- "毛" redirects here. "毛" is also the Chinese
character meaning Fur.
Mao Zedong ( ) (December 26, 1893 September 9,
1976) was a
Chinese revolutionary,
political theorist and
Communist leader.
He led the
People's
Republic of China
(PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his
death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to
Marxism-
Leninism, military
strategies, and his brand of Communist policies are now
collectively known as
Maoism.
Mao remains a controversial figure to this day, with a contentious
and ever-evolving legacy. He is officially held in high regard in
China as a great revolutionary, political strategist, military
mastermind, and savior of the nation. Many Chinese also believe
that through his policies, he laid the economic, technological and
cultural foundations of modern China, transforming the country from
a backward
agrarian society into a
major world power. Additionally, Mao is
viewed by many as a
poet,
philosopher, and
visionary, owing the latter primarily to the
cult of personality fostered
during his time in power.
As a consequence, his portrait continues to
be featured prominently on Tiananmen
and on all Renminbi
bills.
Conversely, Mao's social-political programs, such as the
Great Leap Forward and the
Cultural Revolution, are blamed for
causing severe
famine and damage to the
culture,
society and
economy of China.
Mao's policies and political purges from 1949 to 1975 are widely
believed to have caused the deaths of between 50 to 70 million
people. Since
Deng Xiaoping assumed
power in 1978, many Maoist policies have been abandoned in favour
of
economic
reforms.
Mao is regarded as one of the most influential figures in modern
world history, and named by
Time
Magazine as one of the
100 most
influential people of the 20th century.
Early life
During the
Xinhai Revolution, Mao enlisted as
a soldier in a local regiment in Hunan
, which
fought on the side of the revolutionaries. Once the Qing Dynasty
had been effectively toppled, Mao left the army and
returned to school.
After graduating the First Provincial Normal School of Hunan in
1918, it is believed that Mao traveled with Professor Yang Changji,
his college teacher and future father-in-law, to
Beijing during the
May Fourth Movement in 1919. Professor
Yang died in 1920 in Peking University.
Professor
Yang held a faculty position at Peking University
. As a result of Yang's recommendation, Mao
worked as an assistant librarian at the University with
Li Dazhao as curator. Mao registered as a
part-time student at Beijing University and attended a few lectures
and seminars by intellectuals, such as
Chen
Duxiu,
Hu Shi, and
Qian Xuantong. During his stay in Shanghai, he
engaged himself as much as possible in reading which introduced him
to
Communist theories.
He married
Yang Kaihui, Professor Yang's
daughter and a fellow student, despite an existing marriage
arranged by his father at home, which Mao never acknowledged. In
October 1930, the
Kuomintang (KMT)
captured
Yang Kaihui as well as her son,
Anying . The KMT imprisoned them both,
and Anying was later sent to his relatives after the KMT killed his
mother .
At this time, Mao was living with He Zizhen, a co-worker and 17 year old girl from
Yongxing, Jiangxi
.
Likely due
to poor language skills (Mao never learned to speak Mandarin), he turned down an opportunity to
study in France
.
On 23 July 1921, Mao, age 27, attended the first session of the
National
Congress of the Communist Party of China in
Shanghai. Two years later, he was elected as one of
the five commissars of the Central Committee of the Party during
the third Congress session. Later that year, Mao returned to Hunan
at the instruction of the
CPC Central
Committee and the Kuomintang Central Committee to organize the
Hunan branch of the Kuomintang. In 1924, he was a delegate to the
first National Conference of the Kuomintang, where he was elected
an Alternate Executive of the Central Committee. In 1924, he became
an Executive of the Shanghai branch of the Kuomintang and Secretary
of the Organization Department.
For a while, Mao remained in Shanghai, an important city that the
CPC emphasized for the
Revolution.
However, the Party encountered major difficulties organizing labor
union movements and building a relationship with its nationalist
ally, the
Kuomintang (KMT). The Party had
become poor, and Mao became disillusioned with the revolution and
moved back to Shaoshan. During his stay at home, Mao's interest in
the revolution was rekindled after hearing of the 1925 uprisings in
Shanghai and Guangzhou. His political ambitions returned, and he
then went to Guangdong, the base of the Kuomintang, to take part in
the preparations for the second session of the National Congress of
Kuomintang. In October 1925, Mao became acting Propaganda Director
of the Kuomintang.
In early 1927, Mao returned to Hunan where, in an urgent meeting
held by the Communist Party, he made a report based on his
investigations of the peasant uprisings in the wake of the
Northern Expedition.
This is considered the initial and decisive step towards the
successful application of Mao's revolutionary theories.
Political ideas
Mao as a young man.
Mao had a strong interest in the political system, encouraged by
his father. His two most famous essays, both from 1937, 'On
Contradiction' and 'On Practice', are concerned with the practical
strategies of a revolutionary movement and stress the importance of
practical, grassroots knowledge, obtained through experience.
Both essays reflect the
guerrilla roots of
Maoism in the need to build up support in the countryside against a
Japanese occupying force and emphasise the need to win over
'
hearts and minds' through
'education'. The essays, reproduced later as part of the '
Red Book', warn against
the behaviour of the blindfolded man trying to catch sparrows, and
the 'Imperial envoy' descending from his carriage to 'spout
opinions' .
After graduating from Hunan Normal School, the highest level of
schooling available in his province, Mao spent six months studying
independently.
Mao was first introduced to communism while
working at Peking
University, and in 1921
he attended the organizational meeting of the Communist Party of
China (or CPC). He first encountered
Marxism while he worked as a library assistant at
Peking University.
