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Mao Zedong

1893 – 1976 Chinese Communist revolutionary, founding leader of the People's Republic of China

Founder of the People's Republic of China whose rule brought both national unification and mass death through the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.

Religion
atheist
Affiliations
Chinese Communist Party, People's Liberation Army

Mao Zedong was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party who built a peasant-based revolution, survived the Long March, and led the Communists to victory in the civil war, proclaiming the People's Republic of China in 1949. His rule ended a century of foreign humiliation and division, but his campaigns caused catastrophe on a huge scale. The Great Leap Forward from 1958 triggered a famine that killed tens of millions, and the Cultural Revolution he launched in 1966 threw the country into a decade of political violence, persecution, and destruction. He remains a deeply contested figure, credited with reunifying China and condemned for the human cost of his policies.

Connections

  • rival of Chiang Kai-shek — Chief rival in the Chinese Civil War.
  • rival of Chiang Kai-shek — Defeated him in the civil war and drove the Nationalists to Taiwan.
  • rival of Deng Xiaoping — A veteran leader Mao purged twice, who later reversed much of his economic line.
  • rival of Deng Xiaoping — Purged him twice; Deng later reversed much of his economic policy.
  • successor of Deng Xiaoping — Reversed many of Mao's economic policies.
  • successor of Deng Xiaoping — Succeeded, after his death, by reformer Deng.
  • ally of Enver Hoxha — Aligned with China before breaking with it too.
  • ally of Ho Chi Minh — Leaned on Chinese support against France and the United States.
  • ally of Joseph Stalin — Allied with then strained against the Soviet Union under Stalin.
  • rival of Joseph Stalin — Nominal communist ally, but the wary relationship broke into the open Sino-Soviet split by 1960.
  • ally of Kim Il-sung — Saved by Chinese intervention in the Korean War.
  • ally of Kim Il-sung — Sent Chinese forces to back him in the Korean War.
  • influenced Pol Pot — Drew on Maoist ideas of agrarian revolution and received Chinese backing.
  • connected to Richard Nixon — Received Nixon in Beijing in 1972, opening US-China relations against their common Soviet rival.
  • ally of Zhou Enlai — His long-serving premier and chief administrator.
  • ally of Zhou Enlai — Served as his premier for the life of the People's Republic under Mao.
  • associate of Zhou Enlai — His indispensable premier and diplomat for decades.
  • associate of Zhou Enlai — Mao's loyal premier who managed the state apparatus.

In the timeline

Wikipedia