Mao Zedong declares the founding of the modern People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Learning the value systems of Confucianism, he later admitted that he did not enjoy the classical Chinese texts preaching Confucian morals, instead favouring classic novels like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. [242] Mao and Kissinger then agreed that their comments on women be removed from public records, prompted by a Chinese official who feared that Mao's comments might incur public anger if released. Becker says that "Mao believed that the bomb was a 'paper tiger', declaring to Khrushchev that it would not matter if China lost 300 million people in a nuclear war: the other half of the population would survive to ensure victory". [129] The 100,000 who escaped headed to southern Hunan, first crossing the Xiang River after heavy fighting,[130] and then the Wu River, in Guizhou where they took Zunyi in January 1935. and the amplified voice of Mao responded, 'Long Live the People's Republic of China!' What is Mao's legacy? - The Washington Post The teenaged 14th Dalai Lama (the current one) becomes a Chinese figurehead ruler. [338], Having grown up in Hunan, Mao spoke Mandarin with a marked Hunanese accent. [259], On 18 September, guns, sirens, whistles and horns across China were simultaneously blown and a mandatory three-minute silence was observed. pearl harbor. Lenin was an advocate of the socio-political theory of Marxism, first developed by the German sociologists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and Li's articles added Marxism to the doctrines in Chinese revolutionary movement. [270] He was credited and praised for driving imperialism out of China,[271] having unified China and for ending the previous decades of civil war. During Mao's rule, China was able to completely eliminate the . 1. Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was both a product and a part of the revolutionary change in 20th-century China. Deng Xiaoping, who was opposed to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, stated that "when we write about his mistakes we should not exaggerate, for otherwise we shall be discrediting Chairman Mao Zedong and this would mean discrediting our party and state. [276] Short stated that landlord class were not exterminated as a people due to Mao's belief in redemption through thought reform,[276] and compared Mao with 19th-century Chinese reformers who challenged China's traditional beliefs in the era of China's clashes with Western colonial powers. China: Timeline - HISTORY [52] A number of his friends took advantage of the anarchist-organised Mouvement Travail-tudes to study in France, but Mao declined, perhaps because of an inability to learn languages. "[309], 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. In November 1931 he announced the start of a "land verification project" which was expanded in June 1933. They were initially successful, but were forced into retreat after five days, marching south to Shantou, and from there they were driven into the wilderness of Fujian. [64] Coming across newly translated Marxist literature by Thomas Kirkup, Karl Kautsky, and Marx and Engelsnotably The Communist Manifestohe came under their increasing influence, but was still eclectic in his views. [105] He laid down rules for his soldiers: prompt obedience to orders, all confiscations were to be turned over to the government, and nothing was to be confiscated from poorer peasants. [36], Mao desired to become a teacher and enrolled at the Fourth Normal School of Changsha, which soon merged with the First Normal School of Hunan, widely seen as the best in Hunan. Mao set up a Changsha branch, also establishing a branch of the Socialist Youth Corps and a Cultural Book Society which opened a bookstore to propagate revolutionary literature throughout Hunan. The war was virtually won, Mao declared, the reactionaries Nationalist government had had been overthrown, and the organic law of the People's Government had been enacted by the Consultative Conference, which represented 'the patriotic democratic elements of the whole country'. Remaining opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the Golden Triangle region. The phrase "Long Live Chairman Mao for ten thousand years" was commonly heard during the era. A fifth volume, which brought the timeline up to 1957, was briefly issued during the leadership of Hua Guofeng, but subsequently withdrawn from circulation for its perceived ideological errors. Brooding over this immensity, Years later the CCP would conclude that as many as six million people were wrongly punished in the campaign. Just like Che Guevara's image, his has become a symbol of revolutionary culture. However, Mao's government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths, with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims due to starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions, which drew criticism for being considered totalitarian rule. On the eve of the attack, Mao composed a poemthe earliest of his to survivetitled "Changsha". He also orchestrated education programs and implemented measures to increase female political participation. Contrastingly, Zhu complied, and led his armies away. In the subsequent reorganisation of the provincial administration, Mao was appointed headmaster of the junior section of the First Normal School. