Mao Zedong years. Creation of the People's Republic

Mao Zedong (毛泽东 Máo Zédōng; December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) was a Chinese statesman and politician of the 20th century, the main theoretician of Maoism.

Having joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at a young age, Mao Zedong became the leader of the communist regions in Jiangxi province in the 1930s. He was of the opinion that it was necessary to develop a special communist ideology for China. After the Long March, of which Mao was one of the leaders, he managed to take a leading position in the CCP.

After a successful victory (with decisive military, material and advisory assistance from the USSR) over the troops of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the proclamation of the formation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong was de facto the leader of the country until the end of his life. From 1943 until his death he served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and in 1954-59. also the position of Chairman of the People's Republic of China. He carried out several high-profile campaigns, the most famous of which were the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” (1966-1976), 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 personality of Mao.

Mao Zedong's name consisted of two parts - Tse-tung. Tse had a double meaning: the first is “moisture and moisturize,” the second is “mercy, goodness, beneficence.” The second hieroglyph is “dun” - “east”. The entire name meant “Blessing East.” At the same time, according to tradition, the child was given an unofficial name. It was 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 “Glorified Orchid.” Soon the second name had to be changed: from the point of view of geomancy, it lacked the sign “water”. As a result, the second name turned out to be similar in meaning to the first: Zhunzhi - “Orchid sprinkled with water.” With a slightly different spelling of the hieroglyph “zhi,” the name Zhunzhi acquired another symbolic meaning: “Blesser of all living.” But the great name, although it reflected the parents’ aspirations for a brilliant future for their son, was also a “potential challenge to fate,” so in childhood Mao was called by a modest diminutive name - Shi San Ya-Tzu (“Third Child Named Stone”).

Beginning of political activity

After leaving Beijing in March 1919, young Mao traveled around the country, engaged in in-depth study of the works of Western philosophers and revolutionaries, took a keen interest in events in Russia and took an active part in organizing the revolutionary youth of Hunan. In the winter of 1920, he visited Beijing as part of a delegation from the National Assembly of Hunan Province, demanding the removal of the corrupt and cruel governor Zhang Jingyao (Chinese: 張敬堯). The delegation did not achieve any significant success, but Zhang was soon defeated by a representative of another militaristic clique, Wu Peifu, and was forced to leave Hunan.

Mao left Beijing on April 11, 1920, and arrived in Shanghai on May 5 of the same year, intending to continue the struggle to liberate Hunan from the tyrant's rule, as well as to abolish the military governorship. Contrary to his own, later statements, according to which by the summer of 1920 he had switched to communist positions, historical materials indicate otherwise: events in Russia, communication with adherents of communism, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, had a great influence on Mao, but at that time At the time, he still could not fully understand ideological trends and finally choose one direction for himself. Mao's final emergence as a communist occurs in the fall of 1920. 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. Having sided with the Bolsheviks, Mao continued his underground activities, now aimed at spreading Leninist Marxism. In mid-November 1920, he began building underground cells in Changsha: first he created a cell of the Socialist Youth League, and a little later, on the advice of Chen Duxiu, a communist circle similar to the one that already existed in Shanghai.

In July 1921, Mao took part in the founding congress at which the Chinese Communist Party was founded. Two months later, upon returning to Changsha, he became secretary of the Hunan branch of the CCP. At the same time, Mao marries Yang Kaihui, the daughter of Yang Changji. Over the next five years, three sons are born to them - Anying, Anqing and Anlong.

Due to the extreme ineffectiveness of organizing workers and recruiting new party members, in July 1922, Mao was removed from participation in the Second Congress of the CPC.

At the insistence of the Comintern, the CPC was forced to enter into an alliance with the Kuomintang. Mao Zedong by that time was completely convinced of the insolvency of the revolutionary movement of China and at the Third Congress of the CPC supported this idea. Having supported the line of the Comintern, Mao moved to the forefront of the leaders of the CPC: at the same congress he was introduced to the Central Executive Committee of the party of nine members and five candidates, entered the narrow Central Bureau of five people and was elected secretary and head of the organizational department of the Central Executive Committee.

Returning to Hunan, Mao actively began to create a local Kuomintang cell. As a delegate from the Hunan organization of the Kuomintang, he took part in the First Congress of the Kuomintang, which was held in January 1924 in Canton. At the end of 1924, Mao left Shanghai, which was seething with political life, and returned to his native village. By that time he was severely exhausted physically and mentally. According to historian Pantsov, his fatigue was caused by the paralyzed work of the Shanghai branch of the Kuomintang, which practically ceased work due to disagreements between the Communists and the Kuomintang, as well as due to the cessation of funding coming from Canton. Mao resigned as secretary of the organization section and asked for leave due to illness. According to Yong Zhang and Halliday, Mao was removed from his post, removed from the Central Committee and was not invited to the next CPC congress, scheduled for January 1925. Be that as it may, Mao actually left his post a few weeks before the Fourth Congress of the CPC and arrived in Shaoshan on February 6, 1925.

Mao in 1927

In April 1927, Mao Zedong organized the Autumn Harvest peasant uprising in the vicinity of Changsha. The uprising is suppressed by local authorities, Mao is forced to flee with the remnants of his detachment to the Jingangshan Mountains on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi. Soon, attacks by the Kuomintang forced Mao's groups, as well as Zhu De, Zhou Enlai and other CCP military leaders defeated during the Nanchang Uprising, to leave this territory. In 1928, after long migrations, the communists were firmly established in the west of Jiangxi. There Mao creates a fairly strong Soviet republic. Subsequently, he carries out a number of agrarian and social reforms - in particular, the confiscation and redistribution of land, the liberalization of women's rights.

Mao Zedong in 1931

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party was experiencing 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 in this direction relatively successfully, is strengthening in the party, despite frequent conflicts with the party leadership. Mao dealt with his opponents at the local level in Jiangxi in 1930-31. through a crackdown in which many local leaders were killed or imprisoned as agents of the fictional AB-tuan society. The AB-tuan 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 from Kaihui, Mao Anying, died during the Korean War.

In the fall of 1931, the Chinese Soviet Republic was created 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

By 1934, Chiang Kai-shek's forces surround the communist areas in Jiangxi and begin preparing for a massive attack. The leadership of the CPC decides to leave the area. The operation to break through the four rows of Kuomintang fortifications is being prepared and carried out by Zhou Enlai - Mao is currently again in disgrace. The leading positions after the removal of Li Lisan are occupied by the “28 Bolsheviks” - a group of young functionaries close to the Comintern and Stalin, led by Wang Ming, who were trained in Moscow. With heavy losses, the Communists manage to break through the nationalist barriers and escape to the mountainous regions of Guizhou. During a short respite, the legendary party conference takes place in the town of Zunyi, at which some of the theses presented by Mao were officially adopted by the party; he himself becomes a permanent member of the Politburo, and the group of “28 Bolsheviks” is subjected to significant criticism. The party decides to avoid an open clash with Chiang Kai-shek by rushing north, through difficult mountainous regions.

Yan'an period

Mao's receipt for 300,000 US dollars from Comrade Mikhailov, dated April 28, 1938.

