source: wikipedia and other internet sites.
Mao Tse-tung, (December 26, 1893 - September 9, 1976). Mao is widely credited for creating a mostly unified China. He was criticized for economically and politically disastrous policies taken after his consolidation of power.
Mao developed many political theories. The most signficant notion was his view of peasants as the source of revolution. Traditional Marxist-Leninist theory had seen the vanguards of revolution to be urban workers, whereas Mao argued that in China's case, it was the peasant from which revolution would develop. Mao also developed a three stage theory of guerilla warfare and a concept of the people's democratic dictatorship.
Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched a phase of rapid, forced collectivization, lasting until around 1958. This included the so-called Hundred Flowers campaign, in which Mao indicated he was willing to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, many Chinese began questioning the dogmas of the Communist Party. After allowing this for a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and rounded up those who criticized the Party in what is called the Anti-Rightist Movement.
The Great Leap Forward was intended by Mao as an alternative model for economic growth which contradicted the Soviet model of heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program Chinese agriculture was to be collectivized and rural small-scale industry was to be promoted. In the middle of the Great Leap, Khrushchev canceled Soviet technical support because Mao was too radical in pushing for world wide communist revolution. This, along with severe droughts, caused the Great Leap to fail to meet its goals and resulted in widespread famines in which millions of Chinese died. With this failure, the Great Leap ended in 1960, and Mao was forced to write a self-criticism.
The withdrawal of Soviet aid, border disputes, disputes over the control and direction of world Communism, whether it should be revolutionary or status quo, and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy contributed to the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. Following these events, other members of the Communist Party including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping decided that Mao should be deprived of power. They attempted to marginalize Mao, without denouncing him, allowing him to remain a figurehead, but without any real authority.
Mao responded to this by launching the Cultural Revolution, in the late 1960s, in which the Communist hierarchy was circumvented by giving power directly to the Red Guards, groups of young people, often teenagers, who set up their own tribunals.
In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, although the official history of the People's Republic of China marks the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In the last years of his life, Mao was faced with declining health due to Parkinson's disease and remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death. During this decade, Mao created a cult of personality in which his image was displayed everywhere and his quotations were included in bold face or red letters in even the most mundane of writings.
Mao's legacy has produced a large amount of controversy with some focus on the failures of the Great Leap and the disasters of the Cultural Revolution, and others pointing out that the large number of deaths during the period of consolidation of power after victory in the Chinese civil war was small compared to the number of deaths caused by famine, anarchy, war, and foreign invasion in the years before the Communists took power.
The ideology surrounding Mao's interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, also known as Maoism, has influenced many communists around the world, including third world revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Peru's Shining Path and the revolutionary movement in Nepal. Ironically, China has moved sharply away from Maoism since his death, and most of Mao's followers regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Mao's legacy.
The official view of the People's Republic of China is that Mao Zedong was a great revolutionary leader who made serious mistakes in his later life. In particular Mao is criticized for creating a cult of personality. In mainland China many people still consider Mao a hero in the first half of his life, but hold that he became a monster after gaining power. However, in an era where economic growth has caused corruption to increase in mainland China, there are those who regard Mao as a symbol of moral incorruptibility and self-sacrifice in contrast to the current leadership.
Mao's English interpreter Sidney Rittenberg, who remains the only American ever to be admitted into the Chinese Communist Party, was himself imprisoned in solitary confinement for a total of 16 years during the power struggles of Mao's rule.
However, in his memoir The Man Who Stayed Behind, Rittenberg states that he believes Mao never intended to cause the deaths and suffering endured by people under his chairmanship. In his remarks on the matter Rittenberg has declared that Mao "was a great leader in history, and also a great criminal because, not that he wanted to, not that he intended to, but in fact, his wild fantasies led to the deaths of tens of millions of people."
Li Rui, Mao's personal secretary, goes further and claims he was dismissive of the suffering and death caused by his policies: "Mao's way of thinking and governing was terrifying. He put no value on human life. The deaths of others meant nothing to him."
After his death, there was a power struggle for control of China. On one side were the leftists led by the Gang of Four, who wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side were the Rightists, which consisted of two groups. One was the restorationists led by Hua Guofeng who advocated a return to orthodox socialist central planning along the Soviet model. The other was the reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, who wanted to overhaul the Chinese economy based on pragmatic policies and to deemphasize the role of ideology in determining economic and political policy.
Furthermore, many within the People's Republic of China itself point to the phenomenal economic growth that has occurred in Mainland China as a result of the Deng Xiaoping reforms after Mao's death as evidence of the incorrectness of Mao's economic policies. Since the Deng era, China has sustained the highest rate of per capita economic growth for the past two decades.
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