Other important influences on Mao were the
Russian revolution and, according
to some scholars, the Chinese literary works:
Outlaws of the Marsh and
Romance of the Three
Kingdoms. Mao sought to subvert the alliance of
imperialism and feudalism in China. He thought the
Nationalists to be both economically and
politically vulnerable and thus that the revolution could not be
steered by Nationalists.
Throughout the 1920s, Mao led several labour struggles based upon
his studies of the propagation and organization of the contemporary
labour movements.
However, these struggles were successfully
subdued by the government, and Mao fled from Changsha
after he was
labeled a radical activist. He pondered these
failures and finally realized that
industrial workers were unable to lead the
revolution because they made up only a small portion of China's
population, and unarmed labour struggles could not resolve the
problems of imperial and feudal suppression.
Mao began to depend on Chinese
peasants who
later became staunch supporters of his theory of violent
revolution. This dependence on the rural rather than the urban
proletariat to instigate violent revolution distinguished Mao from
his predecessors and contemporaries. Mao himself was from a peasant
family, and thus he cultivated his reputation among the farmers and
peasants and introduced them to Marxism.
War
Mao in 1927
Mao in 1931
In 1927,
Mao conducted the famous Autumn
Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Hunan, as
commander-in-chief. Mao led an army, called the
"Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants", which was defeated
and scattered after fierce battles. Afterwards, the exhausted
troops were forced to leave Hunan for Sanwan, Jiangxi, where Mao
re-organized the scattered soldiers, rearranging the military
division into smaller regiments.
Mao also ordered that each company must have a party branch office
with a
commissar as its leader who would
give political instructions based upon superior mandates. This
military rearrangement in Sanwan, Jiangxi initiated the CPC's
absolute control over its military force and has been considered to
have the most fundamental and profound impact upon the Chinese
revolution. Later, they moved to the
Jinggang Mountains, Jiangxi.
In the Jinggang Mountains, Mao persuaded two local insurgent
leaders to pledge their allegiance to him. There, Mao joined his
army with that of
Zhu De, creating the
Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China,
Red Army in short. Mao's tactics were strongly based on that of
the Spanish Guerillas during the
Napoleonic Wars.
From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the
Soviet Republic of China and was
elected Chairman of this small republic in the mountainous areas in
Jiangxi. Here, Mao was married to
He
Zizhen. His previous wife,
Yang
Kaihui, had been arrested and executed in 1930, just three
years after their departure.
It was alleged that Mao orchestrated the
Anti-Bolshevik League
incident and the
Futian
incident.
In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the
military force, was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and
military officers. Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent
was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in
Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform
the local party branch and army leadership. Mao reacted first by
accusing the opponents of
opportunism
and
kulakism and then set off a series of
systematic
suppressions of them. Under the direction of Mao, it is
reported that horrible methods of
torture
took place and given names such as
sitting in a sedan chair,
airplane ride,
toad-drinking water, and
monkey pulling reins." The wives of
several suspects had their breasts cut open and their genitals
burned. It has been estimated that 'tens of thousands' of suspected
enemies, perhaps as many as 186,000, were killed during this purge.
Critics accuse Mao's authority in Jiangxi of being secured and
reassured through the
revolutionary terrorism, or
red
terrorism.
Mao, with the help of
Zhu De, built a modest
but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and
government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the rightist
purges in the cities. Mao's methods are normally referred to as
Guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between
guerrilla warfare (
youji zhan) and
Mobile Warfare (
yundong zhan).
Mao's
Guerrilla Warfare and
Mobile Warfare was based upon the
fact of the poor armament and military training of the Red Army
which consisted mainly of impoverished peasants, who, however, were
all encouraged by revolutionary passions and aspiring after a
communist
utopia.
Around 1930, there had been more than ten regions, usually entitled
"soviet areas", under control of the CPC. The relative prosperity
of "soviet areas" startled and worried
Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang
government, who waged five waves of besieging campaigns against the
"central soviet area." More than one million Kuomintang soldiers
were involved in these five campaigns, four of which were defeated
by the Red Army led by Mao. By June 1932 (the height of its power),
the Red Army had no less than 45,000 soldiers, with a further
200,000 local militia acting as a subsidiary force.
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.
By
October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in
the "Long March," a retreat from Jiangxi
in the southeast to Shaanxi
in the
northwest of China. It was during this 9,600 kilometer
(5,965 mile), year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top
Communist leader, aided by the
Zunyi
Conference and the defection of
Zhou
Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the
Standing Committee of the
Politburo of the
Communist Party of China.
According
to the standard Chinese Communist Party line, from his base in
Yan'an
, Mao led the
Communist resistance against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War
(1937-1945). However, Mao further consolidated power over
the Communist Party in 1942 by launching the
Shu Fan movement, or "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.
Mao in 1938, writing
On Protracted
War
During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong's military strategies,
laid out in
On Guerrilla
Warfare 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
World War II. This fact was not understood well
in the US, and precious
lend-lease
armaments continued to be allocated to the Kuomintang.
In turn, Mao spent part of the war (as to whether it was most or
only a little is disputed) fighting the Kuomintang for control of
certain parts of China. Both the Communists and Nationalists have
been criticised for fighting amongst themselves rather than allying
against the Japanese Imperial Army. Some argue, however, that the
Nationalists were better equipped and fought more against
Japan.
In 1944, the Americans sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the
Dixie Mission, to the Communist Party
of China. According to Edwin Moise, in
Modern China: A History
2nd Edition:
- Most of the Americans were favorably impressed.
