Mao: A Life. [3] Although U.S. intervention had placed Taiwan beyond their grasp, by the mid to late-1950s things had gone very well for the Communists, and for this much credit must go to Mao and his fellow party leaders. In direct intellectual descent from Mao, Chinas succeeding leaders continue to claim they are building socialism with Chinese characteristics, a somewhat ambiguous concept that has yet to be fully articulated, which (at least in the narrower area of economics) is often referred to as market socialism. Although his life there was miserable, he was working under the chief librarian of Peking University, who was one of the pioneer Marxists of China. They tread the path along which its Commander-in-Chief Zhu De and his soldiers commuted between the fields and the barracks in their drive to achieve self-sufficiency with the local grain supply. He was, however, still parochial in the sense that he had inherited the pragmatic and utilitarian tradition of Hunan scholarship with the hope that somehow it would help him in his groping for ways and means to strengthen and enrich his country. Mao Tse-Tung: The Man and the Myth. Mao Zedong At this time, the worsening relations with the Soviet Union made its fatal impact. The center of the CCP, located underground in Shanghai, China, therefore took on the task of strengthening its leadership and party loyalty. After the collapse of the united front with the By this Mao hoped to create enthusiasm of the Chinese masses to work harder while enduring a quiet and uncomplicated life. The youth, or "tank man" as he was called, received worldwide attention in the media. Mao Zedong 1 min read. He wanted to keep a radical edge to the Chinese communist movement and not let it get too conservative and bureaucratic. Mao stressed the central role of peasants in rural class struggles. WebShaoshan is the birthplace of the late Chairman Mao Zedong. He studied them, tried to understand their grievances, and agitated among them. In a weakened position, Mao fought back by instituting the Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong: Biography, Cultural Revolution, Major Facts In 1912, a revolution led by Sun Yat-sen (18661925) overthrew the Manchus and a new government was formed. The nearly 9,700-kilometer (6,000-mile) move became known as the "Long March.". Birth and early years. Now it has grown into a mountain-dominated city 100 kilometers southwest of Changsha, capital of Hunan Province. A month later, wall posters appeared attacking Jiang and three other radicals as the Gang of Four, and the attacks grew progressively more hostile. "Mao Zedong (June 29, 2023). 1994. 1968), which contains Mao's autobiography, and The Other Side of the River (1962) are both excellent works on Mao and the Chinese Communist movement. Mao Zedong At the decisive Zunyi conference in January 1935, in the early part of this arduous 6,000-mile trek, Mao was recognized as the political and military leader of the Communist movement. But Mao had ever more ambitious plans. Boston: Bedford, 2002. Following Mao's death, Jiang Qing made an unsuccessful attempt to seize power and was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for her part in the Cultural Revolution. More than anyone else in recent history, Mao Zedong helped to reshape the social and political structures of his ancient and heavily populated country. Maoism is not a term that is easy to define. From 1927, when a breach between the CCP and GMD occurred, to 1934, Mao established rural bases in Jiangxi and Fujian provinces in southeast China, and engaged in guerrilla warfare to resist the superior GMD forces. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450, Zhou Enlai Red Star over China. [2] Typical of many Hunanese villages, Shaoshanchong was situated in a narrow valley surrounded by mountains. From the early 1940s on, Mao's revolutionary ideology and methodology were labeled "Mao Zedong Thought." As a young man, he struggled to reconcile the dichotomy in his mind (and in the minds of many others in his generation) between Chinas traditional civilization and the increasing demands of a modern world dominated by the advanced nations of Europe and North America. The Nationalists wanted to keep control of China in the hands of landowners and businessmen, but the communists wanted the country turned over to the peasantry. He particularly liked popular historical novels concerning rebellions and unconventional military heroes. Under Maos leadership, the Red Army won the final victory of the Long March. Yanan, a desolate county on the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi Province, was the seat of the CPC Central Committee and the government of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Area from 1937 to 1947. Written on Water Is a Manual for Surviving History - The Atlantic Communism is a system of government in which a single party, the