A year after the start of the Long March, in October 1935, the Red Army reached the communist region of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia (or, according to the name of the largest city, Yan'an), which it was decided to make a new outpost of the Communist Party. During the Long March during the war, due to epidemics, accidents in the mountains and swamps, and desertion, the Communists lost more than 90% of those who left Jiangxi. However, they manage to quickly regain their strength. By that time, the main goal of the party began to be considered the fight against the strengthening Japan, which was gaining a foothold in Manchuria and the province. Shandong. After open hostilities broke out in July 1937, the Communists, at the direction of Moscow, went to create a united patriotic front with the Kuomintang. (For more details, see "Second Sino-Japanese War")

In the midst of the anti-Japanese struggle, Mao Zedong initiated a movement called “correction of morals” (“zhengfeng”; 1942-43). The reason for this is the sharp growth of the party, which is replenished with defectors from Chiang Kai-shek’s army and peasants unfamiliar with the party ideology. The movement included communist indoctrination of new party members, active study of Mao's writings, and "self-criticism" campaigns, especially affecting Mao's archrival Wang Ming, with the result that free thought was effectively suppressed among the communist intelligentsia. The result of zhengfeng is the complete concentration of internal 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. Based on Marxism-Leninism, some aspects of traditional Chinese philosophy and, not least, his own experience and ideas, Mao manages, with the help of his personal secretary Chen Boda, to create and “theoretically substantiate” a new direction of Marxism - Maoism. Maoism was intended as a more pragmatic form of Marxism, which 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 Khan nationalism. The influence of traditional Chinese philosophy on Marxism in the Maoist version manifested itself in the vulgarization of dialectics.

Victory of the CCP in the Civil War

In the war with Japan, the Communists are more successful than the Kuomintang. On the one hand, this was explained by the tactics of guerrilla warfare developed by Mao, which made it possible to successfully operate behind enemy lines, on the other hand, it was dictated by the fact that the main blows of the Japanese military machine were taken by Chiang Kai-shek’s army, which was better armed and perceived by the Japanese as the main enemy. At the end of the war, attempts were even made to rapprochement with the Chinese communists by America, which was disillusioned with Chiang Kai-shek, who was experiencing one defeat after another.

Mao Zedong with representatives of the Huaqiao in 1949

By the mid-1940s, all public institutions of the Kuomintang, including the army, were in an extreme stage of decay. Unheard-of corruption, tyranny, and violence are flourishing everywhere; The country's economy and financial system have virtually atrophied.

Stalin and Mao Zedong (PRC postage stamp 1950)

At the beginning of 1947, the Kuomintang managed to win its last major victory: on March 19, they captured the city of Yangan - the “communist capital”. Mao Zedong and the entire military command had to flee. However, despite the successes, the Kuomintang was unable to achieve its main strategic goal - to destroy the main forces of the Communists and capture their strongholds. Chiang Kai-shek's categorical refusal to organize life in the country after the end of the war according to democratic norms and the wave of repressions against dissidents lead to a complete loss of support for the Kuomintang among the population and even its own army. After the start of active hostilities in 1947, the Communists, with the help of the Soviet Union, managed to capture the entire territory of mainland China in 2.5 years, despite the support of the Kuomintang from the United States. The Kuomintang could have defended its power independently and without the help of the United States, while “the Chinese Communist Party did not have its capabilities for an armed seizure of power and relied on the Soviet Union.” On October 1, 1949, (even before the end of hostilities in the southern provinces), from the Tiananmen gates, Mao Zedong proclaimed the formation of the People's Republic of China with its capital in Beijing. Mao himself becomes chairman of the government of the new republic.

Personality cult

The cult of Mao Zedong's personality dates back to the Yan'an period in the early forties. Even then, in classes on the theory of communism, the works of Mao were mainly used. In 1943, newspapers began publishing with Mao's portrait on the front page, and soon “Mao Zedong Thought” became the official program of the CCP. After the Communist victory in the civil war, posters, portraits, and later statues of Mao appeared in 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. It was then that Mao’s quotation book, “The Little Red Book,” was published for the first time, which later became the Bible of the Cultural Revolution. In propaganda works, such as in the fake “Diary of Lei Feng,” loud slogans and fiery speeches, the cult of the “leader” was boosted to the point of absurdity. Crowds of young people work themselves into hysteria, shouting greetings to the “red sun of our hearts” - “the wisest Chairman Mao.” Mao Zedong becomes the figure on whom almost everything in China focuses.

Monument with Mao's address to the Wuhan people (in honor of their victory over the 1954 flood) and his poem "Swimming"

During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards beat cyclists who dared to appear without an image of Mao Zedong; passengers on buses and trains were required to chant excerpts from Mao's collection of sayings; classical and modern works were destroyed; books were burned so that the Chinese could read only one author - the “great helmsman” Mao Zedong, who was published in tens of millions of copies. The following fact testifies to the implantation of a personality cult. The Red Guards wrote in their manifesto:

We are Chairman Mao's red guards, we make the country writhe in convulsions. We tear up and destroy calendars, precious vases, records from the USA and England, amulets, ancient 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 celebrated, Mao monuments 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, rather than a conscious admiration for the thinking and actions of this man.

Mao Zedong, the biography and activities of the great Chinese statesman and political figure of the 20th century, the main theoretician of Maoism, are presented in this article.

Mao Zedong short biography

Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in the village of Shaoshan, Hunan Province as a small landowner. Following the example of his mother, he practiced Buddhism until adolescence, after which he abandoned it. His parents did not know how to read and write. Zedong's father studied at school for only 2 years, and his mother did not study at all.

In 1919 he joined a Marxist circle. And already in 1921, Zedong became one of the founders of the Communist Party of China. In subsequent years, Mao carried out organizational tasks for the leadership of the CPC and was active in creating peasant unions.

Thanks to his successful activities, the future Leader already in 1928-1934 organized the Chinese Soviet Republic, located in the rural areas of south Central China. After its defeat, he led great communist troops on the famous Long March to northern China.

In 1957-1958, Zedong put forward the famous program for socio-economic development. Today it is known as the "Great Leap Forward" and meant:

• Creation of agricultural communes
• Creation of small industrial enterprises in villages
• The principle of equal distribution of income was introduced
• The remains of private enterprises were liquidated
• The system of material incentives was eliminated

This program led China to deep depression. And in 1959 he leaves the post of head of state.

In the early 60s, Mao took up some political and economic issues: he considered that the retreat from the ideas of the “Great Leap Forward” had gone far and some individuals in the leadership of the Communist Party did not want to build real socialism. Therefore, in 1966, the world learned about Zedong’s new project - the “cultural revolution”. But it also did not bring the desired result.

The founder of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and its leader until his own death in 1976. Occupying the post of Chairman of the People's Republic of China and other leadership positions, he transformed China into a socialist state and carried out reforms in all spheres of society. Adhering to Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong made his theoretical contribution to it, creating a new ideology - Maoism.

