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Mao Zedong (December 26, 1893 – September 9,
1976;  zh-stpw|t=毛澤�|s=毛泽东|p=Máo
Zéd�ng|w=Mao Tse-Tung) was the chairman of the
Politburo of the Communist Party of China from
1943 and the chairman of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of China from 1945 until his
death. Under his leadership, the CCP (Chinese
Communist Party) became the ruling party of
mainland China as the result of its victory in the
Chinese Civil War. On October 1, 1949, Mao
declared the formation of the People's Republic of
China at Tiananmen Square.

While in power, he started a series of experiments
aimed at speeding up China's economic development
known as the Great Leap Forward. He forged but
then later Sino-Soviet split|split the alliance
with the Soviet Union and launched the Cultural
Revolution.

Mao is widely credited for creating a mostly
unified China free of foreign domination for the
first time since the Opium Wars. However, critics
point out that Mao's inappropriate economic
policies in conjunction with the Three Years of
Natural Disasters caused the famine of
1959–1961, which lead to the deaths of
millions of Chinese. Mao has also been criticized
for his contribution to the split with the USSR,
his establishment of a one-party dictatorship, and
initiating the internal turmoil during the
Cultural Revolution.

Mao Zedong is still sometimes referred to as
Chairman Mao (毛主席). At the
height of his personality cult, Mao was commonly
known in China as the "Four Greats": "Great
Teacher, Great Leader, Great Supreme Commander,
Great Helmsman".

==Early life==
The eldest son of four children of a moderately
prosperous peasant farmer, Mao Zedong was born in
the village of Shaoshan in Xiangtan county
(湘潭縣), Hunan province. His
ancestors had migrated from Jiangxi province
during the Ming Dynasty and had pursued farming
for generations.



During the 1911 Revolution he served in the Hunan
provincial army. In the 1910s, Mao returned to
school, where he became an advocate of physical
fitness and collective action.

After graduation from Hunan Normal School in 1918,
Mao traveled with his high-school teacher and
future father-in-law, Professor Yang Changji
(杨昌济), to Beijing during the
May Fourth Movement, when Yang lectured at Peking
University. From Yang's recommendations, he worked
under Li Dazhao, the head of the university
library and attended speeches by Chen Duxiu. While
working for the Peking University library as an
assistant librarian, Mao acquired a taste for
books, something he was to retain in later years.
Also in Beijing, he married his first wife, Yang
Kaihui, a Peking University student and Yang
Changji’s daughter. (When Mao was 14, his
father had arranged a marriage for him with a
fellow villager, Luo 羅氏, but Mao
never recognized this marriage.) (See
#Family|section 7 Family)

Instead of going abroad which was the path of many
of his radical compatriots, Mao spent the early
1920s traveling in China, and finally returned to
Hunan, where he took the lead in promoting
collective action and labor rights.

At age 27, Mao attended the First Congress of the
Communist Party of China in Shanghai on July 23rd,
1921. Two years later he was elected to the
Central Committee of the party at the Third
Congress.

During the Chinese Civil War’s first KMT-CCP
united front, Mao served as the director of the
Peasant Training Institute of the Kuomintang (also
known as KMT or Nationalist Party). In early 1927,
he was dispatched to Hunan province to report on
the recent peasant uprisings in the wake of the
Northern Expedition. The report that Mao produced
from this investigation is considered the first
important work of Maoist theory.

==Political ideas==
Main article: Maoism

During this time, Mao developed many of his
political theories. These ideas have had a
monumental impact on generations of Chinese and
have significantly affected the rest of the world.

Mao's thought transformed traditional Marxism into
a political ideology that could work to win a
revolution and consolidate power in China. 
Marxism-Leninism could only exist in concrete
manifestations, meaning that it could only work if
it was applied to certain situations.  Mao
hypothesized that peasants could form the basis of
a communist revolution, but only if the party
elites took the message of revolution to the grass
roots and make it comprehensible to the peasant
population.  This meant a process of getting party
cadres to understand local realities and trying to
integrate the concerns of peasants with party
policy, something called Mass Line.  

Mao also built on the theories of Hegel and Karl
Marx|Marx to create a new theory of materialist
dialectics. By applying the theory of the
dialectic to real-world conflicts, then by
asserting that only the empirical reality of the
conflict mattered, Mao developed a type of
dialectic theory that was studied for decades. It
is difficult to determine the true validity of
this theory, however, since so many analyses of it
have been heavily influenced by political biases.

