: ‘this is draining the pond to catch the fish’. (2) The high priority given to the development of heavy industry was also counter-productive: ‘if you are really serious about developing heavy industry, you will pay serious attention to agriculture and light industry’. (3) Stalin's command economy offered no place for popular participation and popular initiative: accumulation and investment spring not from the communities' consciousness of new possibilities but from state coercion, and accumulation was therefore severely limited. (4) Stalin argued that in socialist society there were no contradictions: Mao argued that contradictions continued, including contradictions between the people and the government, and he also argued that to deny and suppress such conflict was to ‘abolish politics’, and so to abolish progress, for contradiction is the motive force of progress. (5) A socialist society cannot stop merely at the nationalization of the means of production and treat the first institutions thus created as if they were permanent. These institutions are only the beginning, and they are not in themselves socialist: ‘there is still a process to be gone through . . . there is work to do’, in order to create new and truly socialist relations of production. The way to overcome all these faults is to decentralize decision-making as far as possible to the local communities; the job of socialist planners will then be to respond to community initiatives, not to dictate from above.

Thus Mao's mass line developed into a specific strategy of economic development, expressed in the Great Leap and the Communes. The central part of his strategy was the creation of ‘commune and brigade enterprises’ using labour-intensive techniques. His new strategy, however, should not be seen as having been created by one man. The economic ideas involved—the use of surplus rural labour to create new infrastructure and to develop local industry, in a framework of ‘integrated development’—were fashionable among Western development economists at that time. In a wider sense, Mao's ideas of the relations between centralized and local development and between agriculture and industry go back to Bukharin. His resistance to the fossilization of Soviet institutions echoes Kautsky, whom Mao read in his youth. And behind the whole complex of ideas there undoubtedly lies the affirmation of the seventeenth-century philosopher and patriot Gu Yanwu that ‘China is at her weakest when the central government is strongest, and at her strongest when her local communities are strong’.

When in 1965 Mao launched his great campaign, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, this time the enemy was not Stalin but his successors. Mao called them revisionists, but his hostility to them was not that they had repudiated Stalinism (he had done that himself), but that they merely confirmed the Stalinist managers in their power by adding profit to political authority. Mao said that ‘the officials of China are a class, and one whose interests are antagonistic to those of the workers and peasants’. Privilege and the abuse of power were rampant, and the vested interests built up through the centralized command economy had created a massive obstacle to Mao's alternative strategy. In imitation of the 1919 May Fourth Movement, he called on China's students to criticize the Party establishment. The Cultural Revolution failed, as the Great Leap had failed. In the case of the Leap Mao tried to run a movement which could only have succeeded if carried through democratically; an authoritarian party could not succeed.

The Cultural Revolution failed because at the critical point Mao refused to dispense with the vanguard party, which he identified with Yang Changji's conscious elite which was to create consciousness among the masses. In spite of the failure of his two greatest campaigns, they left in some respects a positive legacy. First, his rural collective ‘commune and brigade enterprises’ were revived in the Cultural Revolution and by Mao's death in 1976 had grown so rapidly that they had become indispensable. Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping accepted and encouraged them, and they provided a buoyant new economy which allowed the reform of the inefficient state sector to be carried on gradually and experimentally. Second, Mao had told China's younger generation that ‘to rebel is justified’. The Cultural Revolution rebellion ended in chaos and failure, and many Red Guards had learned that to be successful, rebellion would have to aim at the establishment of democratic institutions and procedures. From then until now, former Red Guards have led that section of China's democratic movement which repudiates as futile any attempt to seek democratization from the top, and have concentrated on mobilizing the people to secure democratization from below. The third part of Mao's positive legacy was the rapprochement which he reached with the USA. This gave China unprecedented security in which more relaxed policies became possible.

— Jack Gray

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Mao Zedong
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(born Dec. 26, 1893, Shaoshan, Hunan province, China — died Sept. 9, 1976, Beijing) Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier, and statesman who led China's communist revolution and served as chairman of the People's Republic of China (1949 – 59) and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP; 1931 – 76). The son of a peasant, Mao joined the revolutionary army that overthrew the Qing dynasty but, after six months as a soldier, left to acquire more education. At Beijing University he met Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, founders of the CCP, and in 1921 he committed himself to Marxism. At that time, Marxist thought held that revolution lay in the hands of urban workers, but in 1925 Mao concluded that in China it was the peasantry, not the urban proletariat, that had to be mobilized. He became chairman of a Chinese Soviet Republic formed in rural Jiangxi province; its Red Army withstood repeated attacks from Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist army but at last undertook the Long March to a more secure position in northwestern China. There Mao became the undisputed head of the CCP. Guerrilla warfare tactics, appeals to the local population's nationalist sentiments, and Mao's agrarian policies gained the party military advantages against their Nationalist and Japanese enemies and broad support among the peasantry. Mao's agrarian Marxism differed from the Soviet model, but, when the communists succeeded in taking power in China in 1949, the Soviet Union agreed to provide the new state with technical assistance. However, Mao's Great Leap Forward and his criticism of "new bourgeois elements" in the Soviet Union and China alienated the Soviet Union irrevocably; Soviet aid was withdrawn in 1960. Mao followed the failed Great Leap Forward with the Cultural Revolution, also considered to have been a disastrous mistake. After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping began introducing social and economic reforms. See also Jiang Qing; Liu Shaoqi; Maoism.

For more information on Mao Zedong, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Mao Zedong
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Mao Zedong or Mao Tse-tung (mou dzŭ-dʊng) , 1893–1976, founder of the People's Republic of China. Mao was one of the most prominent Communist theoreticians and his ideas on revolutionary struggle and guerrilla warfare have been extremely influential, especially among Third World revolutionaries.

Of Hunanese peasant stock, Mao was trained in Chinese classics and later received a modern education. As a young man he observed oppressive social conditions, becoming one of the original members of the Chinese Communist party. He organized (1920s) Kuomintang-sponsored peasant and industrial unions and directed (1926) the Kuomintang's Peasant Movement Training Institute. After the Kuomintang-Communist split (1927), Mao led the disastrous “Autumn Harvest Uprising” in Hunan, leading to his ouster from the central committee of the party.

From 1928 until 1931 Mao, with Zhu De and others, established rural soviets in the hinterlands, and built the Red Army. In 1931 he was elected chairman of the newly established Soviet Republic of China, based in Jiangxi province. After withstanding five encirclement campaigns launched by Chiang Kai-shek, Mao led (1934–35) the Red Army on the long march (6,000 mi/9,656 km) from Jiangxi north to Yan'an in Shaanxi province, emerging as the most important Communist leader. During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) the Communists and the Kuomintang continued their civil war while both were battling the Japanese invaders.

The civil war continued after war with Japan had ended, and in 1949, after the Communists had taken almost all of mainland China, Mao became chairman of the central government council of the newly established People's Republic of China; he was reelected to the post, the most powerful in China, in 1954. In an attempt to break with the Russian model of Communism and to imbue the Chinese people with renewed revolutionary vigor, Mao launched (1958) the Great Leap Forward. The program was a terrible failure, an estimated 20 to 30 million people died in the famine that followed (1958–61), and Mao withdrew temporarily from public view.

The failure of this program also resulted in a break with the Soviet Union, which cut off aid. Mao accused Soviet leaders of betraying Marxism. In 1959 Liu Shaoqi, an opponent of the Great Leap Forward, replaced Mao as chairman of the central government council, but Mao retained his chairmanship of the Communist party politburo.

