The Life Of Mao Ze-dong

Mao Ze-dong, also known as Mao Tse-tung lived from 1893-1976. Mao Ze-dong was the founder of the People’s Republic of China and is undoubtedly one of the most well known Communist theoreticians in history. Mao Ze-dong’s ideas on guerilla warfare and revolutionary struggle were very prominent, most notably among Third World revolutionaries. This famous man from China had an interesting life, though not one that many people would have wanted to live.

Mao Ze-dong was of Hunanese heritage and had received training in Chinese classics in addition to a modern education. Unfortunately he had the misfortune to witness oppressive social conditions as a young man, leading him to become one of the original members of the Chinese Communist party. He was highly motivated to change things and was behind sponsored peasant and industrial unions and he directed the Kuomintang’s Peasant Movement Training Institute. After the split of this organization, Mao Ze-dong’s career path changed a bit when he lead the catastrophic Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan, which lead to his banishment from the central committee of the Communist party.

Mao Ze-dong is often associated with the Red Army, and rightly so. From 1928 until about 1931 Mao with many others established rural soviets in the hinterlands and together build the Red Army. In 1931 Mao was happily elected chairman of the Soviet Republic of China, which was located in the Jiangxi province. Mao underwent five encirclement campaigns launched by Chiang Kia-shek during this time. It was during this time that Mao Ze-dong also led the Red Army on the long march, which was about 6,000 miles. The long march started in Jiangxi north to Yan’an in the Shaanxi province. The long march allowed Mao Ze-dong to emerge as the most important Communist leader to date. From 1937-1945 Mao Ze-dong along with the Communists and the Kuomintang continued a terrible civil war all the while they were battling the Japanese.

In 1949 Mao Ze-dong became the chairman of the central government council of the People’s Republic of China, at this time the Communists had claimed almost all of the land in China. In 1954 Mao Ze-dong was again elected to the post. Shortly after his reelection to the most powerful post in China, Mao Ze-dong launched The Great Leap Forward, which failed miserably. With the failure of his program, 20 million people starved and with the failure of the program the ties with the Soviet Union were also broken. Mao Ze-dong fled from public view during this time and stayed that way for quite some time. The public was outraged, and Mao Ze-dong knew how angered and saddened people were. Many thought that this would be the end for Mao Ze-dong as he was heavily criticizes for all the deaths related to the failure of his Great Leap Forward program.

The break with the Soviet Union wasn’t a good thing for Mao Ze-dong because it cut off all aid he had been receiving from them. Mao openly accused many Soviet leaders of betraying Marxism, which didn’t ease tensions between Mao and Soviet Leaders by any stretch of the imagination. Finally, in 1959 Mao’s biggest opponent of the Great Leap Forward, Liu Shaoqi replaced Mao as the chairman of the central government council. Though he was unseated from this position, Mao kept his chairman position with the Communist part politburo. Mao wouldn’t be out of the public spotlight for long.

By 1969 with the help of his wife, Mao Ze-dong was reasserting his party leadership by serving as a chairman in the Ninth Communist Party Congress, and in 1970 Mao was named the supreme Commander of the nation and its army unseating Liu and many others. The culture and moral in the area changed, but Mao did not stay in power for all that long. In 1976 Mao Ze-dong died and within a month all of Mao’s supporters were thrown out of office and his opponents took over and seemed to ease the chaos that seemed to surround the politics of Mao Ze-dong.

Though many people did not agree with his Communist ideology, the man was very passionate. Having grown up with Hunanese peasants for parents, Mao wanted to change the land that he lived in. He witnessed oppressive times, and while he might have been a bit off the mark in the minds of a lot of people, he lived his life passionately. Mao Ze-dong lived a controversial life, but in death many people have found his a fascinating life, and rightly so. He was a man of mystery and great power, and that provokes great curiosity in us all.