MAO ZEDONG: BIOGRAPHY OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST LEADER - ARTE - 2025

Mao Zedong (1893 - 1976) was a 20th century Chinese military and politician. He is recognized as one of the greatest exponents of Marxism in the world. He was the leader of the Communist Party of China and the creator of the People's Republic in the same country. He was the son of a wealthy family; however, his ideals were strongly linked to nationalism and he did not share the concept of imperialism as a form of government.

Although he was first directly related to Marxism-Leninism, he soon adapted these theories to the particularities of his society, giving greater relevance to the peasant than to the worker, as in the European case.

The People's Republic of China Printing Office via Wikimedia Commons

Mao was one of the first to join the Communist Party of China, founded on July 1, 1921. He later led the Autumn Harvest Rising in 1927. These events were one of the reasons that subsequently triggered the Chinese civil war.

The main rival of the Communists was the Chinese Nationalist Party, known as the Kuomintang, although they had to create truces on special occasions, such as during the conflict against Japan known as the Second Sino-Japanese War, which took place between 1937 and 1945.

The People's Republic of China was established in 1949 by Mao Zedong, the nationalists withdrew to Taiwan and the communist regime took hold as the only party that could legally exercise activities in the country.

Nationalist propaganda and indoctrination played a fundamental role in the policies of the Mao Zedong regime. Private lands were confiscated and anyone who represented a danger to the Chinese Revolution was constantly persecuted.

At the end of the 1950s, what was known as the Great Leap Forward took place, with that a transformation was pursued in the Chinese economy that had to stop being agrarian and become industrial.

As the population stopped working in the fields, food became scarce and then one of the largest famines in history occurred, in which between 20 and 40 million people died.

Later, in 1966, Mao Zedong started the Cultural Revolution, in which everything that was against communism in China was destroyed and the population indoctrinated. The figure of the party leader became the main thing in the country.

The number of victims by the communist regime of Mao Zedong is estimated to be between 30 and 70 million people who died as a result of government-ordered executions, from being in labor camps or simply from starvation.

Biography

Early years

Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 in Shaoshan, Hunan, China. According to Chinese customs, the surname precedes the proper name so Mao was his surname. He was the son of a wealthy farmer named Mao Yichang along with Wen Qimei.

He had two brothers named Zemin and Zetan and an adoptive sister named Zejian. Mao commented that his father was very harsh with the discipline of all his children, even hitting them occasionally.

At the age of 8 Mao began his primary studies at the local school. There he learned the classics of Confucius. However, he later commented that those studies were not attractive to him. At the age of 13, Mao Zedong completed his primary education.

Mao Zedong, via Wikimedia Commons

So, he had to marry a 17-year-old girl named Luo Yixiu in a marriage arranged by both families. By that union the patrimony of each of the parties was also unified.

Young Mao was unhappy with the bond and decided to leave his home, which discredited the young woman and eventually led to an early death at 21 years of age.

At this time Mao enrolled in a more advanced primary school in Dongshan. There they made fun of their peasant roots.

Youth

When Mao was 17, he enrolled in a high school in Changshá. By then his interest in nationalism had already emerged through his readings of characters such as George Washington or Napoleon Bonaparte.

At the time, Mao Zedong was not the only one with sympathy for a possible revolution. Much of the city was against the regime of Emperor Puyi and was inclined towards the selection of a republican government.

The most prominent political figure in the opposition was Sun Yat-sen who was in favor of the establishment of a republic. Finally, the Xinhai Revolution occurred in 1911 and at that time the ROC emerged with Sun as its president.

Mao Zedong was among the army ranks for approximately six months of activity, after which he decided to hang up his uniform. General Yuan Shikai succeeded Sun Yat-sen as president.

In that period Mao began to identify with socialism through publications of the newspapers of the time. Then he got to know the texts of Jian Kanghu, who was one of the founders of the Chinese Socialist Party. However, he did not feel fully convinced of socialist ideas.

college

Mao was trying to find his place for a while. She experimented with different careers such as police, lawyer, economist, and soap maker. During those years, he continued his education independently, choosing texts of his choice.

Some of the titles that came to his hands were The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith or texts by Rousseau, Montesquieu, Darwin, Mill and Spencer. So his real interest was to cultivate intellectually.

The people's Republic of China Printing Office, via Wikimedia Commons

His father, who was a man used to working in the fields, did not understand the search for his son, so he decided that from then on he should support himself and stopped sending him money.

This is when Mao Zedong enrolled in the Changsha Normal School. There he met a professor named Yang Changji, who was in charge of introducing him to the New Youth newspaper, which was edited by a friend of his at Peking University.

From that time, Mao began to be interested in political activity and was part of various organizations such as the Student Society, in which he became secretary and led protests against schools.

