Mao Zedong (毛泽东) was a Chinese Communist revolutionary leader who was best known for founding the Chinese Communist Party and unifying China. He remains one of the most revered and notorious figures in history. There are many songs in homage to Chairman Mao, as he lead a cult of personality. He was also a poet himself.
Early life and career[]
Mao Zedong was born into a loving family on 26 December 1893 in the small village of Shaoshan, Hunan. After finishing school, he worked as a librarian where he was exposed to Marxist socialism. He grew so fascinated with socialism and later communism. In 1921, he founded the Chinese Communist Party.
In 1927, Guomindang massacred CCP members in Shanghai, causing the Chinese Civil War. During World War II, China was invaded by the Empire of Japan, so Mao formed an alliance and cooperated with the Guomindang to repel the Japanese from the mainland. Japan surrendered in 1945, so Mao went back to fighting against the GMD. In 1949, Mao's forces successfully defeated the GMD, establishing the People's Republic of China (PRC), and unifying China as a single country. The GMD forces were forced to flee to the island of Taiwan and there they established the Republic of China (ROC), which the PRC doesn't recognize and still claims that the island belongs to the PRC.
Life as leader[]
In the 1950s, Mao Zedong had many plans for how China could move forward in technology very quickly and catch up with advanced economies like the United Kingdom and the United States. Mao was responsible for the Five Year Plan. The Second Five Year Plan included the Great Leap Forward, which was a disaster for the Chinese people, as poor farming practices led to significant crop failure, and cities did not make many of their daily items like clothes and machines. The famine that came as a result killed millions of people via starvation. Lots of people that survived migrated to several other countries. In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, in order to keep his power and position within the Chinese Communist Party.
Mao Zedong got along well with Joseph Stalin, as the two share a lot in common, and they became allies. After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushshev became the next leader, whom Mao detested, so this led to the Sino-Soviet split.
During the 1970s, Mao no longer saw the United States as a major adversary. In 1972, American president Richard Nixon visited China and met Mao. Mao died from a massive heart attack in September 1976, which ended the Cultural Revolution. Mao's supporters were imprisoned, and Deng Xiaoping, who followed Mao, revised Mao's economic policies.
State visits[]
Whilst he was on power, Mao only left China twice to the Soviet Union. His first visit abroad was in December 1949 to celebrate Stalin's 70th birthday in Moscow; the second visit to Moscow in November 1957 was a 2-week state visit, where he met with other communist leaders such as North Korea's Kim Il Sung and Albania's Enver Hoxha.
Death, illness and aftermath[]
Mao's health declined in his final years, mostly directly caused by his chain-smoking. He reportedly smoked up to a hundred cigarettes daily, ever since he was a small child. It became a state secret that he suffered from multiple lung and heart ailments during his later years. There are unconfirmed reports that he possibly had Parkinson's disease, ALS, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, sleep apnea, COPD, and rheumatoid arthritis. His final public appearance—and the last known photograph of him alive—had been on 27 May 1976, four months before his death, when he met with Pakistani PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He looked visibly frail in those last photos, and he had trouble walking and needed assistance. He suffered two major heart attacks, one in March and another in July, then a third on 5 September, rendering him an invalid. He died nearly four days later, at 00:10 on 9 September 1976, at the age of 82. The Communist Party delayed the announcement of his death until 16:00, when a national radio broadcast announced the news and appealed for party unity. Mao Zedong stood approximately 1.77 cm (5'10") at his tallest whilst he was alive; by the time of death, however, he stood approximately 1.65 (5'5") and walked with a hunched back.
Mao's embalmed body, draped in the CCP flag, lay in state at the Great Hall of the People for one week. One million Chinese filed past to pay their final respects, many crying openly or displaying sadness, while foreigners watched on television. On 17 September, the body was taken in a minibus to the 305 Hospital, where his internal organs were preserved in formaldehyde. On 18 September, guns, sirens, whistles and horns across China were simultaneously blown and a mandatory three-minute silence was observed.Tiananmen Square was packed with millions of people and a military band played "The Internationale". Hua Guofeng concluded the service with a 20-minute-long eulogy atop Tiananmen Gate. 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.
On 27 June 1981, the communist party's Central Committee adopted the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China, which assessed the legacy of the Mao era and the party's priorities going forward. The Resolution describes setbacks during the period 1957 to 1964 (although it generally affirms this period) and major mistakes beginning in 1965, attributing Mao's errors to individualist tendencies which arose when he departed from the collective view of the leadership. Regarding Mao's legacy, the Resolution concludes Mao's contributions to the Chinese Revolution far outweigh his mistakes.