Mao Zedong: brief biography, activities, interesting facts. Mao Zedong - The Great Pilot of China Mao Zedong was born

Mao Zedong (December 26, 1893 - September 9, 1976) - the first chairman of the Communist Party of China, politician, dictator, creator and ideologist of Maoism. Chairman Mao is a controversial figure. The cultural revolution that took place in the country during his reign destroyed many objects cultural heritage and claimed the lives of millions of people. However, on the other hand, Zedong carried out a series of reforms that favorably affected the development of the country's economy.

Childhood and early years

Mao Zedong's family came from the middle class. Little Mao was strongly attached to his mother, and his relationship with his father was not so perfect - they clashed a lot. One of the biggest quarrels occurred when the future chairman flatly refused to accept the wife chosen for him. He also resisted hard physical labor and did little to help his family. In 1910, Mao went to study in Dunshan, where he formed his main views as a politician. After the Xinghai Revolution in 1911 and the fall of the monarchy, Zedong continued to study. In 1917 he organized a revolutionary circle.

Start of political activity

From 1919 to 1925, Mao studied the works of foreign reformers and followed political events in Russia with interest. He travels a lot in China: he is trying to achieve the removal of the governor in Hunan province, he participates in the first congress of the Communist Party of China. He soon becomes disillusioned with the viability of the Chinese revolution and retires for a short while. In 1927, he raises a peasant uprising, which ends in failure. For some time, Mao and his supporters were forced to hide from the authorities. Then they settled in the province of Jiangxi and established Soviet power there, based on the peasantry. Soon the Communist Party discredited itself, and Mao's position, on the contrary, strengthened. In the early 1930s, he got rid of most of his opponents through repression, and in the fall of 1931 he became the head of the newly formed Soviet Republic of China. Then, during the long years of the civil war, Mao fought with the current leadership for power in the country, as a result of which in 1949 he won and was proclaimed chairman of the government of the People's Democratic Republic of China.

Years of government (1949 - 1976)

1)Baihua Yundong - "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom"

In connection with the large-scale redistribution of property and the seizure of property that unfolded during the first five-year plan, the country's leadership launched a campaign under the motto "Let a hundred flowers bloom." The Communist Party proclaimed glasnost and called on the people to actively express their opinion on the reforms being carried out in the country. As a result, in July 1957, more than half a million discontented people appeared, publishing wall newspapers and organizing protest rallies. The campaign was hastily curtailed and the first repressions in the country followed.

2)1958 - 1960 - "The Great Leap"

After many years of wars, the country was in economic decline. In accelerating the pace of collectivization, the formation of communes, the introduction of workdays and other measures, the leadership of the Communist Party saw a way out of the current situation. However, the results of the policy pursued had the opposite effect. Experiments in agriculture and rapid industrialization led to mass starvation.

3)1959-1965 - aggravation of relations with the USSR and the establishment of a personality cult.

Stalin's personality cult was debunked at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. Chairman Mao did not agree with N.S. Khrushchev's policy, as a result of which diplomatic relations were severed between the two countries. Soviet specialists who collaborated with China and helped in the reconstruction of the country were recalled to their homeland. At the same time, the cult of Mao was established in the Celestial Empire, all reactionary writers were sharply criticized, dissent was condemned.

4)1965 - 1976 - Cultural Revolution

During the years of the Cultural Revolution, the authorities organized detachments of the Red Guards, who killed and tortured and humiliated hundreds of thousands of people. Traditional Chinese culture was consigned to oblivion: books and paintings were burned, ancient architecture was destroyed. The power of the chairman has reached the absolute.

5) The final stage

At the end of his reign, the seriously ill Mao actually retired. Various groups were in power, one of which was headed by his last wife. The chairman died in September 1976, after his death his body was placed in the mausoleum.

Board results

Among the biggest failures and achievements of Mao Zedong are:

The establishment of a communist regime that exists in the country to this day;

Carrying out reforms in agriculture and industry;

Development of atomic weapons;

Mass repressions;

The stagnation of the economy and the establishment of the cult of the leader;

Creation of the ideology of Maoism.

gg. also the position of President of the People's Republic of China. He conducted several high-profile campaigns, the most famous of which were the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution (-1976), which claimed the lives of many millions of people.

The reign of Mao Zedong was controversial. On the one hand, under his leadership, the industrialization of the country was carried out, with an increase in the material level of the poorest segments of the population. On the other hand, repressions were carried out in the country, which were criticized not only in capitalist, but even in socialist countries. Also during that period there was a cult of Mao's personality.

The name of Mao Zedong consisted of two parts - Tse-tung. Ze had a double meaning: the first - "wet and wet", the second - "mercy, kindness, good deed". The second hieroglyph is "dun" - "east". The whole name meant "Beneficent East". At the same time, according to tradition, the child was given an unofficial name. It was supposed to be used on special occasions as a dignified, respectful "Yongzhi". "Yong" means to chant, and "zhi" - or, more precisely, "zhilan" - "orchid". Thus, the second name meant "Sung Orchid." Soon the middle name had to be replaced: from the point of view of geomancy, the sign "water" was absent in it. As a result, the second name turned out to be similar in meaning to the first: Zhunzhi - “Orchid irrigated with water”. With a slightly different spelling of the hieroglyph "zhi", the name Zhunzhi acquired another symbolic meaning: "Beneficent of all living." But the great name, although it reflected the aspirations of the parents of a brilliant future for their son, was also a “potential challenge to fate,” therefore, in childhood, Mao was called a modest diminutive name - Shi san ya-tzu (“Third child named Stone”).

Biography

early years

House of Mao Zedong. Now a museum

Young Mao received a classical elementary Chinese education at a local school, which included familiarity with the teachings of Confucius and the study of ancient Chinese literature. “I knew the classics, but did not like it,” Mao Zedong later admitted in an interview with Edgar Snow. The young man retained his passion for reading and dislike for classical philosophical treatises even after he left school at the age of 13 (the reason for this was the strict disposition of the teacher, who used harsh methods of education and often beat students) and returned to his father's house. Mao Yichang enthusiastically welcomed the return of his son, hoping that he would become his support in household chores and housekeeping. However, his expectations were not justified: young Mao opposed any physical labor and spent all his free time reading books.

