who is mao?

Answer 1

Mao Zedong (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) (also Mao Tse-Tung in Wade-Giles transliteration) was a Chinese Marxist military and political leader, who led China's communist revolution after decades of foreign occupation and civil war in the 20th century. Following the Communist Party of China’s military victory over the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, Mao announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949 in Beijing.

Mao pursued the ideal of strong and prosperous China, endeavoring to build a modern, industrialized nation. However, the failings of Mao's most significant socio-political programs — including the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution — are widely criticized
The eldest child of a moderate family, Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in a village called Shaoshan in Xiangtan county (湘潭縣), Hunan province, and thus spoke Xiang rather than Mandarin. His ancestors had migrated from Jiangxi province during the Ming Dynasty, married indigenous women, and had settled there as farmers.

During the 1911 Revolution, Mao served in a local regiment in Hunan. However, having felt unaccustomed to a life of military service, he returned to school in Changsha, where he realized the importance of health and knowledge.

Having graduated from the First Provincial Normal School of Hunan in 1918, Mao traveled with Professor Yang Changji, his high school teacher and future father-in-law, to Beijing during the May Fourth Movement in 1919.

Professor Yang held a faculty position at Peking University. Because of Yang's recommendation, Mao worked as an assistant librarian at the University with Li Dazhao as curator. Mao registered as a part-time student at Beijing University and audited many lectures and seminars by famous intellectuals, such as Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Qian Xuantong, etc. Over his stay in Beijing, he read as much as possible, which introduced him to Communist theories. He married Yang Kaihui, Professor Yang's daughter and also his fellow student, despite an existing marriage arranged by his father at home. Mao never acknowledged this marriage.

Mao turned down an opportunity to study in France because of poverty. Later, he claimed that it was because he firmly believed that China's problems could be studied and resolved only within China. As distinct from his contemporaries, Mao went the opposite direction, studying the peasant majority of China's population where he began his life as a professional revolutionist.

On July 23, 1921, Mao, aged 27, attended the first session of the Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai . Two years later, he was elected one of the five commissars of the Central Committee of the Party during the third Congress session.

Mao stayed for a while in Shanghai, an important city that the CPC emphasised for the Revolution. But after the Party had encountered major difficulties in organizing labor union movements, and relations with its nationalist ally, the Kuomintang had become poor, Mao was disillusioned at the revolution there and moved back to Shaoshan. During his stay at home, Mao rekindled his interest in the revolution, having been informed of the 1925 uprisings in Shanghai and Guangzhou. He then went to Guangdong, the base of the Kuomintang, as a return of his political ambitions and took part in the preparations for the second session of the National Congress of Kuomintang.

In early 1927, Mao returned to Hunan where, in an urgent meeting held by the Communist Party, he made a report based on his investigations of the peasant uprisings in the wake of the Northern Expedition. This is considered the initial and decisive step towards the successful application of Mao's revolutionary theories.

Mao was introduced to Marxism in Beijing, before he was married to Yang Kaihui. "There were three books that left great impressions on my mind", Mao recollected, "They helped build up my solid faith in Marxism". Among the three important books was Manifesto of the Communist Party.

It was a gradual process for Mao to become a Marxist. During 1920 in Hunan, Mao contributed a number of essays to the newspapers advocating the autonomy of Hunan Province as he firmly believed that the provincial autonomy was a prelude to the success of local prosperity, which would add to the existence of a stronger and prosperous China.

In 1920, Mao developed his theory of violent revolution, which he adopted from the Russian revolution, and which could probably be attributed to his early reading experience of Outlaws of the Marsh, one of the four masterpieces of Chinese ancient literature.

Mao's theory seeks to subvert the alliance of imperialism and feudalism in China. As a strategic communist, Mao had not ignored the nationalists, whom he thought to be both economically and politically vulnerable. Mao concluded that the revolution could not be steered by nationalists, and that such violent revolution should be conducted by the proletariat with help from them under the supervision of a communist party.

In the 1920s, Mao helped to conduct many labor struggles based upon his study, propagation, and organization of the contemporary labor movements. However, these struggles were subdued by the government. And Mao fled from Changsha after he was labeled a radical activist. He pondered over the failures and finally realized that workers were unable to lead the revolution because they made up just a small portion of China's population, and that unarmed labor struggles could not resolve the problems.

Mao began to depend on Chinese peasants who later became staunch supporters of his theory of violent revolution, which eventually distinguished Mao from all his predecessors and contemporaries. Mao himself was from a peasant family and with his natural relationship with the farmers and peasants at home, he developed his reputation among them. Most importantly, he introduced them to Marxism
In 1927 Mao conducted the famous Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Hunan, as commander-in-chief. The army led by Mao, entitled Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants, was defeated and scattered after some fierce battles. Afterwards the exhausted troops were forced to leave Hunan for Sanwan, Jiangxi, where Mao re-organized the scattered soldiers, rearranging them from a military division into a smaller regiment. And Mao ordered that each company must have a party branch office with a commissar as its leader who would give political instructions based upon superior mandates. This military rearrangement in Sanwan, Jiangxi initiated the CPC's absolute control over its military force and has been considered to have the most fundamental and profound impact upon the Chinese revolution. Later on, they moved to Jinggang Mountains, Jiangxi.

On the Jinggang mountains, Mao persuaded two local insurgent leaders who pledged their allegiance to him. And there Mao rejoined his army with that of Zhu De. Thus he created the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China, Red Army in short. (the Fourth Front of Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China).