During this time, Mao also developed more
practical ideas, such as a three-stage theory of
guerilla warfare and the concept of the people's
democratic dictatorship.

==War and Revolution==

Mao escaped the white terror in the spring and
summer of 1927 and led the ill-fated Autumn
Harvest Uprising at Changsha, Hunan, that autumn.
Mao barely survived this mishap (he escaped his
guards on the way to his execution).  He and his
rag-tag band of loyal guerillas found refuge in
the Jinggang Mountains in southeastern China.
There, from 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the
Chinese Soviet Republic and was elected chairman.
It was during this period that Mao married He
Zizhen, after Yang Kaihui had been killed by KMT
forces.

Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but
effective guerilla army, undertook experiments in
rural reform and government, and provided refuge
for Communists fleeing the rightist purges in the
cities. Under increasing pressure from the KMT
encirclement campaigns, there was a struggle for
power within the Communist leadership. Mao was
removed from his important positions and replaced
by individuals (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared
loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and
represented within the CPC by a group known as the
28 Bolsheviks.

Chiang Kai-shek, who had earlier assumed nominal
control of China due in part to the Northern
Expedition, was determined to eliminate the
Communists. To evade the KMT forces, the
Communists engaged in the "Long March", a retreat
from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the
northwest of China. It was during this 9600-km,
year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top
Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference
and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At
this Conference, Mao entered the Standing
Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party
of China.

From his base in Yan'an, Mao led the Communist
resistance against the Japanese in the
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). Mao further
consolidated power over the Communist Party in
1942 by launching the Cheng Feng, or
"Rectification" campaign against rival CPC members
such as Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei, and Ding Ling.
Also while in Yan'an, Mao divorced He Zizhen and
married the actress Lan Ping, who would become
known as Jiang Qing.

During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong's
strategies were opposed by both Chiang Kai-shek
and the United States. The US regarded Chiang as
an important ally, able to help shorten the war by
engaging the Japanese occupiers in China. Chiang,
in contrast, sought to build the ROC army for the
certain conflict with Mao's communist forces after
the end of World War II. This fact was not
understood well in the US, and precious lend-lease
armaments continued to be allocated to the
Kuomintang. In turn, Mao spent some of the war
fighting the Kuomintang for control of certain
parts of China. Both the Communists and
Nationalists have been criticised by academics for
fighting amongst themselves rather than ally
against the Imperial Japanese Army.

However, Americans sent a special diplomatic
envoy, called the Dixie mission, to the Communists
by 1944.  According to Edwin Moise, in Modern
China: A History 2nd Edition,
     
: Most of the Americans were favourably impressed.
 The CCP seemed less corrupt, more unified, and
more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the
Guomingdang.  United States fliers shot down over
North China...confirmed to their superiors that
the CCP was both strong and popular over a broad
area.  In the end, the contacts with the USA
developed with the CCP led to very little.

After the end of World War II, the US continued to
support Chiang Kai-shek, now openly against the
Communist People's Liberation Army|Red Army, led
by Mao Zedong, in the civil war for control of
China as part of its view to contain and defeat
"world communism". Likewise, the Soviet Union gave
quasi-covert support to Mao (acting as a concerned
neighbor more than a military ally, to avoid open
conflict with the US) and gave large supplies of
arms to the Chinese Communists, although newer
Chinese records indicate the Soviet "supplies"
were not as large as previously believed, and
consistently fell short of the promised amount of
aid.

On January 21, 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered
massive losses against Mao's Red Army. In the
early morning of December 10, 1949, Red Army
troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last
KMT-occupied city in mainland China, and Chiang
Kai-shek evacuated from the mainland to Taiwan
that same day.

==Leadership of China==



After the Japanese were defeated in World War II,
the Communists defeated the Kuomintang in an
ensuing civil war and established the People's
Republic of China on October 1, 1949. It was the
culmination of over two decades of popular
struggle led by the Communist Party. From 1954 to
1959, Mao was the President of the People's
Republic of China|Chairman of the PRC. He took up
residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the
Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he decreed
the construction of an indoor swimming pool and
other buildings. Mao often did his work either in
bed or by the side of the pool during his
chairmanship, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, who
claimed to be his physician. (Li's book, The
Private Life of Chairman Mao, has been subject to
controversy.)

Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched
a phase of rapid collectivization, lasting until
around 1958. The CPC introduced price controls
largely successful at breaking the inflationary
spiral of the preceding Republic of China|ROC as
well as a Simplified Chinese character|Chinese
character simplification aimed at increasing
literacy.  Land was redistributed from landowners
to poor peasants and large-scale industrialization
projects were undertaken, contributing to the
construction of a modern national infrastructure. 
During this period, China sustained yearly
increases in GDP of about 4–9% as well as
dramatic improvements in quality-of-life
indicators such as life expectancy and literacy. 

Programs pursued during this time include the
Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which Mao indicated
his willingness to consider different opinions
about how China should be governed.  Given the
freedom to express themselves, liberal and
intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist
Party and questioning its leadership. This was
initially tolerated and even encouraged, since it
was thought that constructive criticism would be
beneficial to the Party. However, after a few
months, Mao's government reversed its policy and
rounded up those who criticized the Party in what
is called the Anti-Rightist Movement. Authors such
as Jung Chang allege that the Hundred Flowers
Campaign was merely a ruse to root out "dangerous"
thinking more easily.

In 1958, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, a
plan intended as an alternative model for economic
growth which contradicted the Soviet model of
heavy industry that was advocated by others in the
party. Under this economic program, Chinese
agriculture was to be collectivized and rural
small-scale industry was to be promoted.  

At first, the Great Leap began with tremendous
success, with agricultural and steel production
running very high.  However, instead of
maintaining the steady growth, Mao and other party
leaders believed they could achieve
unrealistically high quotas.  A damaging number of
agricultural peasants were moved to steel
production.  Numbers were inflated, although "they
were not just lies intended for public
consumption, they were actually believed." (Moise
140) 

By 1959, the Great Leap Forward had become a
disaster for Red China.  Although the steel quotas
were reached, critics point out much of the steel
produced was useless, as it had been made from
scrap metal. According to Zhang Rongmei, a
Geometry teacher in rural Shanghai during the
Great Leap Forward,
:We took all the furniture, pots, and pans we had
in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. 
We put all everything in a big fire and melted
down all the metal. 

Khrushchev cancelled Soviet technical support
because of worsening Sino-Soviet relations. 
Severe droughts also occurred, further reducing
agricultural output. Unrealistic grain demands by
the government, Soviet withdrawl of support, Three
Years of Natural Disaster|natural disasters, and
an economy that had spent ten years recovering
from decades of war and chaos caused famine across
the nation.

There is a great deal of controversy over the
number of deaths by starvation during the Great
Leap Forward.  A mainstream figure is that some
thirty million people died during the famine that
followed.  In 1957, before the Great Leap, about
7–10 million people died.  Due to the
tremendous crop failure in 1959 caused by
incompetent policies from the Great Leap Forward,
around 9 to 12 million people died.  According to
historian Edwin Moise:
: Probably there was no year when China was under
Guomingdang control when the death rate was as low
as 1.46 percent.  The number of excess
deaths...was about 2,500,000 (in 1959).

However, the policies of the Great Leap coincided
with another round of natural disasters in 1960. 
According to Sun Yefang, the death rate was around
2.54 percent in 1960 and around 9 million "excess
deaths" occurred that year.  During the so-called
Three Years of Natural Disasters, the excess
number of deaths "reached 16 million and other
sources give higher figures."  (Moise 142) 
Finally, the Great Leap ended in 1960, as a
tremendous economic failure.

The withdrawal of Soviet aid, border disputes,
disputes over the control and direction of world
communism, whether it should be revolutionary or
status quo, and other disputes pertaining to
foreign policy contributed to the Sino-Soviet
split in the 1960s. Most of the problems,
regarding communist unity, resulted from the death
of Stalin and his replacement by Khrushchev.
Stalin had established himself as the fount of
correct Marxist thought well before Mao controlled
the CCP, and therefore Mao never challenged the
suitability of any Stalinist doctrine (at least
while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of Stalin,
Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority)
leadership of "correct" Marxist doctrine would
fall to him. The resulting tension between
Khrushchev (at the head of a
politically/militarily superior government), and
Mao (believing he had a superior understanding of
Marxist ideology) eroded the previous
patron-client relationship between the USSR and
CCP.

