Mao Zedong and His Early Life
5 min readMao Zedong（1893-1976）（also Mao Tse-Tung）was a Chinese Marxist military and political leader，who led the Chinese Communist Party（CCP）to victory against the Kuomintang（KMT）in the Chinese Civil War，leading to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1，1949 in Beijing.
The eldest child of a relatively prosperous peasant family，Mao was born on December 26，1893 in a village called Shaoshan in Xiangtan County，Hunan province.During the 1911 Revolution，Mao served in a local regiment in Hunan.
However，disliking military service，he returned to school in Changsha.Having graduated from the First Provincial Normal School of Hunan in 1918，Mao traveledwith 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.Over his stay in Beijing，he read as much as possible.He married Yang Kaihui，Professor Yang’s daughter and also his fellow student.
Mao turned down an opportunity to study in France.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 as one of the five commissars of the Central Committee of theParty during the third Congress session.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.
Political Ideas
Mao was introduced to Marxism in Beijing.The process of Mao becoming a Marxist was gradual.During the year 1920 in Hunan，Mao contributed a number of essays to newspapers advocating the autonomy of Hunan Province.He firmly believed that provincial autonomy was a prerequisite to local prosperity and that local prosperity would lead to a stronger and prosperous China.
In 1920，Mao also developed his theory of violent revolution.His theory was inspired by the Russian revolution and was likely influenced by the Chinese literary works:Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.Mao sought to subvert the alliance of imperialism and feudalism in China.He thought the Nationalists to be both economically and politically vulnerable and thus that the revolution could not be steered by Nationalists.He concluded that violent revolution must be conducted by the proletariat under the supervision of a Communist party.Throughout the 1920s，Mao led several labor struggles based upon his studies of the propagation and organization of the contemporary labor movements.However，these struggles were successfully subdued by the government，and Mao fled from Changsha after he was labeled a radical activist.He pondered these failures and finally realized that 1）workers were unable to lead the revolution because they made up only a small portion of China’s population and 2）unarmed labor struggles could not resolve the problems of imperial and feudal suppression.
Mao began to depend on Chinese peasants who later became staunch supporters of his theory of violent revolution.This dependence on the rural rather than the urbanproletariat to instigate violent revolution distinguished Mao from his predecessors and contemporaries.Mao himself was from a peasant family，and thus he cultivated his reputation among the farmers and peasants and introduced them to Marxism.
Leadership of China
The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1 1949.It was the culmination of over two decades of civil and international war.From 1954 to 1959，Mao was the Chairman of the PRC.During this period，Mao was called Chairman Mao or the Great Leader Chairman Mao.In his speech declaring the foundation of the PRC，Mao announced:”The Chinese people have stood up！’
Following the consolidation of power，Mao launched the First Five Year Plan（1953-1958）.The plan aimed to end Chinese dependence upon agriculture in order to become a world power.The success of the First Five Year Plan was to encourage Mao to instigate the Second Five Year Plan，the Great Leap Forward，in 1958.Mao also launched a phase of rapid collectivization.The CCP introduced price controls as we11 as a Chinese character simplification aimed at increasing literacy.Land was taken from landlords and more wealthy peasants and given to poorer peasants.Large scale industrialization projects were also undertaken.Programs pursued during this time include the Hundred Flowers Campaign，in which Mao indicated his supposed willingness to consider different opinions about how China should be governed.
Evaluation
Many Chinese regard Mao Zedong as a great revolutionary leader，although they also believe that he made serious mistakes later in his life.According to Deng Xiaoping，Mao was“seventy-percent right and thirty-percent wrong”，and his“contributions are primary and his mistakes secondary.”The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were also considered to be major disasters in his policy by his critics and even many of his supporters.Mao has also been blamed for not encouraging birth control and for creating a demographic bump，which later Chinese leaders responded to with the one child policy.
Supporters of Mao credit him with advancing the social and economic development of Chinese society.They point out that before 1949，for instance，the illiteracy rate in Mainland China was 80 percent，and life expectancy was a meager 35 years.At his death，illiteracy had declined to less than seven percent，and average life expectancy had increased to more than 70 years（alternative statistics also quote improvements，though not nearly as dramatic）.In addition to these increases，the total population of China increased 57%to 700 million，from the constant 400 million mark during the span between the Opium War and the Chinese Civil War.
Supporters also state that，under Mao’s regime，China ended its“Century of Humiliation”from Western imperialism and regained its status as a major world power.They also state their belief that Mao also industrialized China to a considerable extent and ensured China’s sovereignty during his rule.They also argue that the Maoist era improved women’s rights by abolishing prostitution.Indeed，Mao once famously remarked that”Women hold up half the heavens”.
There is more consensus on Mao’s role as a military strategist and tactician during the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War.The ideology of Maoism has influenced many communists around the world，including Third World revolutionary movements such as Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge，The Communist Party of Peru，and the revolutionary movement in Nepal.
