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Mao Zedong (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976) was a Chinese politician, Marxist theorist, military strategist, poet, and revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
- Kuomintang (1925–1926)
- Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, Beijing
- CCP (from 1921)
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- Early years
Mao Zedong was a Marxist theorist, revolutionary, and, from 1949 to 1959, the first chairman of the People’s Republic of China. Mao was one of the most influential and controversial political figures of the 20th century, in China and abroad. The sweeping urban and agrarian reforms he enacted throughout his leadership—via China’s first five-year plan (1953–57), the Great Leap Forward (1958–60), and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76)—often had disastrous consequences for China’s people and economy. Mao ultimately resorted to increasingly authoritarian tactics to maintain principal control over the trajectory of his country.
Cultural Revolution
Read more about China’s Cultural Revolution.
What is Maoism?
Maoism is the doctrine formulated by Mao Zedong and his associates. Mao’s particular strand of revolutionary theory took from the Marxist, Leninist, and Stalinist traditions but was also culturally tailored for the Chinese people. Maoism departed from other strands of Marxism in its understanding of peasantry: not as a class incapable of achieving political consciousness but as one with a dormant but tappable source of revolutionary energy. Maoism harbored other idiosyncrasies, including its conception of contradictions and of permanent revolution. Although regarded as something of an ideological relic in present-day China, the doctrine has nonetheless inspired other revolutionary movements.
Read more below: Maoism
Mao was born in the village of Shaoshan in Hunan province, the son of a former peasant who had become affluent as a farmer and grain dealer. He grew up in an environment in which education was valued only as training for keeping records and accounts. From the age of eight he attended his native village’s primary school, where he acquired a basic knowledge of the Wujing (Confucian Classics). At 13 he was forced to begin working full-time on his family’s farm. Rebelling against paternal authority (which included an arranged marriage that was forced on him and that he never acknowledged or consummated), Mao left his family to study at a higher primary school in a neighbouring county and then at a secondary school in the provincial capital, Changsha. There he came in contact with new ideas from the West, as formulated by such political and cultural reformers as Liang Qichao and the Nationalist revolutionary Sun Yat-sen. Scarcely had he begun studying revolutionary ideas when a real revolution took place before his very eyes. On October 10, 1911, fighting against the Qing dynasty broke out in Wuchang, and within two weeks the revolt had spread to Changsha.
Enlisting in a unit of the revolutionary army in Hunan, Mao spent six months as a soldier. While he probably had not yet clearly grasped the idea that, as he later put it, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” his first brief military experience at least confirmed his boyhood admiration of military leaders and exploits. In primary school days, his heroes had included not only the great warrior-emperors of the Chinese past but Napoleon I and George Washington as well.
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The spring of 1912 marked the birth of the new Chinese republic and the end of Mao’s military service. For a year he drifted from one thing to another, trying, in turn, a police school, a law school, and a business school; he studied history in a secondary school and then spent some months reading many of the classic works of the Western liberal tradition in the provincial library. That period of groping, rather than indicating any lack of decision in Mao’s character, was a reflection of China’s situation at the time. The abolition of the official civil service examination system in 1905 and the piecemeal introduction of Western learning in so-called modern schools had left young people in a state of uncertainty as to what type of training, Chinese or Western, could best prepare them for a career or for service to their country.
Mao eventually graduated from the First Provincial Normal School in Changsha in 1918. While officially an institution of secondary level rather than of higher education, the normal school offered a high standard of instruction in Chinese history, literature, and philosophy as well as in Western ideas. While at the school, Mao also acquired his first experience in political activity by helping to establish several student organizations. The most important of those was the New People’s Study Society, founded in the winter of 1917–18, many of whose members were later to join the Communist Party.
Nov 9, 2009 · Mao Zedong was a key figure of the Cold War and the communist movement. He led a long revolution in China from 1927 to 1949 and ruled the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. Learn about his life, death, legacy and role in the Cold War.
Aug 9, 2023 · Learn about the life and legacy of Mao Tse-tung, the principal Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier and statesman who led his nation's Cultural Revolution. From his early years as a peasant leader to his rise to power as the chairman of the People's Republic of China, discover how he influenced China's politics, economy and culture.
Mao Zedong was a Marxist theorist, revolutionary, and, from 1949 to 1959, the first chairman of the People’s Republic of China. Mao was one of the most influential and controversial political figures of the 20th century, in China and abroad.
Mao Zedong , or Mao Tse-tung, (born Dec. 26, 1893, Shaoshan, Hunan province, China—died Sept. 9, 1976, Beijing), Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier, and statesman who led China’s communist revolution and served as chairman of the People’s Republic of China (1949–59) and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP; 1931–76).
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Learn about the life and achievements of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic of China and the leader of the Communist Party. Explore his role in the 'Great Leap Forward', the 'Cultural Revolution' and his relations with other countries.