In late 1907 - early 1908, another conflict between father and son occurred in the Mao family. This time, his reason was the marriage arranged by Mao Yijing for his eldest son. Mao's second cousin, Lo Yigu, was chosen as the bride for the future Chairman. According to Mao Zedong, he did not accept his wife and refused to live with her. “I never lived with her, neither then nor since. I did not consider her my wife,” the Chairman confessed years later to Edgar Snow. Soon after the wedding, Mao ran away from home and spent about six months visiting an unemployed student he knew, also in Shaoshan. He continued to read enthusiastically: at this time, he was familiar with classical Chinese historiography - "Historical Notes" by Sima Qian and "History of the Han Dynasty" by Ban Gu.

With all the tension in his relationship with his father, when in the fall of 1910 the young Zedong demanded money from his parent to continue his education, Mao Yichang could not refuse and provided his son with education at the Dunshan Primary School of the highest level. At school, Mao was met with hostility: the rest of the students were annoyed by his appearance (he had an atypical height of 177 cm for a southerner), origin (most of the students were sons of large landowners) and speech (Mao spoke the local Xiangtan dialect until the end of his life). However, this did not negate the perseverance and diligence with which the new student approached the classes. Mao could write good compositions in a classical manner, was industrious and, as usual, read a lot. Here he first became acquainted with geography and began to read works on foreign history. He first learned about such famous historical figures as Napoleon, Catherine II, Peter I, Wellington, Gladstone, Rousseau, Montesquieu and Lincoln. The main books for him at that time were publications telling about the Chinese reformers Liang Qichao and Kang Yuwei. Their ideas of constitutional monarchism had a huge impact on the schoolboy Mao, who fully accepted the views of the leaders of the reform movement.

In Beijing, the formation of the political views of young Mao was greatly influenced by his acquaintance with Li Dazhao (a supporter of Marxism) and Chen Duxiu, as well as acquaintance with the ideas of anarchism, in particular the works of P. A. Kropotkin. After completing training courses in France, Mao finally came to the conclusion that he would remain in China and build his career here.

Start of political activity

In July 1921, Mao attended the founding congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Two months later, upon his return to Changsha, he became secretary of the Hunan branch of the CCP. At the same time, Mao marries Yang Kaihui, Yang Changji's daughter. Over the next five years, they have three sons, Anying, Anqing, and Anlong.

Due to the extreme inefficiency of organizing workers and recruiting new party members, in July 1922 Mao was suspended from participation in the Second Congress of the CCP.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party was going through a severe crisis. The number of its members was reduced to 10,000, of which only 3% were workers. The new party leader Li Lisan, due to several serious defeats on the military and ideological front, as well as disagreements with Stalin, was expelled from the Central Committee. Against this background, the position of Mao, who emphasized the peasantry and acted relatively successfully in this direction, is strengthening in the party, despite frequent conflicts with the party leadership. With his opponents at the local level in Jiangxi, Mao dealt with in - years. through a crackdown in which many local leaders were killed or imprisoned as agents of the fictional AB-tuanei society. The AB Tuanei case was, in fact, the first "purge" in the history of the CCP.

At the same time, Mao suffered a personal loss: Kuomintang agents managed to capture his wife, Yang Kaihui. She was executed in 1930, and a little later Mao's youngest son Anlong died of dysentery. His second son by Kaihui, Mao Anying, died in the course of the Korean War.

In the autumn of 1931, the Chinese Soviet Republic was established on the territory of 10 Soviet regions of Central China controlled by the Chinese Red Army and partisans close to it. Mao Zedong became the head of the Provisional Central Soviet Government (Council of People's Commissars).

long march

In the midst of the anti-Japanese struggle, Mao Zedong initiates a movement called "correction of morals" ( "zhengfeng"; 1942-43). The reason for this is the sharp growth of the party, replenished with defectors from the army of Chiang Kai-shek and peasants who are not familiar with the party ideology. The movement includes communist indoctrination of new party members, active study of Mao's writings, and "self-criticism" campaigns, especially against Mao's archrival Wang Ming, which effectively suppresses free thought among the communist intelligentsia. The result of zhengfeng is the complete concentration of intra-party power in the hands of Mao Zedong. In 1943 he was elected chairman of the Politburo and Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and in 1945 - chairman of the CPC Central Committee. This period becomes the first stage in the formation of Mao's personality cult.

Mao studies the classics of Western philosophy and, in particular, Marxism. On the basis of Marxism-Leninism, some aspects of traditional Chinese philosophy and, last but not least, his own experience and ideas, Mao manages, with the help of his personal secretary Chen Bod, to create and "theoretically substantiate" a new direction of Marxism - Maoism. Maoism was conceived as a more pragmatic form of Marxism that would be more adapted to the Chinese realities of the time. Its main features can be identified as an unambiguous orientation towards the peasantry (and not towards the proletariat), as well as Great Han nationalism. The influence of traditional Chinese philosophy on Marxism in the Maoist version was manifested in the vulgarization of dialectics.

CCP Victory in the Civil War

"Great Leap Forward"

Despite all efforts, the growth rate of the Chinese economy in the late 1950s left much to be desired. Agricultural productivity has regressed. In addition, Mao was worried about the lack of a "revolutionary spirit" in the masses. He decided to approach the solution of these problems within the framework of the "Three Red Banners" policy, designed to ensure the "Great Leap Forward" in all areas of the national economy and launched in 1958. In order to reach the production volumes of Great Britain in 15 years, it was supposed to organize almost the entire rural (and also, partially, urban) population of the country into autonomous "communes". Life in the communes was extremely collectivized - with the introduction of collective canteens, private life and, moreover, property were practically eradicated. Each commune had to not only provide itself and the surrounding cities with food, but also produce industrial products, mainly steel, which was smelted in small furnaces in the backyards of the members of the commune: thus it was expected that mass enthusiasm would make up for the lack of professionalism.

The policy of the "Great Leap Forward" ended in a grand failure. The quality of products produced in the communes

was extremely low; the cultivation of the collective fields went from bad to worse: 1) the peasants lost their economic motivation in their work, 2) many laborers were involved in "metallurgy" and 3) the fields remained uncultivated, as optimistic "statistics" predicted bumper harvests. Within two years, food production fell to catastrophically low levels. At this time, provincial leaders reported to Mao on the unprecedented successes of the new policy, provoking raising the bar for the sale of grain and the production of "home" steel. Critics of the Great Leap Forward, such as Defense Minister Peng Dehuai, lost their posts. In 1959-1961. the country was gripped by the greatest famine, the victims of which, according to various estimates, were from 10 to 30 million people.

