Chinese Stalin. Why is Mao Zedong often compared to the Soviet leader? Great Pilot Mao Zedong: biography and history of the reign of the Chinese leader

Surely you knew little about Mao Zedong! We constantly write about China - for example, the traditional New Year. And we are silent about the largest political leader of this country, and his birthday here would be the twenty-sixth of December !!

He has a very interesting name.

Zedong is two characters. "Ze" - "good" and "wet", "dung" - "east". As a child, he was called ... The third child named Stone. That is Shi san yazi.

He didn't brush his teeth

In his time, the Chinese did not do that! They were rinsing their mouths with tea and chewing tea leaves! And when asked why not, they asked: do tigers clean their fangs?

The cult of personality was strange

The authorities have been criticized! Constantly shouting about the right to protest! But all the same, almost everyone worshiped Zedong, and after his death, the Chinese Communist Party condemned the “cultural revolution” for worshiping Mao.

He fought sparrows in 1958

They eat crops! Therefore, the sparrows were frightened for fifteen minutes in a row, until they fell dead from fatigue. Yes, the harvest has improved. Only locusts and caterpillars ate it - before that they were eaten by sparrows. As a result, birds were imported from abroad, and twenty million people died of starvation ...

It is still popular in China

Tens of millions of souvenirs with his face are sold and exported to other countries every year! Almost like Che Guevara!

His parents were illiterate

My father went to school for only two years, in the end he only knew how to keep a book of income and expenses. The mother was completely illiterate, but a believing Buddhist, and had a very great influence on her son.

Mao left school at the age of thirteen

His teacher beat the students too often! So the boy returned to the house, but did not help his father in housekeeping: he read books all the time. But then he became a major politician!

He also ran away from home.

He should be married to his second cousin, Luo Yigu. But the young man refused to live with her! He lived for six months visiting a student friend and continued to read books.

And then he lost his whole family

His second wife was executed younger son died of dysentery, the second died during the Korean War ... In general, Mao Zedong had no one left. Only work and China.

And he has a mausoleum

Yes, just like Lenin. In 1976, the construction of the mausoleum began, and in a year the volunteers completed it, on the first anniversary of the leader's death - September 9, 1977 - the mausoleum was officially opened.

JoInfoMedia journalist Diana Lynn notes: well, yes, there was a cult of personality, so where was it not after the revolution, moreover, whatever it was? First of all, Mao Zedong is a man who did a number of good things for China, but made a number of mistakes - like with sparrows, for example. And now, in the twenty-first century, we can only read about his life and be amazed - that's how, it turns out, the great leaders lived! Well, in fact, in everyone's life there are a dozen interesting facts. That's just one thing we definitely wish you: you don’t need to lose your family ... And always remember: no matter what happens, as it seems!

Mao Zedong- famous Chinese political and statesman XX century. Founder of the Chinese People's Republic. Gained power through partisan revolutionary actions.

Biography of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-tung

Mao Zedong Born December 26, 1893 in Shaoshan Village, Hunan Province, China. He was the eldest son in the family of a wealthy peasant. He received a traditional Chinese education at a private school. AT free time helped his parents on the farm. He graduated from the Pedagogical College in 1918. In the same year, he created the Common People Society, wishing to find new ways for China's development.

In 1919 he became acquainted with Marxist teachings. Begins to spread revolutionary ideas, founding the Chinese Communist Party. Mao Zedong puts forward the idea that political power must be seized with the help of the armed forces.

Mao Zedong:“Our strategy is to fight one against ten, our tactics is to fight ten against one. This is one of the basic laws that ensure our victory over the enemy.”

In the autumn of 1930, the Chinese Soviet Republic was created, headed the provisional government Mao Zedong.

From 1931 to 1949 Mao Zedong participates in various clashes and conflicts within the country. And as a result, he wins, becoming the Chairman of the new People's Republic of China, thanks to his vast experience. guerrilla war in the countryside.

As soon as humanity destroys capitalism, it will enter the era of eternal peace, and then he will no longer need wars. Then there will be no need for armies, warships, combat aircraft and toxic substances. Then mankind will not see war for ever and ever.

Years of power of Mao Zedong/Mao Tse-tung

During the first years of government Mao Zedong restores the social and economic spheres of the country. Almost everything in China is made according to the model Soviet Union. A wave of repression, violence and terror is sweeping across the country. Thousands of arrests, confiscation of property, human rights and freedoms do not count for anything. People sharply criticize politics Mao Zedong.