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has never officially repudiated the tactics of Mao. [55] He did not return to Shaoshan, where his mother was terminally ill. She died in October 1919 and her husband died in January 1920. [62] In December 1919, Mao helped organise a general strike in Hunan, securing some concessions, but Mao and other student leaders felt threatened by Zhang, and Mao returned to Beijing, visiting the terminally ill Yang Changji. The people of urban areas in China were given food stamps each month, but the people of rural areas were expected to grow their own crops and give some of the crops back to the government. "[300] Since 1950, over 40 million people have visited Mao's birthplace in Shaoshan, Hunan. Mao Zedong led communist forces in China through a long revolution beginning in 1927 and ruled the nation's communist government from its establishment in 1949. [155][157] From his base in Yan'an, Mao authored several texts for his troops, including Philosophy of Revolution, which offered an introduction to the Marxist theory of knowledge; Protracted Warfare, which dealt with guerrilla and mobile military tactics; and On New Democracy, which laid forward ideas for China's future. During his leadership tenure, China was heavily involved with other Asian communist conflicts such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cambodian Civil War. As the Communists awaited Chiang's arrival, he loosed the White Terror, massacring 5000 with the aid of the Green Gang. He also acknowledged that anti-rightist campaigns were a major cause of "production at the expense of livelihood." And Jackson still appears on $20 bills, even though Americans tend to view as heinous the institution of slavery (of which he was a passionate defender) and the early 19th-century military campaigns against Native Americans (in which he took part). They were initially successful, but the KMT counter-attacked, and pushed the CCP back; over the next few weeks, they fought an entrenched guerrilla war in the mountains. [f], Mao wrote prolifically on political strategy, commentary, and philosophy both before and after he assumed power. The Mao Years [ 1949-1976 ] - China Mike The old imperial capital of Peking surrendered to the Communists at the end of January after a month's siege. Some scholars, such as Mobo Gao, claim the case for this is overstated. [170], During the land reform campaigns, large numbers of landlords and rich peasants were beaten to death at mass meetings organised by the Communist Party as land was taken from them and given to poorer peasants, which significantly reduced economic inequality. There are 2.7 billion people in the world, and a third could be lost. [213] A brief period of liberalisation followed while Mao and Lin plotted a comeback. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CCP figures. Mao's revolution improved life for those who survived it, bringing the economic development, education, and modernization on which subsequent progress was built. [232] Others, such as Frank Diktter, hold that Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to wreak revenge on those who had dared to challenge him over the Great Leap Forward. But both Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. Deng Xiaoping, Wade-Giles romanization Teng Hsiao-p'ing, (born August 22, 1904, Guang'an, Sichuan province, Chinadied February 19, 1997, Beijing), Chinese communist leader who was the most powerful figure in the People's Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997. The Messed Up Truth Of Mao Zedong - Grunge It give a look at what he accomplished in the years he was in rule. [230]:177182, During the early 1960s, Mao became concerned with the nature of post-1959 China. Mao has been portrayed in film and television numerous times. 1957: The Hundred Flowers Movement Communist Party members joined the KMT, hoping to push its politics leftward. [263][264] Despite Mao's request to be cremated, his body was later permanently put on display in the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, in order for the Chinese nation to pay its respects.[265]. [260][261] Mao's official portrait hung on the wall with a banner reading: "Carry on the cause left by Chairman Mao and carry on the cause of proletarian revolution to the end". After the authorities sent a police spy to the congress, the delegates moved to a boat on South Lake near Jiaxing, in Zhejiang, to escape detection. Jackson forcibly moved Native Americans through the Trail of Tears, resulting in thousands of deaths, while Mao was at the helm during the violent years of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward.[304][d]. READ MORE: China: A . [39], A popular student, in 1915 Mao was elected secretary of the Students Society. Mao Zedong[a] (26 December 1893 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese politician, political theorist, military strategist, poet, and communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which he led as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. [322], In October 1966, Mao's Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, known as the Little Red Book, was published. [176] Because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution",[177] the number of deaths range between 2 million[177][178][173] and 5 million. The western calendar was adopted and Beijing was to be the regime's capital. On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was formally announced, with Mao Zedong as its leader. '", "Taken as a whole, the Chinese revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party embraces two stages, i.e., the democratic and the socialist revolutions, which are two essentially different revolutionary processes, and the second process can be carried through only after the first has been completed. Mao disagreed with the new leadership, believing they grasped little of the Chinese situation, and he soon emerged as their key rival. September26, 2005, at Shandong University", "Terrible Honeymoon: Struggling with the Problem of Terror in Early 1950s China", "China The transition to socialism, 195357", "The Hungarian Connection: the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and its Impact on Mao Zedong's Domestic Policies in the late 1950s", "The 19571958 Anti-Rightist Campaign in China: History and Memory (19782014)", "The Silence that Preceded China's Great Leap into Famine", "Three Chinese Leaders: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping", "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine", "Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years', "Agency