Mao Tse-tung Biography

Mao Zedong, in simplified Chinese: 毛泽东, in traditional Chinese: 毛澤東, in pinyin: «Mao Zedong» and romanized: «Mao Tse-Tung» was born on December 26, 1893, in Shaoshan Hunan, and died, at 83 years of age, September 9, 1976, in Beijing. Mao was the top leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Central People’s Republic of China.

Tse-tung was born in a family of rural workers. His childhood was spent in an environment in which school education was only considered useful as long as it could be applied to tasks such as keeping records and other tasks related to agricultural production, so that at the age of thirteen, Mao Tse-tung had to drop out of school to devote himself fully to work on his family farm.

However, the young Mao left the paternal house and entered the School of Teacher Training in Changsha, where he began to make contact with the Western thought.

Later, he enrolled in the Nationalist Army, where he served for half a year. After his time in the army, he returned to Changsha and was appointed the director of a primary school. Later he worked at Peking University as assistant librarian and read, among others, Bakunin and Kropotkin, besides of making contact with two key men in the Chinese socialist revolution: Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu.

After the break with the Kuomintang (The major political party in the Republic of China) in 1927, Mao led a peasant-based revolution, organized the Red Army and established a revolutionary government in the Hunan region. Defeated by Chiang-Kai-Chek, the communist army begins the Long March, which lasted from October 1934 to October 1935. During this hard period, Mao became the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, position that he will keep until his death.

After a truce with the Kuomintang to confront the Japanese invaders (1937-1945), Mao led the Communist Army to victory in the civil war against the nationalists of Chiang-Kai-Chek and on October 1, 1949, the People’s Republic of China. Mao is the president of the Council of Ministers and since 1954 president of the Republic.

China was aligned with the USSR at the beginning of the cold war and signs the Sino-Soviet alliance on February 14, 1950. China supported North Korea and intervened decisively in the Korean War. It also recognized the Republic of the Viet-minh (Vietnam) and supported the Vietnamese communists in their fight against France. After Stalin died, Mao supported Khrushchev in the Hungarian problem (1956), receiving in exchange the 1957 nuclear technology transfer agreement. However, the Sino-Soviet relations are quickly poisoned. Mao denounced de-Stalinization and the coexistent peace, rightly suspecting that the USSR does not look kindly on China to become a great power.

The break with the Soviets culminated in 1960-1962 and Mao began a policy of opposition against the U.S. imperialism and what he called revisionism and Soviet social-imperialism. Relying on the movements of the Third World arising in the anti-colonial opposition, Mao called for world revolution.

The failure of the Great Leap Forward (1957-1961) gave prominence to March 26, 1966, when the Cultural Revolution broke out. The Red Guards and the Communist Youth led by Mao Tse-Tung seized by an armed uprising of Beijing and took control of important areas of China. The revolutionary wave that followed was one of the bloodiest up to date because after President Liu Shaoqi was assassinated, the squads of young people fanaticized with the Red Book in hand dedicated themselves to pillaging throughout the cities, committing murders and destroying the millennial cultural heritage of China with the aim of creating a new society. In fact, thousands of officials, professors, intellectuals, scientists, and artists were dragged through the streets, spat on in public and beaten to death.

The Cultural Revolution left around 400,000 dead and millions of deportees to concentration camps called “laogai.” Again, in 1969, Mao Tse-Tung took control of the Government of the Chinese Communist Party and again proclaimed himself Great Helmsman.

The return of Mao Tse-Tung as Head of State of the People’s Republic of China led to great changes in the nation that was less radical than in their previous mandates. Being advised at all times by the most moderate Prime Minister Lin Bao, between 1969 and 1975 great progress was made as the economic upward improvement, the literacy of 90% of the population, the start of the Chinese nuclear program and a birth rate of the country that rose from 400 to 700 million inhabitants.

At the beginning of 1976, the Great Helmsman, who at the time was old and sick, was detected Parkinson’s, as well as certain health problems in the lungs and in his heart system as a cause of tobacco. After a few months of suffering severe pain, on September 9, 1976, a sudden heart attack ended the life of Mao Tse-Tung.

The death of the Great Helmsman was a huge commotion in the People’s Republic of China and especially among the Chinese Communist Party members who lost the leader who had led them to victory in 1949.

As a reminder of his legacy, Mao Tse-Tung’s corpse was embalmed and buried in Tiananmen Square, where supporters and admirers would honor him forever.