Who was Mao Zedong?
For those of you that do not fancy reading history, I would advise you to read this. Everything that happens in history is not life changing, however some concepts/ideas/people/and events, however are. One of those important figures in history is Mao Zedong. The goal is to objectively review Mao, what he did, and why he is an important figure.
For starters, a brief back story. Mao was born in December of 1893. Mao had grown up with the hopes of becoming a teacher. However, he did not become one, he took up a job at a university library in Beijing, China. This is where Mao Zedong began reading about Marxism. Marxism is “the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis for the theory and practice of communism”( Defined by Oxford languages whom provides google with mostly all of their definitions with over 150 years of experience. Needless to say, they’re credible). After reading more and more about Marxism, Mao was hooked. He believed that the economic and political theories devised by Both Marx and Engels would thrive in real world practice.
In the year of 1921, Mao Zedong decided to help create the communist Chinese party (otherwise known as the CCP) which is still the current Chinese political party today. Mao and the CCP went through several battles between warlords in northern China, and even Kuomintang (KMT, who was once their ally) twice. The second battle between the CCP and KMT had only come after the second world war in 1945. The civil war between the two of them had lasted 4 years, until it ended horribly in 1949. Historians estimate that 2.5-6 million people died during the duration of the civil war. That’s not to mention the hyperinflation, rise in crime, and an increase in unemployment that had also occurred. Regardless, Mao and the CCP came out victorious with Mao announcing the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
After the civil war, Mao and the communist party now had some work to do. They decided to begin to put marxism into practice by establishing new policies for China. Mao was said to have implemented Pinyin from Wades Gales which was a new system of Chinese language that was easier. The man who had helped it come true went by Zhou Youguang. By Mao changing the main system of the Chinese language, he was trying to help make the language easier. Therefore allowing China as a whole to be less illiterate. During the time Youguang was working on Pinyin the illiteracy rate was around 85% Since then to 2012, it is down to only a few percent. This increased literacy for both women and men making the population more intelligent and able to communicate easier.
The Great Leap Forward
Now Mao being a marxist (a marxist ideologue) influenced him to create a 5 year economic plan to help the economy. It was designed to run from 1958-1963. So along with the marxist ideology was the economic plan, The Great Leap Forward. It was said by Mao that it would create ‘economic prosperity’ for the PRC. The plan was this: to collectivize industrialization and agriculture. This means that all of the PRC was going to work collectively together. There was no private ownership; everything is owned by the proletariat (working class). By doing this Mao was expecting the PRC to increase its steel and grain production. So what happened? Since there was no private ownership in a marxist economic system, the private farmers were abolished and not allowed to own land or their farm. They were forced onto other farms to help the collective. All of the production, allocating of resources, and distribution was handled by the CCP. The projects were unable to thrive as the proletariat all collectively worked together with the CCP handling all else. There wasn’t much order on what to do (since nobody is in charge in a marxist economic system, proletariat are equal) and the larger scaled projects were unmanageable. Not only that, the CCP were collectively agreeing on agricultural methods to use that were not proven to be effective. To make matters worse, Mao ordered a mass killing of sparrows as he decided they ‘ate too much grain’. This also had its consequences as he eliminated an important figure from the food chain, its prey now began to grow in massive number. The prey being locusts. Locusts swarms devoured crops causing a lowering in yields. The communist party forced labor upon the people causing millions of deaths. Furthermore The Great Chinese famine swept the entire nation as the entire economic system was not sound causing the yields to fall due to poor agricultural methods and eliminating natural predation. This caused millions more to die. It get’s worse. Not only do you have an inflating currency, lost of trust in government, a poor economic system brutally killing your innocent civilians, but the CCP also started to kill innocent civilians. What if a farmer tried to pick grain in the fields to feed his kids because they were starving due to the famine? They were publicly humiliated or killed alongside the family members. What if a farmer didn’t meet their quota? They could be buried alive or other egregious torture methods. So where were all the grains going? They were being exported to other countries for money. Countries had actually offered Mao food relief, however he couldn’t accept it. If he did, it would mean his marxist economic plan would have been a failure in which Mao couldn’t accept. In retrospect, The Great Leap Forward was (even if Mao couldn’t admit) a failure due to various reasons. The economic system was poor due to collectiveness and other poor policies. It also broke up many families. Men, women, and their kids were all separated as a result. Millions starved to death and it ruined the agricultural landscape. Estimates project that the Great Leap Forward killed around 45 million people. It was said to be one of the largest killings in history that wasn’t during war. It had finally come to end early in 1961, 2 years prior to its original end date in ‘63. The Great Leap Forward was over.
