Mao Zedong

Early Life
The eldest son of four children of a moderately prosperous peasant farmer, Mao Zedong was born in the village of Shao Shan in Xiangtan County (湘潭縣), Hunan province.

During the 1911 Revolution he served in the Hunan provincial army. In the 1910s, Mao returned to school, where he became an advocate of physical fitness and collective action.

After graduation from Hunan Normal School in 1918, Mao travelled with his high school teacher and future father-in-law Professor Yang Changjin to Beijing during the May Fourth Movement when Yang lectured in Peking University. From Yang's recommendations, he worked under Li Dazhao, the head of the university library and attended speeches by Chen Duxiu. While working for the Peking University library, Mao acquired a taste for books, something he was to retain in later years. Also in Beijing, he married his first wife, Yang Kaihui, a Peking University student and the daughter of Mao's high school teacher. (When he was 14 Mao's father had arranged a marriage for him with a fellow villager, Lo-shi (羅氏), but Mao never recognized this marriage.)

Instead of going abroad like many of his radical compatriots, Mao spent the early 1920s traveling in China, and finally returned to Hunan where he took the lead in promoting collective action and labor rights.

At age 27, Mao attended the First Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai in July 1921. Two years later he was elected to the Central Committee of the party at the Third Congress.

During the first KMT-CCP united front Mao served as the director of the Kuomintang's (KMT) (or Nationalist Party)Peasant Training Institute, and early 1927 he was dispatched to Hunan province to report on the recent peasant uprisings in the wake of the Northern Expedition. The report that Mao produced from this investigation is considered the first important work of Maoist Theory.

Political theories
During this time, Mao developed many of his political theories. In the field of philosophy, Mao's ideas are considered culturally significant rather than original; still, his ideas have had a monumental impact on generations of Chinese, and have significantly affected the rest of the world.

One significant idea was his view of peasants as the source of revolution. Traditional Marxist-Leninist theory had seen the vanguards of revolution to be urban workers, whereas Mao argued that in China's case, it was the peasant from which revolution would develop. Since China had no significant urban working-class population, but had many dissatisfied peasants, this idea was necessary for Communism to be applicable to China. (China had already had a revolution, the one of 1911-12, and it was largely a peasant country at the time.)

Mao also built on the theories of Hegel, Marx, and Taoism to create a new theory of materialist dialectics. By first applying the theory of the dialectic to real-world conflicts, then by asserting that only the empirical reality of the conflict mattered, Mao developed a type of dialectic theory that was studied for decades. It is difficult to determine the true validity of this theory, however, since so many analyses of it have been heavily influenced by political biases.

During this time, Mao also developed more practical ideas, such as a three-stage theory of guerilla warfare and the concept of the people's democratic dictatorship.

War and Revolution
Mao escaped the white terror in the spring and summer of 1927 and led the ill-fated Autumn Harvest Uprising at Changsha, Hunan that fall. Mao barely survived this mishap (he escaped his guards on the way to his execution) and he and his rag-tag band of loyal guerillas found refuge in the Jinggang Mountains, in south-east China. There, from 1931 to 1934, Mao helped established the Chinese Soviet Republic and was elected as the chairman. It was during this period that Mao married He Zizhen, after his first wife had been killed by KMT forces.

Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest, but effective guerilla army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the rightist purges in the cities. 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.

Chiang Kai-shek, who had earlier assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, was determined to eliminate the Communists. To evade the KMT forces, the Communists engaged in "The Long March", a retreat from Jiangxi in the south-east to Shaanxi in the north-west of China. It was in the 9600 km year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai onto Mao's side.

From his base in Yan'an, Mao led the Communist resistance against the Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

Mao further consolidated power over the Communist Party in 1942 by launching a "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.

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 WWII. This fact was not understood well in the US and precious Lend-Lease armaments continued to be allocated to the Kuomintang.

After the end of WWII, the US continued to support Chiang Kai-shek, now openly against the communist Red Army led by Mao Zedong in the civil war for control of China as part of its view to contain and defeat "world communism".

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

Leadership over the PRC
After defeating the Japanese, the Communists defeated the Kuomintang in an ensuing civil war, and established the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. It was an event that culminated over two decades of Communist Party-led popular struggle. From 1954 to 1959, Mao was the Chairman of the PRC. He took up residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he decreed 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 during his chairmanship, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, who claimed to be his physician. (Li's book, The Life of Chairman Mao, has been subject to controversy.)

Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched a phase of rapid, forced collectivization, lasting until around 1958. This included the so-called Hundred Flowers campaign, in which Mao indicated he was willing to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, many Chinese began questioning the dogmas of the Communist Party. After allowing this for a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and rounded up those who criticized the Party in what is called the Anti-Rightist Movement.

The Great Leap Forward was intended by Mao as an alternative model for economic growth which contradicted the Soviet model of heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program Chinese agriculture was to be collectivized and rural small-scale industry was to be promoted. In the middle of the Great Leap, Khrushchev canceled Soviet technical support because Mao was too radical in pushing for world wide communist revolution. Severe droughts also occurred at this time, compounding the difficulties. The Great Leap ended in 1960, after food shortages affected both the Chairman's hometown and Zhongnanhai itself. Both inside and outside China, the Great Leap Forward is now regarded as a disastrous policy contributing to the deaths of millions of people.

The withdrawal of Soviet aid, border disputes, disputes over the control and direction of world Communism, whether it should be revolutionary or status quo, and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy contributed to the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s.