A campaign to reestablish Mao's ideological line culminated in the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Mass mobilization, begun and led by Mao and his wife, Jiang Qing, was directed against the party leadership. Liu and others were removed from power in 1968. In 1969 Mao reasserted his party leadership by serving as chairman of the Ninth Communist Party Congress, and in 1970 he was named supreme commander of the nation and army. The cultural revolution group continued its campaigns until Mao's death in Sept., 1976. A month later its leaders were purged and Mao's surviving opponents, led by Deng Xiaoping, slowly regained power, pushing aside Mao's successor, Hua Guofeng, and erasing the cult surrounding Mao. Mao's embalmed body is displayed in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Bibliography

See his Selected Works (4 vol., 1954–56, repr. 1961–65), Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (ed. by S. R. Schram, 1967), and Poems (tr. 1972). See also J. B. Starr, Continuing the Revolution: The Political Thought of Mao (1977); R. Terrill, Mao: A Biography (1980); S. R. Schram, Mao Zedong: A Preliminary Reassessment (1983); Z. Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao (1994); P. Short, Mao: A Life (2000); J. Spence, Mao Zedong (2000); J. Chang and J. Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (2005).

 
History Dictionary: Mao Zedong
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(mowd-zuh-doong)

A Chinese revolutionary leader of the twentieth century. He led an army of workers and peasants on the Long March in the 1920s and used guerrilla warfare techniques successfully on both the Japanese invaders and the forces of the Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek. In 1949, his armies took over the country and established the People's Republic of China. Mao continued as chairman of China's Communist party and as premier. His “Little Red Book,” Quotations from Chairman Mao, was standard reading for schoolchildren of the country. Toward the end of his life, he brought about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in which all capitalist or elitist culture was to be purged. Mao died in 1976.

 
Quotes By: Mao Zedong
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Quotes:

"Our attitude towards ourselves should be to be satiable in learning and towards others to be tireless in teaching."

"If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience."

"An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy."

"I have witnessed the tremendous energy of the masses. On this foundation it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever."

"Take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge."

"So long as a person who has made mistakes... honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade. We can never succeed if we just let ourselves go and lash at h"

See more famous quotes by Mao Zedong

 
Wikipedia: Mao Zedong
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"Mao" redirects here. For other uses, see Mao (disambiguation).
Mao Zedong
毛泽东
毛澤東
Mao Zedong
In office
1943 – 1975
Preceded by Zhang Wentian
(as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China)
Succeeded by Hua Guofeng
In office
27 September 1954 – April 1959
Preceded by Position Created
Succeeded by Liu Shaoqi
In office
1943 – 1976
Preceded by Position Created
Succeeded by Hua Guofeng
In office
1 October 1949 – 1954
Preceded by Position Created
Succeeded by Zhou Enlai
Born 26 December 1893(1893-12-26)
Shaoshan, Hunan, Qing Dynasty
Died 9 September 1976 (aged 82)
Beijing, People's Republic of China
Nationality Chinese
Political party Communist Party of China
Spouse Yang Kaihui (1920–1930)
He Zizhen (1930–1937)
Jiang Qing (1939–1976)

Mao Zedong (Simplified Chinese: 毛泽东; Traditional Chinese: 毛澤東; Wade-Giles: Mao Tse-tung; Pinyin: Máo Zédōng) Zh-Mao_Zedong.ogg pronunciation (help·info) (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976) was a Chinese Communist leader. Mao led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and was the leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Chairman Mao has been regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history,[1] and named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.[2] He is officially held in high regard in China where he is known as a great revolutionary, political strategist, and military mastermind who defeated Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War, and then through his policies transformed the country into a major world power. Additionally, Mao is viewed by many in China as a poet, philosopher, and visionary.[3] However, Mao remains a controversial figure to this day, with a contentious and ever-evolving legacy. Critics blame many of Mao's socio-political programs, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, for causing severe damage to the culture, society, economy, and foreign relations of China, as well as a probable death toll in the tens of millions.[4] His application of Marxist ideals to a largely agricultural society ultimately failed.

Contents

Early life

During the 1911 Revolution, Mao enlisted as a soldier in a local regiment in Hunan, which fought on the side of the revolutionaries. Once the Qing Dynasty had been effectively toppled, Mao left the army and returned to school.[5]

After graduating from the First Provincial Normal School of Hunan in 1918, Mao traveled with Professor Yang Changji, his high school teacher and future father-in-law, to Beijing during the May Fourth Movement in 1929.

Professor Yang held a faculty position at Peking University. Because of Yang's recommendation, Mao worked as an assistant librarian at the University with Li Dazhao as curator. Mao registered as a part-time student at Beijing University and attended a few lectures and seminars by intellectuals, such as Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, and Qian Xuantong. During his stay in Shanghai, he engaged himself as much as possible in reading which introduced him to Communist theories. He married Yang Kaihui, Professor Yang's daughter and a fellow student, despite an existing marriage arranged by his father at home. Mao never acknowledged this marriage. In October 1930, the Kuomintang (KMT) captured Yang Kaihui as well as her son, Anying. The KMT imprisoned them both, and Anying was later sent to his relatives after the KMT killed his mother. At this time, Mao was living with He Zizhen, a co-worker and 17 year old girl from Yongxing, Jiangxi.[6] Mao turned down an opportunity to study in France because he firmly believed that China's problems could be studied and resolved only within China.[citation needed] Unlike his contemporaries, Mao concentrated on studying in the peasant majority of China's population.[citation needed]

On 23 July 1921, Mao, age 27, attended the first session of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai. Two years later, he was elected as one of the five commissars of the Central Committee of the Party during the third Congress session. Later that year, Mao returned to Hunan at the instruction of the CPC Central Committee and the Kuomintang Central Committee to organize the Hunan branch of the Kuomintang.[7] In 1924, he was a delegate to the first National Conference of the Kuomintang, where he was elected an Alternate Executive of the Central Committee. In 1924, he became an Executive of the Shanghai branch of the Kuomintang and Secretary of the Organization Department.

For a while, Mao remained in Shanghai, an important city that the CPC emphasized for the Revolution. However, the Party encountered major difficulties organizing labor union movements and building a relationship with its nationalist ally, the Kuomintang (KMT). The Party had become poor, and Mao became disillusioned with the revolution and moved back to Shaoshan. During his stay at home, Mao's interest in the revolution was rekindled after hearing of the 1925 uprisings in Shanghai and Guangzhou. His political ambitions returned, and he then went to Guangdong, the base of the Kuomintang, to take part in the preparations for the second session of the National Congress of Kuomintang. In October 1925, Mao became acting Propaganda Director of the Kuomintang.

In early 1927, Mao returned to Hunan where in an urgent meeting held by the Communist Party, he made a report based on his investigations of the peasant uprisings in the wake of the Northern Expedition. This is considered the initial and decisive step towards the successful application of Mao's revolutionary theories.[8]

Political ideas

Main article: Maoism
Mao as a young man.

Mao had a strong interest in the political system, encouraged by his father. His two most famous essays, both from 1937, 'On Contradiction' and 'On Practice', are concerned with the practical strategies of a revolutionary movement and stress the importance of practical, grassroots knowledge, obtained through experience. Both essays reflect the guerrilla roots of Maoism in the need to build up support in the countryside against a Japanese occupying force and emphasise the need to win over 'hearts and minds' through 'education'. The essays, reproduced later as part of the 'Red Book', warn against the behaviour of the blindfolded man trying to catch sparrows, and the 'Imperial envoy' descending from his carriage to 'spout opinions' .

