FROM a very early age, Mao Tse-tung rebelled against some well-established norms of society. That was precisely the reason why when his father arranged his marriage when he was just 14 years old, he declined to obey him.
The foremost communist leader of China and founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao was greatly influenced by Western philosophy. In 1918, after graduating from a local institution, he joined the library of the Beijing University and explored Marxist political and social thoughts. He became such a passionate reader of Marxist writings that at times he published his own articles criticizing the traditional values of Confucianism. This was the time when he met a university student and married her.
Mao travelled to Shanghai in 1921 after his attempt to sort out problems of a democratic government for the Hunan province failed. In Shanghai, he attended the first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party. From then on Mao started playing a significant role in the country’s politics. He founded a branch of the Communist Party in the Hunan province and gathered a lot of public support for it. After that, he organized workers’ strikes throughout the province. At the time, the northern Chinese population was being controlled by the warlords. To defeat the warlords another key party in China’s politics, the Kuomintang party, joined the Communist Party. Keeping his Communist Party membership intact, Mao served the Kuomintang party as well.
Later on, after organizing peasant unions in his hometown Shaoshan, Mao declared that peasants would be the main force in the revolution. It seemed that he supported the peasants because he himself was born into a peasant family and had a similar background. This was something that in a way as considered against orthodox Marxism and the Kuomintang party, as a result of which the Chinese Communist Party rejected Mao’s ideas.
In 1927, after breaking up with the Communist Party, the Kuomintang Party engaged in fierce fighting with the communists. During the bloody battles, Mao played his role by launching attacks against the Kuomintang Party in the Hunan province with the help of a small peasant army. Unfortunately, Mao had to face defeat and retreated to the mountainous province of Jiangxi. Over there Mao formed the Red Army and with that he came up with new guerrilla tactics and finally defeated the Kuomintang army.
A leader of the Kuomintang Party, Chiang, desperately wanted to eliminate the communists. In 1934, he reinforced his troops and surrounded the mountainous area where Mao had his base. Mao had no other option but to escape with his followers. And with that started the six thousand-mile Long March to the village of Yanan. Along the way, Mao stopped at Zunvi to meet other high officials of the Communist Party to discuss the party’s future. There Mao had the chance to criticize the members who once opposed his idea of a peasant revolution and gained a lot of support which later on gave him power. The meeting turned out to be a crucial turning point in Mao’s control over the Communist Party. He further strengthened his control of the party by launching a campaign against those members who disagreed with him.
A civil war broke out between the communists and Kuomintang troops shortly after the World War II. Communists who had a great peasant support and a well-disciplined Red Army defeated the Kuomintang party in 1949. Just after that, Mao announced the founding of People’s Republic of China in Beijing.
After becoming the chairman, Mao took up a more responsible task of re-constructing the poverty-stricken China. He followed policies of the USSR to make the country a socialist society. In doing so, he ordered the re-distribution of lands, the abolishment of inhuman laws under which the country’s population had been ruled by the landlords and the establishment of heavy industries in the cities.
Mao also introduced agricultural reforms. He believed that the energy of the people of China exuded would help the country achieve the goal of becoming a developed nation.
During this period Mao sought a lot of support and aid from the USSR. This turned the United States against him. In addition to that, the Korean War was another factor which created huge gaps between China and the US. Almost one million Chinese soldiers died fighting for North Korea from 1950 to 1953, including Mao’s own son, Mao Anying.
There were still a lot of faces in the government who criticized Mao for his policies. But Mao attacked all of his rivals one by one continuing with the same policies.
On Sept 9, 1976 Mao died of Parkinson disease. Many Chinese still vilify him for his brutality during the Cultural Revolution but the majority praises him for his significant role in the resistance against Japan and remembers him as a powerful and creative figure in China’s history.