Born the son of a wealthy farmer in Shaoshan County, Hunan Province, Mao became nationalist and anti-imperialist in his youth under the influence of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and the May 4th Movement of 1919. While working at Peking University, he embraced the ideas of Marxism-Leninism and became one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, and then advanced to leadership positions. After the alliance between the Communists and the Kuomintang in 1922, Mao Zedong worked to form a peasant people's army and carry out rural land reform. When Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek broke the alliance and began anti-communist purges in 1927, the first stage of the civil war began. Mao commanded one of the units of the Red Army, and, after a series of failures, having completed the Long March of the Red Army, he emerged from encirclement and came to power in the party. Along with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 - 1945, the Kuomintang and the CPC concluded a truce, and in 1945 - 1949 the second stage of the civil war began, during which Mao Zedong led the Communists to victory, and Chiang Kai-shek with the remnants of the Kuomintang army took refuge in Taiwan.

In 1949, Mao Zedong announced the creation of the People's Republic of China, a new socialist state under the leadership of the CCP. Under Mao's leadership, campaigns against counter-revolutionaries and land reforms began, aimed at confiscating land from landowners and transferring it to people's communes. In 1958 - 1961, Mao pursued the Great Leap Forward policy - modernization and industrialization of the country, but policy failures led to mass starvation. In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, a mass campaign to fight counter-revolutionary elements that continued until his death in 1976.

Mao Zedong is one of the most controversial, but at the same time important and influential figures in modern history. Supporters praise him for modernizing China into a world power, improving the status of women, improving education and health care, and increasing life expectancy. During Mao's leadership, China's population almost doubled - from 450 to 900 million people. He is also considered by Maoists to be a prominent theorist, statesman, poet and visionary who has inspired revolutionary movements around the world. At the same time, critics and opponents consider Mao Zedong a dictator who systematically violated human rights. During Mao's reign, according to various estimates, 40 - 70 million people died from hunger, executions and forced labor.

Biography

Youth and the Xinhai Revolution

Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 in the village of Shaoshanchong, Shaoshan County, Hunan Province, near the provincial center - the city of Changsha. His father, Mao Yichang, was born a poor farmer, but managed to rise to become one of the most prosperous peasants in Shaoshan. The father kept his four children - sons Zedong, Zemin and Zetan, as well as his adopted daughter Zejian - under strict discipline, often beating them. His wife and Mao's mother, Wen Qimei, was a devout Buddhist and tried to moderate her husband's strict attitude towards their children. Zedong became a Buddhist but abandoned the faith in his mid-teens. When Mao reached the age of 8, his father sent him to Shaoshan Primary School, where he began to receive a traditional Confucian education. Mao later admitted that as a child he did not like classical texts that preached Confucian morality, but read popular novels such as “The Three Kingdoms” and “The Backwaters.” At the age of 13, Mao Zedong graduated from primary school, and his father arranged an arranged marriage between him and 17-year-old Luo Yigu to unite the two respected houses. Mao refused to recognize her as his wife, becoming a fierce critic of arranged marriages, and temporarily left his father's house. Luo Yigu died in 1910 from dysentery.

While working on his father's farm, Mao Zedong developed a political consciousness by voraciously reading Zheng Guanying's pamphlets complaining about the deterioration of power and advocating the adoption of representative democracy. Mao's political views were shaped, among other things, by protests against famine in the provincial capital, Changsha, which were led by the Gelaohui Society. Mao supported the rebels' demands, but the military suppressed dissent and executed society leaders. The famine spread to Shaoshan, where hungry peasants seized Mao's father's grain. Although he disapproved of their actions as immoral, Mao nevertheless sympathized with them. At the age of 16, Mao Zedong was transferred to a higher elementary school in nearby Dongshan, where they laughed at his peasant origins.

In 1911, Mao entered Changsha High School. The city at that time was a revolutionary hotbed, hostile to the ruling Manchu house. Most of the revolutionaries were republicans who followed the Tongmenghui secret society and Sun Yat-sen. At school in Changsha, Mao read the newspaper People's Independence, published by Sun Yat-sen, and dedicated his first political essay to him, which he posted in the school wall newspaper. In the essay, he called on Sun Yat-sen to take over as president of the country. Together with his friends, Mao Zedong cut off his braids, a sign of submission to the Manchu dynasty.

During the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, the armies of Southern China sided with the Republicans, and the governor of Changsha fled, leaving the city to them. Mao Zedong joined the rebel army as a private, but did not take part in the fighting. The northern provinces remained loyal to the emperor, and Sun Yat-sen, in order to avoid civil war, made an agreement with Yuan Shikai, the leader of the monarchists. The monarchy was abolished, a republic was established, and Yuan Shikai became president. The revolution ended and Mao Zedong, after six months of service, retired from the army. At the same time, Mao, reading the pamphlets of Jiang Kanghu, the founder of the Chinese Socialist Party, became acquainted with socialism.

Changsha City Fourth Middle School

Mao Zedong entered and left the police academy, soap making school, law school, economics school and Changsha City First Middle School. Studying on his own, he spent a lot of time in the city library, where he read the works of Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Darwin, Rousseau, Mill and Spencer. Inspired by the work of Philip Paulsen, Mao came to believe that strong individuals should not be bound by moral codes, and that the end justifies the means. Seeing no point in his son’s intellectual pursuits, his father deprived him of his benefits, forcing him to move to a hostel for the disadvantaged.

Wanting to become a teacher, Mao entered the Fourth Middle School of Changsha, considered the best school in the city. Wanting to help in Mao's political education, Professor Yang Changji recommended that he read the radical magazine "New Youth", published by Yang's friend, Dean of Peking University Chen Duxiu. Although a Chinese nationalist, Chen still believed that China should follow the example of the West in order to cleanse itself of superstition and autocracy. In April 1917, Mao Zedong published his first article in New Youth, urging readers to increase physical strength to serve the revolution. Mao also joined the revolutionary group “Society for the Study of Wang Fuzhi,” whose members sought to imitate the medieval materialist philosopher Wang Fuzhi.

In the first year of his studies, Mao became friends with the senior student, Xiao Yu, and together they made a walking tour of Hunan, earning food along the way by begging and declaring poetry. Mao Zedong was popular at school, in 1915 he was elected secretary of the student society, creating the Student Government Association, he led the fight against objectionable school rules. And in the spring of 1917, he was elected commander of a military detachment assembled to protect the school from looters. In April 1918, Mao Zedong, along with Xiao Yu and Cai Hesen, formed the "Renewed Society for the Study of the People" to discuss the ideas of Chen Duxiu. The society reached 70-80 people, many of whom later joined the Communist Party. In June 1919, Mao graduated from school with the third result.

Beijing, anarchism and Marxism

Mao Zedong moved to Beijing following his mentor Yang Changji, who received a job at Peking University. On Yang's recommendation, Mao became Li Dazhao's assistant at the university library. In Beijing, Mao Zedong communicated with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, one of the first Chinese communists. Li Dazhao at that time became the author of several articles in New Youth dedicated to the October Revolution in Russia. Along with the success of the revolution in Russia, interest in Marxism and communism in China grew, and by the winter of 1919, Mao Zedong became a supporter of the ideas of Marx and Lenin, also interested in Kropotkin and radical anarchism.