After graduating from Hunan Normal School, the highest level of schooling available in his province, Mao spent six months studying independently. Mao was first introduced to communism while working at Peking University, and in 1921 he attended the organizational meeting of the Communist Party of China (or CPC). He first encountered Marxism while he worked as a library assistant at Peking University.

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Other important influences on Mao were the Russian revolution and, according to some scholars, the Chinese literary works: Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Mao sought to subvert the alliance of imperialism and feudalism in China. He thought the Nationalists to be both economically and politically vulnerable and thus that the revolution could not be steered by Nationalists.

Throughout the 1920s, Mao led several labour struggles based upon his studies of the propagation and organization of the contemporary labour movements.[9] However, these struggles were successfully subdued by the government, and Mao fled from Changsha after he was labeled a radical activist. He pondered these failures and finally realized that industrial workers were unable to lead the revolution because they made up only a small portion of China's population, and unarmed labour struggles could not resolve the problems of imperial and feudal suppression.

Mao began to depend on Chinese peasants who later became staunch supporters of his theory of violent revolution. This dependence on the rural rather than the urban proletariat to instigate violent revolution distinguished Mao from his predecessors and contemporaries. Mao himself was from a peasant family, and thus he cultivated his reputation among the farmers and peasants and introduced them to Marxism.[8][10]

War

Mao in 1927

In 1927, Mao conducted the famous Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Hunan, as commander-in-chief. Mao led an army, called the "Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants", which was defeated and scattered after fierce battles. Afterwards, the exhausted troops were forced to leave Hunan for Sanwan, Jiangxi, where Mao re-organized the scattered soldiers, rearranging the military division into smaller regiments. Mao also ordered that each company must have a party branch office with a commissar as its leader who would give political instructions based upon superior mandates. This military rearrangement in Sanwan, Jiangxi initiated the CPC's absolute control over its military force and has been considered to have the most fundamental and profound impact upon the Chinese revolution. Later, they moved to the Jinggang Mountains, Jiangxi.

In the Jinggang Mountains, Mao persuaded two local insurgent leaders to pledge their allegiance to him. There, Mao joined his army with that of Zhu De, creating the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China, Red Army in short. Mao's tactics were strongly based on that of the Spanish Guerillas during the Napoleonic Wars.

From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the Soviet Republic of China and was elected Chairman of this small republic in the mountainous areas in Jiangxi. Here, Mao was married to He Zizhen. His previous wife, Yang Kaihui, had been arrested and executed in 1930, just three years after their departure.

Mao in 1931

In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the military force, was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers. Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership. Mao reacted first by accusing the opponents of opportunism and kulakism and then set off a series of systematic suppressions of them.[11] It is reported that horrible forms of torture and killing took place.[12] Jung Chang and Jon Halliday claim that victims were subjected to a red-hot gun-rod being rammed into the anus and that there were many cases of cutting open the stomach and scooping out the heart.[13] A confidential report found that a quarter of the entire Red Army under Mao at the time was slaughtered, often after being tortured.[14] The estimated number of the victims amounted to 'tens of thousands'[15] and could be as high as 186,000.[16] Critics accuse Mao's authority in Jiangxi of being secured and reassured through the revolutionary terrorism, or red terrorism.

Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the rightist purges in the cities. Mao's methods are normally referred to as Guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between guerrilla warfare (youji zhan) and Mobile Warfare (yundong zhan).

Mao's Guerrilla Warfare and Mobile Warfare was based upon the fact of the poor armament and military training of the Red Army which consisted mainly of impoverished peasants, who, however, were all encouraged by revolutionary passions and aspiring after a communist utopia.

Around 1930, there had been more than ten regions, usually entitled "soviet areas", under control of the CPC.[17] The prosperity of "soviet areas" startled and worried Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang government, who waged five waves of besieging campaigns against the "central soviet area." More than one million Kuomintang soldiers were involved in these five campaigns, four of which were defeated by the Red Army led by Mao. By June 1932 (the height of its power), the Red Army had no less than 45,000 soldiers, with a further 200,000 local militia acting as a subsidiary force.[18]

Under increasing pressure from the KMT encirclement campaigns, there was a struggle for power within the Communist leadership. Mao was removed from his important positions and replaced by individuals (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and represented within the CPC by a group known as the 28 Bolsheviks.

Mao in 1935

Chiang Kai-shek, who had earlier assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, was determined to eliminate the Communists. By October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in the "Long March," a retreat from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the northwest of China. It was during this 9,600 kilometer (5,965 mile), year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.

According to the standard Chinese Communist Party line, from his base in Yan'an, Mao led the Communist resistance against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).[citation needed] However, Mao further consolidated power over the Communist Party in 1942 by launching the Zheng Feng, or "Rectification" campaign against rival CPC members such as Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei, and Ding Ling. Also while in Yan'an, Mao divorced He Zizhen and married the actress Lan Ping, who would become known as Jiang Qing.

Mao in 1938, writing On Protracted War [19]

During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong's strategies were opposed by both Chiang Kai-shek and the United States. The US regarded Chiang as an important ally, able to help shorten the war by engaging the Japanese occupiers in China. Chiang, in contrast, sought to build the ROC army for the certain conflict with Mao's communist forces after the end of World War II. This fact was not understood well in the US, and precious lend-lease armaments continued to be allocated to the Kuomintang. In turn, Mao spent part of the war (as to whether it was most or only a little is disputed) fighting the Kuomintang for control of certain parts of China. Both the Communists and Nationalists have been criticised for fighting amongst themselves rather than allying against the Japanese Imperial Army. Some argue, however, that the Nationalists were better equipped and fought more against Japan.[20]

In 1944, the Americans sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the Dixie Mission, to the Communist Party of China. According to Edwin Moise, in Modern China: A History 2nd Edition:

Most of the Americans were favorably impressed. The CPC seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the Guomindang. United States fliers shot down over North China...confirmed to their superiors that the CPC was both strong and popular over a broad area. In the end, the contacts with the USA developed with the CPC led to very little.
Mao in 1946 in Yan'an

After the end of World War II, the U.S. continued to support Chiang Kai-shek, now openly against the Communist's People's Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong in the civil war for control of China. The U.S. support was part of its view to contain and defeat world communism. Likewise, the Soviet Union gave quasi-covert support to Mao (acting as a concerned neighbor more than a military ally, to avoid open conflict with the U.S.) and gave large supplies of arms to the Communist Party of China, although newer Chinese records indicate the Soviet "supplies" were not as large as previously believed, and consistently fell short of the promised amount of aid.[citation needed]

On 21 January 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered massive losses against Mao's forces. In the early morning of 10 December 1949, PLA troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT-occupied city in mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek evacuated from the mainland to Taiwan (Formosa) that same day.

Leadership of China

Joseph Stalin and Mao depicted on a Chinese postage stamp

The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949. It was the culmination of over two decades of civil and international war. From 1954 to 1959, Mao was the Chairman of the PRC. During this period, Mao was called Chairman Mao (毛主席) or the Great Leader Chairman Mao (伟大领袖毛主席). The Communist Party assumed control of all media in the country and used it to promote the image of Mao and the Party. The Nationalists under General Chiang Kai-Shek were vilified as were countries such as the United States of America and Japan. The Chinese people were exhorted to devote themselves to build and strengthen their country. In his speech declaring the foundation of the PRC, Mao announced: "The Chinese people have stood up!"