On the eve of the "Cultural Revolution"

The domestic political situation in China is also changing significantly. After the catastrophic failure of the Great Leap Forward, many leaders at both the top and local levels are beginning to withhold Mao's support. Inspection trips around the country by Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi (who replaced Mao Zedong as head of state in 1959) reveal the monstrous consequences of the policy pursued, as a result of which most of the members of the Central Committee more or less openly go over to the side of the "liberals". There are veiled demands for the resignation of the CCP chairman. As a result, Mao Zedong partially admits the failure of the Great Leap Forward and even hints at his own guilt in this. While maintaining authority, he stops actively interfering in the affairs of the country's leadership for a while, watching from the sidelines how Deng and Liu are pursuing a realistic policy that is fundamentally at odds with his own views - dissolving communes, allowing private land ownership and elements of free trade in the countryside, significantly weakening the grip censorship.

At the same time, the left wing of the party is strenuously strengthening its positions, operating mainly from Shanghai. For example, the new Minister of Defense, Lin Biao, is actively inculcating a cult of Mao's personality, especially in the "People's Liberation Army" under his control (see below). For the first time, Jiang Qing, Mao's last wife, began to interfere in politics - at first the politics of culture. It sharply attacks the democratically minded writers and poets of China, as well as the authors of "bourgeois" literature, who write without the overtones of the class struggle. In Shanghai, on behalf of the left-wing journalist Yao Wenyuan, an article is published in which the drama of the famous historian and writer, Deputy Mayor of Beijing Wu Han, “Decommissioning of Hai Rui” (海瑞罢官), which is in an allegorical form, using an example from antiquity, is subjected to devastating criticism , illustrated the corruption, arbitrariness, hypocrisy and lack of freedom reigning in China. Despite the efforts of the liberal bloc, the discussion around this drama becomes a precedent for the start of great changes in the field of culture, and soon the Cultural Revolution. It is assumed that the image of Hai Rui allegorically expresses nothing more than a defense of Peng Dehuai, who was demoted for his sincere criticism of the Chairman's policy.

Cultural Revolution

Despite the high rates of development of the Chinese economy after the rejection of the Three Red Banners policy, Mao is not going to put up with the liberal trend in the development of the national economy. He is also not ready to consign to oblivion the ideals of the permanent revolution, to allow "bourgeois values" (the predominance of economics over ideology) into the life of the Chinese. Nevertheless, he is forced to state that the bulk of the leading cadres do not share his worldview. Even the established "Committee on the Cultural Revolution" prefers not to crack down on critics of the regime at first. In this scenario, Mao decides to carry out a new global upheaval, which was supposed to return society to the bosom of revolution and "true socialism." In addition to the left-wing radicals - Chen Boda, Jiang Qing and Lin Biao, Mao Zedong's ally in this enterprise was to be primarily the Chinese youth.

Having made a swim on the Yangtze River in July 1966 and thus proving his "combat capability", Mao returns to leadership, arrives in Beijing and launches a powerful attack on the liberal wing of the party, mainly on Liu Shaoqi. A little later, the Central Committee, at the behest of Mao, approved the Sixteen Points document, which practically became the program of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It began with attacks on the leadership of Peking University lecturer Nie Yuanzi. Following this, students and pupils of secondary schools, in an effort to resist conservative and often corrupt teachers and professors, inspired by revolutionary sentiments and the cult of the "Great Pilot - Chairman Mao", which was skillfully fomented by the "leftists", begin to organize themselves into units of "Hongweiping" - "Red guards" (can also be translated as "Red Guards"). A campaign against the liberal intelligentsia is launched in the press controlled by the left. Unable to withstand the persecution, some of its representatives, as well as party leaders, commit suicide.

On August 5, Mao Zedong published his dazibao titled "Fire on Headquarters" in which he accused "some leading comrades in the center and localities" of "implementing the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and trying to suppress the turbulent movement of the great proletarian cultural revolution." This dazibao, in fact, called for the destruction of the central and local party organs, declared to be bourgeois headquarters.

With the logistical support of the People's Army (Lin Biao), the Red Guard movement has become global. Throughout the country, mass trials of leading workers and professors are held, during which they are subjected to all sorts of humiliations, often beaten. At a million-strong rally in August, Mao expresses full support and approval for the actions of the Red Guards, from which the army of revolutionary left terror is being consistently created. Along with the official repression of party leaders, the brutal massacres of the Red Guards are increasingly taking place. Among other representatives of the intelligentsia, the famous Chinese writer Lao She was brutally tortured and committed suicide.

Terror seizes all areas of life, classes and regions of the country. Not only famous personalities, but also ordinary citizens are robbed, beaten, tortured and even physically destroyed, often under the most insignificant pretext. The Red Guards destroy countless works of art, burn millions of books, thousands of monasteries, temples, and libraries. Soon, in addition to the Red Guards, detachments of revolutionary working youth, “zaofani” (“rebels”), were organized, and both movements were split into warring factions, sometimes leading a bloody struggle among themselves. When the terror reaches its peak and life in many cities freezes, regional leaders and the PLA decide to speak out against the unrest. Skirmishes between the military and the Red Guards, as well as internal clashes between revolutionary youth, put China under the threat of civil war. Realizing the extent of the reigning chaos, Mao decides to stop the revolutionary terror. Millions of Red Guards and Zaofans, along with party workers, are simply sent to the villages. The main action of the Cultural Revolution is over, China is figuratively (and, in part, literally) in ruins.

The 9th Congress of the CPC, which was held in Beijing from April 1 to 24, 1969, approved the first results of the "cultural revolution". In the report of one of the closest associates of Mao Zedong, Marshal Lin Biao, the main place was occupied by the praise of the "great helmsman", whose ideas were called "the highest stage in the development of Marxism-Leninism" ... The main thing in the new charter of the CPC was the official consolidation of "the ideas of Mao Zedong" fundamentals of the CPC. The program part of the charter included an unprecedented provision that Lin Biao is "the successor to the cause of Comrade Mao Zedong." The full leadership of the party, government and army was concentrated in the hands of the Chairman of the CPC, his deputy and the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Central Committee.