Following these events, other members of the
Communist Party, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng
Xiaoping, decided that Mao should be removed from
actual power and only remain in a largely
ceremonial and symbolic role.  They attempted to
marginalize Mao, and by 1959, Liu Shaoqi became
President of the People's Republic of China|State
President, but Mao remained Chairman.  Liu and
others began to look at the situation much more
realistically, somewhat abandoning the idealism
Mao wished for.

Facing the prospect of losing his place on the
political stage, Mao responded to Liu and Deng's
movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in
1966. This allowed Mao to circumvent the Communist
hierarchy by giving power directly to the Red
Guard (China)|Red Guards, groups of young people,
often teenagers, who set up their own tribunals. 
The Revolution led to the destruction of much of
China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of
a huge number of Chinese intellectuals, as well as
creating general economic and social chaos in the
country.  It was during this period that Mao chose
Lin Biao to become his successor. Later, it is
unclear whether Lin was planning a military coup
(or assassination), but before he could be
questioned, Lin died trying to flee China
(probably anticipating his arrest) in a suspicious
plane crash over Mongolia. It was declared that
Lin was planning to depose Mao, and he was
posthumously expelled from the CCP. Mao lost trust
in many of the top CCP figures. 


In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to
be over, although the official history of the
People's Republic of China marks the end of the
Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In
the last years of his life, Mao was faced with
declining health due to either Parkinson's disease
or, according to Li Zhisui, motor neuron disease,
as well as lung ailments due to tobacco
smoking|smoking and heart trouble. Mao remained
passive as various factions within the Communist
Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated
after his death. When Mao could not swim any
longer, the indoor swimming pool he had at
Zhongnanhai was converted into a giant reception
hall, according to Li Zhisui. 

As anticipated after Mao’s death on
September 9, 1976, there was a power struggle for
control of China. On one side were the leftists
led by the Gang of Four (China)|Gang of Four, who
wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary
mass mobilization. On the other side were the
rightists, which consisted of two groups. One was
the restorationists led by Hua Guofeng who
advocated a return to central planning along the
Soviet model. The other was the reformers, led by
Deng Xiaoping, who wanted to overhaul the Chinese
economy based on pragmatic policies and to
de-emphasize the role of ideology in determining
economic and political policy.

Eventually, the moderates won control of the
government.  Deng Xiaoping defeated Hua Guofeng in
a bloodless power struggle shortly afterwards.

==Cult of Mao==

One of the reasons Mao is most remembered is the
Cult of Mao, the personality cult that was created
around him. Mao presented himself as an enemy of
landowners, businessmen and Western and American
imperialism, as well as an ally of impoverished
peasants, farmers and workers. Some people argue
that Cult of personality|personality cults go
against the basic ideas of Marxism, but the
propaganda that was inherent with most Communist
regimes contradicted this, as can be seen by the
Cult of Stalin.  

Mao said the following about cults at the 1958
Party congress in Chengdu, where he expressed
support for the idea of personality cults - even
ones like Stalin's:

::"There are two kinds of personality cults. One
is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship
men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because
they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a
false personality cult, i.e. not analysed and
blind worship."

In 1962, Mao proposed the Socialist Education
Movement (SEM), in an attempt to 'protect' the
peasants against the temptations of feudalism and
the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging
in the countryside (thanks to Liu's economic
reforms). Large quantities of politicised art were
produced and circulated - with Mao at the centre.
Numerous posters and musical compositions referred
to Mao as "A red sun in the centre of our hearts"
(我们心中的红&
#22826;阳) and a "Savior of the people"
(人民的大救星)
.

The Cult of Mao proved vital in starting the
Cultural Revolution. China's youth had mostly been
brought up during the Communist era, and they had
been told to love Mao. Thus they were his greatest
supporters.  Their feelings for him were so strong
that many followed his urge to challenge all
established authority.

In October 1966, Mao's Quotations of Chairman Mao
Zedong (also known as the "Little Red Book") was
published.  Party members were encouraged to carry
a copy with them and possession was almost
mandatory in order for membership. Over the years,
Mao's image became displayed everywhere, in every
home, office and shop. His quotations were
included in boldface or red type in even the most
mundane writings.

==Legacy ==

Mao's legacy has produced a large amount of
controversy. Some people emphasize the major
failures such as the Sino-Soviet Split, the Great
Leap Forward and the chaos of the Cultural
Revolution.  Most mainland Chinese believe that
Mao Zedong was a great revolutionary leader,
although he made serious mistakes in his later
life.  According to Deng Xiaoping, Mao was "seven
parts right and three parts wrong", and his
"contributions are primary and his mistakes
secondary."