Mao took up residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he ordered the construction of an indoor swimming pool and other buildings. Mao often did his work either in bed or by the side of the pool, preferring not to wear formal clothes unless absolutely necessary, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, his personal physician. (Li's book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, is regarded as controversial, especially by those sympathetic to Mao.)

Along with land reform, there were also campaigns of mass repression and public executions targeting alleged counter-revolutionaries (Zhen Fan),[21] such as former GMD officials, businessmen, former employees of Western companies, intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect, and significant numbers of rural gentry.[22] The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, 800,000 killed in the Zhen Fan campaign.[23] Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were executed during the years 1949–53.[24] However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution",[25] the number of deaths range between 2 million and 5 million.[26][27] In addition, at least 1.5 million people were sent to "reform through labour" camps.[28] Mao’s personal role in ordering mass executions is undeniable.[29][30] He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.[31]

Starting in 1951, Mao initiated two successive movements in an effort to rid urban areas of corruption by targeting wealthy capitalists and political opponents, known as the three-anti/five-anti campaigns. A climate of raw terror developed as workers denounced their bosses, wives turned on their husbands, and children informed on their parents; the victims often being humiliated at Pi Dou mass rally. Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticized and reformed or sent to labor camps, "while the worst among them should be shot." These campaigns took several hundred thousand lives, the vast majority via suicide.[32] In Shanghai, people jumping to their deaths from skyscrapers became so commonplace that they acquired the nickname 'parachutes'.[33] Some biographers have pointed out that driving those perceived as enemies to suicide was a common tactic during the Mao-era. For example, in his biography of Mao, Philip Short notes that in the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Mao gave explicit instructions that "no cadre is to be killed," but in practice allowed security chief Kang Sheng to drive opponents to suicide and that "this pattern was repeated throughout his leadership of the People's Republic."[34]

Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched the First Five-Year Plan (1953-8). The plan aimed to end Chinese dependence upon agriculture in order to become a world power. With the Soviet Union's assistance, new industrial plants were built and agricultural production eventually fell to a point where industry was beginning to produce enough capital that China no longer needed the USSR's support. The success of the First Five Year Plan was to encourage Mao to instigate the Second Five Year Plan, the Great Leap Forward, in 1958. Mao also launched a phase of rapid collectivization. The CPC introduced price controls as well as a Chinese character simplification aimed at increasing literacy. Land was taken from landlords and more wealthy peasants and given to poorer peasants. Large scale industrialization projects were also undertaken.

Programs pursued during this time include the Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which Mao indicated his supposed willingness to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. This was initially tolerated and encouraged. After a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and persecuted those, totalling perhaps 500,000, who criticized, as well as those who were merely alleged to have criticized, the Party in what is called the Anti-Rightist Movement. Authors such as Jung Chang have alleged that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was merely a ruse to root out "dangerous" thinking.[35] Others such as Dr Li Zhisui have suggested that Mao had initially seen the policy as a way of weakening those within his party who opposed him, but was surprised by the extent of criticism and the fact that it began to be directed at his own leadership.[citation needed] It was only then that he used it as a method of identifying and subsequently persecuting those critical of his government. The Hundred Flowers movement led to the condemnation, silencing, and death of many citizens, also linked to Mao's Anti-Rightist Movement, with death tolls possibly in the millions.

Great Leap Forward

Main article: Great Leap Forward

In January 1958, Mao Zedong launched the second Five-Year Plan known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and the small-scale production of iron and steel. All private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.

Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labor to steel production and infrastructure projects and the reduced personal incentives under a commune system this led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961. In an effort to win favor with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them and based on the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of the true harvest for state use primarily in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that the rural peasants were not left enough to eat and many millions starved to death in what is thought to be the largest famine in human history. This famine was a direct cause of the death of tens of millions of Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962. Further, many children who became emaciated and malnourished during years of hardship and struggle for survival, died shortly after the Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 (Spence, 553).

The extent of Mao's knowledge as to the severity of the situation has been disputed. According to some, most notably Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao was not aware of anything more than a mild food and general supply shortage until late 1959.

"But I do not think that when he spoke on 2 July 1959, he knew how bad the disaster had become, and he believed the party was doing everything it could to manage the situation"

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, in Mao: the Unknown Story, alleged that Mao knew of the vast suffering and that he was dismissive of it, blaming bad weather or other officials for the famine.

"Although slaughter was not his purpose with the Leap, he was more than ready for myriad deaths to result, and hinted to his top echelon that they should not be too shocked if they happened (438-439)."

Whatever the case, the Great Leap Forward led to millions of deaths in China. Mao lost esteem among many of the top party cadres and was eventually forced to abandon the policy in 1962, also losing some political power to moderate leaders, notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. However, Mao and national propaganda claimed that he was only partly to blame. As a result, he was able to remain Chairman of the Communist Party, with the Presidency transferred to Liu Shaoqi.

The Great Leap Forward was a disaster for China. Although the steel quotas were officially reached, almost all of it made in the countryside was useless lumps of iron, as it had been made from assorted scrap metal in home made furnaces with no reliable source of fuel such as coal. According to Zhang Rongmei, a geometry teacher in rural Shanghai during the Great Leap Forward:

We took all the furniture, pots, and pans we had in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. We put all everything in a big fire and melted down all the metal.

Moreover, most of the dams, canals and other infrastructure projects, which millions of peasants and prisoners had been forced to toil on and in many cases die for, proved useless as they had been built without the input of trained engineers, whom Mao had rejected on ideological grounds.

Mao, shown here with Henry Kissinger and Zhou Enlai; Beijing, 1972.

In the Party Congress at Lushan in July/August 1959, several leaders expressed concern that the Great Leap Forward was not as successful as planned. The most direct of these was Minister of Defence and Korean War General Peng Dehuai. Mao, fearing loss of his position, orchestrated a purge of Peng and his supporters, stifling criticism of the Great Leap policies.

There is a great deal of controversy over the number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward. Until the mid 1980s, when official census figures were finally published by the Chinese Government, little was known about the scale of the disaster in the Chinese countryside, as the handful of Western observers allowed access during this time had been restricted to model villages where they were deceived into believing that Great Leap Forward had been a great success. There was also an assumption that the flow of individual reports of starvation that had been reaching the West, primarily through Hong Kong and Taiwan, must be localized or exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and was a net exporter of grain through the period. Censuses were carried out in China in 1953, 1964 and 1982. The first attempt to analyse this data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried out by American demographer Dr Judith Banister and published in 1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, Banister concluded that the official data implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in China during 1958-61 and that based on her modelling of Chinese demographics during the period and taking account of assumed underreporting during the famine years, the figure was around 30 million. The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang.[36] Various other sources have put the figure between 20 and 72 million.[37]

On the international front, the period was dominated by the further isolation of China, due to start of the Sino-Soviet split which resulted in Khrushchev withdrawing all Soviet technical experts and aid from the country. The split was triggered by border disputes, and arguments over the control and direction of world communism, and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy. Most of the problems regarding communist unity resulted from the death of Stalin and his replacement by Khrushchev. Stalin had established himself as the successor of "correct" Marxist thought well before Mao controlled the Communist Party of China, and therefore Mao never challenged the suitability of any Stalinist doctrine (at least while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of Stalin, Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority) that the leadership of the "correct" Marxist doctrine would fall to him. The resulting tension between Khrushchev (at the head of a politically/militarily superior government), and Mao (believing he had a superior understanding of Marxist ideology) eroded the previous patron-client relationship between the CPSU and CPC. In China, the formerly favourable Soviets were now denounced as "revisionists" and listed alongside "American imperialism" as movements to oppose.