In 1950 the government, led by Mao Zedong completely eradicates private property, life becomes collectivized. But the measures are not justified. The country is exhausted Agriculture is in decline, and on top of all in 1959, from 10 to 30 million people die of starvation.

The Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong/Mao Tse-tung

The USSR stops supporting China, relations between Khrushchev and Mao Zedong cool, all Soviet specialists respond to their homeland. Young people stand up for their rights, against corruption. And at the end of 1959, terror and robberies seized the country. Books, works of art, temples, monasteries are being destroyed. Mao realizes all the horror and decides to stop this rout. China lies in ruins. And it's starting to get closer to the US.

Mao Zedong: “The Great Rebellion in the Celestial Empire achieves great order in the Celestial Empire. This happens every seven or eight years. Horned devils and snake spirits jump out by themselves. This is determined by their very class nature, they will certainly pop up.”

The cult of personality of Mao Zedong/Mao Tse-tung

Cult of personality Mao Zedong began to emerge in the early 40s. He becomes the figure around which everything centers. Worship of Mao Zedong comes to fanaticism - one cannot appear on the street without his portrait, people must necessarily quote his sayings, shout out slogans. And during the Cultural Revolution, when tons of books and the entire cultural heritage of the country were destroyed, only works were allowed to be read. Mao Zedong.

Interesting facts about Mao Zedong/Mao Tse-tung

Following a simple peasant habit, Mao Zedong did not accept brushing teeth. He firmly believed in the folk Chinese way of caring for the oral cavity: you should rinse it green tea, and eat tea leaves. It was this procedure that Mao did every morning. True, such hygiene did not affect the condition of the teeth in the best way: by the middle of life, they were covered with a copper-green coating, periodontal disease developed ... But, since smiles did not correspond to the canons of communist ideology, Mao, like Gioconda, smiled in the photographs with the corners of his mouth, not particularly worried about the color and presence of his teeth.

During the reign Mao Zedong The illiteracy rate of the country's population has decreased from 80% to 7%.

One part of the population believes that Mao Zedong pulled the country out of complete ruin, the other cannot forgive him for terror and violence during the Cultural Revolution.

Mao Zedong often referred to as the "great helmsman".

The political leader and figure of the People's Republic of China Mao Zedong was born in Hunan province in Shaoshan on December 26, 1893 in a peasant family. His parents were poor and illiterate, but they were able to give their son elementary education. His father was a simple rice merchant, and his mother worked in the field and did household chores. Mao's mother was a Buddhist, so the boy was initially completely imbued with this teaching, but having met with representatives of other movements, he decided to become an atheist. At school, the young man studied classical ancient Chinese literature and Confucianism.

In 1911, a revolution took place in China, during which the Qing dynasty fell. Mao had to quit his studies and join the army. Upon the return of the young man home, the father wanted to see him as his assistant. However, Mao avoided hard physical labor, preferring books to it. He decided to continue his studies and demanded money from his father. He could not refuse his son. Mao Zedong comes to the city of Changsha and receives a pedagogical education.

At the suggestion of his teacher, after receiving his education, Mao Zedong comes to Beijing and gets a job in the capital's library. The greatest interest for young man presented books from which he learns about the teachings of Marxism, communism and anarchism. Of the teachings presented and studied, communism attracted the most attention. Acquaintance with prominent representative This trend of Li Dazhao influenced the formation of Mao Zedong as a communist.

Participation in the revolutionary struggle

Until 1920, Mao traveled around the country and became more and more convinced of the need for the teachings of communism. He is faced with class inequalities and infighting and decides to set up underground revolutionary cells in Changsha. Mao assumed that it was possible to change the situation in China according to the principle October coup in Russia. Mao Zedong becomes the founder of the Socialist Youth League cell in Changsha, and then forms a small communist circle.

The victory of the Bolshevik Party in Russia convinced Mao of the correctness of the dissemination and development of the ideas of Leninism. In 1921, the young man became a member of the founding congress of the Communist Party of China, and then the secretary of the Hunan branch of the CPC. In order to save the people from class inequality, Mao becomes one of the organizers of the peasant uprising in 1927. However, government troops crushed the rebels, and Mao himself was forced to flee from persecution.

In 1928, after settling in Jiangxi province, Mao Zedong created a strong Soviet republic. The growth of Mao's influence was influenced by the support of his policies from the Soviet Union.

Political career of Mao Zedong

Becoming the leader of the first free Soviet republic, Mao Zedong carries out many reforms. He confiscates and redistributes land, spends social reforms gives women the right to vote and work. All his reforms were based on the peasantry. He becomes a major leader of the Communist Party and, following the example of JV Stalin, carries out the first purge in the CPC.