Communist Party, controls all aspects of people's lives. Mao Zedong By 1945, the communists controlled areas populated by nearly one hundred million Chinese. The essential feature of these movements was to rely upon the voluntary zeal of the people motivated by a new moral discipline, rather than upon monetary incentives, Mao died on Sept. 9, 1976, and the radicals in the party lost their protector. A brief guide to Mao, his views, and other people's views of him is provided in Jerome Ch'en, Mao (1969). A month later, wall posters appeared attacking Jiang and three other radicals as the Gang of Four, and the attacks grew progressively more hostile. On his return to Hunan in the following year, Mao was already committed to communism. Mao finally came into his own during the famous Long March in 1934 to 1936, when the Communists had to flee from Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-sheks fifth and finally successful military encirclement campaign to surround their base area and destroy them. Although he risked his life by standing in front of the tanks, it has been noted that the first tank driver also rose to the challenge by allowing the moment of rebellion. Schram, Stuart R. 1969. It was a mass mobilization of urban Chinese youth that took place from 1966 through 1976. For seven weeks in the late spring of 1989, Chinese citizens occupied a public square in the heart of Beijing. Short, Phillip. The Emergence of Maoism: Mao Tsetung, Chen Po-ta, and the Search for Chinese Theory, 19351945. Chiang Kai-shek (18871975; see entry) succeeded Sun when Sun died in 1925. New York: Harper, 1980. Mao's own writings, Selected Works (4 vols., 1961-1965), Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (1967), and Quotations from Chairman Mao (1966; 2d ed. His book of quotations was given almost scriptural authority by the masses. Born: Dec. 26, 1893 in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, China Parents: Mao Yichang, Wen Qimei Died: Sept. 9, 1976 in Beijing, People's Republic of China Published Works: The Warlords Clash (poem, 1929), The Tasks of the Communist Party in the Period of Resistance to Japan (1937), Mao's Little Red Book (19641976) In 1966, however, Mao attacked these leaders, saying they were betraying the radical ideas of the original revolution. Skeptical of Western sincerity and iconoclastic toward Confucianism, Mao sought inspiration from Marx's class struggle and Lenin's anti-imperialism to become a Communist. A small number of dissidents were driven to commit suicide or killed. But Mao also created much unnecessary social turmoil in the latter part of his political career; he did not know when to exit the historical stage gracefully. The Jinggangshan Revolution Museum sits in Ciping, a scenic small town thriving on red tourism. dynasties: periods in China's history in which one particular family ruled, sometimes for centuries. As for Mao's legacy, some view him as an evil Chinese "Lord of Misrule," who was responsible for initiating tumultuous political, social, and economic changes that caused widespread suffering among millions of people. Mao Zedong Biography The exact number of those who were killed, committed suicide, or died in camps is not known; nonetheless, it is clear that most of the victims came from the educated strata, had party backgrounds, or were from minorities. Retrieved June 29, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/mao-zedong. Written on Water Is a Manual for Surviving History - The Atlantic In 1956, he decreed that all farms, animals, and tools be placed under government control. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Its effort gradually produced results: Mao first lost his control over the army he had organized and trained, then his position in the soviet party, and finally even much of his power in the soviet government. He particularly liked popular historical novels concerning rebellions and unconventional military heroes. Mao began working in the fields around his home when he was five and did not begin school until he was seven. For thousands of years, the country had been controlled by emperors (kings) in a series of dynasties, periods in which one particular family rules, sometimes for centuries. With the promise of a better future, the government encouraged people to work day and night to increase production. [2] Typical of many Hunanese villages, Shaoshanchong was situated in a narrow valley surrounded by mountains. Mao prepared for the emergency in Korea by sending large forces of troops to towns along the Chinese-North Korean border. At this juncture, the worsening Sino-Soviet dispute made its fatal impact. His father, Mao Jensheng, had started out as a poor peasant but eventually paid off his debts, became a landowner, and started a business trading rice. In 1944, when Written on Water was first published, Shanghai was a city of commerce and fashion and unwilling