Che Guevara being received in China by Mao, at an official ceremony in the Government palace, November 1960

Partly-surrounded by hostile American military bases (reaching from South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), China was now confronted with a new Soviet threat from the north and west. Both the internal crisis and the external threat called for extraordinary statesmanship from Mao, but as China entered the new decade the statesmen of the People's Republic were in hostile confrontation with each other.

At a large Communist Party conference in Beijing in January 1962, called the "Conference of the Seven Thousand," State President Liu Shaoqi denounced the Great Leap Forward as responsible for widespread famine.[38] The overwhelming majority of delegates expressed agreement, but Defense Minister Lin Biao staunchly defended Mao.[38] A brief period of liberalization followed while Mao and Lin plotted a comeback.[38] Liu and Deng Xiaoping rescued the economy by disbanding the people's communes, introducing elements of private control of peasant smallholdings and importing grain from Canada and Australia to mitigate the worst effects of famine.

Cultural Revolution

Main article: Cultural Revolution

Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping's prominence gradually became more powerful. Liu and Deng, then the State President and General Secretary, respectively, had favored the idea that Mao should be removed from actual power but maintain his ceremonial and symbolic role, with the party upholding all of his positive contributions to the revolution. They attempted to marginalize Mao by taking control of economic policy and asserting themselves politically as well.

Facing the prospect of losing his place on the political stage, Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Under the pretext that certain liberal "bourgeois" elements of society, labeled as class enemies, continued to threaten the socialist framework under the existing dictatorship of the proletariat, the idea that a Cultural Revolution must continue after armed struggle allowed Mao to circumvent the Communist hierarchy by giving power directly to the Red Guards, groups of young people, often teenagers, who set up their own tribunals. Chaos reigned over the country, and millions were prosecuted, including a famous philosopher, Chen Yuen. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao closed the schools in China and the young intellectuals living in cities were ordered to the countryside. They were forced to manufacture weapons for the Red Army. The Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese citizens, as well as creating general economic and social chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined during this period, as the Cultural Revolution pierced into every part of Chinese life, depicted by such Chinese films as To Live, The Blue Kite and Farewell My Concubine. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.[37] When Mao was informed of such losses, particularly that people had been driven to suicide, he blithely commented: "People who try to commit suicide — don't attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people."[39]

Mao greets United States President Richard Nixon during his visit to China in 1972

It was during this period that Mao chose Lin Biao, who seemed to echo all of Mao's ideas, to become his successor. Mao and Lin Biao formed an alliance leading up to the Cultural Revolution in order for the purges to succeed. Mao needed Lin's clout for his plan to work. In return, Lin was made Mao's successor. By 1971, however, because of Lin's grip over the military and Mao's own paranoia, a divide between the two men became clear, and it was unclear whether Lin was planning a military coup or an assassination attempt. Lin Biao died trying to flee China, probably anticipating his arrest, in a suspicious plane crash over Mongolia. It was declared that Lin was planning to depose Mao, and he was posthumously expelled from the CPC. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CPC figures. The highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by KGB.[40]

In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, although the official history of the People's Republic of China marks the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In the last years of his life, Mao was faced with declining health due to either Parkinson's disease or, according to Li Zhisui, motor neurone disease, as well as lung ailments due to smoking and heart trouble. Mao remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death.

Final days and Mao's death

At five o'clock in the afternoon of September 2, 1976, Mao suffered a heart attack, far more severe than his previous two and affecting a much larger area of his heart. X rays indicated that his lung infection had worsened, and his urine output dropped to less than 300 cc a day.

Mao was awake and alert throughout the crisis and asked several times whether he was in danger. His condition continued to fluctuate and his life hung in the balance.

Three days later, on September 5, Mao's condition was still critical, and Hua Guofeng called Jiang Qing back from her trip. She spent only a few moments in Building 202 (where Mao was staying) before returning to her own residence in the Spring Lotus Chamber.

On the afternoon of September 7, Mao took a turn for the worse. Jiang Qing went to Building 202 where she learned the bad news. Mao had just fallen asleep and needed the rest, but she insisted on rubbing his back and moving his limbs, and she sprinkled powder on his body. The medical team protested that the dust from the powder was not good for his lungs, but she instructed the nurses on duty to follow her example later. The next morning, September 8, she went again. She wanted the medical staff to change Mao's sleeping position, claiming that he had been lying too long on his left side. The doctor on duty objected, knowing that he could breathe only on his left side, but she had him moved nonetheless. Mao's breathing stopped and his face turned blue. Jiang Qing left the room while the medical staff put him on a respirator and performed emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Mao barely revived and Hua Guofeng urged Jiang Qing not to interfere further with the doctors' work, as her actions were detrimental to Mao's health and helped cause his death faster. Mao's organs were failing and he was taken off the life support a few minutes after midnight. September 9 was chosen because it was an easy day to remember. Mao had been in poor health for several years and had declined visibly for some months prior to his death. It has been speculated by some that Jiang Qing's actions during Mao's last days were deliberate attempts to end his life. Some detractors of Deng Xiaoping have even gone so far as to accuse him of recruiting Jiang Qing for the task of killing Mao Zedong.

His body lay in state at the Great Hall of the People. A memorial service was held in Tiananmen Square on 18 September 1976. There was a three minute silence observed during this service. His body was later placed into the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, even though he had wished to be cremated and had been one of the first high-ranking officials to sign the "Proposal that all Central Leaders be Cremated after Death" in November 1956.[41]

Cult of Mao

Mao's figure is largely symbolic both in China and in the global communist movement as a whole. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's already glorified image manifested into a personality cult that influenced every aspect of Chinese life. Mao presented himself as an enemy to landowners, businessmen, and Western and American imperialism, as well as an ally of impoverished peasants, farmers and workers.

At the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, Mao expressed support for the idea of personality cults if they venerated figures who were genuinely worthy of adulation:

“ There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analyzed and blind worship.[42] ”

In 1962, Mao proposed the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) in an attempt to educate the peasants to resist the temptations of feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging in the countryside from Liu's economic reforms. Large quantities of politicized art were produced and circulated — with Mao at the center. Numerous posters and musical compositions referenced Mao in the phrase "Chairman Mao is the red sun of our hearts" (毛主席是我们心中的红太阳) and a "Savior of the people" (人民的大救星).[citation needed]

The Cult of Mao proved vital in starting the Cultural Revolution. China's youth had generally been raised during the Communist era, which had taught them to idolize Mao. The youth also did not remember the immense starvation and suffering caused by Mao's Great Leap Forward, and thus their thoughts of Mao were generally positive. Thus, they were his greatest supporters. Their feelings for him were of such strength that many followed his urge to challenge all established authority.

In October 1966, Mao's Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, which was known as the Little Red Book was published. Party members were encouraged to carry a copy with them and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion for membership. Over the years, Mao's image became displayed almost everywhere, present in homes, offices and shops. His quotations were typographically emphasized by putting them in boldface or red type in even the most obscure writings. Music from the period emphasized Mao's stature, as did children's rhymes. The phrase Long Live Chairman Mao for ten thousand years was commonly heard during the era, which was traditionally a phrase reserved for the reigning Emperor.