Earning low wages, Mao shared a cramped room with seven Hunan students, but believed that the beauty of Beijing provided a bright and lively compensation. At the university, Mao was treated with disdain due to his rural accent and low birth. Mao joined philosophical and journalistic societies and listened to lectures and seminars by Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and Qian Xuantong. In the spring of 1919, Mao and his friends went to Shanghai to prepare to be sent to France for training. Before Shanghai, he briefly returned to his native Shaoshan, where his mother was terminally ill. She died in October 1919, and in January 1920, Mao Zedong's father also died.

Student protests

China became a victim of Japanese expansion, which, thanks to the support of Great Britain, France and the United States at the Versailles Peace Conference, managed to seize a large territory. The Chinese Beiyang government in Beijing, under the leadership of the militarist Duan Qirui, agreed to comply with the Japanese “Twenty-One Demands”. In May 1919, the “May 4th Movement” broke out in Beijing - protests by patriots and students against the corruption of the Duan government and Japanese aggression. Duan Qirui sent troops to quell the unrest, but it began to spread throughout China. During this time, Mao taught history at Xiuyue Primary School in Changsha as an intern. Mao organized protests against the pro-Beiyang governor of Hunan, Zhang Jinghui, popularly known as "Poisonous Zhang" for his criminal connections. Together with He Shuheng and Deng Zhongxia, Mao Zedong organized a student association at the end of May, held a student strike in June, and in July began publishing a radical weekly, the Xianghe Review. Using vernacular language, he advocated a "Grand Union of the Popular Masses", the strengthening of trade unions and non-violent revolution. These ideas were not Marxist, but were influenced by Kropotkin's idea of ​​mutual assistance.

Zhang Jinghui banned the Student Association, but Mao continued publishing after he became editor of the liberal magazine New Hunan and offered to write articles for Justice magazine. In December 1919, Mao Zedong organized a general strike in Hunan Province, which achieved some concessions. However, when Mao and other strike leaders felt threatened by Zhang, he decided to return to Beijing, where he visited his terminally ill teacher Yang Changji. In March 1920, Mao married his daughter, Yang Kaihui. Over the next seven years, they had three sons. In Beijing, Mao discovered that his articles were popular among the revolutionary movement and decided to gain support in overthrowing Zhang Jinghui. New translations of Marxist literature by Thomas Kirkup, Karl Kautsky, Marx and Engels, especially the Communist Manifesto, had a great influence on Mao's views, which, however, still remained eclectic.

In 1920, Mao Zedong visited Tianjin, Jinan and Qufu, and then moved to Shanghai, where he worked in a laundry and met Chen Duxiu. Chen's embrace of Marxism deeply impressed Mao. In Shanghai he met Yi Peiji, his old teacher, a revolutionary and a member of the Kuomintang Party. With the assistance of Yi Mao, he met General Tan Yankai, who commanded troops on the border of Guangdong and Hunan provinces. Tan wanted to overthrow Zhang in Hunan, and Mao promised to help him organize a student movement. In June 1920, Tan Yankai brought his troops into Changsha, Zhang fled. And Mao Zedong, after the reorganization of the provincial government, was appointed head of the junior school section at the First Primary School.

Founding of the Chinese Communist Party

In July 1921, the First Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Shanghai, at which it was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. One of the twelve delegates at the congress, representing Hunan, was Mao Zedong. Mao created the Hunan branch of the party, as well as a cell of the Socialist Youth League. A bookstore was opened under the control of the Society of Cultural Books, through which the distribution of revolutionary literature began. In the winter of 1920-1921, workers' strikes took place and the movement for Hunan autonomy began. Despite the movement's success, Mao later denied any involvement in it.

Mao became secretary of the Hunan branch of the party. He moved to Changsha, where he began a recruitment campaign for the Party. In August 1921, he founded a self-education university located on the premises of the Society for the Study of Wang Fuzhi. Mao Zedong also opened a branch of the mass movement to combat illiteracy, replacing, however, ordinary textbooks with revolutionary ones to promote Marxism among students. The organization of a strike movement among workers against the new provincial governor, Zhao Hengti, continued, especially after he ordered the execution of two anarchists. In July 1922, the Second Congress of the Communist Party of China took place in Shanghai, in which Mao was unable to participate. The congress delegates agreed with Lenin's proposal to enter into an alliance with the Kuomintang. Mao Zedong received this news with enthusiasm, believing that an alliance between the revolutionary parties would benefit the fight against imperialism and feudalism. In his home province, Mao successfully led a strike at the Anyuan coal mines. Success was achieved thanks to the innovations of Liu Shaoqi and Li Lisan, who not only mobilized the miners, but also won over schools and cooperatives, and involved the local intelligentsia, minor nobles, officers, merchants and clergy.

Cooperation with the Kuomintang

At the Third Congress of the CPC, which took place in June 1923 in Gongzhou, a decision was made on an alliance with the Kuomintang and the communists also joining the Kuomintang party. Mao Zedong, who supported the Comintern's decision on the union, was elected to leadership positions in the party: he became one of the nine members of the Central Executive Committee of the party and one of the five members of the Central Bureau, as well as the secretary of the Central Executive Committee. At the beginning of 1924, Mao Zedong took part in the First National Congress of the Kuomintang. He was elected one of the additional members of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee, and also put forward four resolutions to decentralize the power of city and rural bureaus. He then returned to Shanghai, where he worked in the local branch of the Kuomintang. Constant disagreements between the Communists and the Kuomintang, as well as suspicions about Mao's excessive enthusiasm in support of the Kuomintang, led to his physical and moral exhaustion. At the end of 1924, Mao Zedong decided to return to his native Shaoshan to improve his health. He did not participate in the IV Congress of the CPC (held in January 1925 in Shanghai), he was removed from his posts and removed from the Central Executive Committee. In Shaoshan, Mao, having seen the deprivation of the peasants over the past ten years, their seizure of the lands of large landowners and the founding of communes, became convinced of the revolutionary potential of the peasantry. As a result, he was appointed to organize the Kuomintang Peasant Movement Training Institute, director of the propaganda department, and editor of the Political Weekly (Zhengzhi Zhoubao). Actively participating in the work of the Peasant Movement Training Institute, Mao organized the revolutionary-minded Hunan peasants and prepared them for military action. In the winter of 1925, Mao left for Guangzhou when his revolutionary activities attracted the attention of the governor, Zhao Henti.

The Communists dominated the left wing of the Kuomintang Party, and competed for power with the right wing. But when Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Kuomintang, died in May 1925, he was succeeded by the leader of the right, Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-shek began a policy of marginalizing the communists and pushing them out of the party. Nevertheless, Mao Zedong supported Chiang's decision to resolutely fight the Beiyang government and foreign imperialism, and in 1926 launch the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army. Following the army's campaign, local peasants rebelled and took land from large landowners, sometimes killing them. Such uprisings irritated Kuomintang leaders, who were often large landowners themselves, leading to splits in the revolutionary movement.