Mao Zedong tried to quickly get rid of those who criticized the established political regime in China and the work of Stalin. At this time, the case of an underground spy organization was fabricated and many of its supporters were shot. Mao Zedong becomes dictator of the People's Republic of China.

From 1930 to 1949, there was a struggle between the Kuomintang and the CPC, as a result of which Mao was victorious. The Kuomintang party goes aside, and the communist regime is established in the country.

Personal life of Mao Zedong

The birth of the future leader of the PRC in a simple peasant family could predetermine his fate. His father married him to a second cousin. However, Mao did not take this marriage for granted. After the wedding, he ran away from home and lived with his friend for a year. The father had to come to terms with his son's decision.

The first official wife of Mao Zedong was the daughter of his beloved teacher Yang Kaihui. The woman bore him three children. The marriage ended tragically. Yang Kaihui was executed by agents of the Kuomintang. After Mao remarried. His choice fell on the girl who led the self-defense unit. But a few years later, Mao Zedong had a new passion in the face of actress Lang Ping. She committed suicide in 1991.

The great helmsman of China believed that any person should live to be 50 years old and open the way for a new young generation. However, over time, his views changed. Mao Zedong lived to be 83 years old. To maintain his health, the Chinese leader constantly chewed hot pepper, which helps to expand the blood vessels of the heart, gives a boost of vigor and strength.

Mao Zedong never brushed his teeth. Instead, he chewed tea leaves. His title "Great Pilot" is currently a commercial brand. Souvenirs depicting the leader of the CCP can be seen everywhere in China.

Many aspects life path Mao make foreigners who do not know Chinese realities think: why is he so popular in his homeland? His name is associated with a long civil war that claimed the lives of millions of Chinese, millions more died during the famine that arose due to the failure of his economic policy, and still others suffered during the mass repressions during the years of the Cultural Revolution, when the Great Pilot fought for power. But, despite this, his large ceremonial portrait adorns the gates of the Chinese Kremlin - the Forbidden City, the residence of Chinese emperors in the center of Beijing. Any public criticism of his figure is still strictly prohibited, and the father of the Chinese economic miracle Deng Xiaoping, himself a victim of repression, said of Mao: "He was 70% right and 30% wrong."

However, it is much easier for Russians to understand the Chinese, because we had our own Mao. Or, rather, they had "their own Stalin", because the head of the Chinese Communist Party, until the end of his life, deeply revered the memory of the Soviet "father of peoples." Perhaps, having understood why the “Great Helmsman” is so loved in China, we will understand something about ourselves.

Like Stalin, led the party during the civil war

AT late XIX century, China was a country with a colossal population and a gigantic territory, which, however, in fact, completely lost its sovereignty. Great Britain, France, USA, Russia and later Japan determined foreign policy Celestial Empire and used it as a raw material appendage. After the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, the empire was abolished, and the country actually broke up into several regions, each of which was controlled by military governors who retained only a formal dependence on the central government. Most of population lived in absolute poverty. The situation was aggravated by the sluggish civil war. The situation became critical in 1937 when China was attacked by Japan, who wanted to seize rich in resources country.

The devastating civil strife ended only in 1949, four years after the defeat of Japan in World War II, when the communists prevailed and united the country. For the first time in for a long time peace was established in China. It was under Mao that the CCP made its final push for power, and therefore, in the eyes of the people, both the victory in the war with the Japanese and the victory in the civil war are associated with him.

Yang Kaihui with children Source: Public Domain

Went through the underground, lost his son in the war

The future helmsman became interested in communism in the 1920s, after the success of the revolution in Russia. At the same time, he began working underground, spreading leftist ideas and creating underground cells. In the same years, Mao married a young underground worker Yang Kaihui from whom he had three sons. The wife was arrested in 1930 by the authorities of the People's Republic of China (Kuomintang). Under torture, she was required to give up her husband, who by that time had become a prominent figure in the CCP. She refused and was killed in prison.

Mao's eldest son, Anying, in 1936 he was sent to the USSR. Here he studied for a long time, and after the beginning of the Great Patriotic War sent to the name Stalin a letter asking him to send him to the front. “I love the USSR as much as I love China. I cannot watch the German fascists trample your country. I want to avenge the millions killed Soviet people", he wrote to the Soviet leader. However, his letter apparently did not reach the addressee. So in 1943 Sergey Mao(this name was given to him in the USSR) he himself entered the courses of sergeants and in 1944 went to the front. There, as a political officer of a tank company, he took part in the battles for Poland, and met the end of the war in Berlin.