The final stage of the cultural revolution

With the end of the Cultural Revolution, China's foreign policy takes an unexpected turn. Against the backdrop of extremely tense relations with the Soviet Union (especially after the armed conflict on Damansky Island), Mao suddenly decides to rapprochement with the United States of America, which was sharply opposed by Lin Biao, who was considered Mao's official successor. After the Cultural Revolution, his power increased dramatically, which worries Mao Zedong. Lin Biao's attempts to pursue an independent policy make the chairman completely disappointed in him, they begin to fabricate a case against Lin. Upon learning of this, Lin Biao flees the country on September 13, but his plane crashes under unclear circumstances over the Khentii aimag in the MPR. Already in China, President Nixon is visiting.

Mao's last years

Since 1971, Mao has been very ill and has not been out in public very often. After the death of Lin Biao, behind the back of the aging Chairman, there is an intra-factional struggle in the CCP. Opposing each other is a group of "left radicals" (led by the leaders of the cultural revolution, the so-called "gang of four" - Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chongqiao and Yao Wenyuan) and a group of "pragmatists" (led by moderate Zhou Enlai and rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping). Mao Zedong tries to maintain a balance of power between the two factions, allowing, on the one hand, some easing in the field of the economy, but also supporting, on the other hand, mass campaigns of leftists, for example, "Criticism of Confucius and Lin Biao." Mao's new successor was considered to be Hua Guofeng, a devoted Maoist belonging to the moderate left.

The struggle between the two factions escalates in 1976 after the death of Zhou Enlai. His commemoration turned into massive popular demonstrations, in which people pay respect to the deceased and protest against the policies of the radical left. The unrest is brutally suppressed, Zhou Enlai is branded posthumously as a "capputist" (that is, a supporter of the capitalist path - a label used during the Cultural Revolution), and Deng Xiaoping is sent into exile. By that time, Mao was already seriously ill with Parkinson's disease and unable to actively intervene in politics.

After two severe heart attacks on September 9, 1976 at 0:10 o'clock Beijing time, at the age of 83, Mao Zedong died. More than a million people came to the funeral of the "Great Helmsman". The body of the deceased was embalmed according to a technique developed by Chinese scientists and put on display a year after death in a mausoleum built on Tiananmen Square by order of Hua Guofeng. By the beginning of the year, about 158 ​​million people had visited Mao's tomb.

Cult of personality

The cult of personality of Mao Zedong originated during the Yan'an period in the early forties. Even then, classes on the study of the theory of communism mainly used the works of Mao. In 1943, newspapers began to appear with a portrait of Mao on the front page, and soon "the ideas of Mao Zedong" became the official program of the CCP. After the victory of the communists in the civil war, posters, portraits, and later statues of Mao appear on city squares, in offices and even in citizens' apartments. However, the cult of Mao was brought to grotesque proportions by Lin Biao in the mid-1960s. Then Mao's quotation book was first published - "Red Book", which later became the Bible of the Cultural Revolution. In propaganda writings, such as, for example, in Lei Feng's Diary, loud slogans and fiery speeches, the cult of the "leader" was forced to the point of absurdity. Crowds of young people bring themselves to hysteria, shouting out toasts to "the red sun of our hearts" - "the wisest Chairman Mao." Mao Zedong is becoming the figure on which almost everything is focused in China.

During the years of the Cultural Revolution, real psychosis reigned in the country: Red Guards beat cyclists who dared to appear without the image of Mao Zedong; passengers on buses and trains had to repeat excerpts from the collection of sayings (citation) of Mao in chorus; classical and modern works were destroyed; books were burned so that the Chinese could read only one author - the "great helmsman" Mao Zedong, published in tens of millions of copies. The following fact testifies to the planting of the cult of personality. The Red Guards wrote in their manifesto:

We are Chairman Mao's red guards, we make the country go into convulsions. We tear and destroy calendars, precious vases, records from the USA and England, amulets, old drawings and raise the portrait of Chairman Mao above all this.

After the defeat of the Gang of Four, the excitement around Mao subsides significantly. He is still the "galleon figure" of Chinese communism, he is still honored, monuments to Mao still stand in cities, his image adorns Chinese banknotes, badges and stickers. However, the current cult of Mao among ordinary citizens, especially young people, should rather be attributed to manifestations of modern pop culture, and not a conscious admiration for the thinking and deeds of this man.

Significance and legacy of Mao

Portrait of Mao at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing

Ye Jianying, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, in 1979 described the reign of Mao Zedong as a "feudal fascist dictatorship." Later, another assessment was given.

“Comrade Mao Zedong is a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theoretician. If we consider his life and work as a whole, then his merits before the Chinese revolution to a large extent prevail over his mistakes, despite the serious mistakes he made in the “cultural revolution”. His merits take center stage, and his mistakes take second place” (CCP Leaders, 1981) .

Mao left his country in deep, all-encompassing crisis to his successors. After the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, China's economy stagnated, intellectual and cultural life was destroyed by left-wing radicals, political culture was completely absent due to excessive public politicization and ideological chaos. The crippled fate of tens of millions of people throughout China, who suffered from senseless and brutal campaigns, should be considered a particularly painful legacy of the Mao regime. Only during the cultural revolution, according to some sources, up to 20 million people died, another 100 million suffered in one way or another in its course. The number of victims of the "Great Leap Forward" was even greater, but due to the fact that most of them were in the rural population, even approximate figures characterizing the scale of the disaster are unknown.