political entanglement. China's economy was in shambles. Mao Zedong was born in Shaoshan, Hunan, China, on December 26, 1893. When the revolutionary movement slowed and the hardships of the Long March were felt, those who might have challenged Mao for leadership fell by the wayside. Mao Zedong was born in December 1893 in Hunan, a province in central China. First, pro-Soviet communists returned from Moscow to work for the Bolshevization of the party. Encyclopedia.com. New York: Viking. Hoyt, Edwin P. The Day the Chinese Attacked Korea, 1950: The Story of the Failure of America's China Policy. Brookfield, CT: Millbrook Press, 1996. Many people died in the ensuing purges, including scores of senior leaders who had been colleagues of Mao for more than three decades. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2359. Cheek, Timothy. Now it has grown into a mountain-dominated city 100 kilometers southwest of Changsha, capital of Hunan Province. Mao's dealings with Stalin were strained, but in December 1949, he traveled to Moscow. Within months, all of China's six million peasants were working in collectives. ." Third World communist leaders used modifications of the three devices prescribed by Maoist doctrines in conducting a revolution. Chiang Kai-sheks (18871975) bloody coup in the spring of 1927 effectively destroyed the Communist organizations in Shanghai and other major cities, forcing them to find refuge in Jiangxi province, in the mountainous hinterland in south-central China, adjacent to Hunan where Mao had been born and raised. Incomplete evidence from China's countryside suggests that it often served as a pretext for the continuation of local clan conflict by other means. He initiated a campaign that prohibited imitation of Soviet communism or obedience to the Soviet's directives. To raise the money needed to build industries, Mao turned to the peasants. Mao Zedong This experience was written up in his book Red Star Over China, the first authentic account by a Westerner of the Red regime and its people. New York: Random House. Soon waves of dust rise under their feet, and gradually envelope the whole group, blurring their actions but putting the fluttering red ribbons in vivid relief to their cloudy background. But Mao knew that the Communist Party's real support was to come from the peasants. All the while, each dancer pounds a drum tied to his waist. Cold War Reference Library. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Encyclopedia.com. The same will quite likely be true of Mao Zedong. In the winter of 192425, Mao returned to his native village of Shaoshan for a rest. only. Mao is buried in a grand mausoleum in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and he enjoys considerable popular approbation despite his rather clouded historical record. He had devoted his life to the advancement of a peasant class terrorized for centuries by those in power. During the Korean War, many U.S. policy-makers believed that China was a satellite ofor indirectly ruled bythe Soviet Union. At the age of 16 Mao left the farm and his family in order not to go ahead with an arranged marriage. From 1934 to 1935, the CCP Red Army was driven out of its rural soviets (CCP's armed territories/authorities in adoption of the name of the Soviet government) and forced to relocate to Yan'an, Shaanxi Province, in northwest China. Mao Zedong was a Chinese statesman whose status as a revolutionary in world history is probably next only to that of Vladimir Lenin (18701924). New York: Grove. 2023 . WebMao Zedong was a Marxist theorist, revolutionary, and, from 1949 to 1959, the first chairman of the Peoples Republic of China. 1967), have all been published in English in Peking. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. (June 29, 2023). At least four hundred thousand of these people were beaten to death. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Shortly after the publication of his Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan, the KMT-CCP coalition broke up and the Communists were persecuted everywhere in the country. Mao died on Sept. 9, 1976, and the radicals in the party lost their protector. With the, people's support they were able to drive the Nationalists out of mainland China and onto the island of Taiwan (formerly Formosa). ." But Mao watched the situation in Korea carefully. "Mao Zedong To achieve his goals, Mao initiated mass campaigns such as the Great Leap Forward (19581960, a disastrous social and economic movement that was intended to increase agricultural and industrial production through eradication of private land ownership, moral incentives, and mass labor) and the Cultural Revolution (19661976, a violent mass movement against the establishment, which brought about turmoil and enormous suffering to Chinese people). Mao concentrated on political work among the peasants of his native province and advocated a rural revolution. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (18791953; see entry) was eager to secure a firm alliance for the Soviet Union and to ensure China did not ally with the United States. Cold War Reference Library. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 534551. A truce between the communists and the Nationalist government was declared when Japan invaded China in 1937. Eventually Chiang was able to drive the Communists out of their base areas on the Long March (a year-long, six-thousand-mile journey through the hills of Shensi). New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. WebBirth: 1893 Mao Zedong's parents: Mao Yichang (left) and Wen Qimei (right) Mao was born on December 26, 1893, in his familiar home in the rural village of Shaoshanchong in Xiangtan county, Hunan Province, part of south-central China. (The governments of both communist North Korea and nationalist South Korea hoped to reunify Korea under their leadership.) Jiang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji, eds. One of these soviets was Mao's Ching-kang mountain base area between Kiangsi and Hunan, where he had to rely chiefly on the support of the poor peasants. ed. Then, only one year after he proclaimed a Chinese republic, Mao felt it necessary to stop the American and UN troops that were advancing up to China's borders as they overwhelmed the North Koreans. Under the Manchus or the Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty in the nineteenth century, foreigners had invaded China, sparking civil wars. On his return to Hunan in the following year, Mao was already committed to communism. In an official assessment of his lengthy career, the Communist Party hailed Mao as an illustrious national hero who laid the foundations of the new China, but at the same time a tragic figure with all too human frailties. Jin Chongji, ed. Given the merciless nature of political conflict in Republican China (19111949) and the extraordinary brutality of the Japanese occupation (19311945), it is no surprise that Mao concluded that a "revolution is not a dinner party" (Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, 1927). | English | | Espaol |Franais| Deutsch. Born: Dec. 26, 1893 in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, China Parents: Mao Yichang, Wen Qimei Died: Sept. 9, 1976 in Beijing, People's Republic of China Published Works: The Warlords Clash (poem, 1929), The Tasks of the Communist Party in the Period of Resistance to Japan (1937), Mao's Little Red Book (19641976) Some survivors of the party went underground in the cities, to continue their struggle as a working-class party; the rest took up arms to defy the government and eventually to set up rural soviets in central and northern China. Died February 19, 1997 1 min read. The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: A Case Study. UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography. In 1911, when he was just 18, the Qing dynasty, better known in the West as the Manchu, was overthrown. Communism: a system of government in which one party (usually the Communist Party) controls all property and goods and the means to produce and distribute them. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. However, in pursuit of his own goals, Mao himself could be violent and dictatorial. The center of the CCP, located underground in Shanghai, therefore assigned to itself the task of strengthening its leadership and party discipline. Mao Zedong In 1921, Mao became a founding member of the CCP, attending the first meeting of the party in Shanghai. In addition to his political and military prowess, he is also considered a talented calligrapher and poet in the classical style, and he left behind a small corpus of work that is generally well regarded. The early life of Mao 2023 . The area has since become known as the cradle of the Chinese revolution.. Out of his "convalescence," Mao discovered the revolutionary potential of the peasants, the poor farm workers whose great numbers had been treated poorly by the warlords. It also conducted the Rectification Movement and achieved self-reliance by developing agriculture, industry and commerce. In its effort to achieve this, the center had to ease the growing powers of the soviet leaders like Mao. WebShaoshan is the birthplace of the late Chairman Mao Zedong. Third World refers to poor, underdeveloped or economically developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In 1925, when the coalition As a result, the peasants were left with nothing. This meeting in Beijing exemplified Mao's standing as a world statesman and his achievement in securing America's recognition of communist China as a world power. But right after the war they resumed their battle against each other. Mao Zedong was an avid swimmer. He had devoted his life to the advancement of a peasant class terrorized for centuries by those in power.