The
CPC seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its
resistance to Japan
than the
Kuomintang. United States
fliers shot down over North China...confirmed to their superiors
that the CPC was both strong and popular over a broad area.
In the end, the contacts with the USA developed with the CPC
led to very little.
After the end of World War II, the U.S. continued to support Chiang
Kai-shek, now openly against the Communist's
People's Liberation Army led by Mao
Zedong in the
civil war for
control of China. The U.S. support was part of its view to contain
and defeat world communism. Likewise, the Soviet Union gave
quasi-covert support to Mao (acting as a concerned neighbor more
than a military ally, to avoid open conflict with the U.S.) and
gave large supplies of arms to the Communist Party of China,
although newer Chinese records indicate the Soviet "supplies" were
not as large as previously believed, and consistently fell short of
the promised amount of aid.
In 1948,
the People’s Liberation Army starved out the Kuomintang forces
occupying the city of Changchun
. At least 160,000 civilians are believed to
have perished during the
siege,
which lasted from June until October. PLA lieutenant colonel Zhang
Zhenglu, who documented the siege in his book
White Snow, Red Blood, compared
it to
Hiroshima:
“The casualties were
about the same. Hiroshima took nine seconds; Changchun
took five months.”
On 21 January 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered massive losses
against Mao's forces.
In the early morning of 10 December 1949,
PLA troops laid siege to Chengdu
, the last KMT-occupied city in mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek evacuated
from the mainland to Taiwan
(Formosa)
that same day.
Leadership of China
The
People's
Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949. It was
the culmination of over two decades of civil and international war.
From 1954 to 1959, Mao was the
Chairman of the
PRC. During this period, Mao was called Chairman Mao ( ) or the
Great Leader Chairman Mao ( ).
The Communist Party assumed control of all media in the country and
used it to promote the image of Mao and the Party. The Nationalists
under General
Chiang Kai-Shek were
vilified as were countries such as the United States of America and
Japan. The Chinese people were exhorted to devote themselves to
build and strengthen their country through Communist ideology. In
his speech declaring the foundation of the PRC, Mao is famously
said to have announced: "The Chinese people have stood up" (though
whether he actually said it is disputed).
Mao took
up residence in Zhongnanhai
, a compound next to the Forbidden City
in Beijing, and there he ordered 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, preferring
not to wear formal clothes unless absolutely necessary, according
to Dr.
Li Zhisui, his personal physician.
(Li's book,
The
Private Life of Chairman Mao, is regarded as
controversial, especially by those sympathetic to Mao.)
In October 1950, Mao made the decision to send the
People's Volunteer Army into Korea
and fought against the United Nations forces led by the U.S.
Historical records showed that Mao directed the
PVA campaigns in the
Korean
War to the minute details.
Along with
Land reform, during
which significant numbers of
landlords were
beaten to death at mass meetings organized by the
CPC as land was taken from them and
given to poorer peasants, there was also the
Campaign to Suppress
Counterrevolutionaries, which involved public executions
targeting mainly former Kuomintang officials, businessmen accused
of "disturbing" the market, former employees of Western companies
and intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect.
The U.S.
State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a
million killed in the land reform, 800,000 killed in the
counterrevolutionary campaign. Mao himself claimed that a
total of 700,000 people were executed during the years 1949–53.
However, because there was a policy to select "at least one
landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for
public execution", the number of deaths range between 2 million and
5 million. In addition, at least 1.5 million people, perhaps as
many as 4 to 6 million, were sent to
"reform
through labour" camps where many perished. Mao played a
personal role in organizing the mass repressions and established a
system of execution quotas, which were often exceeded. Nevertheless
he defended these killings as necessary for the securing of
power.
Starting in 1951, Mao initiated two successive movements in an
effort to rid urban areas of corruption by targeting wealthy
capitalists and political opponents,
known as the
three-anti/five-anti
campaigns. A climate of raw terror developed as workers
denounced their bosses, wives turned on their husbands, and
children informed on their parents; the victims often being
humiliated at
struggle sessions, a
method designed to intimidate and terrify people to the maximum.
Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticized and reformed or
sent to labor camps,
"while the worst among them should be
shot." These campaigns took several hundred thousand
additional lives, the vast majority via
suicide.
In
Shanghai, people jumping to their deaths
became so commonplace that residents avoided walking on the
pavement near skyscrapers for fear that suicides might land on
them. Some biographers have pointed out that driving those
perceived as enemies to suicide was a common tactic during the
Mao-era. For example, in his biography of Mao,
Philip Short notes that in the
Yan'an Rectification Movement,
Mao gave explicit instructions that
"no cadre is to be
killed," but in practice allowed security chief
Kang Sheng to drive opponents to suicide and that
"this pattern was repeated throughout his leadership of the
People's Republic."
Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched the First
Five-Year Plan (1953-8). The plan aimed to end Chinese dependence
upon agriculture in order to become a world power.
With the Soviet Union
's assistance, new industrial plants were built and
agricultural production eventually fell to a point where industry
was beginning to produce enough capital that China no longer needed
the USSR's support. The success of the First Five Year Plan
was to encourage Mao to instigate the Second Five Year Plan, the
Great Leap Forward, in 1958. Mao also launched a phase of rapid
collectivization. The CPC
introduced price controls as well as a
Chinese character
simplification aimed at increasing literacy. Large scale
industrialization projects were also undertaken.