On the other hand, it is impossible not to admit that Mao, having received in 1949 an underdeveloped agrarian country mired in corruption and general ruin, in a short time made it a fairly powerful, independent state with atomic weapons. During his reign, the illiteracy rate decreased from 80% to 7%, life expectancy doubled, the population more than doubled, and industrial output more than 10 times. He succeeded in uniting China, as well as incorporating Inner Mongolia, Tibet and East Turkestan into it, violating the right of these peoples to self-determination after the collapse of the Qing Empire. The ideology of Maoism also had a great influence on the development of the left, including terrorist movements in many countries of the world - the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Shining Path in Peru, the revolutionary movement in Nepal, the communist movements in the United States and Europe. Meanwhile, China itself, after the death of Mao, in its economy moved far from the ideas of Mao Zedong, retaining the communist ideology. The reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 and continued by his followers de facto made China's economy capitalist, with corresponding consequences for the domestic and foreign policy. In China itself, the person of Mao is extremely ambiguous. On the one hand, part of the population sees in him a hero of the Civil War, a strong ruler, a charismatic personality. Some older Chinese are nostalgic for the confidence, equality, and lack of corruption that they believe existed during the Mao era. On the other hand, many people cannot forgive Mao for the brutality and mistakes of his massive campaigns, especially the Cultural Revolution. Today in China there is a fairly free discussion about the role of Mao in modern history countries, works are published where the policy of the "Great Pilot" is sharply criticized. In the PRC, the official formula for evaluating his activities remains the figure given by Mao himself as a characteristic of Stalin's activities (as a response to revelations in Khrushchev's secret report): 70 percent victories and 30 percent mistakes. Thus, the CPC legitimizes its power in conditions when the bourgeois economy in the PRC is combined with communist ideology.

Family ties

Parents:

• Wen Qimei(文七妹, 1867-1919), mother.
• Mao Shunsheng(毛顺生, 1870-1920), father.

Brothers and sisters

• Mao Zemin(毛泽民, 1895-1943), younger brother.
• Mao Zetan(毛泽覃, 1905-1935), younger brother.
• Mao Zehong, (毛泽红, 1905-1929)) younger sister.

Three other brothers of Mao Zedong and one sister died at an early age. Mao Zemin and Zetan died in the struggle on the side of the Communists, Mao Zehong was killed by the Kuomintang.

Wives

• Luo Yixu(罗一秀, 1889-1910), formally spouse since 1907, forced marriage, unrecognized by Mao.
• Yang Kaihui(杨开慧, 1901-1930), spouse from 1921 to 1927.
• He Zizhen(贺子珍, 1910-1984), spouse from 1928 to 1939
• Jiang Qing(江青, 1914-1991), spouse from 1938 to 1976.

Children

by Yang Kaihui

• Anying(毛岸英, 1922-1950)
• Anqing(毛岸青, born 1923)
• Anlong(毛岸龙, 1927-1931)

by He Zizhen

• Xiao Mao(born 1932, lost 1934)
• Lee Ming(李敏, born 1936)
• son (1939-1940)

Two other children were left in other people's families during the civil war in 1929 and 1935. Repeated attempts to search for them later did not lead to anything.

by Jiang Qing

• Li Na(李讷, born 1940),

also presumably several illegitimate children.

see also

Selected works

• « About practice» (实践论), 1937
• « Concerning contradictions"(矛盾论), 1937
• « Against liberalism» (反对自由主义), 1937
• « About the protracted war» (论持久战), 1938
• "O new democracy» (新民主主义论), 1940
• « About literature and art", 1942
• « Serve the people» (为人民服务), 1944
• « Working Methods of Party Committees", 1949
• « About the correct resolution of contradictions within the people» ( 正确处理人民内部矛盾问题 ), 1957
• « Bring the revolution to an end", 1960

In addition to political prose, Mao Zedong's literary heritage includes a number of poems (about 20) written in the classical form of the Tang Dynasty. Mao's poems are still popular in China and abroad. The most famous of them are: Changsha(长沙, 1925), long march(长征, 1935), Snow (雪, 1936), Reply to Li Shu-yi(答李淑一, 1957) and Ode to plum blossoms(咏梅, 1961).

Notes

1. , With. 13
2. , With. 19
3. , With. 24
4. , With. 25
5. , With. 33
6. , With. 36
7. , With. 37-38
8. , With. 47
9. , With. thirty
10. , With. 94
11. , With. 92
12. , With. 114
13. , With. 119
14. , With. 140
15. , With. 45
16. , With. 197-198
17. , With. 49
18. ibid., p.451-58
19. Short, Philip. Mao Zedong. AST, Moscow, 2001, p.229-32
20. Meliksetov, A. V., Pisarev, A. A., ..., History of China. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 2004, p.519
21. Selden, Marc. Yanan Legacy: The Mass Line, in: "Chinese Communist Politics in Action", Seattle, London 1970, pp.101-109
22. Holm, David. Art and Ideology in Revolutionary China. Oxford 1991, p.53,88; Mao, Zedong. Die Gesammelten Werke. volume II, Beijing 1969; p.246
23. World history of wars. - Minsk: Harverst, 2004. - 558 p.
24. Grey, Jack. Rebellions and Revolutions. China from 1800s to the 1980s. (The Short Oxford History of the Modern World). Oxford, 1990, pp. 285-8; Spence, Jonathan. Chinas Weg in die Moderne. DTV, Munich, 2001, pp. 590-600
25. Ledovsky A. M. USSR, USA and the Chinese revolution through the eyes of an eyewitness 1946-1949. M.: Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2005, p. 67
26. Meliksetov, A. V., Pisarev, A. A., ..., History of China. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 2004, p.634
27. Spence, Jonathan. Chinas Weg in die Moderne. DTV, Munich, 2001, p.674
28. Short, Philip. Mao Zedong. AST, Moscow, 2001, p.467; Spence, Jonathan. Chinas Weg in die Moderne. DTV, München, 2001, p.688; Meliksetov, A. V., Pisarev, A. A., ..., History of China. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 2004, p.667
29. Galenovich Yu.M. Russia in the "Chinese mirror". Interpretation in the PRC at the beginning of the 21st century of the history of Russia and Russian-Chinese relations. Moscow: Eastern book, 2011, p. p.29-30
30. Short, Philip. Mao Zedong. AST, Moscow, 2001, p.470-73
31. Mao, Tse-tung. Excerpts from works. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing, 1966, P.302-303
32. Recent history. Details. - M.: Astrel, Olympus, AST, 2000. - 310 p.
33. Malyavin, Vladimir. Chinese civilization. FST, Moscow, 2003, p.100-101; Meliksetov, A. V., Pisarev, A. A., ..., History of China. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 2004, p.678-81; Short, Philip. Mao Zedong. AST, Moscow, 2001, p.505-511
34. see above; and also: Meliksetov, A. V., Pisarev, A. A., ..., History of China. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 2004, p.679-86
35. History of China from ancient times to the present day. M., 1974. - p.504-514.
36. Spence, Jonathan. Chinas Weg in die Moderne. DTV, Munich, 2001, C.728
37. When Richard Nixon met Mao in 1972, he told him that his teachings had changed the culture and civilization of China. Mao replied, "All I have changed is Beijing and a few suburbs." It was a nightmare for him that, after 20 years of struggle and after so many efforts to create a communist society, he achieved so little that could live for a long time. This led to the fact that he became, in order to achieve his goal during his lifetime, to sacrifice more and more more people. Otherwise, as he believed, the historical process will destroy the work of his whole life. (Henry Kissinger)
38. Business weekly "Competitor" - Newspaper
39. 100 great dictators. - M.: Veche, 2002. - 491 p.
40. Galenovich Yu. M. Russia in the "Chinese mirror". Interpretation in the PRC at the beginning of the 21st century of the history of Russia and Russian-Chinese relations. Moscow: Eastern book, 2011, p. 265
41. http://www.russianews.ru/archive/pdfs/2007/43/8-43-2007.pdf