and Famine in China's Sichuan Province, 19581962", "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm", "Ideological dilemma: Mao's China and the Sino-Soviet split, 196263", "The Cultural Revolution's Legacy in China", "Debating the Cultural Revolution in China", "China's Mao Offered to Send 10 Million Women to U.S. in 1973", "Marxists.org Glossary: Cultural Revolution", "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, 19661976", "Introduction to the Cultural Revolution", "Poverty in China since 1950: A Counterfactual Perspective", "The Kissenger Transcripts: Notes and Excerpts", "Mao Tse-Tung Dies In Peking At 82; Leader Of Red China Revolution; Choice Of Successor Is Uncertain", "Chinese Bid Farewell to Nation's Leader", "Mao's achievements 'outweigh' mistakes: poll", "How Many Died? The Little Red Book contains some of Mao's most widely known quotes. [360] Mao is a principal character in American composer John Adams' opera Nixon in China (1987). "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. [308] As the Chinese government instituted market economic reforms starting in the late 1970s and as later Chinese leaders took power, less recognition was given to the status of Mao. "[237] The authorities allowed the Red Guards to abuse and kill opponents of the regime. Yi introduced Mao to General Tan Yankai, a senior KMT member who held the loyalty of troops stationed along the Hunanese border with Guangdong. Landlords, rich peasants, former members of the nationalist regime, religious leaders, rightists, counter-revolutionaries and the families of such individuals died in the greatest numbers. Mao had a total of ten children,[331] including: Mao's first and second daughters were left to local villagers because it was too dangerous to raise them while fighting the Kuomintang and later the Japanese. [196], In January 1958, Mao launched the second five-year plan, known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended to turn China from an agrarian nation to an industrialised one[197] and as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. [17] Mao also read translations of works by Western authors including Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Huxley. There has never been an official "Complete Works of Mao Zedong" collecting all his known publications. What type of family was Mao born in? There are obvious parallels between Mao's China, "Though admittedly far from perfect, the comparison is based on the fact that Jackson is remembered both as someone who played a significant role in the development of a political organisation (the Democratic Party) that still has many partisans, and as someone responsible for brutal policies toward Native Americans that are now referred to as genocidal. [84] There, he ran the 6th term of the KMT's Peasant Movement Training Institute from May to September 1926. [68] Mao was a vocal anti-imperialist and in his writings he lambasted the governments of Japan, the UK and US, describing the latter as "the most murderous of hangmen". [199], In late autumn 1958, Mao condemned the practices that were being used during Great Leap Forward such as forcing peasants to do exhausting labour without enough food or rest which resulted in epidemics and starvation. 'Our work will go down in the history of mankind', he began, 'demonstrating that the Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. [131], From Zunyi, Mao led his troops to Loushan Pass, where they faced armed opposition but successfully crossed the river. But future historians, without ignoring the failures and the crimes, will surely record the Maoist era in the history of the People's Republic (however else they may judge it) as one of the great modernizing epochs in world history, and one that brought great social and human benefits to the Chinese people. [193], 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. Many claim that Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966. [258] He suffered two major heart attacks, one in March and another in July, then a third on 5 September, rendering him an invalid. It also reunified China and made the country a force to be reckoned with in the world. This was initially tolerated and encouraged. Music from the period emphasised Mao's stature, as did children's rhymes. The split concerned the leadership of world communism. [62] During this period, Mao involved himself in political work with manual laborers, setting up night schools and trade unions. I revised this question because I felt like this was a better fit for this project. Mao Zedong - Wikipedia [345], Mao learned to speak some English, particularly through Zhang Hanzhi, his English teacher, interpreter and diplomat who later married Qiao Guanhua, Foreign Minister of China and the head of China's UN delegation. "[341], Sinologist Stuart R. Schram emphasised Mao's ruthlessness but also noted that he showed no sign of taking pleasure in torture or killing in the revolutionary cause. [59] In late May, Mao co-founded the Hunanese Student Association with He Shuheng and Deng Zhongxia, organising a student strike for June and in July 1919 began production of a weekly radical magazine, Xiang River Review. He first chose to systematically learn English in the 1950s, which was very unusual as the main foreign language first taught in Chinese schools at that time was Russian.[347]. Mao believed that a revolution of culture would unseat and unsettle the "ruling class" and keep China in a state of "continuous revolution" that, theoretically, would serve the interests of the majority, rather than a tiny and privileged elite. 2. Given the freedom to express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. [328] As of the early 2020s, surveys conducted on Zhihu frequently rank Mao as one of the greatest and most influential figures in Chinese history. He also writes: "In a chilling precursor of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, villagers in Qingshui and Gansu called these projects the 'killing fields. In doing so, he moulded his men into a disciplined, efficient fighting force.