In March 1927, Mao Zedong took part in the third plenum of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee, held in Wuhan, which deprived Chiang Kai-shek of power and transferred it to the leftist Wang Jingwei. Mao played an active role in discussions on the peasant question, defending the "Rules for the Suppression of Local Hooliganism and Harmful Nobility", which established the death penalty or life imprisonment for those found guilty of counter-revolutionary activities, arguing that in a revolutionary situation "peaceful methods may not be enough." In April 1927, Mao was appointed one of the five members of the Kuomintang Central Land Committee, urging peasants not to pay rent. Mao created the “Draft Resolution on the Land Question,” calling for the confiscation of lands belonging to “local hooligans, mischievous nobles, corrupt officials, militarists and all counter-revolutionary elements in the villages.” He proposed to carry out land surveying, and all persons owning more than 30 mu of land (4.5 acres) (13% of the country's population) to be counter-revolutionaries. At an extended meeting of the land committee, there was heated debate: some believed that Mao was going too far, others that he was not going far enough. As a result, his proposals were only partially implemented.

Nanchang Uprising and Autumn Harvest Uprising

After the successful Northern Expedition and victory over the militaristic groups, Chiang Kai-shek decided to deal with the communists, of whom there were already tens of thousands in China. Ignoring orders from the government in Wuhan, he marched on Communist-controlled Shanghai. Although the communists welcomed him, he carried out a massacre involving the Green Gang, in which more than 5 thousand people died. The army then turned towards Wuhan to prevent Communist General Ye Ting and his troops from capturing it. In Beijing, 19 communist leaders were executed on the orders of Zhang Zuolin, and in Changsha, He Jian's troops shot hundreds of peasant militias. During May 1927, the Communist Party lost 15 of its 25 thousand members.

The Communist Party initially supported the Wuhan Kuomintang government, but on July 15 it expelled all communists from its ranks. The CCP organized the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China. On August 1, 1927, troops under the command of Zhu De took Nanchang, but five days later, under pressure from Kuomintang troops, they were forced to leave the city and retreat into the wilds of Fujian. At the same time, Mao Zedong was appointed commander of the Hunan troops. He led four regiments to capture the city of Changsha during the Autumn Harvest Rebellion. On the eve of the attack, Mao composed the poem Changsha, the earliest surviving poem. Mao's plan was to attack the city on September 9 from three directions. However, the fourth regiment went over to the Kuomintang side and attacked the third regiment. By September 15, Mao had accepted defeat and, with 1,000 survivors, headed for the Jinggang Mountains in Jiangxi Province.

Base in Jinggangshan

Hidden in Shanghai, the CCP Central Committee expelled Mao Zedong from its ranks, as well as from the Hunan Committee, for military opportunism, its emphasis on the peasantry, and its too lenient treatment of the nobility. However, the committee adopted three decisions that Mao had long advocated: the immediate formation of soviets, the confiscation of all land without exception, and a final break with the Kuomintang. Mao himself was more focused on creating a revolutionary base in the city of Jinggangshan, in the mountains of Jinggangshan. Mao united five villages into a self-governing state by confiscating land from wealthy landowners, who were rehabilitated and sometimes executed. Mao assured that there would be no massacres in his region and maintained a softer position than the Central Committee demanded. Proclaiming that “Even the lame, the deaf and the blind can all be useful for the revolutionary struggle,” he increased the size of the army, even including two groups of bandits, and brought its strength to 1,800 people. He established rules for the soldiers: strictly follow orders, hand over everything confiscated to the government, and not confiscate anything from the poor peasants. In this way he created an effective and disciplined fighting force.

In the spring of 1928, the Central Committee ordered Mao to move to southern Hunan, hoping to spark a peasant uprising there. Mao was skeptical about the order, but obeyed. Upon reaching Hunan, the detachment was attacked by Kuomintang troops, and, after suffering heavy losses, retreated. Meanwhile, Kuomintang units captured Jinggangshan, leaving Mao without a base. While wandering through the countryside, Mao came across a regiment of CCP forces led by General Zhu De and Lin Biao. With their combined forces they tried to recapture Jinggangshan. After initial success, the Kuomintang launched a counterattack, driving the Communist forces back. The detachment spent the next few weeks fighting guerrilla warfare in the mountains. The Central Committee again ordered Mao to move to southern Hunan, this time Mao refused, wanting to remain in his base. Zhu De obeyed and withdrew his troops. The Kuomintang attacked Mao again, and although he was able to hold out for 25 days, he was forced to abandon the camp to gather reinforcements. Having reunited with the much thinned army of Zhu De, they were able to retake Jinggangshan. However, after being reinforced by Kuomintang defectors and Peng Dehuai's Red 5th Army, the mountainous region could not feed everyone, and there were food shortages throughout the winter.

In January 1929, Mao Zedong and Zhu De evacuated their troops from Jinggangshan. They had about 2,000 men in total, plus 800 men provided by Peng Dehuai. The troops went south and established a new base near the cities of Tonggu and Xinfeng in Jiangxi Province. During the evacuation, morale and discipline fell, and theft began. This worried Li Lisan and the CPC Central Committee, who considered Mao's peasants to be a lumpen proletariat incapable of revolutionary struggle. Li Lisan suggested that Mao disband the unit, sending peasants to spread revolutionary messages. Mao refused to disband his army or abandon the base. At the same time, Li Lisan disagreed with the Comintern, and was summoned to Moscow to investigate the circumstances of his “leftist mistakes.” To gain control over the CPC, the Comintern returned to China a group of “28 Bolsheviks” who had been educated in Moscow. Two of them - Bo Gu and Zhang Wentian - began to lead the party after the removal of Li Lisan. The “28 Bolsheviks” became Mao Zedong’s main opponents within the party for the near future.

In February 1930, Mao Zedong created a Soviet region under his control in the southwest of Jiangxi province. And in November, he suffered a personal loss: his second wife, Yang Kaihui, and sister, Mao Zejian, were captured by General He Jian's Kuomintang troops and then executed. Back in June 1928, Mao married He Zizhen, an 18-year-old revolutionary, who bore him five children over the next nine years. Some members of the councils, taking into account internal problems, considered Mao too moderate and therefore counter-revolutionary. In December 1930, the Futian Incident occurred when a battalion of dissatisfied people tried to arrest and overthrow Mao. During the suppression of the riot, 2-3 thousand people were shot, and then the persecution of another anti-Maoist group, the AB-Tuans, began. On November 7, the Chinese Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Jiangxi, and the Central Committee of the CPC moved here from Shanghai. And although Mao was appointed chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, his influence diminished as he ceased to control the army. At this time, Mao recovered from tuberculosis.

In an attempt to defeat the Communists, the Kuomintang adopted tactics of encirclement and destruction. Being in the minority, Mao responded with guerrilla warfare tactics, but Zhou Enlai, under whose control the army was, changed it to open confrontation. The Communists successfully repelled the first and second punitive campaigns of the Kuomintang, and then Chiang Kai-shek personally arrived to lead the next operation. Also having failed, Chiang Kai-shek went north to resist Japanese aggression. The CCP took advantage of the success and expanded the territory of the Soviet Republic, which now covered a population of 3 million people. Mao continued his land reform, as well as overseeing educational programs and increasing women's participation in politics. Considering the Communists a more serious threat than the Japanese, Chiang Kai-shek returned to Jiangxi and began a fifth series of punitive campaigns. This time, they began to build fortifications of concrete and barbed wire around Soviet areas, and to accompany the attacks with aerial bombardments. Zhou Enlai's tactics turned out to be ineffective, the morale of the army fell, food and medicine became scarce, and the leadership decided to evacuate.