Legacy

As anticipated after Mao’s death, there was a power struggle for control of China. On one side was the left wing led by the Gang of Four, who wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side was the right wing opposing these policies. Among the latter group, the restorationists, led by Chairman Hua Guofeng, advocated a return to central planning along the Soviet model, whereas the reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, wanted to overhaul the Chinese economy based on market-oriented policies and to de-emphasize the role of Maoist ideology in determining economic and political policy. Eventually, the reformers won control of the government. Deng Xiaoping, with clear seniority over Hua Guofeng, defeated Hua in a bloodless power struggle a few years later.

Mao is regarded as a national hero of China. In 2008, China opened the Mao Zedong Square to visitors in his hometown of central Hunan Province to mark the 115th anniversary of his birth.[43][44]

Supporters of Mao credit him with advancing the social and economic development of Chinese society. They point out that before 1949, for instance, the illiteracy rate in Mainland China was 80%, and life expectancy was a meager 35 years. At his death, illiteracy had declined to less than seven percent, and average life expectancy had increased to more than 70 years (alternative statistics also quote improvements, though not nearly as dramatic). In addition to these increases, the total population of China increased 57% to 700 million, from the constant 400 million mark during the span between the Opium War and the Chinese Civil War. Supporters also state that, under Mao's government, China ended its "Century of Humiliation" from Western and Japanese imperialism and regained its status as a major world power. They also state their belief that Mao also industrialized China to a considerable extent and ensured China's sovereignty during his rule. Many, including some of Mao's supporters, view the Kuomintang, which Mao drove off the mainland, as having been corrupt.

They also argue that the Maoist era improved women's rights by abolishing prostitution and foot binding, the former phenomenon returned after Deng Xiaoping and post-Maoist CPC leaders increased liberalization of the economy. Mao also created reforms that allowed women to initiate divorce and inherit property. Indeed, Mao once famously remarked that "Women hold up half the heavens". A popular slogan during the Cultural Revolution was, "Break the chains, unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!"

Skeptics observe that similar gains in literacy and life expectancy occurred after 1949 on the small neighboring island of Taiwan, which was ruled by Mao's opponents, namely Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang, even though they themselves perpetrated substantial violent repression in their own right. The government that continued to rule Taiwan was composed of the same people ruling the Mainland for over 20 years when life expectancy was so low, yet life expectancy there also increased. A counterpoint, however, is that the United States helped Taiwan with aid, along with Japan and other countries, until the early 1960s when Taiwan asked that the aid cease. The mainland was under economic sanctions from the same countries for many years. The mainland also broke with the USSR after disputes, which had been aiding it. In addition, there is considerable difference in magnitude between increasing the literacy and lifespan of a nation of less than 20 million people (Taiwan) and a nation of nearly a billion people.

There are disagreements on Mao's legacy. Some historians claim that Mao Zedong was a dictator comparable to Hitler and Stalin,[45][46] with a death toll perhaps surpassing both.[4][47] Mao was also frequently compared to China's First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, notorious for burying alive hundreds of scholars. During a speech to party cadre in 1958, Mao said: "He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold."[48]

Another comparison has been between India and China. Noam Chomsky commented on a study by the Indian economist Amartya Sen.

He observes that India and China had "similarities that were quite striking" when development planning began 50 years ago, including death rates. "But there is little doubt that as far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India" (in education and other social indicators as well). In both cases, the outcomes have to do with the "ideological predispositions" of the political systems: for China, relatively equitable distribution of medical resources, including rural health services and public distribution of food, all lacking in India.[49]

The United States placed a trade embargo on China as a result of its involvement in the Korean War, lasting until Richard Nixon decided that developing relations with China would be useful in also dealing with the Soviet Union.

Mao's military writings continue to have a large amount of influence both among those who seek to create an insurgency and those who seek to crush one, especially in manners of guerrilla warfare, at which Mao is popularly regarded as a genius. As an example, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) followed Mao's examples of guerrilla warfare to considerable political and military success even in the 21st century.

Portrait of Mao Zedong at the Tiananmen gate

The ideology of Maoism has influenced many communists around the world, including Third World revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge,[50] The Communist Party of Peru, and the revolutionary movement in Nepal. The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA also claims Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its ideology, as do other Communist Parties around the world which are part of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. China itself has moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao's death, and most people outside of China who describe themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Maoism, in line with Mao's view of "Capitalist roaders" within the Communist Party.

As the Chinese government instituted free market economic reforms starting in the late 1970s and as later Chinese leaders took power, less recognition was given to the status of Mao. This accompanied a decline in state recognition of Mao in later years in contrast to previous years when the state organized numerous events and seminars commemorating Mao's 100th birthday. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has never officially repudiated the tactics of Mao.

In the mid-1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to appear on all new renminbi currency from the People’s Republic of China. This was officially instituted as an anti-counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency. On 13 March 2006, a story in the People's Daily reported that a proposal had been made to print the portraits of Sun Yat-sen and Deng Xiaoping.[51]

In 2006, the government in Shanghai issued a new set of high school history textbooks which omit Mao, with the exception of a single mention in a section on etiquette. Students in Shanghai now only learn about Mao in junior high school.[52]

Mao lived in the government complex in Zhongnanhai, Beijing.

Genealogy

Mao Zedong had several wives which contributed to a large family. These were:

  1. Luo Yixiu (罗一秀, 1889-1910) of Shaoshan: married 1907 to 1910
  2. Yang Kaihui (杨开慧, 1901-1930) of Changsha: married 1921 to 1927, executed by the KMT in 1930
  3. He Zizhen (贺子珍, 1910-1984) of Jiangxi: married May 1928 to 1939
  4. Jiang Qing: (江青, 1914-1991), married 1939 to Mao's death
From left to right: Mao Zetan, Mao Zemin, Wen Qimei and Mao Zedong at Changsha, 1919.

His ancestors were:

  • Wen Qimei (文七妹, 1867-1919), mother. She was illiterate and a devout Buddhist.
  • Mao Yichang (毛贻昌, 1870-1920), father, courtesy name Mao Shunsheng (毛顺生) or also known as Mao Jen-sheng
  • Mao Enpu (毛恩普), paternal grandfather
  • Mao Zuren (毛祖人), paternal great-grandfather

He had several siblings:

  • Mao Zemin (毛泽民, 1895-1943), younger brother
  • Mao Zetan (毛泽覃, 1905-1935), younger brother
  • Mao Zejian (毛泽建, 1905-1929), adopted sister, executed by the KMT
Mao Zedong's parents altogether had six sons and two daughters. Two of the sons and both daughters died young, leaving the three brothers Mao Zedong, Mao Zemin, and Mao Zetan. Like all three of Mao Zedong's wives, Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan were communists. Like Yang Kaihui, both Zemin and Zetan were killed in warfare during Mao Zedong's lifetime.

Note that the character ze (泽) appears in all of the siblings' given names. This is a common Chinese naming convention.

