Mao Zedong
Son of a peasant farmer.
Born in Chaochan, China in 1893
He became a Marxist when he was working as a library assistant in Peking University.
He served in the revolutionary army during the 1911 Chinese Revolution.
Mao was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party, along with Zhou ENlai, Zhu De, and Lin Bia
Mao, Zhu De, and Zhou Enlai adapted Lenin’s ideas. Lenin was a revolutionary in Russia.
Mao worked as a political organizer for the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang leader died in 1925, March 12. Chiang Kai-Shek became the leader and started to eliminate the communists in the party.
When nationalist imposed a blockade, on October 1934, Mao Lin Biao, Zhu De and 100, 000 men marched west.
They covered 50 miles a day, and reached Shensi on October 20, 1935. Approx. 30, 000 survived. It was a 8,000 mile march.
In 1937, the Japanese invaded China and Chiang Kai-Shek collaborated with Mao Zedong and the communist army.
Zhu De and Lin Biao led Mao’s guerrilla forces in the Second World War. After the Japanese surrendered, the communists overtook the Nationalist. They gained control on October 1, 1949. This became the People’s Republic of China.
The Great Leap Forward, in 1958 was Mao’s way to increase agricultural and industrial production. It included collective farms and factories. But the 3 year floods and bad harvest damaged the levels of production. Mao disbanded the programme in 1962, and went back to a more traditional form of economic production.
The failure caused Mao to retire from chairman, Liu Shaoqi took over. Mao still remained important in determining overall policy. Mao was critical of the Soviet Union’s policies in early 1960s.
Lin Biao initiated Cultural Revolution. In 1966, he told students to criticize party officials who had been influenced by Nikita Khruschev. Mao became concerned and ordered his Red Guards to attack revisionists in the party.
Mao Zedong died in Beijing on 9th September, 1976.
Critic
(A) 4
(B) 3
(C) 3
This website contains a lot of dates, and places and is a good source for historical information on Mao Zedong. It also contains multiple paragraphs taken from books, diaries, or other documents that are said to be written during his time or even by Mao himself. However it does not include pictures of Mao or citations of its information, making it difficult to use as a resource.
Simkin, John. Spartacus Educational. 28 November 2010 <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDmao.htm>.
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