Long March

On October 14, 1934, the Red Army broke through the Kuomintang defenses in the southwest corner of the area at Xinfeng, and with 85,000 soldiers and 15,000 party members began the Chinese Communist Long March. The wounded and sick, as well as women and children, walked behind the army, covered by partisan detachments. 100 thousand fled to the south of Hunan, where they first crossed the Xiang River with heavy fighting, and then, crossing the Wu River, captured the city of Zunyi in Guizhou province in January 1935. The army was resting in the city, and the party leadership held a conference. Mao Zedong was appointed chairman of the Politburo, leader of the party and the Red Army. Mao decided to switch to guerrilla tactics, and move into the Soviet region in Shaanxi Province and focus on fighting the Japanese. Mao believed that by focusing on the anti-imperialist struggle, the Communists would earn the trust of the Chinese people, and they would turn away from the Kuomintang.

From Zunyi, Mao led troops to Loushan Pass, where he crossed the Yangtze River. Despite the fact that Chiang Kai-shek personally flew out to lead the operation this time, he was unable to prevent the Communists from crossing the Dadu River through the Luding Bridge and passing through Sichuan Province. Passing through inaccessible areas of the provinces of Sichuan and Gansu, the communists repelled attacks from the Kuomintang, local militarists, and the troops of the Three Ma clique. In mid-October 1935, the main Communist column reached the Soviet area near Yan'an and completed the Long March. Only 7-8 thousand people reached the goal. The successful completion of the campaign cemented Mao Zedong's position as party leader, and in November 1935 he was appointed chairman of the Military Commission.

Yan'an

Arriving in Yan'an, the communists settled in Pao An, and began health, education, and land reform programs. With the arrival of He Long's column from Hunan, and the return of the defeated troops of Zhu De and Zhang Guotao from Tibet, Mao had 15 thousand men. In February 1936, the Northwestern Anti-Japanese University of the Red Army was opened in Yan'an, which enrolled a huge number of recruits seeking to liberate the country from the aggressors. And in January 1937, anti-Japanese operations began - sending partisans to the rear of the Japanese army.

During the Long March, Mao Zedong's wife, He Zizhen, received a shrapnel wound to the head and was sent to Moscow for treatment. At this time, Mao Zedong divorced her and married actress Jiang Qing, his fourth wife, who in 1940 gave birth to his daughter, Li Na. Mao lived in a cave house and spent most of his time reading and theoretical research. Despite the fact that Mao considered Chiang Kai-shek a traitor to the motherland, he sent him a telegram proposing an anti-Japanese alliance. Chiang Kai-shek, being a staunch anti-communist, ignored Mao and wanted to continue the civil war and destroy the communists. However, in December 1936, he was arrested by Zhang Xueliang, one of his generals, and was forced into an alliance. On December 25, 1937, a united anti-Japanese front was created.

During the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, the Japanese took Shanghai and Nanjing. The capture of Nanjing was followed by the Nanking Massacre - the massacre of civilians. The atrocities of the Japanese brought an increasing number of recruits into the ranks of the Red Army - its number increased from 50 to 500 thousand people. In August 1938, the Communists formed the New 5th and 8th Armies, and in August 1940 they participated in the “Battle of the Hundred Regiments,” an attack on the Japanese in five provinces. Mao wrote many texts in Yan'an: on the philosophy of revolution, on guerrilla warfare, on democracy, and on other topics. These texts shaped the future structure of China. Mao also carried out a campaign to “streamline style” in the party. Designed to convert most new party members and Kuomintang defectors into communists, the campaign resulted in the removal of Mao's rivals from the party leadership.

Second stage of the civil war

After Japan's defeat, civil war broke out again. The Kuomintang launched an offensive against the Communists, and even took Yan'an on March 19, 1947, but was losing the war. The leadership of the Kuomintang made a number of mistakes: colossal corruption and hyperinflation practically paralyzed the economy of the entire country, and Chiang Kai-shek did not want democratization and refused to engage in dialogue with other forces in China. The Red Army launched a full-scale offensive, and by the end of 1949, most of mainland China had been cleared of Kuomintang troops, and Chiang Kai-shek had fled to Taiwan.

Creation of the People's Republic of China and socialist transformations

On October 1, 1949, when fighting was still going on in the south of the country, in Beijing on Tiananmen Square, Mao Zedong proclaimed the creation of a new state - the People's Republic of China. From that moment on, Mao became the head of state (he became Chairman of the Party in 1943). Mao settled in the Zhongnanhai Residence, near the Forbidden City in Beijing, where a swimming pool was built for him.

In October 1950, Mao decided to send the People's Volunteer Army to Korea to assist the DPRK forces. In the first years of the existence of the PRC, the Communists were mainly occupied with solving pressing economic and social problems and restoring the country after many years of civil war. Mao Zedong paid particular attention to land reform and the creation of heavy industry. The Soviet Union provided great assistance.

Mao Zedong (1893-1976), Chinese statesman and politician.

Born on December 26, 1893 in the village of Shaoshan (Hunan Province) in the family of a wealthy peasant. Graduated from school and pedagogical college (1913-1918); worked as an assistant to the head of the library of Peking University.

In 1919 he joined a Marxist circle, and in 1921 he became one of the founders of the Communist Party of China (CCP). In 1921-1925. carried out organizational tasks of the leadership of the CPC, then began active work to create peasant unions in the villages. In April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched an anti-communist campaign, and the CPC leadership headed for armed uprisings.

In 1928-1934. Mao Zedong organized and led the Chinese Soviet Republic in the rural areas of south-central China, and after its defeat, he led communist troops on the famous Long March to northern China.

During the Japanese aggression in Northern China (1937-1945), the CCP led the resistance movement, and since 1945 it resumed the civil war with Chiang Kai-shek. After the communist victory (1949), Mao Zedong became the head of the People's Republic of China (PRC), while also remaining chairman of the CPC Central Committee (he held this post since 1943).

He had high hopes for economic and technical assistance from the USSR. In 1950-1956 Various kinds of “counter-revolutionaries” were subjected to repression, while an agrarian revolution was taking place in the country, industry and trade were socialized.

In 1957-1958 Mao Zedong put forward a program of socio-economic development known as the “Great Leap Forward”: huge labor resources were thrown into creating agricultural communes and small industrial enterprises in the countryside. The principle of equal distribution of income was introduced, the remnants of private enterprises and the system of material incentives were liquidated. As a result, the Chinese economy fell into a state of deep depression.

In 1959, Mao Zedong resigned as head of state. He played a decisive role in the growing ideological strife between China and the USSR.

In the early 60s. Mao was concerned about certain economic and political trends: he believed that the retreat from the principles of the “Great Leap Forward” had gone too far and some people in the CPC leadership did not want to build socialism. In 1966, the world learned about the “cultural revolution” in China, with the help of which it was supposed to cleanse the CCP of everyone who “took the capitalist path.”