From the next generation, Zemin's son, Mao Yuanxin, was raised by Mao Zedong's family. He became Mao Zedong's liaison with the Politburo in 1975. Sources like Li Zhisui (The Private Life of Chairman Mao) say that he played a role in the final power-struggles.[53]

Mao Zedong had several children:

  • Mao Anying (毛岸英): son to Yang, married to Liu Siqi (刘思齐), who was born Liu Songlin (刘松林), killed in action during the Korean War
  • Mao Anqing (1923-2007): son to Yang, married to Shao Hua (邵华), son Mao Xinyu (毛新宇), grandson Mao Dongdong (last surviving known male line of Mao).
  • Li Min (李敏): daughter to He, married to Kong Linghua (孔令华), son Kong Ji'ning (孔继宁), daughter Kong Dongmei (孔冬梅)
  • Li Na (Chinese:李讷; Pinyin: Lĭ Nà): daughter to Jiang (whose birth given name was Li, a name also used by Mao while evading the KMT), married to Wang Jingqing (王景清), daughter Sonia Monroy (王效芝)

Sources suggest that Mao did have other children during his revolutionary days; some died, but in most of these cases the children were left with peasant families because it was difficult to take care of the children while focusing on revolution. Two English researchers who retraced the entire Long March route in 2002-2003[54] located a woman who they believe might well be a missing child abandoned by Mao to peasants in 1935. Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen hope a member of the Mao family will respond to requests for a DNA test.[55] It has been confirmed that Yang Kaihui had given birth to three children while with Mao and He Zizhen had six, most probably all Mao's.

Personal life

There are few academic sources discussing Mao's private life, which was very secretive at the time of his rule. However, and particularly after Mao's death, there has been an influx of publications on his personal life, as an example The Private Life of Chairman Mao by his physician Li Zhisui. The Private Life of Chairman Mao claims he had sexual affairs with numerous young women and possibly men, chain smoked cigarettes, had poor dental hygiene, causing his teeth to be colored green (it was also claimed that he rubbed Green Tea on his teeth instead of more commonly used dental hygiene methods, giving his teeth a distinctly green color) and generally lived a life of deviancy and excess. However, these claims have been rejected by PRC officials before, and have not been confirmed.

According to Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's biography 'Mao: The Unknown Story', Mao had great personal wealth and was 'the only millionaire' in Mao's China.

Writings and calligraphy

Mao was a prolific writer of political and philosophical literature.[56] Mao is the attributed author of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, known in the West as the "Little Red Book" and in Cultural-revolution China as the "Red Treasure Book" (红宝书): this is a collection of short extracts from his speeches and articles, edited by Lin Biao and ordered topically. Mao wrote several other philosophical treatises, both before and after he assumed power. These include:

  • On Practice (《实践论》); 1937
  • On Contradiction (《矛盾论》); 1937
  • On Protracted War (《论持久战》); 1938
  • In Memory of Norman Bethune (《纪念白求恩》); 1939
  • On New Democracy (《新民主主义论》); 1940
  • Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art (《在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话》); 1942
  • Serve the People (《为人民服务》); 1944
  • On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People (《正确处理人民内部矛盾问题》); 1957
  • The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (《愚公移山》); 1957
Mao's calligraphy: The People's Republic of China: all nationalities unite.

Mao was also a skilled calligrapher with a highly personal style. In China, Mao was considered a master calligrapher during his lifetime.[57] His calligraphy can be seen today throughout mainland China.[58] His work gave rise to a new form of Chinese calligraphy called "Mao-style" or Maoti, which has gained increasing popularity since his death. There currently exist various competitions specializing in Mao-style calligraphy.[59]

Literary figure

Politics aside, Mao is considered one of modern China's most influential literary figures, and was an avid poet, mainly in the classical ci and shi forms. His poems are all in the traditional Chinese verse style.

As did most Chinese intellectuals of his generation, Mao received rigorous education in Chinese classical literature. His style was deeply influenced by the great Tang Dynasty poets Li Bai and Li He. He is considered to be a romantic poet, in contrast to the realist poets represented by Du Fu.

Many of Mao's poems are still popular in China and a few are taught as a mandatory part of the elementary school curriculum. Some of his most well-known poems are: Changsha (1925), The Double Ninth (1929.10), Loushan Pass (1935), The Long March (1935), Snow (1936.02), The PLA Captures Nanjing (1949.04), Reply to Li Shuyi (1957.05.11), and Ode to the Plum Blossom (1961.12).