Returning to his father's homeland in 1946, already an experienced officer, Anying took part in the Korean War. During one of the American air raids in 1950, he was killed. Mao reacted to the death of his son in the same way that Stalin reacted to the death of his own. “A simple fighter died, and there is no need to make a special event out of this just because he is my son. Is it really because he is my son, the son of the Party Chairman, he cannot die in the name of the common cause of the peoples of China and Korea! ”, - according to legend, he said.

Undergrounder's past, as well as tragic death beloved wife and son created Mao's impeccable reputation. It is behind him that the image of the man who led the country out of centuries of national humiliation will be strengthened among the people.

Spent the Stalinist five-year plan in Chinese

In his policy, Mao tried to focus on the Soviet experience. In particular, they tried to carry out accelerated industrialization in the country, forcing the peasants to smelt steel at home, and also carrying out collectivization according to the Soviet model.

In 1958, the Great Leap Forward policy started in the country. Everything rural population was reduced to "communes". Members of the communes were forbidden to own virtually any private property. Food production standards were introduced. Many peasants were taken to work in steel mills under construction. The number of workers in the village has decreased, and the productivity of the remaining ones has decreased. This led to a drop in crops, and already in 1960, famine began in the country. According to various estimates, from 10 to 50 million people died.

The Long March of the Chinese Communists led by Mao. Source: Public Domain

Arranged repression of Chinese proportions

Mao took the news of the campaign against the cult of personality that began after Stalin's death very hard. This was one of the reasons for his break with the USSR.

The failure of the "Great Leap Forward" greatly affected the popularity of the "great helmsman". Criticism against him intensified. He was forced to admit the fallacy of his policy and for a while to move away from the active management of the country. Power gradually flowed from his hands to associates from the "liberal" camp of the CCP, Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi. They, trying to cope with the consequences of the "Great Leap Forward", dissolved the communes, allowed private land ownership and elements of free trade in the countryside, significantly weakened the grip of censorship, which allowed the country to begin to get out of the crisis.

Portrait of Mao at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Raimond Spekking

It was on the fight against "bourgeois tendencies" that Mao staked when he launched the Cultural Revolution. He launched an attack on the liberal wing of the party using youth movements. Detachments of "Hongweipings" - "Red Guards" consisting of students and schoolchildren - with the support of the army, detained and often beat all those suspected of bourgeois thinking - officials, intellectuals. Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi were removed from their posts and expelled from the party, and the same fate befell many of their supporters. Many prominent officials were sent "for re-education" - to work in the countryside. Such a fate befell Xiaoping. Shaoqi was imprisoned. The circumstances of his death are still unknown. In total, during the years of repression, about a million people died (Chinese estimates), 5 million members of the CCP were repressed.

“The Cultural Revolution was sometimes accompanied by atrocities, provoked a wave of suicides, but in China, its participants now remember not beatings and humiliation at party meetings, but an atmosphere of unity, a sense of involvement in building a new happy future,” says Professor high school economics Alexander Lukin. Mao has gained a reputation for standing up for true democracy.

At the right time, he made an alliance with an ideological enemy

By 1969, China's relations with the USSR had finally gone wrong. In March, there was a conflict on Damansky Island. At this moment, Beijing decides to improve relations with the United States. In 1972 Nixon visits China. The two countries are gradually beginning to establish economic ties, which later will lead to their rapid mutual enrichment. China will turn into a forge of goods, the United States into a market for their sale. However, the completion of this system was already taken up by Mao's successors, including Deng Xiaoping, who had returned from disgrace. To avoid a repetition of totalitarian times, he introduced the principle of rotation of power, which China observed until this year.

“Under Mao, the foundation was laid for the future Chinese economic miracle,” Lukin sums up. - It is he who is considered the founder of modern Chinese statehood, the man who built a new great power. We can say that he returned to the Chinese a sense of pride in their country. The Chinese, of course, remember what sacrifices it cost. But they try not to talk about it.”

On December 26, 1893, Mao Zedong was born - the main theorist of Chinese communism, who proclaimed the People's Republic of China and remained its permanent leader until his death. He was the first to adapt Marxism to the Chinese mentality, based on Confucianism and ancient cultural traditions. In honor of his birthday, we decided to remember five little known facts from the life of Mao Zedong.