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. Given the freedom to
express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing
the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. This was
initially tolerated and encouraged. After a few months, Mao's
government reversed its policy and persecuted those, totalling
perhaps 500,000, who criticized, as well as those who were merely
alleged to have criticized, the Party in what is called the
Anti-Rightist Movement.
Authors such as
Jung Chang have alleged
that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was merely a ruse to root out
"dangerous" thinking. Others such as Dr
Li
Zhisui have suggested that Mao had initially seen the policy as
a way of weakening those within his party who opposed him, but was
surprised by the extent of criticism and the fact that it began to
be directed at his own leadership. It was only then that he used it
as a method of identifying and subsequently persecuting those
critical of his government. The Hundred Flowers movement led to the
condemnation, silencing, and death of many citizens, also linked to
Mao's Anti-Rightist Movement, with death tolls possibly in the
millions.
Great Leap Forward
In January 1958, Mao Zedong launched the second Five-Year Plan
known as the
Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an
alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing
on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under
this economic program, the relatively small agricultural
collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into
far larger
people's communes, and
many of the peasants ordered to work on massive infrastructure
projects and the small-scale production of iron and steel. Some
private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements
were brought under collective ownership.
Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered
the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new
agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the
diversion of labor to steel production and infrastructure projects
and the reduced personal incentives under a commune system this led
to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed
by further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961. In an
effort to win favor with their superiors and avoid being purged,
each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain
produced under them and based on the fabricated success, party
cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount
of the true harvest for state use primarily in the cities and urban
areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in
some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that the rural
peasants were not left enough to eat and many millions starved to
death in the
Great Chinese
Famine. This famine was a direct cause of the death of tens of
millions of Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962. Further, many
children who became emaciated and malnourished during years of
hardship and struggle for survival, died shortly after the Great
Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 (Spence, 553).
The extent of Mao's knowledge as to the severity of the situation
has been disputed. According to some, most notably Dr. Li Zhisui,
Mao was not aware of anything more than a mild food and general
supply shortage until late 1959.
"But I do not think that when he spoke on 2 July
1959, he knew how bad the disaster had become, and he believed the
party was doing everything it could to manage the
situation"
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, in
Mao: the Unknown Story,
alleged that Mao knew of the vast suffering and that he was
dismissive of it, blaming bad weather or other officials for the
famine.
"Although slaughter was not his purpose with the
Leap, he was more than ready for myriad deaths to result, and
hinted to his top echelon that they should not be too shocked if
they happened (438-439)."
In
Hungry Ghosts,
Jasper
Becker notes that Mao was dismissive of reports he received of
food shortages in the countryside and refused to change course,
believing that peasants were lying and that
rightists and
kulaks were
hoarding grain. He refused to open state granaries, and instead
launched a series of "anti-grain concealment" drives that resulted
in numerous purges and suicides. Other violent campaigns followed
in which party leaders went from village to village in search of
hidden food reserves, and not only grain, as Mao issued quotas for
pigs, chickens, ducks and eggs. Many peasants accused of hiding
food were tortured and beaten to death.
Whatever the case, the Great Leap Forward led to millions of deaths
in China. Mao lost esteem among many of the top party cadres and
was eventually forced to abandon the policy in 1962, also losing
some political power to moderate leaders, notably
Liu Shaoqi and
Deng
Xiaoping. However, Mao and national propaganda claimed that he
was only partly to blame. As a result, he was able to remain
Chairman of the Communist Party, with the Presidency transferred to
Liu Shaoqi.
The Great Leap Forward was a disaster for China. Although the steel
quotas were officially reached, almost all of it made in the
countryside was useless lumps of iron, as it had been made from
assorted scrap metal in home made furnaces with no reliable source
of fuel such as coal. According to Zhang Rongmei, a geometry
teacher in rural Shanghai during the Great Leap Forward:
"We took all the furniture, pots, and pans we had
in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. We put
all everything in a big fire and melted down all the
metal."
Moreover, most of the dams, canals and other infrastructure
projects, which millions of peasants and prisoners had been forced
to toil on and in many cases die for, proved useless as they had
been built without the input of trained engineers, whom Mao had
rejected on ideological grounds.
The worst
of the famine was steered towards enemies of the state, much like
during the 1932-33 famine
in the USSR
. A
Jasper Becker explains:
"The most vulnerable section of China's population,
around five per cent, were those whom Mao called 'enemies of the people'.
Anyone who had in previous campaigns of repression been labeled
a 'black element' was given the lowest priority in the allocation
of food. 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."
In the Party Congress at
Lushan in
July/August 1959, several leaders expressed concern that the
Great Leap Forward was not as successful as planned. The
most direct of these was Minister of Defence and
Korean War General
Peng
Dehuai. Mao, fearing loss of his position, orchestrated a purge
of Peng and his supporters, stifling criticism of the Great Leap
policies. Senior officials who reported the truth of the famine to
Mao were branded as "right opportunists." A campaign against right
opportunism was launched and resulted in party members and ordinary
peasants being sent to camps where many would subsequently die in
the famine. Years later the CPC would conclude that 6 million
people were wrongly punished in the campaign.
There is a great deal of controversy over the number of deaths by
starvation during the Great Leap Forward. Until the mid 1980s, when
official census figures were finally published by the Chinese
Government, little was known about the scale of the disaster in the
Chinese countryside, as the handful of Western observers allowed
access during this time had been restricted to model villages where
they were deceived into believing that Great Leap Forward had been
a great success. 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 be localized or
exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and
was a net exporter of grain through the period.
