Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong or Mao Tse-tung (mou dzŭ-dŏng) ,
1893–1976, founder of the People's Republic of China. Mao was one of
the most prominent Communist theoreticians and his ideas on
revolutionary struggle and guerrilla warfare have been extremely
influential, especially among Third World revolutionaries.
Of
Hunanese peasant stock, Mao was trained in Chinese classics and later
received a modern education. As a young man he observed oppressive
social conditions, becoming one of the original members of the Chinese
Communist party. He organized (1920s) Kuomintang-sponsored
peasant and industrial unions and directed (1926) the Kuomintang's
Peasant Movement Training Institute. After the Kuomintang-Communist
split (1927), Mao led the disastrous "Autumn Harvest Uprising" in Hunan,
leading to his ouster from the central committee of the party.
From 1928 until 1931 Mao, with Zhu De
and others, established rural soviets in the hinterlands, and built the
Red Army. In 1931 he was elected chairman of the newly established
Soviet Republic of China, based in Jiangxi province. After withstanding
five encirclement campaigns launched by Chiang Kai-shek, Mao led (1934–35) the Red Army on the long march
(6,000 mi/9,656 km) from Jiangxi north to Yan'an in Shaanxi province,
emerging as the most important Communist leader. During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) the Communists and the Kuomintang continued their civil war while both were battling the Japanese invaders.
The
civil war continued after war with Japan had ended, and in 1949, after
the Communists had taken almost all of mainland China, Mao became
chairman of the central government council of the newly established
People's Republic of China; he was reelected to the post, the most
powerful in China, in 1954. In an attempt to break with the Russian
model of Communism and to imbue the Chinese people with renewed
revolutionary vigor, Mao launched (1958) the Great Leap Forward.
The program was a terrible failure, an estimated 20 to 30 million
people died in the famine that followed (1958–61), and Mao withdrew
temporarily from public view.
The failure of this program also
resulted in a break with the Soviet Union, which cut off aid. Mao
accused Soviet leaders of betraying Marxism. In 1959 Liu Shaoqi,
an opponent of the Great Leap Forward, replaced Mao as chairman of the
central government council, but Mao retained his chairmanship of the
Communist party politburo.
A campaign to reestablish Mao's ideological line culminated in the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Mass mobilization, begun and led by Mao and his wife, Jiang Qing,
was directed against the party leadership. Liu and others were removed
from power in 1968. In 1969 Mao reasserted his party leadership by
serving as chairman of the Ninth Communist Party Congress, and in 1970
he was named supreme commander of the nation and army. The cultural
revolution group continued its campaigns until Mao's death in Sept.,
1976. A month later its leaders were purged and Mao's surviving
opponents, led by Deng Xiaoping, slowly regained power, pushing aside Mao's successor, Hua Guofeng, and erasing the cult surrounding Mao. Mao's embalmed body is displayed in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
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