Parents

The founder of Maoism, Mao's own system of ideological principles adopted as the official ideology of the Communist Party of China, came from a rather prosperous family of small landowners from Hunan Province. Zedong's father, a Confucian in religious beliefs, was distinguished by a strict disposition, which led to constant conflicts with his son. Young Mao was more attached to a soft-spoken Buddhist mother.

Prediction

There is a legend that says that shortly before the arrival of the revolutionary Mao in Beijing and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, the future chairman of the Communist Party of China met a hermit monk in 1949, whom he asked about his future fate. In response, the monk named only four numbers: 8341. Versions about the meaning of the numbers appeared only after the death of the Great Pilot: he lived for 83 years and headed Communist Party China. However, there is an opinion that military unit, guarding the chairman of the Communist Party, received her number 8341 is far from accidental.

Mao's wives

Carried away by revolutionary ideas, Mao did not believe in traditional marriage, considering it a relic of the past. Nevertheless, the Chinese leader has been married several times. Mao did not consider his first marriage, which was concluded at the insistence of his father. He was 14 years old, his wife was 20, and together, as he claimed, they did not live a single day. Mao ran away from his native village, studied, served in the army. In 1921, Mao officially married Yang Kaihui, the daughter of Mao's favorite teacher, Yang Changji. According to official information, the marriage lasted nine years, according to unofficial information - seven. In 1930, Yang Kaihui was executed by agents of the Kuomintang, a party that fought against the rising influence of Mao. There were rumors that she could save her life by publishing in the press a formal renunciation of her husband. Yang Kaihui refused and was shot. From this marriage, Mao left three sons, the youngest of whom died shortly after the execution of his mother, and the two older ones were sent to a boarding school in the USSR, after which Mao married nineteen-year-old He Zizhen, a girl who led a local self-defense detachment and excellent shot with both hands . The marriage with her lasted until 1937, when Mao had a new hobby - the Shanghai actress Lang Ping. He Zizhen was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Shanghai. Having filed a divorce with her, Mao announced that he would marry an actress. To arrange the marriage, information was collected about the past of the chosen one of the chairman in order to refute the suspicions of signing the abdication, which was regarded by the party as a betrayal. After the wedding, the young wife took on a new name - Jiang Qing (Azure Stream) and joined the CCP. In the first ten years of their marriage, from the 1940s to the early 1950s, Jiang Qing did not participate in any public activities. She held the ordinary position of Deputy Head of the Literature and Art Sector in the Central Committee and was, in fact, Mao's personal secretary. However, it is she who will then become one of the initiators of the bloody "cultural revolution" and, following the results of the trial in the "Case of Four" in 1981, will be sentenced to prison. In June 1991, at age 78, Jiang Qing committed suicide.

The secret of longevity

At one time, Mao Zedong said that a person should die at the age of 50 and not interfere with new generations, but over the years, the Great Pilot changed his mind and became interested in the secrets of longevity. One of the secrets, and Mao lived for 83 years, is explained by the fact that the chairman chewed large quantities of red hot pepper all his life, which gives a boost of vigor and strength, increases sexual potency and, importantly, dilates the heart vessels, improving the nutrition of the heart muscle. In addition, Zedong, like many Chinese, drank ginseng tincture. Studies have shown that the plant is called the “root of life” for a reason: it normalizes protein synthesis, slows down pathological changes in body functions, increasing its resistance.

Children of Mao

In total, the Great Pilot had ten children: five sons and five daughters, but many of them died in early age. After the death of Yang Kaihui's first wife, her sons ended up on the street. The youngest, An Lung, died, and An Ying and An Qing were sent to the USSR in 1937, where they first lived in Monino, near Moscow, then in an international orphanage in Ivanovo. At the end of 1941, An Yingu, who received and Russian name Seryozha even offered to take Soviet citizenship, but he refused, and soon after that he sent a letter to Stalin asking him to send him to the front. Then Sergei studied at the military-political academy, in 1943 he joined the CPSU (b), became a lieutenant, political instructor of a tank company, participated in battles, went through Poland. Before returning to China in 1946, according to Chinese historians, he was received by Stalin and received a personalized pistol from his hands. Killed during the American bombing in Korea. In 1929, Mao's second wife gave birth to their first child, a girl whose fate is unknown. The same fate befell the second child. Two more died after birth. A girl named Jiao Jiao is the only one of the five who survived, as her father sent her to the USSR. She lived in an orphanage in Ivanovo with her stepbrothers. After returning to China, the girl was given a new name, Li Ming. In his memoirs, Li Ming recalls Mao as a kind and caring father.