The “Cultural Revolution” ended in 1968 - Mao Zedong feared that the USSR could take advantage of political instability and launch a surprise attack on China. In 1971, he transferred the powers of the head of the CPC to Zhou Enlai, under whose leadership (and with the personal approval of Mao Zedong) China set a course for peaceful coexistence with the United States.

Biography
Mao was born into the family of a peasant, Mao Zhensheng, in Hunan Province. At a local elementary school, he received a classical Chinese education, including exposure to the philosophy of Confucius and traditional literature.
The studies were interrupted by the revolution of 1911. Troops led by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Manchu Qing dynasty. Mao served in the army for six months, serving as a liaison officer in a detachment.
In 1912-1913 At the insistence of his relatives, he had to study at a commercial school. From 1913 to 1918 Mao Zedong lived in the administrative center of Changsha, where he studied at a teacher training school. Having left for a year (1918-1919) to Beijing, he worked in the library of Peking University.
In April 1918, together with like-minded people, Mao Zedong created the New People society in Changsha with the goal of “searching for new ways and methods of transforming China.” By 1919 he had gained a reputation as an influential political figure. In the same year, he first became acquainted with Marxism and became an ardent supporter of this teaching. The year 1920 was eventful. Mao Zedong organized the “Cultural Reading Society for the Spread of Revolutionary Ideas,” created communist groups in Changsha, and married Yang Kaihai, the daughter of one of his teachers. The following year, he became the chief delegate from Hunan Province to the founding congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), held in Shanghai in July 1921. Along with other members of the CCP, Mao Zedong joined the nationalist Kuomintang Party in 1923 and was even elected as a reserve member. Executive Committee of the Kuomintang in 1924
Due to illness late that year, Mao had to return to Hunan, where he moved steadily to the left, creating unions of workers and peasants, which led to his arrest. In the fall of 1925, Mao Zedong returned to Canton, where he contributed to a radical weekly.
A little later, he attracted the attention of Chiang Kai-shek and became the head of the Kuomintang propaganda department. Almost immediately, political differences with Chiang emerged, and in May 1925, Mao Zedong was removed from office.
He became an employee of training courses for leaders of the peasant movement, representing the extreme left wing of the CCP. However, in April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek broke his alliance with the CPC and launched an offensive against CPC members during his Northern Expedition. Mao Zedong went underground and, even independently of members of the CCP, organized a revolutionary army in August, which he led during the “Autumn Harvest” uprising on September 8-19. The uprising was unsuccessful, and Mao Zedong was expelled from the leadership of the CCP. In response, he gathered the remnants of the forces loyal to him and, uniting with Zhu De, retreated to the mountains, where in 1928 he created an army called the “Line to the Masses.”
Mao Zedong and Zhu De together established their own Soviet republic in the Jingang Mountains on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi, which by 1934 had a population of fifteen million. By this they expressed open disobedience not only to the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek, but also to the Comintern, which was influenced by the Soviet leaders, which ordered all future revolutionaries and communists to concentrate on capturing cities. Acting contrary to orthodox Marxist doctrine, Mao Zedong and Zhu De relied not on the urban proletariat, but on the peasantry. From 1924 to 1934, using guerrilla tactics, they successfully repelled four Kuomintang attempts to destroy the Soviets. In 1930, the Kuomintang executed Mao's wife, Yang Kaihai. After the fifth attack on the Soviets in Jingang in 1934, Mao Zedong had to leave the area with 86,000 men and women.
This mass exodus of Mao Zedong's troops from Jingang resulted in the famous "Long March" of approximately 12,000 km, ending in Shanxi Province. In October 1935, Mao Zedong and his supporters, numbering only 4,000 people, created a new party headquarters.
At this point, the Japanese invasion of China forced the CPC and the Kuomintang to unite, and in December 1936, Mao Zedong made peace with Chiang Kai-shek. He launched the operation known as the "Hundred Regiment Offensive" against the Japanese between August 20 and November 30, 1940, but was otherwise less active in operations against the Japanese, focusing his attention on strengthening the CCP's position in northern China and his leadership position in the party. In March 1940, he was elected Chairman of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee.
During the war, Mao Zedong organized the peasants and in April 1945 was elected permanent Chairman of the Party Central Committee. At the same time, Mao Zedong wrote and published a series of essays in which he formulated and developed the foundations of the Chinese version of communism. He identified three essential components of the party's working style: the combination of theory and practice, close connection with the masses and self-criticism. The CPC, which had 40,000 members at the start of hostilities, had 1,200,000 people in its ranks in 1945 when it emerged from the war.
With the end of the war, the fragile truce between the CCP and the Kuomintang also ended. Despite attempts to create a coalition government, a bitter civil war broke out. Between 1946 and 1949, Mao Zedong's troops inflicted one defeat after another on Chiang Kai-shek's armies, eventually forcing them to flee to Taiwan. At the end of 1949 Mao Zedong and his communist supporters proclaimed the People's Republic of China on the mainland.
The United States, which supported Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist China, rejected Mao Zedong's attempts to establish diplomatic relations with them, thereby pushing him toward close cooperation with Stalin's Soviet Union. In December 1949, Mao Zedong visited the USSR. Together with Premier Zhou Enlai, he negotiated with Stalin and signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance before returning to China in February 1950.
From 1949 to 1954, Mao Zedong mercilessly opposed the landowners, proclaiming a collectivization program in the countryside similar to the Soviet five-year plans of the 30s. From November 1950 to July 1953, the PRC supported, on orders from Mao Zedong, North Korea in the war with South Korea, which meant that Communist China and the United States faced each other on the battlefield.
During this period, Mao Zedong became more and more important in the communist world. After Stalin's death in 1953, he proved to be the most prominent of the Marxist figures. Mao openly expressed dissatisfaction with the slowing pace of revolutionary change in the Chinese countryside, pointing out that leading party officials often behaved like representatives of the former ruling classes.
In 1957, Mao initiated the “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” movement, whose slogan was: “Let hundreds of flowers bloom, let thousands of schools of different worldviews compete.” He encouraged artists to boldly criticize the Party and its methods of political leadership and governance. At the same time, Mao Zedong resumed his policy of relations with the peasantry, calling for the complete destruction of private property, the elimination of commodity production and the creation of people's communes. He published the Great Leap Forward program, the goal of which was to accelerate industrialization throughout the country. At party congresses, slogans were put forward: “Three years of hard work and ten thousand years of prosperity” or “In fifteen years, catch up and overtake England in the volume of major industrial products,” which did not correspond to the real state of affairs in China and were not based on objective economic laws.
Simultaneously with the movement to make a “great leap” in industrial production, a campaign was launched in the countryside for the widespread creation of people’s communes, where the personal property of their members was socialized, equalization and the use of unpaid labor were spread.
The “Great Leap Forward” policy encountered not only popular resistance, but also sharp criticism from prominent CPC figures Peng Dehuai, Zhang Wentan and others.
Mao Zedong resigned as head of state and was replaced by Liu Shaoqi; in the late 1950s - early 1960s. Mao Zedong allowed himself to live in solitude and peace, but not in inactivity - in the mid-1960s. he returned to public activity and led a carefully orchestrated attack on Liu Shaoqi. The basis of the struggle was the “great proletarian cultural revolution” proposed by Mao.