Now the Great Leap Forward had hurt Mao’s reputation therefore causing him to be disliked by both the PRC and CCP. So what did Mao decide to do next? Years later in 1966 he started the Cultural Revolution. It was a sociopolitical revolution hoping to serve the purpose of re-establishing Mao as rightful authoritarian. So what happened?
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Years later in 1966 after Mao’s failed economic plan, The Great Leap Forward, the next big part of his legacy came. It was labeled The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The reason Mao started the revolution was because he felt that China was headed in the wrong direction and he didn’t like that. He felt that ideology should be favored more (essentially dogma) so over reasoning and fact-based claims. Mao then decided to gather those who still supported him such as the defense minister Lin Bao , his wife Jiang Qing, and others who incited an insurrection to re-establish Mao as authority.
Mao closed down schools calling on the youth to further his political agenda (literally) which caused the students to form their own military groups. This caused students to formulate themselves into groups polarizing the nation. The students labeled themselves Red Gaurds. It was cult like, as members in the group all thought the same way (like Mao) and anyone who opposed them were attacked. It was and ideological war. They played identity politics. That meant if you were in one group then you thought x, y, and z meanwhile if you were in another group you thought vice versa. Nobody considered people to be individuals, but rather simply a member of one group or the other. It was barbaric. One of the key points was the Four Olds. It was a statement to rid China of its old ideas and traditions. Within the first two years, president Liu Shaoqi alongside other political members of the party were assaulted and physically removed from authority. President Liu died in prison in 1969. The PRC thought it was outrageous. Chinese cities were rioting and there was chaos in the streets. This had also hurt the Chinese economy AGAIN with steel production falling 12% from 2 years prior. Ultimately years down the road the battle for power began to come to a halt. Mao had developed Lou Gehrigs disease and decided it was time to spread his power among those with like-minded beliefs. There were four of them: Mao, Zhou, Bao, and Xiaoping. They were known as the Gang of Four. They had later purged Xiaopng from the group due to him not being ‘radical’ enough. Regardless, this had all come to an end once the military, law enforcement, and the PRC had all come to the CCP to take back what was rightfully theirs after Mao died in 1976. A year later in ‘77 the people decided Xiaoping should take control in which he did. The chaos had ended, but not without it’s consequences. It was horrifying, an estimation of 1.5 million people died, while many had gotten their property taken. Innocent civilians were tortured for not giving up their belief systems for the new radical marxist ones. It was a sad decade for China. This had hurt people’s faith in the government for a long time to come afterwards.
Did you know?
Fun Fact: Books acceptability for public use was decided by the CCP (Hence Mao curtailing certain books making many unattainable). He held public book burnings in which he would round up all of the books that didn’t coincide with his dogma/ideology and burned them. Mao had a mass censorship of what people could and could not read, quickly stripping people of freedoms.
Mao’s Legacy
This now leaves us with Moa’s legacy, and reflecting on everything he did as founder and chairman of the CCP. Mao had won the civil war between the CCP and KMT, although at the expense of around 4 million people.He helped convert the Chinese language to Pinyin which was a long 3 year project that turned out to be rather successful. However, Mao had caused economic depression with the Great Leap Forward along with millions dead due to famine and ordering those who try to feed their starving kids or escape to be killed. He forced labor upon the people and tortured them. Mao had also started a revolution based on dogmatism which in the end killed millions of more people all so he could regain power (since he lost it after killing 45 million people in the Great Leap Forward). Objectively reflecting on Mao’s legacy he had became an ideologue. Someone who just embodies ideology and has no genuine ideas of their own. Mao just ensued Marxism and was ravenous for power. He clearly became bitter and resentful towards those who were intelligent and wealthy, as those were the types of people subjected to attack during the cultural revolution. Alongside older wise people as well. Mao was a violent and malevolent person as chairman of the CCP. He had done some good, however he had caused much more pain and agony to all of China by killing a total (estimated) 75 million people. It is sad as it is an estimation which shows the real true and genuine malevolence within Mao. He killed so many people that historians can’t even agree on an exact number. It’s appalling but important. We need to point out horrid characters like this in history and remember their ideologies and what they did in positions of power so we don’t repeat them. So we don’t repeat what Mao did because Mao was a monster.
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