1893–1976, Chinese Marxist theoretician and statesman. The son of a peasant farmer, he helped to found the Chinese Communist Party (1921) and established a soviet republic in SE China (1931–34). He led the retreat of Communist forces to NW China known as the Long March (1935–36), emerging as leader of the party. In opposing the Japanese in World War II, he united with the Kuomintang regime, which he then defeated in the ensuing civil war. He founded the People's Republic of China (1949) of which he was chairman until 1959. As party chairman until his death, he instigated the Cultural Revolution in 1966
A Chinese revolutionary leader of the twentieth century. He led an army of workers and peasants on the Long March in the 1920s and used guerrilla warfare techniques successfully on both the Japanese invaders and the forces of the Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek. In 1949, his armies took over the country and established the People's Republic of China. Mao continued as chairman of China's Communist party and as premier. His “Little Red Book,” Quotations from Chairman Mao, was standard reading for schoolchildren of the country. Toward the end of his life, he brought about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in which all capitalist or elitist culture was to be purged. Mao died in 1976.