From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the Soviet Republic of China and was elected Chairman of this small republic among the mountainous areas in Jiangxi. Here, Mao was married to He Zizhen. His wife Yang Kaihui, who sacrificed for the revolution, had been arrested and executed in 1930, just three years after their departure.

In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the military force was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers. Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership. Mao reacted first by accusing the opponents of opportunism and kulakism and then set off a series of systematic suppressions of them. Later the suppressions were turned into bloody physical elimination. The estimated number of the victims amounted to several thousands. Through the so-called revolutionary terrorism, or red terrorism, Mao's authority and domination in Jiangxi was secured and reassured. However, this had left unforgettable scars on Mao's mind.

Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the rightist purges in the cities. Mao's methods are normally referred to as Guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between guerrilla warfare (youji zhan) and Mobile Warfare (yundong zhan).

Mao's Guerrilla Warfare and Mobile Warfare was based upon the fact of the poor armament and military training of the red army which consisted mainly of impoverished peasants, who, however, were all encouraged by revolutionary passions and aspiring after a communist utopia.

Around 1930, there had been more than ten regions, usually entitled "soviet areas", under control of the CPC. And the number of Red Army soldiers ran to no less than a hundred thousand. The prosperity of "soviet areas" startled and worried Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang government, who waged five waves of besieging campaigns against the "central soviet area". More than one million Kuomintang soldiers were involved in these five campaigns, four out of which were defeated by the red army led by Mao.

Under increasing pressures from the KMT encirclement campaigns, there was a struggle for power within the Communist leadership. Mao was removed from his important positions and replaced by individuals (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and represented within the CPC by a group known as the 28 Bolsheviks.


Mao in 1938, writing On Protracted WarChiang Kai-shek, who had earlier assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, was determined to eliminate the Communists. By October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in the "Long March," a retreat from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the northwest of China. It was during this 9,600 kilometer (5,965 mile), year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.

From his base in Yan'an, Mao led the Communist resistance against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). Mao further consolidated power over the Communist Party in 1942 by launching the Cheng Feng, or "Rectification" campaign against rival CPC members such as Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei, and Ding Ling. Also while in Yan'an, Mao divorced He Zizhen and married the actress Lan Ping, who would become known as Jiang Qing.

During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong's strategies were opposed by both Chiang Kai-shek and the United States. The US regarded Chiang as an important ally, able to help shorten the war by engaging the Japanese occupiers in China. Chiang, in contrast, sought to build the ROC army for the certain conflict with Mao's communist forces after the end of World War II. This fact was not understood well in the US, and precious lend-lease armaments continued to be allocated to the Kuomintang. In turn, Mao spent part of the war (as to whether it was most or only a little is disputed) fighting the Kuomintang for control of certain parts of China. Both the Communists and Nationalists have been criticised for fighting amongst themselves rather than allying against the Japanese Imperial Army.

In 1944, the Americans sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the Dixie Mission, to the Communist Party of China. According to Edwin Moise, in Modern China: A History 2nd Edition:

Most of the Americans were favourably impressed. The CPC seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the Guomindang. United States fliers shot down over North China...confirmed to their superiors that the CPC was both strong and popular over a broad area. In the end, the contacts with the USA developed with the CPC led to very little.
Then again, modern commentators have refuted such claims. Amongst others, Willy Lam stated that during the war with Japan:


Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in the wartime capital of Chongqing, to toast to the Chinese victory over Japan, but their shaky alliance was short-lived.The great majority of casualties sustained by Chinese soldiers were borne by KMT, not Communist divisions. Mao and other guerrilla leaders decided at the time to conserve their strength for the "larger struggle" of taking over all of China once the Japanese Imperial Army was decimated by the U.S.-led Allied Forces.
After the end of World War II, the US continued to support Chiang Kai-shek, now openly against the Communist Red Army (led by Mao Zedong) in the civil war for control of China. The US support was part of its view to contain and defeat "world communism." Likewise, the Soviet Union gave quasi-covert support to Mao (acting as a concerned neighbor more than a military ally, to avoid open conflict with the US) and gave large supplies of arms to the Communist Party of China, although newer Chinese records indicate the Soviet "supplies" were not as large as previously believed, and consistently fell short of the promised amount of aid.

On January 21, 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered massive losses against Mao's Red Army. In the early morning of December 10, 1949, Red Army troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT-occupied city in mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek evacuated from the mainland to Taiwan (Formosa) that same day.

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Answer 2

Mao Tse Tsung was a Chinese Communist dictator who starved out 30 million peasants during the Great Leap Forward, which was an attempt to modernize China.

Answer 3

He was the head of China, the head of the revolution of China. He marched 6,000 people on the Long March. He had a nice little phrase that everybody should know: "Change must come through the barrel of a gun."

Answer 4

severe leftists will rewrite historic previous for his or her heroes. whats up, Papa Joe Stalin made particular the trains ran on time...suitable? That makes him a beacon of wish for public transportation. And if in elementary words Lenin lived longer, the butchery of the revolution might want to were tempered; that's in elementary words even as he grew to develop into deathly ill that the, a-hem, excesses got here about. he's like are Founding Fathers, even with each and every thing. And, Che? Why, he should be respected like our generals in the historic previous books! i visit bypass on and on with those remarkable lies from products of garbage who cover-up the reality surrounding those butchers.

Answer 5

Chairman mao....head of china....mass murderer mao?

Answer 6

he was a bad man who killed between 30 till 60 million pepole he stablish commonist in china and he was stupid leader why you must go wikipedia and reffree to history

Answer 7

the former ruler of communist China & not a nice man, he's been dead decades now.

Answer 8

Try this website:

http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa022899.htm