Finally, Mao Zedong graduated as a teacher in June 1919 and was the third most outstanding student in his class.

Communist beginnings

Mao Zedong moved to Beijing. There he began working as a library assistant at Peking University thanks to the influence of his former professor Yang Changji, who had taken a teaching chair at the same institution.

Mao's boss was Li Dazhao, a communist admirer of the Russian revolution and Vladimir Lenin. Li also wrote for the magazine Juventud Nueva; there he clarified to Chinese readers how the events of the Bolshevik revolution had taken place.

Also, at that time the events of May 4 took place, in which students protested in the city of Beijing over the diplomatic defeats that dragged on from the First World War.

Some of the things that were criticized were the privileges that were offered to Japan, despite the fact that China was on the winning side of the contest.

Mao did not earn a good salary, but he took advantage of his stay in Beijing to continue nourishing himself with political ideas. He enrolled in some classes in Journalism and Philosophy. In 1919, Mao Zedong moved to Shanghai and in those months his mother passed away.

Protests

Mao Zedong got a position as a history teacher at a primary school in Xiuye. From there he continued to organize protests against the governor of Hunan province, named Zhang Jingyao, one of the most cruel leaders in the area.

He was also one of the founders of the Huanese Students Association, who went on a student strike during June, and the following month began publishing a publication known as the Xian River Review.

The People's Republic of China Printing Office, via Wikimedia Commons

In the texts of the magazine, which appeared every week, a language accessible to most of the population was used and calls were made for communist ideals, advocating the need for the union of the masses.

The student association was banned by Governor Zhang. But Mao found another way to address the people when he began publishing in New Hunan magazine and other newspapers in the area expressing feminist ideas.

After continuing to dabble in promoting strikes in Hunan for a time, Mao decided to return to Beijing, where he found Yang Changji very ill. Then he got access to a new communist bibliography, among which was the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels.

He participated together with Tan Yankai, of the Kuomingtang, in the overthrow of Zhang and was appointed director of a section of the Normal School. Thanks to his improved economic status, Mao was able to marry Yang Kaihui, the daughter of his former teacher, in 1920.

Communist Party

In 1921 Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu founded the Communist Party of China. Mao Zedong quickly created a headquarters in Changsha, while also implementing a chapter of the Socialist Youth Corps.

Thanks to a bookstore attached to the said society, Mao was able to spread literature about communism in the Hunan region.

Also during the time, these young people were in favor of the independence of Hunan as a way to achieve freedoms that would allow them to operate more comfortably.

Members of the Communist Party of China rapidly expanded to various regions and had their first national congress on July 23, 1921. Thirteen delegates from Shanghai, Beijing, Changsha, Guangzhou, Jinan, and Wuhan were invited to attend.

Mao Zedong participated in that meeting and since then he became the party secretary in Changsha and from that position he continued trying to educate the population on the party's guidelines and to get new members in the region.

Mao Zedong collaborated in the organization of activities together with the proletariat of the area. However, successful advances were made by combining workers' and bourgeois strategies in such strikes, the creation of schools, and the attraction to the ranks of important elements of society.

Alliance with the Kuomintang

The Chinese Communists decided to form a union with the Kuomintang starting in 1922 and the commitment was reaffirmed a year later at the Third Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai.

So Mao Zedong was selected as a member of the committee and took up residence in Shanghai for a time. The following year he also joined the executive body of the Kuomintang, from which he proposed to decentralize the party's power.

Mao Zedong 1924, via Wikimedia Commons

At the end of 1924, Mao traveled to Shaoshan and noticed the change in attitude among the peasantry, who were dissatisfied and who had even taken part of the private lands in the area to form communes.

At that time, Mao Zedong realized that the peasantry also possessed the necessary power to generate a revolution and that idea was shared by the Kuomintang, but despised, as usual, by the communists.

In 1926 Mao dedicated himself to preparing the peasant population in everything necessary to carry out revolutionary activities in a very basic way so that his message could be understood by all, including the poorly educated.

As the Kuomintang military forces launched what they thought would be a campaign to unify China, the peasants rose up against the landowners and killed many.

Those events were not to the liking of the Kuomintang members, who, in many cases, were landowners.

Break with the Kuomintang

After Chiang Kai-shek assumed control of the Chinese Nationalist Party, he broke its alliance with the Communists. He ordered a major massacre by the Kuomintang forces that resulted in approximately 25,000 losses for the ranks of the Communist Party of China.

In July 1927, the Chinese Red Army was created, made up of peasants and communists. The purpose was to confront the Kuomintang forces, which were concentrated in Nanchang. At first they were successful in taking the city, but were later encircled by the National Revolutionary Army.

Mao Zedong became the head of the Chinese Red Army and together with four regiments he went against Changsha. The plan was truncated when one of the four groups rebelled and joined the ranks of the Kuomintang, then attacked another of the Chinese Red Army corps.