Because Mao wanted to
pay back early to the Soviets debts totaling 1.973 billion yuan from 1960 to 1962, exports increased by 50%, and
fellow Communist regimes in North Korea
, North Vietnam and
Albania were
provided grain free of charge. Censuses were carried out in
China in 1953, 1964 and 1982. The first attempt to analyse this
data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried
out by American demographer Dr Judith Banister and published in
1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over
the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to
ascertain. Nevertheless, Banister concluded that the official data
implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in China
during 1958-61 and that based on her modelling of Chinese
demographics during the period and taking account of assumed
underreporting during the famine years, the figure was around 30
million. The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by
Hu Yaobang.
Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News
Agency
reporter who had privileged access and connections
available to no other scholars, estimates a death toll of 36
million. Various other sources have put the figure between
20 and 72 million.
On the international front, the period was dominated by the further
isolation of China, due to start of the
Sino-Soviet split which resulted in
Khrushchev withdrawing all Soviet
technical experts and aid from the country. The split was triggered
by border disputes, and arguments over the control and direction of
world communism, and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy.
Most of the problems regarding communist unity resulted from the
death of Stalin and his replacement by Khrushchev. Stalin had
established himself as the successor of "correct" Marxist thought
well before Mao controlled the
Communist Party of China, and
therefore Mao never challenged the suitability of any Stalinist
doctrine (at least while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of
Stalin, Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority) that the
leadership of the "correct" Marxist doctrine would fall to him. The
resulting tension between Khrushchev (at the head of a
politically/militarily superior government), and Mao (believing he
had a superior understanding of Marxist ideology) eroded the
previous patron-client relationship between the
CPSU and CPC. In China, the formerly favourable Soviets
were now denounced as "revisionists" and listed alongside "American
imperialism" as movements to oppose.
Partly-surrounded by hostile American
military bases (reaching from South Korea
, Japan, and
Taiwan), China was
now confronted with a new Soviet threat from
the north and west. Both the internal crisis and the
external threat called for extraordinary statesmanship from Mao,
but as China entered the new decade the statesmen of the People's
Republic were in hostile confrontation with each other.
At a large Communist Party conference in Beijing in January 1962,
called the "Conference of the Seven Thousand,"
State President
Liu Shaoqi denounced the Great Leap
Forward as responsible for widespread famine. The overwhelming
majority of delegates expressed agreement, but Defense Minister
Lin Biao staunchly defended Mao. A brief
period of liberalization followed while Mao and Lin plotted a
comeback. Liu and
Deng Xiaoping
rescued the economy by disbanding the people's communes,
introducing elements of private control of peasant smallholdings
and importing grain from Canada and Australia to mitigate the worst
effects of famine.
Cultural Revolution
Liu Shaoqi and
Deng Xiaoping's prominence gradually became
more powerful. Liu and Deng, then the State President and General
Secretary, respectively, had favored the idea that Mao should be
removed from actual power but maintain his ceremonial and symbolic
role, with the party upholding all of his positive contributions to
the revolution. They attempted to marginalize Mao by taking control
of economic policy and asserting themselves politically as
well.
Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the
Cultural Revolution in 1966. Believing
that certain liberal "bourgeois" elements of society continued to
threaten the socialist framework, groups of young people known as
the
Red Guards struggled against
authorities at all levels of society and even set up their own
tribunals. Chaos reigned over the country, and millions were
persecuted, including a famous philosopher, Chen Yuen. During the
Cultural Revolution, the schools in China were closed and the young
intellectuals living in cities were ordered to the countryside to
be "re-educated" by the peasants, where they performed hard manual
labor and other work. The Revolution led to the destruction of much
of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number
of Chinese citizens, as well as creating general economic and
social chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined during
this period, as the Cultural Revolution pierced into every part of
Chinese life, depicted by such Chinese
films as
To Live,
The Blue Kite and
Farewell My Concubine. It
is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, perished
in the violence of the Cultural Revolution. When Mao was informed
of such losses, particularly that people had been driven to
suicide, he blithely commented:
"People who try to commit
suicide — don't attempt to save them! . . .
China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do
without a few people."
It was during this period that Mao chose
Lin
Biao, who seemed to echo all of Mao's ideas, to become his
successor. Lin was later officially named as Mao's successor. By
1971, however, a divide between the two men became apparent.
Official history in China states that Lin was planning a military
coup or an assassination attempt on Mao. Lin Biao died in a plane
crash over the air space of Mongolia, presumably in his way to flee
China, probably anticipating his arrest. The CPC declared that Lin
was planning to depose Mao, and posthumously expelled Lin from the
party. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CPC figures.
The highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen.
Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation
with Nicolae Ceauşescu who
told him about a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by KGB
.
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,
motor
neurone disease, as well as lung ailments due to
smoking and
heart
trouble. Some also attributed Mao's decline in health to the
betrayal of Lin Biao. Mao remained passive as various factions
within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle
anticipated after his death.
During the Cultural Revolution, China exploded its first H-Bomb
(1967), launched the Dong Fang Hong satellite (January 30, 1970),
commissioned its first nuclear submarines and made various advances
in science and technology.
Death: Mao's final week & days
At five o'clock in the afternoon of September 2, 1976, Mao suffered
a heart attack, far more severe than his previous two and affecting
a much larger area of his heart. X rays indicated that his lung
infection had worsened, and his urine output dropped to less than
300 cc a day.
Mao was awake and alert throughout the crisis and asked several
times whether he was in danger. His condition continued to
fluctuate and his life hung in the balance.
