Mao Zedong

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Mao Zedong

(26 December 1893 - 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the PRC, which he led as the chairman of the CCP from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist-Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.

The son of a well-to-do peasant family in Hunan, he was educated in Changsha and then Beijing, teaching, publishing and journalism. In 1918 he went to work as a librarian at the University of Beijing. Unlike many contemporaries, he did not take the opportunity to travel and study abroad. While in Beijing Mao embraced Marxism and his life changed forever.

Mao joined the first CCP Congress in 1921. Taking the ideas from the meeting, he began to organize and implement the party within Hunan, where he lived during this time. Using his skills from his time teaching and writing during the revolution a decade earlier, Mao wrote essays for Changsha's newspapers. Working off the ideas from the May Fourth Movement, he injected Marxist ideology and communist beliefs into the existing ideologies that had already been espoused. As a revolutionary dedicated to organizing the peasants into a political force, he took part in an uprising in 1928.

From 1960 until 1966, Mao had largely been sidelined. During his time controlling the direction of the country, the relationship between China and the USSR had completely broken down, and millions of Chinese had died because of the Second Five-Year Plan. During the six years when he was largely a side character in the government that he had founded, Mao had time to analyze the direction that China was going in and to calculate his next move.

One of the most notable steps that Mao and his supporters took during this time was the elevation of the People's Liberation Army. In May 1966, Mao and his closest allies issued the "May 16 notification" to lay out the problems that they saw with the current trajectory of China. They said that enemies of China had infiltrated the leadership and that they wanted to "create a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." This was the beginning of Mao instigating a rebellion against the current leaders. It would serve as a springboard for the rise of the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution. Ultimately, Mao wanted to purge the men who he felt had betrayed him.

On September 9th, 1976, Mao Zedong died following a heart attack. The ill will against Mao that had started following the Tiananmen Square Incident was quickly quashed following his death, and the people began to view him as a hero once again. The mistake that was the Cultural Revolution was not placed at his feet. Instead, people began to see him as a kind leader who had been given bad advice by those who were supposed to help and support him. All across China, people mourned the loss of a man who had established a strong Cult of Personality around him.

Expanded Biography