Those actions would go down in history as the Fall Harvest Rising. After finding himself defeated, Mao decided to retreat to a mountainous area known as Jinggang near Jiangxi.

After the confrontation, about 1,000 people from the Communist Party of China survived. Some alleged that the sabotage of the operation was Mao's direct responsibility and described him as a traitor and coward.

Jinggangshan

From that moment on, Mao Zedong was demoted from his positions in the Communist Party of China by the general committee.

However, they accepted that it was time to stick to the policies that Mao had proposed, such as the workers' councils, the expropriation of the land and the definitive break with the Kuomintang.

Meanwhile, Mao established a base of operations in the Jinggang Mountains. There five villages were united under a newly constituted government headed by Mao Zedong himself. In those lands, all the plans were implemented, such as the confiscation of lands and eventual executions of landowners.

However, Mao did not allow massacres in the area. He accepted any volunteer as part of his military ranks, including bandits and the disabled. In this way he managed to have 1,800 men in his army.

The main rules were that everything confiscated should be turned over to the government, that nothing could be taken from poor farmers, and that troops should be fully obedient to the orders they received.

In 1928, Mao sent his troops to Hunan at the party's request and there they were ambushed by the Kuomintang, while another group attacked the base. Those who had remained in Jinggangshan had to leave the area.

They then met Zhu De and Lin Biao's men, together with whom they fought side by side until the party requested them to attack Hunan and General Zhu divided the forces. Despite this, Mao organized a siege on the city.

Eventually, Mao enlisted support from different Kuomintang supporters and defectors, with whom the base was recovered, but they suffered from food shortages due to the number of men who later remained in the city.

Revolution

The Russian government was eager to have more control over the events that were happening in China, so they replaced Li Lisan, one of the greatest national leaders in the party, by several Russian-educated Chinese.

Mao Zedong, via Wikimedia Commons

Among the 28 envoys, those who stood out were Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian. Mao Zedong did not agree with the imposition of Russian elements on the committee and soon distanced himself, becoming one of the biggest rivals within the communist ranks.

At the beginning of 1930 Mao created the Soviet Government of the Southeastern Province of Jiangxi, led by him. At the end of the same year he remarried a girl named He Zizhen, since his wife had been assassinated by the Kuomintang.

An attempted coup against the leadership that Mao had established in the Futian area occurred in December 1930. There, between 2,000 and 3,000 people were killed who tried to desert and rebel against the government.

Later the area was christened the Soviet Republic of China. Then, Mao's power was diminished, because he was recovering from tuberculosis, although he had been appointed chairman of the committee of the newborn country.

Expansion

The Kuomintang forces were much larger than those of the Chinese Red Army, so to be able to face the enemy troops, Mao Zedong had to resort to tactics such as guerrilla warfare that had been implemented since ancient times in the area.

But when military control was yielded to Zhou Enlai, it was decided that they would face directly against the rings that held the nation close. They managed to defeat the Kuomintang troops on several occasions and broke part of the siege.

At the same time, Japan made continental incursions with a view to extending its territory to the coasts of China. So the Kuomintang government had to divide its force to confront the Japanese.

That opportunity was seized by the Communists to expand their area of ​​influence, which came to have a population of almost 3 million people. The same communist policy was applied throughout the new territory that had been pursued by Mao from the beginning.

Kuomintang leader Chiang realized that Mao was quickly becoming a powerful threat and decided to encircle Jiangxi state along with aerial bombardment in the area.

The Long March

In October 1934 the Long March began with which the soldiers of the Chinese Red Army and part of the population tried to escape the siege of the Republic of China. Women, children and sick people were left behind.

They managed to cross the Xiang River and the Wu River, then took the city of Zunyi in early 1935. It was at a conference that was held in that city that Mao Zedong cemented his authority by being appointed Chairman of the Politburo.

Mao decided that in order to gain the confidence of the people and the proletariat, they should fight against the imperialism that was then represented by the Japanese invasion. That is why he said that the forces should go to Shaanxi, in northern China.

They continued marching and eventually joined with other communist troops that were scattered throughout the national geography. By the time they reached Shaanxi the army numbers had been decimated and they numbered approximately 7,000 men.

At the end of the Long March, at the end of 1935, Mao Zedong's leadership was indisputable. Despite that, he only became chairman of the Communist Party of China starting in 1943.

Alliance with the Kuomintang

Upon arriving in Yan'an, Mao Zedong's numbers stood at approximately 15,000 soldiers, following the meeting of different groups of the Chinese Red Army in that city. They established a military university to train volunteers.

At that time, Mao's wife had to travel to Russia to be treated for an injury. So, Mao took the opportunity to divorce her and marry Jiang Qing.