Literature

• Galenovich Yu. M. Mao Zedong up close. - M .: "Russian panorama", 2006. - 325 p. - (Leaders of China). - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-93165-158-6
• Pantsov A.V. Mao Zedong / Alexander Pantsov. - M .: Young Guard, 2007. - 867 p. - (Life of remarkable people). - 5000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-235-02983-5
• Yun Zhang, Holliday J. Unknown Mao = Mao: The Unknown Story / Per. from English. I.A. Igorevsky. - M .: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2007. - 845 p. - 20,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-9524-2896-6
• Short F. Mao Zedong = Mao. A Life / Philip Short, trans. from English. Yu. G. Kiryaka. - M .: AST, 2005. - 606 p. - (Person in history). - 4000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-028288-5

Links

• Biography of Mao Zedong I, russ.
• Biography of Mao Zedong II, russ.
• Maoist Library, russ.
• The writings of Mao Zedong I, russ.
• The writings of Mao Zedong II, russ.

Mao Zedong is a Chinese statesman, political, party, military figure. Member of the international communist and workers' movement. One of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party. was under his leadership from 1949 to 1976.

Childhood

Born into a peasant family on December 26, 1893, in the village of Shaoshan, Hunan Province. His parents were devout Buddhists, although Mao himself renounced the faith when he was young.

From 1901 to 1903 he studied at school.

He stood out sharply among his peers. His tall stature, dialect behavior. In addition, most of the students were the children of wealthy landowners. Therefore, it was met with hostility.

From 1903 to 1906 he studied at the school.

From 1906 to 1911 he worked on his father's farm and read in his spare time.

Mao saw the terrible plight of his country and people. Around hunger, poverty, popular protests. During the famine in the city of Changsha, he supported the protesters. All this greatly influenced his worldview.

Youth

In 1911, he came to the capital city of Hunan to continue his studies. Here he became even more bloody soldiers' strikes. Joins the army, by 1912, after the proclamation of China as a republic, he left it. Until 1913, he was engaged in self-education. From 1913 to 1918 he studied at the Pedagogical College. He worked as an assistant librarian, where he met the first leader of the Communist Party of China, Li Dazhao, attended lectures at various universities. In 1917 he first published an article in the journal New Youth. From 1918 to 1919 he lived in Beijing. At this time, he was interested in the events taking place in Russia. Traveled a lot around the country. First he visited Hunan, takes an active part in the organization of the revolutionary youth of Hunan, trying to resist the militaristic clique that ruled at that time, but to no avail. There he created a Marxist circle, edited his own newspaper. In April 1920, he went to Shanghai. In 1921, he returned to Changsha. During this time he became a communist. By that time, he was completely convinced of the political inertia of his compatriots and came to the conclusion that only a Russian-style revolution could radically change the situation in the country. Taking the side of the Bolsheviks, Mao continued his underground activities, now aimed at spreading Leninist Marxism. Started creating underground communist cells in Changsha. In July 1921, Mao attended the founding congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Two months later, upon his return to Changsha, he became secretary of the Hunan branch of the CCP. At the insistence of the Comintern, at first, the CPC was in alliance with the Kuomintang. Therefore, Mao Zedong, in 1924, was a delegate to the first National Conference of the Kuomintang, where he was elected Deputy of the Executive Central Committee. In 1925, he became the acting director of the Kuomintang Propaganda. In 1926, Shaoshan arrived. This year, Mao began to write his scientific work, in them he formed his communist scientific thoughts. Their essence was to combine Marxist-Leninist philosophy with Chinese traditions. This is how the Chinese version of Marxism was born -.

(1927-1949)