Three days later, on September 5, Mao's condition was still
critical, and Hua Guofeng called Jiang Qing back from her trip. She
spent only a few moments in Building 202 (where Mao was staying)
before returning to her own residence in the Spring Lotus
Chamber.
On the afternoon of September 7, Mao took a turn for the worse.
Jiang Qing went to Building 202 where she learned the news. Mao had
just fallen asleep and needed the rest, but she insisted on rubbing
his back and moving his limbs, and she sprinkled powder on his
body. The medical team protested that the dust from the powder was
not good for his lungs, but she instructed the nurses on duty to
follow her example later. The next morning, September 8, she went
again. She demanded the medical staff to change Mao's sleeping
position, claiming that he had been lying too long on his left
side. The doctor on duty objected, knowing that he could breathe
only on his left side, but she had him moved nonetheless. Mao's
breathing stopped and his face turned blue. Jiang Qing left the
room while the medical staff put him on a respirator and performed
emergency cardiopulmonary
resuscitation. Mao barely revived and Hua
Guofeng urged Jiang Qing not to interfere further with the doctors'
work, as her actions were detrimental to Mao's health and helped
cause his death faster. Mao's organs were failing and he was taken
off the life support a few minutes after midnight. September 9 was
chosen because it was an easy day to remember. Mao had been in poor
health for several years and had declined visibly for at least 6
months prior to his death.
His body
lay in state at the Great Hall of the People
. A memorial service was held in Tiananmen
Square
on 18 September 1976. There was a three
minute silence observed during this service.
His body was later
placed into the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong
, even though he had wished to be cremated and had
been one of the first high-ranking officials to sign the "Proposal
that all Central Leaders be Cremated after Death" in November
1956.
Cult of Mao
Mao's figure is largely symbolic both in China and in the global
communist movement as a whole. During the Cultural Revolution,
Mao's already glorified image manifested into a
personality cult that influenced every
aspect of Chinese life. Mao was regarded as the undisputed leader
of China's
working class in their
100-year struggle against
imperialism,
feudalism and
capitalism, which were the three-evils in
pre-1949 China since the
Opium War. Even
today, many Chinese people regard Mao as a God-like figure, who led
the ailing China onto the path of an independent and powerful
nation, whose pictures can expel the evil spirit and bad
luck.
At the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, Mao expressed support for
the idea of personality cults if they venerated figures who were
genuinely worthy of adulation:
In 1962, Mao proposed the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) in an
attempt to educate the peasants to resist the temptations of
feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism
that he saw re-emerging in the countryside from Liu's economic
reforms. Large quantities of politicized art were produced and
circulated — with Mao at the center. Numerous posters, badges and
musical compositions referenced Mao in the phrase "Chairman Mao is
the red sun in our hearts" ( ) and a "Savior of the people" (
).
The Cult of Mao proved vital in starting the Cultural Revolution.
China's youth had generally been raised during the Communist era,
which had taught them to idolize Mao. The youth also did not
remember the immense starvation and suffering caused by Mao's Great
Leap Forward, and thus their thoughts of Mao were generally
positive. Thus, they were his greatest supporters. Their feelings
for him were of such strength that many followed his urge to
challenge all established authority.
In October 1966, Mao's
Quotations From Chairman
Mao Tse-Tung, which was known as the
Little Red
Book was published. Party members were encouraged to carry a
copy with them and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion
for membership. Over the years, Mao's image became displayed almost
everywhere, present in homes, offices and shops. His quotations
were
typographically
emphasized by putting them in boldface or red type in even the
most obscure writings. Music from the period emphasized Mao's
stature, as did children's rhymes. The phrase
Long Live
Chairman Mao for ten thousand
years was commonly heard during the era, which was
traditionally a phrase reserved for the reigning
Emperor.
Today, Mao is still regarded by some as the "never setting Red
Sun". He has been compared to the Saint Kings of the classical
China.
Since 1950, over 40 million people have
visited Mao's birthplace in Shaoshan
. Hunan
Popular culture
Mao also has a presence in China and around the world in
popular culture, where his face adorns
everything from t-shirts to coffee cups. Mao's granddaughter Kong
Dongmei, defended the phenomenon, stating that "it shows his
influence, that he exists in people's consciousness and has
influenced several generations of Chinese people's way of life.
Just like
Che Guevara's
image, his has become a symbol of revolutionary culture."
Legacy
As anticipated after Mao’s death, there was a power struggle for
control of China. On one side was the left wing led by the
Gang of Four, who wanted to continue
the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side
was the right wing opposing these policies. Among the latter group,
the restorationists, led by Chairman
Hua
Guofeng, advocated a return to central planning along the
Soviet model, whereas the reformers, led by
Deng Xiaoping, wanted to overhaul the
Chinese economy
based on market-oriented policies and to de-emphasize the role of
Maoist ideology in determining economic and political policy.
Eventually, the reformers won control of the government. Deng
Xiaoping, with clear seniority over Hua Guofeng, defeated Hua in a
bloodless power struggle a few years later.
Mao is regarded as a national hero of China. In 2008, China opened
the Mao Zedong Square to visitors in his hometown of central Hunan
Province to mark the 115th anniversary of his birth.
Supporters of Mao credit him with advancing the social and economic
development of Chinese society. They point out that before 1949,
for instance, the
illiteracy rate in
Mainland China was 80%, and
life
expectancy was a meager 35 years. At his death, 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. Supporters also state
that, under Mao's government, China ended its "Century of
Humiliation" from Western and Japanese imperialism and regained its
status as a major world power. They also state their belief that
Mao also industrialized China to a considerable extent and ensured
China's sovereignty during his rule. Many, including some of Mao's
supporters, view the
Kuomintang, which
Mao drove off the mainland, as having been corrupt.