He then proceeded to request a military alliance between the Nationalists, represented by the Kuomintang and the Red Army of the Communist Party of China. The reason for this union would be to defeat the invading Japanese troops.

Mao Zedong c. 1938, via Wikimedia Commons

In this way the United Front was born in December 1937. The Japanese advance was important, they had taken large cities such as Shanghai and Nanjing, which fell after the Nanjing Massacre in which between 40,000 and 300,000 people died.

After these events, many Chinese joined the ranks of the Chinese Red Army, which managed to recruit 500,000 members.

In the middle of 1940, 400,000 Communist troops simultaneously attacked the Japanese in different provinces. 20,000 Japanese soldiers were killed in that operation. In addition, coal mines were retaken and rail contact was interrupted.

End of the Chinese Civil War

Since Zhu De was one of Mao Zedong's closest generals, the latter appointed him commander of the Red Army of the Communist Party of China.

In 1948, Communist troops besieged Changchun for about five months, where there were supporters of the Kuomintang and 160,000 civilians, who apparently also died during the siege.

As part of the politics of the day, the United States of America continued to assist the Kuomintang forces. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union backed Mao and the Communist Party of China by all means possible.

From then on, the defeat of the Kuomintang seemed imminent, since the losses in their numbers did not stop.

After moving the capital of the republic to different cities of the Chinese territory, the government was established in Chengdu. However, in late 1949 Chinese Red Army troops besieged the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu and seized the center of power.

At that time, the main leader of the ROC, and the nationalist Kuomintang party, Chang Kai-shek decided that the only alternative was to leave the country and take refuge in the Formosa area, in Taiwan.

People's Republic of China

On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was officially founded. After more than twenty years of struggle, the long-awaited rise to power of Mao and the party had finally been fulfilled.

Mao Zedong settled in Beijing, specifically in Zhongnanhai. There the ruler ordered the construction of various buildings among which was an indoor pool where he liked to spend much of his time.

The communist leader also owned another complex in Wuhan, which consisted of gardens, bedrooms, a swimming pool and even a bomb shelter.

The People's Republic of China Printing Office, via Wikimedia Commons

From the beginning, Mao ordered the confiscations of private lands to begin so that the state could take control of those properties. Large tracts of land were divided and handed over to small peasants.

In addition, industrialization plans were implemented, since at that time China was still a fundamentally rural nation and whose economy depended mainly on agriculture.

Hundred Flowers Movement

Mao Zedong promoted for a short time a plan known as the Hundred Flowers Campaign, for intellectuals to develop their views on the problems facing China and their possible solutions.

After many raised their voices to generate debates among which they even questioned Mao's authority or the benefit of the communist system for Chinese society, those who made these comments were persecuted, arrested and in some cases murdered.

There is a debate as to whether or not the entire Hundred Flowers Movement was planned by Mao as a trap to eliminate his detractors. However, none of this could be officially verified.

What is known is that during the anti-rightist movement, approximately 550,000 people were assassinated because they were considered counterrevolutionaries. Furthermore, between 4 and 6 million people were sent to forced labor camps.

Great Leap Forward

This was a large-scale modernization project of the Chinese economic system that pursued the shift from production, which depended almost entirely on agriculture, towards the large iron and steel industries.

Many peasants were forced to start working as laborers in the large factories created by the state. The creation of large infrastructures was also promoted in the country that was then mostly rural.

The result of that was that agricultural production fell excessively and led the country to a grain deficit. Then there was the great Chinese famine in which between 30 and 52 million citizens perished.

Cultural revolution

Starting in the 1960s, Mao Zedong promoted an indoctrination system. Those who disagreed with Mao's proposed model or his authority as supreme leader of the party and the nation were persecuted.

Mao Zedong, by Hou Bo, via Wikimedia Commons

At that time the government exerted brutal violence against the population and many citizens, afraid of being captured by the Red Guards, decided to commit suicide.

Pro-communism propaganda, with Mao Zedong always the central figure, was one of the remarkable elements of this period in Chinese history.

Death

Mao Zedong passed away on September 9, 1976 at the age of 82. His health had deteriorated during his last days. That same year he had suffered from two heart attacks and four days before his death he was the victim of a third heart attack.

His embalmed body was displayed for a week in the Great Hall of the People. There, more than a million people showed up to show their respect for the Chinese leader.

His organs were removed to be preserved in formaldehyde and his body was transferred to a mausoleum in the city of Beijing.

References

1. Reynolds Schram, S. (2019). Mao Zedong - Biography & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: britannica.com.
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3. MacFarquhar, R. (2019). Mao, Xi Jinping and the renewal of communism in China. Nytimes.com. Available at: nytimes.com.
4. Bbc.co.uk. (2014). BBC - History - Mao Zedong. Available at: bbc.co.uk.
5. Spence, J. (2006). Mao Zedong. New York, NY: Penguin Books.