Mao Biography

In the millennia across which China has existed relatively few forms of political and economic systems have dominated the scene. For nearly all but the last fifty-two years, China was ruled by a feudal system under an Emperor, the Son of Heaven. In the late 19th century, the feudal warlords had usurped nearly all of the actual power of the Emperor and had led the country into an age of decadence, economic chaos, and a class system that consistently denied the majority of the population any real control over its destiny. In 1949, Mao Tse Tung, with Deng Hsiao Ping at his side, arrived in Tiananmen at the head of their Red armies ending, perhaps forever, the era of the Emperors, the Forbidden City, and the feudal controls. Though they certainly would not have predicted a return to capitalism, Mao created a communist political and economic system unequalled in the world. Though both were dedicated to the communist ideology, as each had their time at the helm as Emperors in their own right. Mao Tse Tung was the high priest of Chinese communism, charismatic, energetic, calculating, and a true personal power. Mao led ideologically with great slogans and focused on what should be rather than what was, he actively shunned the West, and maintained an archaic absolutism based upon a cult of personality that resulted in the failures of the Great Leap Forward, the Famine of 1959-1960, and eventually to the Cultural Revolution. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the impact of Mao Tse Tung’s ideology upon the form and function of China. As a child, Mao grew up in the country, developing from that time a deep affinity for the people of China’s vast rural expanses. Mao’s grandparents had been poor and his father had fought hard to reach some amount of prosperity. Gradually the his family’s landholdings expanded under the, “illiterate, tough, grasping, mean-spirited, and domineering,” patriarch. Mao grew up hating his father and the capitalistic hunger which drove him.