Recent Event Highlights: If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience. , Mao launches 2nd Five-Years Plan, Mao becomes chairman of PRC, Mao launches 1st Five-Year plan, People’s Republic of China established, KMT suffers massive losses against Mao’s Red Army and Red Army takes over the power in Chengdu, the last city occupied by KMT. Divorces He Zizhen and marries actress Lang Ping, and 11 more...
Created by jgonzales on Feb 14, 2011
Last updated: 02/23/11 at 01:35 PM
Mao Zedong has no followers yet. Be the first one to follow.
poor health and lung ailment due to heart trouble and smoking
In the Cultural Revolution, learning was a crime. The crackdown on teachers, professors and intellectuals was particularly nasty. In middle schools students ordered their teachers to cultivate cabbage. In high schools, teachers wore dunce caps and spent the whole day reciting "I am a cow demon" in front of classroom filled with mocking students. In their attempt to wipe out China's past and create a new society, Red Guards destroyed any precious painting, vase, pottery, calligraphy, embroidery, statue, book or works of art they could their hands on. Owners destroyed their own stuff to avoid getting caught with it.The Red Guard and supporters of the Cultural Revolution also destroyed temples and historical buildings. Between 1970 and 1974 an army unit stationed at Gubeikou tore down two miles of the Great Wall and used the stone blocks to construct army barracks. In Tibet the Red Guard turned thousand-year-old monasteries into factories and pigsties.Red Guards did not discriminate against particular religions, they were against them all. They ripped crosses from church steeples, forced Catholic priests into labor camps, tortured Buddhist monks in Tibet and turned Muslim schools into pig slaughterhouses. Children stood by as Red Guards beat up their mothers for being "rightists." Neighbors informed on neighbors. violinists had their instruments and even fingers smashed by Red Guards. The accused sometimes had their jaws dislocated so they couldn’t speak in their defense and were forced to bow in front mobs that spit and screamed at them. There were also stories of people killing themselves by hammering nails into their skulls and corpses being mutilated in order to fit into coffins. Children of unpopular party members were gagged and executed. Teenage Red Guards locked up, tortured and killed seven teachers at a secondary school affiliated with Beijing Normal University.
There were no uprisings against Mao in particular, but against the PCR in general. The KMT was the opposing group, and those who's loyalty was suspect were executed. Since China was a communist country, and the largest country in the world, many anti-communist governments refused to sign treaties with China. The Soviet Union was one of the few countries willing to become an ally with China. Mao died peacefully in his sleep. his health was declining because he had heart and lung problems because of smoking.
Mao's greatest violation of human rights was during the 2nd Five-Years Plan and the Cultural Revolution. He caused many executions and China lost a lot of their culture and were forced to work. He was often used as propaganda, because he appealed to the poorer population of China (which was a majority).
The Second Five-Year Plan, also known as ‘The Great Leap Forward’ focusing on heavy industries for economic growth was launched. Under this plan relatively small agricultural collectives were merged into far larger people’s communes. Peasants were ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and all private food production was banned. Mao and other party leaders ordered implementation of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques. This led to a 16% drop in the total grain production with no recovery till 1961. This, combined by the flood or drought situation in some areas left peasants nothing to eat resulting into the largest Famine in the human history.
The communist party aimed at the total involvement of the Chinese people in building and strengthening their nation. There were campaigns of mass repression and public executions during 1949-1953, in which millions of KMT officials, businessmen, landowners and former employees of western companies were killed whose loyalty was suspect. Mao’s personal role in ordering executions was undeniable who explained these executions as necessary for the ‘securing the power. Mao wanted to create an independent and united nation. Mao always wore a Zhongshan suit. After the end of the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the suit became widely worn by males and government leaders as a symbol of proletarian unity and an Eastern counterpart to the Western business sui
During Mao's term as chairman, there were campaigns of mass repression and public executions, in which millions of KMT officials, businessmen, landowners and former employees of western companies were killed whose loyalty was suspect.
The Five-Year plan aimed to end the Chinese dependence on agriculture to become a world power. New industrial plants were built and agricultural industries began to produce enough capital that China no longer needed any outside support. The success of first Five-Year Plan encouraged Mao to initiate the Second Five-year Plan.
Mao attended the first session of the National 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 the Party during the third Congress session. In 1924, he was elected an Alternate Executive of the central Committee and in the same year he became an Executive of the Shanghai branch of the Kuomintang and Secretary of the Organization Department. In October 1925, Mao became acting propaganda Director of the Kuomintang.
Mao's father was a poor, but became rich by paying off all his debt and starting a rice trading company. While at Beijing, his professor helped to influence his views in communism. In his early political career, Mao often represented the poor, and tried to best benefit them. Mao was first introduced to communism while working at Peking University and in 1921; he co-founded the Communist Party of China (CPC). He sought to sabotage the alliance of imperialism and feudalism in China. Throughout the 1920’s he led several laborer struggles with limited success.
Mao Tse-tung born in Hunan, China to an affluent Buddhist family
Update Sources