See also

 This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

References

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  2. ^ Time 100: Mao Zedong By Jonathan D. Spence, 13 April 1998.
  3. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 630. ISBN 0805066381. http://books.google.com/books?visbn=0805066381. "Mao had an extraordinary mix of talents: he was visionary, statesman, political and military strategist of cunning intellect, a philosopher and poet." 
  4. ^ a b Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 631. ISBN 0805066381. http://books.google.com/books?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA631&dq=mao+a+life+all+the+dead+of+the+second+world+war&ei=V8N5SaWvCIuYMrK0-KwL. ; Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. ISBN 0-224-07126-2 p. 3; Rummel, R. J. China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 Transaction Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0-88738-417-X p. 205: In light of recent evidence, Rummel has increased Mao's democide toll to 77 million. See also: "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm". Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  5. ^ Feigon, Lee (2002). Mao: A Reinterpretation. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. p. 17. ISBN 1566635225. 
  6. ^ Hollingworth, Clare, Mao and the men against him (Jonathan Cape, London: 1985), p. 45.
  7. ^ 毛泽东生平大事(1893-1976) (Major event chronology of Mao Zedong (1893-1976), People's Daily.
  8. ^ a b "'Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan' Mao Zedong 1927". http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/sw1/mswv1_2.html. 
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  14. ^ Mao, the real Mao
  15. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 279. ISBN 0805066381. http://books.google.com/books?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA279&dq=mao+a+life+%27tens+of+thousands%27+died&ei=atxASrCwG5HIyASswqVE. 
  16. ^ Jean-Luc Domenach. Chine: L'archipel oublie. (China: The Forgotten Archipelago.) Fayard, 1992. ISBN 2-213-02581-9 pg 47
  17. ^ Fairbank, John K; Albert Feuerwerker. The Cambridge History of China (vol. 13, pt. 2). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521243386. http://books.google.com/books?id=Fxs3ROaIhPMC. 
  18. ^ Ying-kwong Wou, Odoric (1994). Mobilizing the Masses: Building Revolution in Henan. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804721424. http://books.google.com/books?id=1BN9dAqprX8C&. 
  19. ^ On Protracted War
  20. ^ "Willy Lam: China's Own Historical Revisionism", History News Network, 11 August 2005. Retrieved 15 May 2006.
  21. ^ Yang Kuisong. Reconsidering the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries The China Quarterly, 193, March 2008, pp.102-121. PDF file.
  22. ^ Steven W. Mosher. China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality. Basic Books, 1992. ISBN 0-465-09813-4 pp 72, 73
  23. ^ Stephen Rosskamm Shalom. Deaths in China Due to Communism. Center for Asian Studies Arizona State University, 1984. ISBN 0-939252-11-2 pg 24
  24. ^ Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. pg 337: "Mao claimed that the total number executed was 700,000 but this did not include those beaten or tortured to death in the post-1949 land reform, which would at the very least be as many again. Then there were suicides, which, based on several local inquiries, were very probably about equal to the number of those killed." Also cited in Mao Zedong, by Jonathan Spence, as cited [1]. Mao got this number from a report submitted by Xu Zirong, Deputy Public Security Minister, which stated 712,000 counterrevolutionaries were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and another 1,200,000 were "subjected to control.": Yang Kuisong. Reconsidering the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries The China Quarterly, 193, March 2008, pp.102-121. PDF file.
  25. ^ Twitchett, Denis; John K. Fairbank. The Cambridge history of China. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052124336X. http://books.google.com/books?id=ioppEjkCkeEC&pg=PA87&dq=at+least+one+landlord,+and+usually+several,+in+virtually+every+village+for+public+execution&ei=wP14R6muKIi0iQHR4ezAAQ&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=9REVjFOEIx_4TIMFixd7fhgC9FY. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  26. ^ Stephane Courtois, et al. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 pg. 479
  27. ^ Estimates, sources and calculations from R.J. Rummel’s China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (See lines 1 through 90.)
  28. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 436. ISBN 0805066381. http://books.google.com/books?id=HQwoTtJ43_AC&pg=PA436&dq=%27%27At+least+a+million-and-a-half+more+disappeared+into+the+newly+established+%27reform+through+labour%27+camps,+purpose-built+to+accommodate+them&ei=L_54R6eOFYq-igG72-2XCA&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=lJa-WxMPEygPOSBdsIoT13cmSHY. "At least a million-and-a-half more disappeared into the newly established 'reform through labour' camps, purpose-built to accommodate them." 
  29. ^ "Commentary transferred to Huang Jing regarding the supplementary plan to suppress counterrevolutionaries in Tianjin". http://www.laogai.org/news/newsdetail.php?id=2392. 
  30. ^ Changyu, Li. "Mao's "Killing Quotas." Human Rights in China (HRIC). 26 September 2005, at Shandong University]" (PDF). http://hrichina.org/public/PDFs/CRF.4.2005/CRF-2005-4_Quota.pdf. Retrieved on 2009-06-21. 
  31. ^ Brown, Jeremy. "Terrible Honeymoon: Struggling with the Problem of Terror in Early 1950s China.". http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/jeremy50sessay.htm. 
  32. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 437. ISBN 0805066381. http://books.google.com/books?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA437&dq=mao+while+the+worst+among+them+should+be+shot&ei=ipaVSYquJpLmyQTiieWsDw. 
  33. ^ Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. p. 342
  34. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 631. ISBN 0805066381. http://books.google.com/books?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA631&dq=no+cadre+is+to+be+killed+kang+sheng&ei=2HIRSqnVGZmYyATIo_iNCw#PPA632,M1. 
  35. ^ Chang, Jung; Halliday, Jon. 2005. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Knopf. 410.
  36. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 761. http://books.google.com/books?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA631&dq=mao+a+life+all+the+dead+of+the+second+world+war&ei=V8N5SaWvCIuYMrK0-KwL. 
  37. ^ a b "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm". Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  38. ^ a b c Chang, Jung and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (2006), pp. 568, 579.
  39. ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick; Schoenhals, Michael (2006). Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press. pp. 110. ISBN 0674023323. 
  40. ^ Ion Mihai Pacepa (28 November 2006). "The Kremlin’s Killing Ways". National Review Online. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzY4NWU2ZjY3YWYxMDllNWQ5MjQ3ZGJmMzg3MmQyNjQ=. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  41. ^ "China After Mao's Death: Nation of Rumor and Uncertainty". New York Times. 6 October 1976. "Hong Kong, 5 October 1976. With no word on the fate of the body of Mao Zedong, almost a month after his death, rumors are beginning to percolate in China, much as they did following the death of Prime Minister Chou En-lai..." 
  42. ^ "Cult of Mao". library.thinkquest.org. http://library.thinkquest.org/26469/cultural-revolution/cult.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. "This remark of Mao seems to have elements of truth but it is false. He confuses the worship of truth with a personality cult, despite there being an essential difference between them. But this remark played a role in helping to promote the personality cult that gradually arose in the CCP." 
  43. ^ Chairman Mao square opened on his 115th birth anniversary
  44. ^ Mao Zedong still draws crowds on 113th birth anniversary http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200612/27/eng20061227_336033.html
  45. ^ Michael Lynch. Mao (Routledge Historical Biographies). Routledge, 2004. p. 230: "The People’s Republic of China under Mao exhibited the oppressive tendencies that were discernible in all the major absolutist regimes of the twentieth century. There are obvious parallels between Mao’s China, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Each of these regimes witnessed deliberately ordered mass ‘cleansing’ and extermination."
  46. ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-674-02332-3 p. 471: "Together with Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, Mao appears destined to go down in history as one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century."
  47. ^ Fenby, Jonathan. Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present. Ecco, 2008. ISBN 0-06-166116-3 p. 351"Mao’s responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking."
  48. ^ Mao Zedong sixiang wan sui! (1969), p. 195. Referenced in Governing China (2nd ed.) by Kenneth Lieberthal (2004).
  49. ^ "Counting the Bodies - Noam Chomsky". Spectrezine (Spectre Magazine online). http://www.spectrezine.org/global/chomsky.htm. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  50. ^ Jackson, Karl D. Cambodia, 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death. Princeton University Press. p. 219. ISBN 069102541X. http://books.google.com/books?id=h27D3EYGwzgC&pg=PA219&dq=Radical+Left-wing+Chinese+Communist+Underpinnings+of+Cambodian+Communism&ei=vwF5R6HIHYjOiQHFu7DJDQ&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=bexUOMGrciQwVW3S4kHk5X3eXqc. 
  51. ^ "Portraits of Sun Yat-sen, Deng Xiaoping proposed adding to RMB notes". People's Daily Online. 2006-03-13. http://english.people.com.cn/200603/13/eng20060313_250192.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  52. ^ Kahn, Joseph (2006-09-02). "Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/world/asia/01china.html?ex=1314763200&en=abf86c087b22be74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Retrieved on 2007-02-28. 
  53. ^ Biographical Sketches in The Private Life of Chairman Mao
  54. ^ "Stepping into history". China Daily. 2003-11-23. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-11/23/content_283948.htm. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  55. ^ The Long March, by Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen. Constable 2006
  56. ^ "Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages-Mao Zedong Thought<!- Bot generated title ->". http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/mzdt.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  57. ^ "100 years<!- Bot generated title ->". http://www.asiawind.com/art/callig/modern.htm#Contemporary%20Chinese%20Calligraphy. Retrieved on 2008-08-23. 
  58. ^ Yen, Yuehping (2005). Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society. Routledge. p. 2. http://books.google.com/books?visbn=0415317533. 
  59. ^ "首届毛体书法邀请赛精品纷呈" (in Chinese). People.com. 2006-09-11. http://art.people.com.cn/GB/41132/41137/4802132.html. 

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Political offices
Preceded by
None		 Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic
1931 – 1934		 Succeeded by
None
Preceded by
None		 Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Chinese Soviet Republic
1931 – 1934		 Succeeded by
Zhang Wentian
Preceded by
None		 Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
1949 – 1954		 Succeeded by
Zhou Enlai
Preceded by
None		 Chairman of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China
1949 – 1954		 Succeeded by
Himself
(as President of the People's Republic of China)
Preceded by
Himself
(as Chairman of the Central People's Government)		 President of the People's Republic of China
1954 – 1959		 Succeeded by
Liu Shaoqi
Party political offices
Preceded by
?		 Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission
1937 – 1976		 Succeeded by
Hua Guofeng
Preceded by
Deng Fa		 President of the CPC Central Party School
1942 – 1947		 Succeeded by
Liu Shaoqi
Preceded by
Zhang Wentian
(as General Secretary)		 Chairman of the Communist Party of China
1943 – 1976		 Succeeded by
Hua Guofeng



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