Leader Analysis Sheet

Name of Leader: Mao Zedong
Lifespan- (December 26, 1893– September 9, 1976 / Title: 1st Chairman of the Communist party of China
Country/region: China / Years in Power- March 20, 1943 – September 9, 1976
Political, Social, & Economic Conditions Prior to Leaders Gaining Power
·  Nationalists built their power primarily on the support of urban businesspeople and merchants
·  90% of the population was the peasantry and they were miserable following the long period of government ineffectiveness
·  A brutal massacre occurred in Shanghai in 1927, where many workers were gunned down or beheaded.
·  Chiang Kai-shek's anticommunist crusade had been interrupted by the Japanese invasion of the Chinese mainland
·  the Japanese invaders captured much of the Chinese coast, where the cities were the centers of the business and mercantile backers
Ideology, Motivation, Goals:
·  As a boy he attended the Whampoa Military Academy which connected military and was found by Soviets
·  He was born as a peasant
·  He rebelled against his father when he was a boy for exploiting the tenants and laborers who worked the family fields
·  He was educaded in history and philosophy
·  Mao was interested in thinkers such as Li Dazhao, who wanted to solve the peasant problem
·  An attack on the communist rural stronghold in south central China, supported by German advisors, caused Mao to spearhead aLong Marchof 90,000 followers in 1934.
Significant Actions & events During Term of Power
·  By 1949 the war was over, Chiang fled to Taiwan and Mao proclaimed the establishment as thePeople's Republic of China.
·  Mao made uplifting the peasants, land reforms, access to education, and improved healthcare the central elements
·  in the early 1960s, China beat India in a brief war over border disputes, and that showed their new military strength
·  China played a role in the liberation of the south of Vietnam
·  Mao and his supporters pushed the Mass Line approach that led to the formation of agricultural cooperatives in 1955, and began farming collectives that accounted for more than 90% of China’s peasant population.
·  Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958, which proposed industrialization of small-scale projects, and restoring a mass, rural base, but it was a disaster and ended in 1960.
Short-Term effects:
·  a Stalinist style five year plan was employed in 1953, and urban workers began to be seen as the hope for new China.
·  / Long-Term Effects
·  Between 1950 and 1952 most of the landlord class was disposed
·  Birth control was seen as a symptom of capitalist selfishness and inability to provide a decent living for all of the people, which led to China’s population being about 1.3 billion
·  The victory of the revolution brought women to legal equality with men. And Jian Qing, his wife played a major rule.