Mao tse dung biography
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Mao: The Unknown Story
biography of Mao Zedong
Mao: The Unknown Story is a biography of the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong (–) that was written by the husband-and-wife team of the writer Jung Chang and the historian Jon Halliday, who detail Mao's early life, his introduction to the Chinese Communist Party, and his political career. The book summarizes Mao's transition from a rebel against the autocratic Kuomintang government to the totalitarian dictator over the People's Republic of China. Chang and Halliday heavily cover Mao's role in the planning and the execution of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. They open the book saying "Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world's population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth-century leader.
In conducting their research for the book over the course of a decade, the authors interviewed hundreds of peopl
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Mao Tse-tung
Who Was Mao Tse-tung?
Mao Tse-tung served as chairman of the People's Republic of China from to , and led the Chinese Communist Party from until his death. Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and the Cultural Revolution were ill-conceived and had disastrous consequences, but many of his goals, including stressing China's self-reliance, were generally laudable.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Mao Tse-tung
BORN: December 26,
DIED: September 9,
BIRTHPLACE: Shaoshan, China
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn
Early Life
In the late 19th century, China was a shell of its once glorious past, led by the decrepit Qing Dynasty. Mao Tse-tung was born on December 26, , in the farming community of Shaoshan, in the province of Hunan, China, to a peasant family that had tilled their three acres of land for several generations. Life was difficult for many Chinese citizens at the time, but Mao's family was better off than most. His authoritarian father, Mao Zedong, was a
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Mao Zedong ()
Mao Zedong, ©Mao was a kinesisk communist leader and founder of the People's Republic of China. He was responsible for the disastrous policies of the 'Great Leap Forward' and the 'Cultural Revolution'.
Mao was born on 26 December into a peasant family in Shaoshan, in Hunan province, central China. After training as a teacher, he travelled to Beijing where he worked in the University Library. It was during this time that he began to read Marxist literature. In , he became a founder member of the kinesisk Communist Party (CCP) and set up a branch in provins. In , the Kuomintang (KMT) nationalist party had allied with the CCP to defeat the warlords who controlled much of northern China. Then in , the KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek launched an anti-communist purge.
Mao and other communists retreated to south east China. In , after the KMT surrounded them, Mao led his följare on the 'Long March', a 6, mile journey to northwest China to establish a new base.
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