Supporters of Mao 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, they claim 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.  Some of Mao's
supporters view the Kuomintang as having been
corrupt and credit Mao with driving them off the
Chinese mainland to Taiwan.

They also argue that the Maoist era improved
women's rights by abolishing prostitution, a
phenomenon that was to return after Deng Xiaoping
and post-Maoist CCP leaders increased
liberalization of the economy.  Indeed, Mao once
famously remarked that "Women hold up half the
heavens".

Skeptics observe that similar gains in life
expectancy occurred in the East Asian Tigers, most
notably Taiwan, which was ruled by Mao's
opponents, the Kuomintang.  Some of the gains may
have simply been the result of a country no longer
at war, so perhaps any regime could achieve such
improvements.  The regime that took over in Taiwan
was composed of the same people ruling the
Mainland for over 20 years when life expectancy
was so low, yet life expectancy there also
increased.

Mao believed that "socialism is the only way out
for China," because the United States and other
Western countries would not allow China to join
the ranks of advanced capitalism. As if to support
this theory, the United States placed a trade
embargo on China that lasted until Richard Nixon
decided Mao had made himself a force to be
reckoned with in dealing with the Soviet Union.
While the Tigers obtained favorable trade terms
from the United States, most Third World
capitalist countries did not, and they saw nothing
like the social gains in China or the economic
growth of the Tigers.

Some, including members of the Communist Party of
China, hold Mao responsible for initiating the
Sino-Soviet Split.  The Great Leap Forward and the
Cultural Revolution were also considered to be
major disasters in his policy.  Still other
critics of Mao fault him for not encouraging birth
control and for creating a demographic bump which
later Chinese leaders responded to with the one
child policy.

There is more consensus on Mao's role as a
military strategist and tactician during the
Chinese Civil War and the Korean War. Even among
those who find Mao's ideology to be either
unworkable or abhorrent, many acknowledge that Mao
was a brilliant political and military strategist
- Mao's military writings continue to have a large
amount of influence both among those who seek to
create an insurgency and those who seek to crush
one.



The ideology of Maoism has influenced many
communists around the world, including third world
revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer
Rouge, Peru's Shining Path, the revolutionary
movement in Nepal, and also the Revolutionary
Communist Party in the United States.  China has
moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao's death,
and most people outside of China who describe
themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping
reforms to be a betrayal of Mao's legacy.

In mainland China, many people still consider Mao
a hero in the first half of his life, but hold
that he was too idealistic after gaining power.
His actions during the Cultural Revolution
regarding the "Four Great Evils" polarizes many
Chinese.  Mao is also criticized for creating a
cult of personality.  However, in an era where
economic growth has caused corruption to increase
in mainland China, there are those who regard the
era of Mao as a time of peace and equality.  At
the same time, contemporary views about him in the
PRC are affected by bans on works that criticise
Mao heavily.

In the mid-1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to
appear on all new renminbi currency from the
People’s Republic of China.  This is
intended primarily as an anti-counterfeiting
measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in
contrast to the generic figures that appear in
older currency.

== Family ==
Wives: 
# Yang Kaihui (杨开慧,
1901-1930) of Changsha: married 1921 to 1927,
executed by the Kuomintang in 1930
# He Zizhen (贺子珍, 1910-1984)
of Jiangxi: married May 1928 to 1939
# Jiang Qing: (江青), married 1939 to
Mao's death



Ancestors:
* Wen Qimei (文七妹, 1867-1919),
mother
* Mao Yichang (毛贻昌,
1870-1920), father, courtesy name Mao Shunsheng
(毛顺生)
* Mao Enpu (毛恩普), paternal
grandfather

Siblings:

* Mao Zemin (毛泽民, 1895-1943),
younger brother
* Mao Zetan (毛泽覃, 1905-1935),
younger brother
* Mao Zehong, sister (executed by the Kuomintang
in 1930)

:Mao Zedong's parents altogether had six sons and
two daughters.  Two of the sons and both daughters
died young, leaving the three brothers Mao Zedong,
Mao Zemin, and Mao Zetan.  Like all three of Mao
Zedong's wives, Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan were
communists.  Like Yang Kaihui, both Zemin and
Zetan were killed in warfare during Mao Zedong's
lifetime.  
Note that the character ze (泽) appears in
all of the siblings' given names. This is a common
Chinese naming convention.