They also argue that the Maoist era improved women's rights by
abolishing
prostitution and
foot binding, the former phenomenon returned
after Deng Xiaoping and post-Maoist CPC leaders increased
liberalization of the economy. Mao also
created reforms that allowed women to initiate divorce and inherit
property. Indeed, Mao once famously remarked that "Women hold up
half the heavens". A popular slogan during the Cultural Revolution
was, "Break the chains, unleash the fury of women as a mighty force
for revolution!"
Skeptics
observe that similar gains in literacy and life expectancy occurred
after 1949 on the small neighboring island of Taiwan
, which was ruled by Mao's opponents, namely Chiang
Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang, even though they themselves
perpetrated substantial violent repression in their own
right. The government that continued to rule Taiwan was
composed of the same people ruling the Mainland for over 20 years
when life expectancy was so low, yet life expectancy there also
increased. A counterpoint, however, is that the United States
helped Taiwan with aid, along with Japan and other countries, until
the early 1960s when Taiwan asked that the aid cease. The mainland
was under economic sanctions from the same countries for many
years. The mainland also broke with the USSR after disputes, which
had been aiding it. In addition, there is considerable difference
in magnitude between increasing the literacy and lifespan of a
nation of less than 20 million people (Taiwan) and a nation of
nearly a billion people.
Another comparison has been between India and China.
Noam Chomsky commented on a study by the Indian
economist
Amartya Sen.
- He observes that India and China had "similarities that
were quite striking" when development planning began 50 years ago,
including death rates. "But there is little doubt that as
far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has
a large and decisive lead over India" (in education and other
social indicators as well). In both cases, the outcomes
have to do with the "ideological predispositions" of the political
systems: for China, relatively equitable distribution of medical
resources, including rural health services and public distribution
of food, all lacking in India.
There continue to be disagreements on Mao's legacy. Some historians
claim that Mao Zedong was a dictator comparable to
Hitler and
Stalin,
with a death toll surpassing both. Mao was also frequently compared
to China's First Emperor
Qin Shi
Huang, notorious for
burying alive hundreds
of scholars. During a speech to party cadre in 1958, Mao said:
"He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six
thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us
for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have
surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold."
Mao's
English interpreter
Sidney Rittenberg, who remains the
only American ever to be admitted into the
Chinese Communist Party, was himself
imprisoned in solitary confinement for a total of 16 years during
the power struggles of Mao's rule. However, in his memior
The
Man Who Stayed Behind, Rittenberg states that he believes Mao
never intended to cause the deaths and suffering endured by people
under his chairmanship. In his remarks on the matter Rittenberg has
declared that Mao "was a great leader in history, and also a great
criminal because, not that he wanted to, not that he intended to,
but in fact, his wild fantasies led to the deaths of tens of
millions of people." Li Rui, Mao's personal secretary, goes further
and claims he was dismissive of the suffering and death caused by
his policies: "Mao's way of thinking and governing was terrifying.
He put no value on human life. The deaths of others meant nothing
to him."
The United States placed a trade embargo on China as a result of
its involvement in the
Korean War,
lasting until
Richard Nixon decided
that developing relations with China would be useful in also
dealing with the Soviet Union.
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. As an example, the
Communist Party of Nepal
followed Mao's examples of guerrilla warfare to considerable
political and military success even in the 21st century.
However, Mao's major contribution to the military science is his
theory of
People's War, with not only
Guerrilla warfare but more
importantly,
Mobile Warfare
methodologies. Mao had successfully applied
Mobile Warfare in the
Korean War, and was able to encircle, push back
and then halt the UN forces in Korea, despite the overwhelming
strength of UN firepower.
Mao's poems and writings are frequently cited by both Chinese and
non-Chinese. The official Chinese translation of President Barack
Obama's inauguration speech used a famous line from one of Mao's
poems.
John McCain misattributed a
campaign quote to Mao several times during his 2008 presidential
election bid, saying "Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's
always darkest before it's totally black.'"
The
ideology of Maoism has influenced many
communists around the world, including Third
World revolutionary movements such as Cambodia
's Khmer Rouge, Peru
's Shining Path, and the revolutionary movement in
Nepal
. The
Revolutionary Communist
Party, USA also claims Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its ideology,
as do other Communist Parties around the world which are part of
the
Revolutionary
Internationalist Movement. China itself has moved sharply away
from Maoism since Mao's death, and most people outside of China who
describe themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to
be a betrayal of Maoism, in line with Mao's view of "
Capitalist roaders" within the Communist
Party.
As the Chinese government instituted free market economic reforms
starting in the late 1970s and as later Chinese leaders took power,
less recognition was given to the status of Mao. This accompanied a
decline in state recognition of Mao in later years in contrast to
previous years when the state organized numerous events and
seminars commemorating Mao's 100th birthday. Nevertheless, the
Chinese government has never officially repudiated the tactics of
Mao.
In the mid-1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to appear on all new
renminbi currency from the People’s
Republic of China. This was officially instituted as an
anti-counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in
contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency. On
13 March 2006, a story in the
People's
Daily reported that a proposal had been made to print the
portraits of
Sun Yat-sen and
Deng Xiaoping.
In 2006, the government in Shanghai issued a new set of high school
history textbooks which omit Mao, with the exception of a single
mention in a section on etiquette. Students in Shanghai now only
learn about Mao in junior high school.