Between approximately 1966 and 1969. Mao Zedong and his third wife Jian Qing had a heated debate over her political future and, after Mao Zedong resumed his position as party chairman and head of state, they launched a revolution. It was aimed primarily at eliminating all unreliable members from the leading bodies of the party, implementing a scheme for the development of China in the spirit of accelerated construction of socialism, and abandoning methods of economic stimulation. These ideas were clearly reflected in the calls: “In industry, learn from the Daqing oil workers, in agriculture, from the Udzhai production team,” “The whole country should learn from the army,” “Strengthen preparations in case of war and natural disasters.” The first stage of the “cultural revolution” lasted from 1966 to 1969. This was the most active phase of the revolution.
In May 1966, at an extended meeting of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, a message was heard outlining the main ideas of Mao Zedong about the “cultural revolution”, after which a number of senior leaders of the party, government and army were sharply criticized and then removed from their posts . A Cultural Revolution Group (CRG) was also created, headed by Mao's former secretary Chen Boda. Mao's wife Jiang Qin and the secretary of the Shanghai City Party Committee Zhang Chunqiao became his deputies, and the secretary of the CPC Central Committee Kang Sheng, who oversaw the state security agencies, became an adviser to the group. The GKR gradually replaced the Politburo and the Party Secretariat and turned Mao Zedong into the “headquarters of the cultural revolution.”
Youth assault troops of the Red Guards - the “red guards” - began to be created (the first Red Guards appeared at the end of May 1966 at a high school at Beijing Tsinghua University). The first manifesto of the Red Guards said: "We are the guardians protecting the Red Power, the Party Central Committee. Chairman Mao Zedong is our support. The liberation of all mankind is our responsibility. Mao Zedong Thought is the highest guidance in all our actions. We vow that for the sake of protecting Central Committee, to protect the great leader Chairman Mao, we will not hesitate to give our last drop of blood and will decisively complete the cultural revolution.”
Classes in schools and universities were stopped on Mao’s initiative so that nothing would prevent students from carrying out the “cultural revolution.” Persecution of the intelligentsia, party members and Komsomol began. Professors, school teachers, scientists and artists, and then prominent party and government workers were brought out to the “court of the masses” in jester’s caps, mocked allegedly for their “revisionist actions”, but in reality for their independent judgments about the situation in the country , for critical statements about the domestic and foreign policies of the PRC.
Terror within the country was complemented by a fairly aggressive foreign policy. Mao Zedong resolutely opposed the exposure of Stalin's personality cult and the entire policy of the Khrushchev Thaw. Since the late 50s. Chinese propaganda began to accuse the leaders of the CPSU of great-power chauvinism, of attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of China and control its actions. Mao Zedong emphasized that in the international arena China must fight against any manifestations of great-power chauvinism and hegemonism.
Mao Zedong began to curtail all cooperation with the USSR, provided for by the 1950 friendship treaty. A campaign was launched against Soviet specialists in order to make their further stay in China impossible. The situation on the Soviet-Chinese border began to escalate. In 1969, things escalated into open armed clashes in the area of ​​Damansky Island and in the Semipalatinsk region.
In August 1966, a plenum of the CPC Central Committee was convened. On August 5, Mao Zedong personally wrote and hung in the meeting room his dazibao “Fire at the headquarters!” He announced to the participants of the plenum about the existence of a “bourgeois headquarters”, accused many party leaders in the center and locally of implementing the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”, and called for opening “fire on the headquarters”, intending to completely destroy or paralyze the leading party bodies in center and locally, people's committees, mass organizations of workers, and then create new “revolutionary” authorities.
The IX Congress of the CPC (April 1969) approved and legitimized all the actions taken in the country in 1965-1999. The IX Congress approved the course of “continuous revolution”, of preparation for war.
A new Party Charter was adopted. The theoretical basis of the CPC's activities was proclaimed to be "Mao Zedong Thought." The program part of the Charter contained a provision on the appointment of Lin Biao as the “successor” of Mao Zedong. The provision on the successor included in the Charter of the CPC was considered an “innovative phenomenon” in the field of the international communist movement.
After the IX Congress from the beginning of the 70s. elements of planning, distribution by labor, and material incentives began to be carefully introduced. Measures were also taken to improve the management of the national economy and the organization of production. There have also been some changes in cultural policy.
Since 1972, the process of restoring the activities of the Komsomol, trade unions, and women's federations has been intensified. The Tenth Congress of the CPC, held in August 1973, authorized all these measures, and also approved the rehabilitation of some party and administrative personnel, including Deng Xiaoping.
In 1972, Mao Zedong set out to establish diplomatic and economic relations with the United States, receiving President Nixon in Beijing in 1972.
At the beginning of 1974, Mao Zedong approved the plan for a new nationwide political and ideological campaign to “criticize Lin Biao and Confucius.” It began with speeches in the press aimed at debunking Confucianism and praising Legalism, an ancient Chinese ideological movement that dominated under Emperor Qin Shihuang (3rd century BC). A specific feature of the campaign, like some previous ones, was the appeal to historical analogies, to arguments from the history of Chinese political thought in order to solve current ideological and political problems.
In January 1975, after a 10-year break, Mao Zedong convened parliament. A new constitution of the People's Republic of China was adopted. The Constitution was the result of a compromise: on the one hand, it included the provisions of 1966-1969. (including calls to prepare for war), on the other hand, it secured the right of commune members to personal plots, recognized the production team (and not the commune) as the main self-supporting unit, and provided for the need to gradually increase the material and cultural standard of living of the people and pay for work.
Soon after the adoption of the new constitution, the proponents of the “cultural revolution” made a new attempt to strengthen their positions. To this end, on the initiative of Mao Zedong at the turn of 1974-1975. A campaign was launched under the slogan of the struggle “for the study of the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” An important task of this campaign was the fight against those representatives of the CPC leadership who defended the need for increased attention to economic development and the use of more rational methods of managing the national economy.
During the new political campaign, distribution according to labor, the right to personal plots, and commodity-money relations were declared “bourgeois rights” that must be “limited,” i.e. introduce equalization.
After a serious illness in January 1976, Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai died. In April of the same year, during a ceremony dedicated to his memory, mass demonstrations took place in Beijing's main square, Tiananmen.
In April of the same year, during a ceremony dedicated to his memory, mass demonstrations took place in Beijing's main square, Tiananmen. This was a strong blow to Mao Zedong's prestige. The participants condemned the activities of his wife Jiang Qin and other members of the Cultural Revolution Group and demanded their removal. These events caused a new wave of instability in the country. Deng Xiaoping was removed from all posts, and Minister of Public Security Hua Guofeng became Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. A new political campaign was launched in China to “fight the right-wing trend of revising the correct conclusions of the Cultural Revolution,” the spearhead of which was directed against Deng Xiaoping and his supporters. A new round of struggle has begun against “persons in power who are following the capitalist path.”
On September 9, 1976, Mao Zedong died.
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