Children:
* Mao Anying (毛岸英): son to
Yang, married to Liu Siqi
(刘思齐), who was born Liu
Songlin (刘松林), killed in
action during the Korean War 
* Mao Anqing (毛岸青): son to
Yang, married to Shao Hua (邵华), son
Mao Xinyu (毛新宇)
* Li Min (李敏): daughter to He,
married to Kong Linghua
(孔令华), son Kong Ji'ning
(孔继宁), daughter Kong Dongmei
(孔冬梅) 	 
* Li Na (李讷): daughter to Jiang
(whose birth given name was Li), married to Wang
Jingqing (王景清), son Wang
Xiaozhi (王效芝)

:Sources suggest that Mao did have other children
during his revolutionary days; in most of these
cases the children were left with peasant families
because it was difficult to take care of the
children while focusing on revolution. Two English
researchers who retraced the entire Long March
route in
2002-2003http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-
11/23/content_283948.htmlocated a woman who they
believe might well be a missing child abandoned by
Mao and He to peasants in
1935http://english.qianlong.com/7778/2003-4-16/208
@792743.htm. Ed Jocelyn and Andrew
McEwenhttp://www.newlongmarchers.com hope a member
of the Mao family will respond to requests for a
DNA test.

== Writings ==

Mao is the attributed author of Quotations from
Chairman Mao Zedong, known in the West as the
"Little Red Book": this is a collection of
extracts from his speeches and articles. He wrote
several other philosophical treatises, both before
and after he assumed power. These include:
* On Practice; 1937
* On Contradiction; 1937
* On New Democracy; 1940
* On Literature and Art; 1942
* On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions
Among the People; 1957
* On Guerilla Warfare.
* "In Memory of Doctor Bethune"
* "The Foolish Man Who Removed A Mountain"
* "Serve the People"

Mao wrote poetry, mainly in the ci (poetry)|ci and
shi (poetry)|shi forms.  Its literary merit is
difficult to evaluate in the light of the author's
controversial political status, and it is more
highly thought of within the PRC than abroad.

See also:
*Famous military writers
*Mao (game)

== External links ==

*http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/in
dex.html Collected Works of Mao Zedong
*http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/41246000/rm/_41
246539_28.ram Interview part 1 (RealPlayer)  
其采访录音(上) 请用RealPlayer打开
*http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/41246000/rm/_41
246435_29.ram Interview part 2 (RealPlayer)  
其采访录音(下) 请用RealPlayer打开
*http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDmao.htm
Mao Zedong Biography From Spartacus Educational
*http://artchina.free.fr/items/creasite.php?params
=Mao%20Zedong_CATEGORY_0 Mao Zedong on propaganda
posters Set of propaganda paintings showing Mao
Zedong as the great leader of China.
*http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/ MIM Maoist
Internationalist Movement, a sect of Maoism (their
theories are NOT the same as all Maoists)
*http://art-bin.com/art/omaotoc.html Quotations
from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Mao's most famous
book, also known in the West as Mao's "Little Red
Book")
*http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm#maoism
The Encyclopedia of Marxism gives a Marxist
(Trotskyist) view of Mao Zedong Thought.
*http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/m/a.htm#m
ao-tse-tung The Encyclopedia of Marxism gives a
Trotskyist view of Mao's life.  Parts of this
article are based on it.

=== Video ===
*http://www.chairmanmao.org/gb/yingxiang/shikuang/
002.asf Mao declares the founding of the PRC - 852
Kb Advanced Streaming Format|ASF file

(In Chinese with Chinese subtitles)

== Reference ==
*http://www.asiasource.org/society/mao.cfm Asia
Source biography
* Becker, Jasper. Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret
Famine, 1998.
* Jung Chang. Mao : The Unknown Story, 2005.
* Li Zhi-Sui. The Private Life of Chairman Mao,
1996.

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succession box|before=Chen Duxiu|after=Hua
Guofeng|title=Chairman of the Communist Party of
China|years=1945–1976
succession box|before=None|after=Liu
Shaoqi|title=President of the People's Republic of
China|years=1949–1959
succession box|before=--|after=Hua
Guofeng|title=Chairman of the Central Military
Commission of CCP|years=1936–1976
end box