What happened to the Chinese when Mao Zendong took over?

Answer 1

Mao Zedong 1

(1893-1976)

Mao Zedong led China's Communist revolution in the 1920s and 1930s and became chairman

(chief of state) of the People's Republic of China in 1949, an office he held until 1959.

From "Mao Zedong." Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001.

Mao Zedong was the foremost Chinese Communist leader of the 20th century and the

principal founder of the People's Republic of China.

Mao was born December 26, 1893, into a peasant family in the village of Shaoshan, Hunan

province. His father was a strict disciplinarian and Mao frequently rebelled against his

authority. Mao's early education was in the Confucian classics of Chinese history, literature,

and philosophy, but early teachers also exposed him to the ideas of progressive Confucian

reformers such as K'ang Yu-wei. In 1911 Mao moved to the provincial capital, Changsha,

where he briefly served as a soldier in Republican army in the 1911 revolution that overthrew

the Qing dynasty. While in Changsha, Mao read works on Western philosophy; he was also

greatly influenced by progressive newspapers and by journals such as New Youth, founded by

revolutionary leader Chen Duxiu.

In 1918, after graduating from the Hunan Teachers College in Changsha, Mao traveled to

Beijing and obtained a job in the Beijing University library under the head librarian, Li Dazhao.

Mao joined Li's study group that explored Marxist political and social thought and he became

an avid reader of Marxist writings. During the May Fourth Movement of 1919, when students

and intellectuals called for China's modernization, Mao published articles criticizing the

traditional values of Confucianism. He stressed the importance of physical strength and mental

willpower in the struggle against tradition. In Beijing, he also met and married his first wife,

Yang Kaihui, a Beijing University student and the daughter of Mao's high school teacher.

(When Mao was 14 his father had arranged a marriage for him with a local girl, but Mao never

recognized this marriage.)

In 1920 Mao returned to Changsha, where his attempt to organize a democratic government

for Hunan province failed. He traveled to Shanghai in 1921 and was present at the founding