Genealogy
Mao Zedong had several wives who contributed to a large family.
These were:
- Luo Yixiu (罗一秀,
1889-1910) of Shaoshan: married 1907 to 1910
- Yang Kaihui (杨开慧,
1901-1930) of Changsha: married 1921 to 1927, executed by the KMT in 1930
- He Zizhen (贺子珍, 1910-1984) of Jiangxi:
married May 1928 to 1939
- Jiang Qing: (江青, 1914-1991), married
1939 to Mao's death
His ancestors were:
- Wen Qimei (文七妹, 1867-1919), mother. She was illiterate and a
devout Buddhist.
- Mao Yichang (毛贻昌, 1870-1920), father, courtesy name Mao Shunsheng (毛顺生) or also
known as Mao Jen-sheng
- Mao Enpu (毛恩普), paternal grandfather
- Mao Zuren (毛祖人), paternal great-grandfather
He had several siblings:
- Mao Zemin (毛泽民, 1895-1943), younger
brother, executed by a warlord
- Mao Zetan (毛泽覃, 1905-1935), younger
brother, executed by the KMT
- Mao Zejian (毛泽建, 1905-1929), adopted
sister, executed by the KMT
- Mao Zedong's parents altogether had six sons and two daughters.
Two of the sons and both daughters died young, leaving the three
brothers Mao Zedong, Mao Zemin, and Mao Zetan. Like all three of
Mao Zedong's wives, Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan were communists. Like
Yang Kaihui, both Zemin and Zetan were killed in warfare during Mao
Zedong's lifetime.
Note that the character
ze (泽) appears in all of the
siblings' given names. This is a common Chinese naming
convention.
From the next generation, Zemin's son,
Mao
Yuanxin, was raised by Mao Zedong's family. He became Mao
Zedong's liaison with the Politburo in 1975. Sources like
Li Zhisui (
The Private Life of Chairman
Mao) say that he played a role in the final
power-struggles.
Mao Zedong had several children:
- Mao Anying (毛岸英): son to Yang,
married to Liu Siqi (刘思齐), who was born Liu Songlin (刘松林), killed
in action during the Korean War
- Mao Anqing (1923-2007): son to Yang,
married to Shao Hua (邵华), son Mao Xinyu (毛新宇), grandson Mao Dongdong (last surviving known male line of
Mao).
- 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
(Chinese:李讷; Pinyin: Lĭ Nà): daughter to Jiang (whose birth given
name was Li, a name also used by Mao while evading the KMT),
married to Wang Jingqing (王景清), son Wang Xiaozhi (王效芝)
Sources suggest that Mao did have other children during his
revolutionary days; some died, but in most of these cases the
children were left with peasant families because it was difficult
to take care of the children while focusing on revolution. Two
English researchers who retraced the entire Long March route in
2002-2003 located a woman whom they believe might well be a missing
child abandoned by Mao to peasants in 1935. Ed Jocelyn and Andrew
McEwen hope a member of the Mao family will respond to requests for
a DNA test. It has been confirmed that Yang Kaihui had given birth
to three children while with Mao and He Zizhen had six, most
probably all Mao's.
Personal life
There are few academic sources discussing Mao's private life, which
was very secretive at the time of his rule. However, and
particularly after Mao's death, there has been an influx of
publications on his personal life, as an example
The Private Life of Chairman
Mao by his physician
Li Zhisui.
The Private Life of Chairman Mao claims he had chain
smoked cigarettes, had poor
dental
hygiene, causing his teeth to be colored green (it was also
claimed that he rubbed Green Tea on his teeth instead of more
commonly used dental hygiene methods, giving his teeth a distinctly
green color) and generally lived a life of deviancy and
excess.
Writings and calligraphy
Mao was a prolific writer of political and philosophical
literature. Mao is the attributed author of
Quotations From Chairman
Mao Tse-Tung, known in the West as the "Little Red Book"
and in Cultural-revolution China as the "Red Treasure Book" (红宝书):
this is a collection of short extracts from his speeches and
articles, edited by
Lin Biao and ordered
topically. Mao wrote several other philosophical treatises, both
before and after he assumed power. These include:
Mao was also a skilled
calligrapher
with a highly personal style. In China, Mao was considered a master
calligrapher during his lifetime. His
calligraphy can be seen today throughout
mainland China. His work gave rise to a new form of
Chinese calligraphy called "Mao-style"
or
Maoti, which has gained increasing popularity since his
death. There currently exist various competitions specializing in
Mao-style calligraphy.
Literary figure
Politics aside, Mao is considered one of modern China's most
influential literary figures, and was an avid poet, mainly in the
classical
ci and
shi forms. His poems are all in the
traditional Chinese verse style.
As did most Chinese intellectuals of his generation, Mao received
rigorous education in Chinese classical literature. His style was
deeply influenced by the great
Tang
Dynasty poets
Li Bai and
Li He. He is considered to be a
romantic poet, in contrast to the
realist poets represented by
Du Fu.
Many of Mao's poems are still popular in China and a few are taught
as a mandatory part of the elementary school curriculum. Some of
his most well-known poems are:
Changsha (1925),
The Double
Ninth (1929.10),
Loushan Pass (1935),
The Long
March (1935),
Snow (1936.02),
The PLA Captures
Nanjing (1949.04),
Reply to Li Shuyi (1957.05.11),
and
Ode to the Plum Blossom (1961.12).
See also
References
Further reading
Annotated writings
External links
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Facts
Map
Search
