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1. Chairman Mao Zedong
1893-1976

2. Early Life & College Studies
1893-1918
 Born into peasantry, rebellious son, studied Chinese
classics & Confucianism
 Soldier in Republican Army (overthrew Qing
Dynasty)
 College: MARXISM!!
 Classless society (no rich vs. poor)
 Equal distribution of wealth—everyone is equal and makes
the same amount of money!
 Favored peasant/worker class (personal & through
Marxist teachings); deals with army/military later as
well

3. Party Affiliation
1920-1927
 Failed at democratic organization
 Founded Chinese Communist Party (CCP) branch in
Hunan
 Joined KMT (CCP ally) to help against invaders
 Organized peasant unions, got leadership roles;
published power of peasants
 Marxist ideas isolated him; thought peasants were
the “basis for revolution”

4. Autumn Harvest Uprising & Red Army
Formation
1925-1929
 KMT breaks away from communists; KMT &
Chiang Kai-shek battled communists; Mao led
peasant armies against KMT; he was defeated & left
for rural area (Autumn Harvest Uprising)
 Developed land reform ideas, recruited troops
 Troops became known as Red Army (cont’d into his
rule); Improved on guerilla warfare
 KMT troops destroyed and Mao gained prestige

5. Long March
1934
 Chiang tried to eliminate
communists again, Mao
escaped & began march to
protected base (6000 miles)
 Zunyi Conference held along way where Mao
gained power (more leadership)

7. Japanese Invasion
1931-1937
 Imperial Japan moved further into China; KMT &
CCP temporarily united to stop Japan from further
expansion
 Troops made mainly of peasants (Red Army)
 Success of peasant army solidified Mao’s efforts, he
moved up in rank…began pushing out his critics in
CCP

8. Civil War
1945-1949
 Japan lost WWII; KMT vs. CCP (again!) for control of
China
 CCP had large, trained army and won in Oct.
1949…declared People’s Republic of China
China was in despair (war-torn), Mao in power,
modeled reconstruction after USSR (socialist ideals—
redistribution of land, in particular)

9. Korean War & Hundred Flowers
Movement
1950-1953, 1957
 Mao relied on USSR aid, allied with N. Korea,
millions of Chinese died fighting for North Korea
during Korean War
 Became enemies with US
 Mao wanted PRC to be united as one…led
campaigns to weed out traitors
 Hundred Flowers Movement- encouraged criticism,
but it was more than expected, and attacked
“rightists”
 See evidence of fear in intellectuals later

10. Great Leap Forward
(In 1949, land taken from landowners & given to peasants who
worked it = )
1958-1960
 land taken from peasants & turned into communes
owned by state = 
 20-40 families @ first  county size (1,000s)
 Build backyard furnaces instead of factories to make
iron tools
 Melt down scrap metal…but then ran out and started melting
already usable objects! (had to meet quota)
 Couldn’t use what they melted (too brittle)
 These workers also were NOT making food…

12. "Everybody is fully occupied in production, the trade sector is
also fully occupied for everybody."

13. Great Leap Forward
 Commune leaders forced to meet quota of food
production
 Couldn’t meet it lied about amount produced
 Govn’t took % based on that lie peasants starved
 Some food taken by govn’t rotted in warehouses before being
distributed, some sent to USSR for loan payment
 Told to do close planting to use land efficiently
 Plants use each other’s nutrients and they all die!
(All critics were purged from office, many stayed quiet b/c of
Hundred Flowers Movement)

14. Great Leap Forward
 Over 20 million people died
 Not realized until outsiders came in, studied demographics
 People eventually turned to cannibalism
 1961: Mao realized it didn’t work gave 3 men, including
Deng Xiaoping, 5 years for economic recovery
 1966…Mao didn’t like they had control  leads to Cultural
Revolution

15. Cultural Revolution
1966-1976
 Mao’s economic recovery task force had always been
loyal, but no longer agreed with his ideologies
 Mao saw same ∆s in USSR  got grp. of radicals together to purge
them
 Created Red Guard (students)
 Closed school to allow them to join
 Mass propaganda of devotion to Mao (more so than
Stalin), Little Red Book

17. Cultural Revolution
 Beat, tortured, and imprisoned leaders who opposed him
 Suppressed all disorder/opposition with violence
 Lin Biao designated as Mao’s successor
 Pushed Mao’s Little Red Book
 Instituted martial law
 Mao eventually disposed of him for having too much
power (fled to USSR)

18. Death & Succession
1976
 1972: Mao and his new successor both have health
problems brings back Deng Xiaoping
 Radicals continue to purge opposition
 1974: Mao favors Deng b/c economy is so bad
 1976: Mao dies
 His helpers (Gang of Four) are arrested
 Deng emerges as leader in 1977

19. One-Child Policy
1979
 Mao had encouraged large families (labor for
communes, soldiers)…exponential population
growth
 Deng needed to cut growth dramatically
 Very severe punishments at first, less strict now
 Unbalanced gender ratio, death/ abandonment of
girls, controlled adoption policies, smaller
population growth

21. Tiananmen Square Massacre
1989 (June 4)
 In Peking (Beijing), civilian/ student
protest for democratic reform
 Called for the resignation of
oppressive Chinese government
 Demanded greater democracy
 Army came in shooting, with
tanks…hundreds (possibly thousands)
killed
 Happening simultaneously with
protest in USSR
 Global condemnation