Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People’s Republic of China. He ruled as the chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism. Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in the twentieth century.

About Mao Zedong in brief

Summary Mao ZedongMao Zedong was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People’s Republic of China. He ruled as the chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism. Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in the twentieth century. Supporters credit him with driving imperialism out of China, modernising the nation and building it into a world power. His regime has been called autocratic and totalitarian, and condemned for bringing about mass repression and destroying religious artifacts and sites. During Mao’s lifetime, the media rendered his name as Mao Ttung, using the Wade-Giles system of transliteration for Chinese though with the circumflexed syllable in English. For example, in 1958 the official romanization system for Mandarin in the PRC’s official pinyin became  Pinyin Mao Zedong in English translations. The Little Red Book, a collection of Mao’s political statements, was officially entitled Chairman Mao Tse-tung in English, but in Chinese it is officially called Mao Tshung in Chinese. He was the son of a prosperous peasant in Shaoshan, Hunan. He had a Chinese nationalist and an anti-imperialist outlook early in his life, and was particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. Mao helped to found the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet’s radical land policies, and ultimately became head of the CPC during the Long March.

During his lifetime, China’s population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million while the government did not strictly enforce its family planning policy, forcing Mao’s successors such as Deng Xiaoping to take stricter policies to cope with the overpopulation crisis. In 1958, he launched the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China’s economy from agrarian to industrial, which led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of 15–45 million people between 1958 and 1962. In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, and in 1966 he initiated the Cultural Revolution, a program to remove \”counter-revolutionary\” elements in Chinese society which lasted 10 years and was marked by violent class struggle. After years of ill health, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976 and died at the age of 82. He is also known as a political intellect, theorist, military strategist, and poet, and is also a well-known author, playwright, and author of a book on Mao’s life and political philosophy, The Red Book. He died on September 9, 1976, aged 82, after suffering a series-of-heart attacks in a plane crash in the South Korean city of Chongqing. His funeral was attended by hundreds of thousands of people, including Liu Shaoqi, the 2nd Chairman of thePRC.