Following these events, other members of the Communist Party including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping decided that Mao should be deprived of power. They attempted to marginalize Mao, without denouncing him, allowing him to remain a figurehead, but without any real authority. At one point, in 1959, Liu became Chairman of the Republic, while Mao remained Chairman of the Communist Party. This meant there were two chairmen in China at the same time, which was unforgivable to Mao, who wanted to be in charge of China (and thus the only one worthy of the title "Chairman").

Mao responded to this by launching the Cultural Revolution, in the late 1960s, in which the Communist hierarchy was circumvented by giving power directly to the Red Guards, groups of young people, often teenagers, who set up their own tribunals. The Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese intellectuals, amongst other social chaos. This policy is also near-universally regarded as a complete disaster.

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, Lou Gehrig's disease, as well as lung ailments due to smoking, and heart trouble, and remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death. (The earthquake on July 28, 1976 didn't help Mao's health when it shook Beijing and destroyed Tangshan.) When Mao could swim no longer, the indoor swimming pool he had at Zhongnanhai was converted into a giant reception-hall, according to Li Zhisui. During this decade, Mao created a cult of personality in which his image was displayed everywhere and his quotations were included in bold face or red letters in even the most mundane of writings.

After his death on September 9, 1976, there was a power struggle for control of China. On one side were the leftists led by the Gang of Four, who wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side were the rightists, which consisted of two groups. One was the restorationists led by Hua Guofeng who advocated a return to orthodox socialist central planning along the Soviet model. The other was the reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, who wanted to overhaul the Chinese economy based on pragmatic policies and to deemphasize the role of ideology in determining economic and political policy.

Furthermore, many within the People's Republic of China itself point to the phenomenal economic growth that has occurred in Mainland China as a result of the Deng Xiaoping reforms after Mao's death as evidence of the incorrectness of Mao's economic policies. Since the Deng era, China has sustained the highest rate of per capita economic growth for the past two decades.

Mao's Legacy
Mao's legacy has produced a large amount of controversy with some focus on the failures of the Great Leap and the disasters of the Cultural Revolution, and others pointing out that the large number of deaths during the period of consolidation of power after victory in the Chinese civil war was small compared to the number of deaths caused by famine, anarchy, war, and foreign invasion in the years before the Communists took power. The official view of the People's Republic of China is that Mao Zedong was a great revolutionary leader, although he made serious mistakes in his later life. According to Deng Xiaoping, Mao was "seven parts right and three parts wrong", and his "contributions are primary and his mistakes secondary."

Supporters of Mao point out that before 1949, for instance, the illiteracy rate in Mainland China was 80 percent, and life expectancy was a meager 35 years. At his death, they claim 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. They argue that under Mao's regime, China ended its "Century of Humiliation" and reelevated to a status of major power, and that Mao also industrialized China to a considerable extent and ensured China's sovereignty during his rule.

They also argue that the Maoist era improved women's rights by checking prostitution, a phenomenon that was to return after Deng Xiaoping and post-Maoist CPC leaders increased liberalization of the economy. Indeed, Mao once famously remarked that "Women hold up half the sky".

Skeptics will observe that similar gains in life expectancy occurred in the East Asian Tigers, most notably Taiwan, which was ruled by Mao's opponents, the Kuomintang. Some of the gains may have simply been the result of a country no longer at war, so even an incompetent regime could achieve such improvements. Furthermore, the experiences of the Tigers and the Deng Xiaoping reforms suggest that Mao's economic policy led to far poorer economic outcomes than a more decentralized approach. Many, including the Communist Party of China, hold Mao largely responsible for the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, both of which are widely seen as economic and political disasters. Still other critics of Mao fault him for not encouraging birth control and for creating a demographic bump which later Chinese leaders responded to with the one child policy.

The ideology surrounding Mao's interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, also known as Maoism, has influenced many communists around the world, including third world revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Peru's Shining Path, the revolutionary movement in Nepal, as well as the Revolutionary Communist Party in the United States. Ironically, China has moved sharply away from Maoism since his death, and most of Mao's followers regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Mao's legacy.

In mainland China many people still consider Mao a hero in the first half of his life, but hold that he became a monster after gaining power. In particular Mao is criticized for creating a cult of personality. However, in an era where economic growth has caused corruption to increase in mainland China, there are those who regard Mao as a symbol of moral incorruptibility and self-sacrifice in contrast to the current leadership.

In the mid-1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to appear on all new renminbi currency from the People's Republic of China. This is intended primarily as an anti-counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency.

Family
Wives:
Yang Kaihui (杨开慧, 1901-1930) of Changsha: married 1921 to 1927
He Zizhen (贺子珍, 1909-1984) of Jiangxi: married May 1928 to 1939
Jiang Qing: married 1939 to Mao's death

Children:
Mao Anying (毛岸英): son to Yang, married to Liu Siqi (刘思齐), who was born Liu Songling (刘松林)
Mao Anqing (毛岸青): son to Yang, married to Zhao Hua (邵华), son Mao Xinyu (毛新宇)
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 (李讷): daughter to Jiang (whose birth given name was Li), married to Wang Jingqing (王景清), son Wang Xiaozhi (王效芝)

Writings
Mao is the attributed author of Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, known in the West as the "Little Red Book", which is certainly his best known work. He wrote several other philosophical treatises, both before and after he assumed power. These include:

On Practice, 1937
On Contradiction, 1937
On New Democracy, 1940
On Literature and Art, 1942
On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People, 1957

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