In 1927, Mao organizes a peasant uprising in Changsha caused by a famine instigated by the authorities. The uprising was brutally suppressed. The CCP and the Kuomintang end their relationship. Mao is forced to flee with the remnants of his detachment to the Jinggangshan mountains on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi. Soon the attacks of the Kuomintang forced Mao's groups, as well as other military leaders of the CPC defeated during the Nanchang uprising, to leave this territory. The wild confrontation between the two confrontation grew into a civil war unleashed by the Chiang Kai-shek clique. Because the Kuomintang was the ruling party at that time, it began to carry out all kinds of oppression of the communists. A clear example of this was the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, which consisted of mass arrests and executions of communists in Shanghai. In 1928, after long migrations, the Communists firmly established themselves in the west of Jiangxi province. There, Mao creates a fairly strong Soviet republic. Subsequently, he carried out a number of agrarian and social reforms - in particular, the confiscation and redistribution of land, the liberalization of women's rights. Strict discipline was observed, the Red Army was forbidden to carry out extortions from the population. This was the reason for the victory of the communists in the Civil War. The peasants saw the CCP as their protector. The war went on with varying success. With each passing year, China sank deeper into famine, crisis and poverty. By 1929, revolutionary and communist forces had flocked to the Jinganshan Mountains. Gradually, the so-called "red belt" was formed, where, under the leadership of the CPC, Soviet power was established. In 1931, the Chinese Soviet Republic was established. By the beginning of the 1930s, there were dozens of such regions. Even then, these regions began to prosper, and the peasants were also endowed with land. Nevertheless, the Civil War greatly affected the state of the country. The Kuomintang army, supported and financed by the imperialists, constantly raided Soviet territories. In such cases, Mao showed his military talent. The fact is that the Kuomintang army was 2 million people, and the Red 245 thousand. However, luck was on the side of the CCP in almost all cases. In 1934, Mao joined the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee. This year the great campaign of the Chinese Communists took place. The fact is that Chiang Kai-shek's army undertook a campaign in Jiangxi, the main stronghold of the CPC supporters. Therefore, the Red Army decides to go around, by throwing to the north, through difficult mountainous areas. The Red Army soldiers were subjected to famine, epidemics, bombing from the air. One of the most heroic pages of this campaign was the crossing over the suspension bridge near the city of Ludin. The Kuomintang managed to break half of the covering of the bridge, then the Red Army soldiers moved along the chains, while throwing grenades at the enemies. In 1935, the communists settled in Yan'an, the city for some time became a stronghold of the CCP. At that time, Mao had an indisputable status in the party. In 1937, due to the Japanese aggression, the CCP and the Kuomintang concluded a truce for a while. During this time, Mao advocated a strategy to avoid open confrontation with the Japanese army and focus on guerrilla warfare from his base in Yan'an. During the aggression of the Japanese imperialists against the Chinese people, the Communist Party became much more popular. Communist influence spread throughout Chinese territory, especially among the peasantry. The size of the Red Army grew exponentially, so in the war with Japan, the Communists are more successful than the Kuomintang. In 1947, the war between the nationalists and the communists resumed with terrible force. The Communists managed to take over the territories of the entire mainland China. The Battle of Huaihei took place in 1948-49. As a result of which the communists captured 400 thousand enemy soldiers. And on each side, one million people participated in this battle. The army of Chiang Kai-shek suffered one defeat after another, it came to the point that even the American imperialists refused to help them. The war ended with the triumphant entry of the Chinese Red Army into Beijing and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The imperialists left China for many decades, but thanks to their American friends, they settled in Taiwan, where they reign to this day. Formally, the Civil War between the two Chinas continues to this day. This is evidenced by the fact that in 2010 it provided capitalist Taiwan with anti-aircraft missiles, the total cost of which is $ 1 billion.

Years in power

From 1943 to 1976, Mao was Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao faced serious challenges. After all, 22 years of war have done their job. In the very first years of Mao's rule, he did a lot to restore the country. He declared that China should become a "new democracy" in which workers, peasants and intellectuals would cooperate in building a new China. He also announced the construction of socialism in China. Private enterprises have passed into the hands of the state. Collective farms appeared in the villages. Friendly relations were built with the USSR. Mao Zedong attaches importance to agrarian reform, the development of heavy industry and the strengthening of civil rights. The reforms were carried out according to Soviet principles. An indoor swimming pool was built in Beijing. From 1958 to 1966, a "big leap" was made that raised the national economy of China from its knees. From 1966 to 1976, the Cultural Revolution was carried out, which eliminated illiteracy in China and instilled patriotism in the hearts of the Chinese people. From the mid-1960s they began to publish "red books" with Mao's quotations. In the future, the country grew and grew stronger, the standard of living of the population improved every year. From 1971, Mao was very ill and did not often go out in public. Mao's last public appearance was in April 1976, where he met with Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto during his one-day visit to Beijing. After two severe heart attacks on September 9, 1976 at 0:10 o'clock Beijing time, at the age of 83, Mao Zedong died. More than a million people came to the funeral of the "Great Helmsman". The body of the deceased was embalmed according to a technique developed by Chinese scientists and put on display a year after death in a mausoleum built on Tiananmen Square by order of Hua Guofeng. By the beginning of 2007, about 158 ​​million people had visited Mao's tomb.

A family

Mao Zeren - great-grandfather.

Máo Yongpu - grandfather.

Luo Shi - grandmother

Wen Qimei is the mother.

Mao Shunsheng is the father.

Mao Zemin is a brother.

Mao Zetan is a brother.

Mao Zehong is a sister.

Luo Yixu is the first wife.

Yang Kaihui is the second wife.

He Zizhen is the third wife.

Jiang Qing is the fourth wife.

Proceedings

On Guerrilla Warfare

On practice

On Controversy

On a protracted war

In memory of Norman Bethune

To the New Democracies

Negotiations in Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art

Serve the People

The stupid old man who took off the mountains

On the Correct Handling of Controversy Among People

In a family of small landowners in 1893, on December 26, the Maoist theorist and future leader of China, Mao Zedong, was born. Father, according to Mao, saved up money during military service and became a merchant. He bought rice from the peasants and sold it to the city. According to religious beliefs, my father was a Confucian, he knew several hieroglyphs for keeping records. Mother was an illiterate Buddhist.

Mao received his primary education at a local school, but at the age of thirteen he left it because of a teacher who beat students for disobedience. In his father's house, he helped in the field, kept accounting books. But Mao's main hobby was reading books about great people: Peter the Great, Napoleon and Emperor Qin Shi Huang. The father, in order to somehow settle down his son, insisted on his marriage with a relative of the family. Zedong did not recognize this marriage and fled from home. Some bibliographers claim that Mao's father was intimate with the girl.

In China, according to custom, an agreement was reached between parents about the marriage of children even in childhood, so Mao was forced to marry so that his father would not lose respect. At times, in order to honor the marriage contract, the participants had to marry dead people, if someone did not live to see the marriage.

Mao lived with an unemployed student for about six months and then returned home. In vain did my father hope that Mao would take up his mind. After another conflict, Mao demanded money for further education, and his father promised to pay for his studies at the Dunshan School.

• born December 26, 1893 in Shaoshan village, Hunan province
• dropped out of school in 1906
• in the fall of 1910, young Mao Zedong demanded money from his parent to continue his education and went to study at Dunshan primary school higher level
• in 1911, the young Mao was caught by the Xinhai Revolution, where he joined the provincial governor's army
• six months later he left the army to continue his studies
• in the spring of 1913, he was forced to enroll as a student of the Fourth Provincial Normal School of Changsha
• in 1917 his first article appeared in the magazine "New Youth"
• in 1918 he moved to Beijing and worked as an assistant to Li Dazhao
• in March 1919 leaves Beijing and travels around the country
• in the winter of 1920 visits Beijing with a delegation to liberate Hunan province, and left without result

Mao left Beijing on April 11, 1920 and arrived in Shanghai on May 5 of the same year, intending to continue the struggle for the liberation of Hunan.