[104]. Adopting Lenin's advice, the delegates agreed to an alliance with the "bourgeois democrats" of the KMT for the good of the "national revolution". '"[302], The United States placed a trade embargo on the People's Republic as a result of its involvement in the Korean War, lasting until Richard Nixon decided that developing relations with the PRC would be useful in dealing with the Soviet Union. Many peasants accused of hiding food were tortured and beaten to death. the violence he erected into a whole system far exceeds any national tradition of violence that we might find in China. [51] Paid a low wage, Mao lived in a cramped room with seven other Hunanese students, but believed that Beijing's beauty offered "vivid and living compensation". The 660 delegates included representatives of labour and business, cultural interests and overseas Chinese, but the Communists dominated the conference, which swiftly proclaimed the new People's Republic of China and endorsed the 'organic law' of the Central People's Government. 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 have been localised or exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and was a net exporter of grain through the period. [217] Frank Diktter estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths attributable to the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962. Like all three of Mao Zedong's wives, Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan were communists. From the next generation, Mao Zemin's son Mao Yuanxin was raised by Mao Zedong's family, and he became Mao Zedong's liaison with the Politburo in 1975. [169], Mao directed operations to the minutest detail. On the last day of the month Mao was elected Chairman of the Central People's Government and on the following day, October 1st, he formally proclaimed the People's Republic of China from the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square. Although Soviet and Comintern delegates attended, the first congress ignored Lenin's advice to accept a temporary alliance between the Communists and the "bourgeois democrats" who also advocated national revolution; instead they stuck to the orthodox Marxist belief that only the urban proletariat could lead a socialist revolution. [101] He established a base in Jinggangshan City, an area of the Jinggang Mountains, where he united five villages as a self-governing state, and supported the confiscation of land from rich landlords, who were "re-educated" and sometimes executed. [13] Mao too became a Buddhist, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential individuals in the twentieth century. Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal. [286][287] In the West, Mao has a bad reputation. [151] Although Chiang intended to ignore Mao's message and continue the civil war, he was arrested by one of his own generals, Zhang Xueliang, in Xi'an, leading to the Xi'an Incident; Zhang forced Chiang to discuss the issue with the Communists, resulting in the formation of a United Front with concessions on both sides on 25 December 1937. [72] In August 1921, he founded the Self-Study University, through which readers could gain access to revolutionary literature, housed in the premises of the Society for the Study of Wang Fuzhi, a Qing dynasty Hunanese philosopher who had resisted the Manchus. (ii) what questions have you got? Zhang and Mao disagreed over what to do; the latter wished to proceed to Shaanxi, while Zhang wanted to retreat west to Tibet or Sikkim, far from the KMT threat. The CCP Central Committee, hiding in Shanghai, expelled Mao from their ranks and from the Hunan Provincial Committee, as punishment for his "military opportunism", for his focus on rural activity, and for being too lenient with "bad gentry". Both men are thought of as having done terrible things yet this does not necessarily prevent them from being used as positive symbols. [342] Lee Feigon considered Mao "draconian and authoritarian" when threatened but opined that he was not the "kind of villain that his mentor Stalin was". [206] Li writes that upon learning of the extent of the starvation, Mao vowed to stop eating meat, an action followed by his staff. Although he was proclaimed Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Mao's power was diminished, as his control of the Red Army was allocated to Zhou Enlai. There exist various competitions specialising in Mao-style calligraphy. [10], Mao Zedong was born on 26 December 1893, in Shaoshan village, Hunan. [b][275] According to biographer Philip Short, the overwhelming majority of those killed by Mao's policies were unintended casualties of famine, while the other three or four million, in Mao's view, were the necessary victim's in the struggle to transform China. It is the blots on the Maoist record, especially the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution, that are now most deeply imprinted on our political and historical consciousness. [145][146] He Zizhen was reportedly "dispatched to a mental asylum in Moscow to make room" for Qing. How many people died under Mao's rule? Mao returned to Hunan and started compiling his famous Hunan Peasant Report while organising and delivering military training to peasant militias. [335] Both he and Kong have written books about their grandfather. "[296][297] As a result of such tactics, critics have compared it to Nazi Germany. [124][125] Angered at his armies' failure, Chiang Kai-shek personally arrived to lead the operation. In this, they disagreed with the official line of the Soviet government and Comintern. [228]:29 After an April 1964 General Staff report concluded that the concentration of China's industry in its major coastal cities made it vulnerable to attack by foreign powers, Mao argued for the development of basic industry and national defense industry in protected locations in China's interior.
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