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 "Politics is war without bloodshed. War is politics with bloodshed."
Mao Zedong is the first head of state of the People's Republic of China, leading the communist revolution from 1935 to his victory over Chiang Kai Shek in the mainland in 1949, establishing communist rule in China, ruling it until his death in 1976.
Mao was born in Hunan Province in December 26, 1893. He was quite a rebellious lad, and had Abusive Parents. He later scraped enough money from working in his family farm to enable him to go to high school. However, the 1911 revolution happened, and he joined the revolutionary forces in his home province for a time, then returned to high school to graduate. He later got a librarian job at the Beijing University library and also studied there, where he later came in contact with Chinese Marxists that would later influence him.
Mao later married Yang Kaihui, who was the daughter of his favorite professor, despite the fact that Mao was already married. It didn't end well for Yang, who was killed by Chiang's regime (the Kuomintang) in 1930.
Mao later attended in 1921 a session of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai. He later became one of the top leaders of the party, and he developed further his own theory of communism from there.
He later led uprisings against the Kuomintang like those in Changsha in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, but they proved to be quite abortive. He founded a Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi province, fleeing with his troops, but later, the KMT pounded them out of that province and the Chinese Communists had to trek northwest in what was called the Long March. Mao built up his army, and ascended to the position of leader of the Chinese Communist Party in the Zunyi Conference in 1935. He scored a big domestic political victory when he secured a deal with Chiang to defend China against Japan, establishing a 'united front'. In practice this treaty was more or less ignored by both sides and when Japan surrendered in 1945, Mao and Chiang swiftly moved to resume their civil war. Mao, with his better motivated troops and control of the Chinese countryside, eventually won the day by October 1, 1949.
Mao Zedong proceeded to revolutionize Chinese society, at the same time, ruthlessly purging his opponents. Fearing that the North Koreans would lose in the Korean War when the US troops curb stomped their way through the Korean peninsula, Mao in 1951 unleashed a Zerg Rush of 'Chinese People's Volunteers' against the US troops there, perhaps saving the North Korean regime as well as himself.
Although China's economy was growing admirably in the first several years after the war (industrial production was growing 19% per year and national income 9% per year), this wasn't enough for Mao, who decided that China must surpass the Western industrial production in 15 years or less. He embarked on a mission to strengthen the Chinese economy, declaring the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961. Because of poor management, anywhere from fifteen to forty million Chinese died in about 1959 to 1963 (the exact number will remain unknown until China's archives are made available to researchers).
Having lost most of his power due the Great Leap Forward (he was, in his own words, a "dead ancestor", praised but never consulted), Mao then unleashed the Cultural Revolution in 1966. He blamed the Great Leap on the moderates like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, kicking them out of their positions in the hierarchy, then used the Red Guards, leftist extremist students who were indeed more violent than their western counterparts, besides being assured of Mao's support. Thousands, many Mis-blamed for the failures of the Cultural Revolution, were imprisoned or killed.
Knowing that these Red Guards became Ax Crazy, he then accused his successor Lin Biao of plotting to overthrow Mao, and had him purged in 1971.
Mao then was ill by the 1970s, and his wife Jiang Qing and three of her associates later took powers for Mao until he died in 1976. Jiang and her associates were later purged as the 'Gang of Four'. Deng Xiaoping, who was later re-habilitated, was unable to criticize Mao in his failures until 1981, mainly because the Chinese people still loved Mao despite his errors and murders of political opponents, not to mention millions who died in famines because Mao failed to understand even a good socialist economy.
Tropes Embodied by Mao
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