In mid-November 1920, he set about building underground cells in Changsha: first, he created a cell of the Socialist Youth Union, and a little later, on the advice of Chen Duxiu, a communist circle similar to that already existing in Shanghai

In July 1921, Mao attended the founding congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Two months later, upon returning to Changsha, he becomes secretary of the Hunan branch of the CCP and marries Yang Kaihui.

Over the next five years, they have three sons - Anying, Anqing and Anlong.

in July 1922, due to the extreme inefficiency of organizing workers and recruiting new party members, Mao was suspended from participation in the II Congress of the CPC

in 1923, returning to Hunan, Mao actively set about creating a local branch of the Kuomintang

at the end of 1924, Mao left the bustling political life of Shanghai and returned to his native village

in 1925, Mao resigned from the post of secretary of the organizational section and asked for leave due to illness

Mao really left his post a few weeks before the 4th Congress of the CPC and arrived in Shaoshan on February 6, 1925.

In April 1927, Mao Zedong organized the "Autumn Harvest" peasant uprising in the vicinity of Changsha.

In 1928, after long migrations, the Communists firmly established themselves in the west of Jiangxi province. There Mao creates a fairly strong Soviet republic

Mao dealt with his opponents at the local level in Jiangxi in 1930-31. through repression

At the same time, Mao suffered a personal loss: Kuomintang agents managed to capture his wife, Yang Kaihui. She was executed in 1930, and a little later Mao's youngest son Anlong died of dysentery. His second son by Kaihui, Mao Anying, died during the Korean War.

In the autumn of 1931, the Chinese Soviet Republic was established on the territory of 10 Soviet regions of Central China, controlled by the Chinese Red Army and partisans close to it. Mao Zedong became the head of the Provisional Central Soviet Government (Council of People's Commissars).

By 1934, Chiang Kai-shek's forces surround the communist areas in Jiangxi and begin to prepare for a massive attack. CCP leadership decides to withdraw from the area

The political leader and figure of the People's Republic of China Mao Zedong was born in Hunan province in Shaoshan on December 26, 1893 in a peasant family. His parents were poor and illiterate, but they were able to give their son a primary education. His father was a simple rice merchant, and his mother worked in the field and did household chores. Mao's mother was a Buddhist, so the boy was initially completely imbued with this teaching, but having met with representatives of other movements, he decided to become an atheist. At school, the young man studied classical ancient Chinese literature and Confucianism.

In 1911, a revolution took place in China, during which the Qing dynasty fell. Mao had to quit his studies and join the army. Upon the return of the young man home, the father wanted to see him as his assistant. However, Mao avoided hard physical labor, preferring books to it. He decided to continue his studies and demanded money from his father. He could not refuse his son. Mao Zedong comes to Changsha and receives Teacher Education.

At the suggestion of his teacher, after receiving his education, Mao Zedong comes to Beijing and gets a job in the capital's library. The greatest interest for young man presented books from which he learns about the teachings of Marxism, communism and anarchism. Of the teachings presented and studied, communism attracted the most attention. Acquaintance with a prominent representative of this trend, Li Dazhao, influenced the formation of Mao Zedong as a communist.

Participation in the revolutionary struggle

Until 1920, Mao traveled around the country and became more and more convinced of the need for the teachings of communism. He is faced with class inequalities and infighting and decides to set up underground revolutionary cells in Changsha. Mao assumed that it was possible to change the situation in China along the lines of the October coup in Russia. Mao Zedong becomes the founder of the Socialist Youth League cell in Changsha, and then forms a small communist circle.

The victory of the Bolshevik Party in Russia convinced Mao of the correctness of the dissemination and development of the ideas of Leninism. In 1921, the young man became a member of the founding congress of the Communist Party of China, and then the secretary of the Hunan branch of the CPC. In order to save the people from class inequality, Mao becomes one of the organizers of the peasant uprising in 1927. However, government troops crushed the rebels, and Mao himself was forced to flee from persecution.

In 1928, after settling in Jiangxi province, Mao Zedong created a strong Soviet republic. The growth of Mao's influence was influenced by the support of his policies from the Soviet Union.

Political career of Mao Zedong

After becoming the leader of the first free Soviet republic, Mao Zedong carried out many reforms. It confiscates and redistributes land, implements social reforms, gives women the right to vote and work. All his reforms were based on the peasantry. He becomes a major leader of the Communist Party and, following the example of JV Stalin, carries out the first purge in the CPC.

Mao Zedong tried to quickly get rid of those who criticized the established political regime in China and the work of Stalin. At this time, the case of an underground spy organization was fabricated and many of its supporters were shot. Mao Zedong becomes dictator of the People's Republic of China.

From 1930 to 1949, there was a struggle between the Kuomintang and the CPC, as a result of which Mao was victorious. The Kuomintang party goes aside, and the communist regime is established in the country.

Personal life of Mao Zedong

The birth of the future leader of the PRC in a simple peasant family could predetermine his fate. His father married him to a second cousin. However, Mao did not take this marriage for granted. After the wedding, he ran away from home and lived with his friend for a year. The father had to come to terms with his son's decision.

The first official wife of Mao Zedong was the daughter of his beloved teacher Yang Kaihui. The woman bore him three children. The marriage ended tragically. Yang Kaihui was executed by agents of the Kuomintang. After Mao remarried. His choice fell on the girl who led the self-defense unit. But a few years later, Mao Zedong had a new passion in the face of actress Lang Ping. She committed suicide in 1991.

The great helmsman of China believed that any person should live to be 50 years old and open the way for a new young generation. However, over time, his views changed. Mao Zedong lived to be 83 years old. To maintain his health, the Chinese leader constantly chewed hot pepper, which helps to expand the blood vessels of the heart, gives a boost of vigor and strength.

Mao Zedong never brushed his teeth. Instead, he chewed tea leaves. His title "Great Pilot" is currently a commercial brand. Souvenirs depicting the leader of the CCP can be seen everywhere in China.