Essays on Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier, and statesman who led his country’s communist revolution. His theories, military strategies, and political policies are known as Maoism.

Mao was born on December 26, 1893, in Shaoshan village, Hunan. At age 8, Mao was sent to Shaoshan Primary School. In 1911, Mao began middle school in Changsha. Later, he moved to Beijing where he worked in the University Library, where he began to read Marxist literature.

In 1921, Mao Zedong became a founder member of the Chinese Communist Party and set up a branch in Hunan. Much of northern China was controlled by the warlords, as result, in 1923, the Kuomintang (KMT) nationalist party had allied with the Chinese Communist Party to defeat them. Mao was elected to the Party Committee, taking up residence in Shanghai.

During the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP, Mao led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land policies and became head of the CCP during the Long March. In 1927, the KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek launched an anti-communist purge. Mao Zedong and other communists retreated to south China. China's civil war resumed after Japan's surrender, and Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government.

On 1 October 1949 Mao proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In December 1949 Mao traveled to Moscow, where he succeeded in persuading Stalin to sign a treaty of mutual assistance accompanied by limited economic aid, but their relations soon began to cool. From 1953 to 1958, Mao played an important role in enforcing planned economy in China, development of the first Constitution of the PRC and launching the industrialisation program.

In 1958, he launched an economic and social campaign, it was the second Five-Year Plan, known as the "Great Leap Forward", with a purpose to transform China's economy from agrarian to industrial. The campaing led to the deadliest famine in history with deaths of 15–55 million people between 1958 and 1962.

In 1966 Mao initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until Mao Zedong's death in 1976. Its main goal was to to remove "counter-revolutionary" elements in Chinese society and to re-impose Maoism as the dominant ideology in the PRC. As result, 1,5 million people died and much of the country's cultural heritage was destroyed.

Mao's health declined in his last years because of his chain-smoking. Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976 and died at the age of 82.

Mao Zedong is regarded as one of the most important individuals in the twentieth century. His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China.

"Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
"All political power comes from the barrel of a gun."
"Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advancedsoftly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly."