Running head: MAO TSE TUNG: THE PEOPLES EMPEROR

Mao Tse Tung: The Peoples Emperor

Jessica Laura C. Sy
San Beda College Alabang

MAO TSE TUNG: THE EMPERORS PEOPLE2

Abstract
Termed as the most controversial figure of China, Mao Zedong was a Chinese
communist revolutionary, politician and socio-political theorist. Founder of the Peoples
Republic of China, he converted the nation into a single-party socialist state, with
industry and business being nationalized under state ownership and socialist reforms
implemented in all areas of society. He governed the country as Chairman of the
Communist Party of China until his death. His Marxist-Leninist ideology, together with
his political and military strategies and policies are today known as Maoism. While his
supporters honor him for taking the country on road to development and claim him to be
responsible for the rise of modern China his critics rebuke him for being a dictator under
whose administration human rights abuses were as common as muck. They even think
him responsible for the loss of about 70 million lives through starvation, forced labor,
suicide and execution.

MAO TSE TUNG: THE EMPERORS PEOPLE3

Mao Tse Tung: The Emperors People

With the victory of Xinhai Revolution, Zedong returned to studies but soon moved
out of Changsha School as it was rooted to Confucianism. He then took it upon himself
to gain education and spent much of his time at the public library, reading core works of
classical liberalism.
Zedong turned to the rural world for garnering support for Chinas regeneration.
Following fellow Communist leaders, Zedong began to channelize the energy and
protest of the Hunanese peasants into a network of peasant association.
In 1958, to enhance the agricultural and industrial growth of the nation, Zedong
launched the Great Leap program which aimed at establishing large agricultural
communes with as many as 75,000 people working in the fields. He promised to provide
each of the family a share of the profits and a small plot of land.
The expectancy of the agriculture and industrial production which seemed
promising in the beginning turned into a major disaster with floods and bad harvest.
Whats worse, a famine hit the nation which ripped entire villages and took lives of about
40 million people.
Year 1966 marked Zedongs return to power. He promptly launched the Cultural
Revolution and organized rallies with hundreds of thousands of young supporters. He
targeted the young as they would not remember his failure of the Great Leap and
subsequent famine.
To gain control, Zedong crafted a crisis situation that could be resolved by none
but him. He persuaded the youth force to believe that the elite and the middle-class
people were aiming to restore capitalism and thus should be removed from the society.

MAO TSE TUNG: THE EMPERORS PEOPLE4

In 1961, with the failure of the program Great Leap, Zedong moved to the side to
give way to his rivals to take the controls of the country. He however had not lost all
hope and waited for the right time to make a comeback.
He is also the founding father of the Peoples Republic of China, which came into
existence in 1949.
The political theory derived from the teachings of this Marxist-Leninst leader of China is
called Maoism.1

1 References: Mao Tse Tung; A Biography (Dick Wilson)