Mao's_Obituary

The chief of the Chinese revolution, communist leader Mao Zedong, has died at the age of 82. Mao dies of a heart attack in Beijing on 9 September 1976. Mao died in the presence of the ranking members of the Politburo, who had been summoned to his room, and his attendant physicians. News of Chairman Mao's death has spread quickly through the Chinese capital. Many people are wearing black armbands. Groups have paid tribute opposite a huge portrait of Chairman Mao at the main entrance to the Forbidden City. His success in inspiring the vast majority of some eight hundred million people, perhaps the most populous cultural unit in the world of mankind today, with a great ideal - that of the classless society - has been an unparalleled achievement. He also unified Republic of China and becoming the leader of the greatest social revolution in history. Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 in a farm village called Shaoshan, Hunan province China. He began to work on his parents’ farm at the age of six, and after he was enrolled in the village primary school at the age of eight, he continued to farm work. Mao stayed in primary school until 1907. When he was thirteen, he left school and began to work full time for his father. For months on the end in his early childhood, Mao lived with his maternal grandparents and absorbed some of their gentler outlook on life. His father had served as a soldier in the provincial army before returning to farm, and always had a quick temper and firm views. His mother was a devout believer in Buddhism, while her husband was a skeptic. Mao was caught between the two but sympathetic his mother’s point of view. Despite Mao’s love for his mother, it was his father who laid out the lines of Mao’s life. When he is 14, Mao entered an arranged marriage with a local woman, although he never lives with her and refused to recognize the marriage. At age 16, against his father's wishes, he enrolled in a nearby higher primary school. It was during this period that his political consciousness began to develop. Mao entered a junior high school at Changsha, the provincial capital in 1911. He was briefly active in the republican revolution, joining a local army unit. In 1913, Mao enrolled in the provincial normal school in Changsha, where he received his last five years of formal education, graduating in 1918. While a student, Mao and his friends found a night school for workers. Mao was working as a library assistant at Beijing University when the 'May Fourth Movement' began. The period will mark his emergence as a Marxist-Leninist, although counter to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy he will come to believe that the greatest potential for revolution in China lies with the peasantry rather than the urban workers. He returned to Changsha to promote the movement there but was forced to flee following a crackdown by a local warlord. In 1920, Mao returned to Changsha as head of a primary school and attempts to organize education for the masses. When his efforts were suppressed he turns to politics, forming a small communist group in Changsha. In 1921, The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its First National Congress in Shanghai in July. Mao participated in the meeting, acting as the recording secretary, and was appointed as the party's general secretary for Hunan Province, where on his return he began to organize labor unions and strikes. In 1923, Mao became a full-time worker for the CCP, organizing peasant and industrial unions. At the CCP's Third National Congress held at Guangzhou in June 1923, Mao was elected to the party Central Committee. By October 1925, he had become the acting head of the Kuomintang’s propaganda department. Mao begins to act on his belief that a successful revolution in China will have to spring from the peasantry, establishing peasant "soviets" (communist-run local governments) in the mountainous region along the border between Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. He also organized peasant and worker guerrilla forces that, by the end of the year, number about 10,000 troops, forming the nucleus of the Red Army. Mao's activities attracted the attention the local Kuomintang militia. He was captured and taken to be shot but managed to escape; only narrowly avoiding death. Mao led the communist forces on the epic 6,000 mile (9,656 km) "Long March" to Shensi in northern China to flee attacks from the nationalist Kuomintang party in 1934. Mao, whose tactical skills have contributed to the success of the march, has emerged as a hero and now has unchallenged command of the CCP, had been giving the leadership of the party at a conference held at Zunyi in Guizhou Province in January 1935. Based in Yan'an, the movement is destined to rapidly expand, with Mao coming to act as the intellectual as well as military authority of the party. Mao begins laying plans for the complete communist takeover China. His teachings become the central tenets of the CCP doctrine known as 'Mao Zedong Thought'. Mao is formally acknowledged as head of the CCP when he is elected chairman of the CCP Central Committee and the Politburo in 1943. In 1945 'Mao Zedong Thought' is formally adopted by the CCP at the Seventh Plenum of the Sixth National Party Congress held in Yan'an in April. In 1949, Mao's communists take Beijing without a fight in January and control the entire country by the end of the year. On 1 October, at a ceremony held in Beijing, Mao formally proclaims the People's Republic of China. Mao is the party chairman and is exalted as the premier hero of the revolution. The First National People's Congress, equivalent to the Chinese parliament, adopts a new constitution and formally elects Mao as chairman (president) of the People's Republic in 1954. During the 1950s, Chairman Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, a campaign to increase industrial production by mobilizing China's enormous manpower into rural peoples' communes. "Great Leap Forward" led to nationwide famine which killed 10-35 million people. Even after he retired as chairman of the republic he continued to influence policy as chairman of the Communist Party. In 1965 Mao began a purge of the party that will develop into the 'Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution'. Mao believes that the integrity of the CCP and its gains need to be defended against the emergence of a new elite of bureaucrats by a process of continuous revolution. On October 1966 the Quotations from Chairman Mao (The Little Red Book) was published. Instilled with revolutionary fervor and guided by 'The Little Red Book', the Red Guards create havoc within the party and widespread social chaos. The Cultural Revolution was launched in 1966. Schools and colleges were closed and the students joined the Red Guards in an ideological crusade, which led to many officials losing their jobs, being tortured and killed. Cultural Revolution dragged on for 10 years and ruined the lives and educations of a whole generation. He was credited for encouraging President Richard Nixon's visit to China in February 1972, the first by an American leader. Other countries opened embassies in Beijing and China was finally granted a seat at the United Nations in 1971.