The picture of the man to the left is named Chairman Mao Zedong.  You may also see his name spelled as "Tse Tung" instead of Zedong.  Fortunately, as a student of history, all you need to remember is "Mao."  This is how we will refer to him and the sweeping change that he brought into China.  That change effected the nation and its role in world history forever.

          This section will deal with an event known as the "Chinese Civil War."  This revolution was really a civil war.  The end product of this revolution, or civil war was that communism swept across the most populated country in the world.  Today, 1 out of 6 people living on earth are Chinese.  There are more people living in China who speak English than speak English in the United States!!!  Because of China's large size and its growing economy, as well as the fact that they have nuclear weapons and they are communist - the country is very important to understand. 

          Some students may wonder why we are studying the Chinese Revolution when we just began the Cold War.  That is a great question! To be able to understand all of this and put the events of the Chinese Revolution into context with its importance during the Cold War -- we need to begin with some background history of China.

          China, while rich in culture and history, has not been a very modern country for a very long time.  China had been ruled by emperors for thousands of years.  China is one of the oldest civilizations on earth.  These emperors ruled by a power that was bestowed upon them by the "gods."  This power was called the, "Mandate of Heaven."  The Mandate of Heaven was the right a ruler had to rule over the people of the country.  The way that people knew if a ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven and should not be the ruler anymore was if there were a series of catastrophes that hit the land.  These would include drought, floods, invasion from foreigners and other awful things.  Once a series of these events began, it was supposed to be a sign from the Gods to the people that the ruler had fallen out of favor with the Gods and that it was time for a new emperor to take the throne. 

          This began an era of spheres of influence in China were several foreign powers including Japan, Britain the Americans and others began controlling areas of China.  It was these invasions of foreigners that led to the Taiping Rebellion in 1851 where 50 million Chinese died in 14 years.  China was also rocked by the Boxer Rebellion when a mass of Chinese rebelled against all of the foreign countries and missionaries in China.  The Chinese called their rebellious group, "the fists of righteous harmony."  The foreigners laughed at this name, and "Boxer" stuck in its place.  An international army was quickly put together and crushed the Boxer Rebellion.  Eventually, the Chinese decided that that the Qing Dynasty had lost their Mandate of Heaven because of all the foreigners and missionaries.  Therefore, the last Chinese Emperor and Dynasty ended in 1911.  The Qing Dynasty was the last ruling family of China.  They were replaced by a democratic government run by a man named Sun Yatsen.  Sun Yatsen had studied in America and was impressed by the freedoms and opportunity that democracy provided to the people.  When Sun Yatsen died, his successor, Chiang Kai-shek took over leadership of the political party that really pushed democracy in China.  That party was the Nationalist Party (or Kuomintang -- KMT).  Under Chiang Kai-shek, China began to build up a stronger army.  The purpose of that army was to help kick out all the foreigners from China. 

           In 1921, a new political party formed in China.  That party was the Communist Party!!!  Four years after the communist revolution in Russia, the ideas of communism had now spread to China.  The Nationalists and the Communists had two TOTALLY separate versions of what they believed government should look like. 

          When the communists came into a village, they paid the villagers for food and shelter.  When the Nationalists came through the same villages chasing the communists, they would often take things from the villagers instead.

          When the Nationalists lost the civil war, they ran away to an island off the coast of China and set up their own new country.  They called this country Taiwan, but historically it was known as Formosa.  It still exists today as a democracy, just off the coast of Communist China.  China claims that this is a renegade state of China and that they are a part of China.  This is a very tense part of the world where China has done different things threatening Taiwan, like shooting missiles over the country....
      "After the fall of Qing dynasty in 1911, China plunged into four decades of turmoil. Following World War II, two Chinese armies fought for control of China. The winners were the Chinese communists, led by Mao Zedong, who established the People's Republic of China in 1949. The losers fled to the island of Taiwan off the coast of China where they set up an anti-communist government that still exists.
          Unlike India's independence movement, which was led by European-trained elites, the communist takeover in China was a peasant revolution. It became a model for peasant revolutions in other places like Vietnam and Cuba. Mao's government made some huge mistakes; an estimated 30 to 50 million Chinese died from starvation when the communists mismanaged the process of setting up large collective farms. But, in the end, the communists improved China's agricultural and industrial production.
          After Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders opened the economy to capitalist-style, free-market competition. Since then, China's economy has grown rapidly, but China remains a totalitarian state that restricts the rights of its people. Nonetheless, the communist government's promise of equality has resulted in better nutrition, education, and medical care than in India" (www.studentsfriend.com).

          The Chinese Revolution did not automatically bring about a great life for everyone in China.  There were many problems, and these problems still exist today.  One problem was that just because the communists had won the revolution/civil war -- it did not mean that they were adequate or able to run the country.  The Chinese Communist Party, also referred to as CCP, sought out people top help them make decisions about how things should be.  The CCP began the 100 Flowers Campaign.  This was where intellectuals and businessmen were asked their opinions about the economy and what direction the CCP and Mao should lead the country in.  However - like many communist countries, the leaders do NOT want to be told that they are wrong.  Therefore, once the criticism began coming in - remember that the government asked for it - the CCP got mad and began punishing those people.  It is like if a friend asks you if he/she looks good in an outfit.  If you say, "yes," they will ask if you are lying.  If you say, "no you do not look good in that outfit," then they get mad.  This is what happened in China, on a different scale!

           Mao and the CCP then decided their own tactic for making China a powerful country.  The decided upon the "Great Leap Forward."  The Great Leap Forward was a time when the government tried to build agriculture and industry in China.  Many people were moved to live on massive communes (also called "collectives").  They were moved out of their villages and homes to live in massive common quarter areas.  No one received any money for their work, they were simply given food and shelter.  THIS IS COMMUNISM!!!!!  The government put managers in charge of these efforts.  The managers wanted to look like their groups were producing the most so that they would not be punished and began lying about how much food or steel or such that they produced.  Based on these lies, the government sold or took a certain amount from the communes.  But because the managers were lying, and there was not as much being produced as they said -- on the farm communes, that meant that there was no food left to feed the people.  20 million or more people died of starvation because of the Great Leap Forward.  There were also people who tried to make steel at home by taking anything they could find made of iron and melting it down.  The temperature that it takes to make steel is so high that there is no way these home ovens could make it.  Therefore, millions of people melted down what they had, and it turned out to be a waste.

           Many people, and leaders within the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) did not think that Mao's idea of the Great Leap Forward was working well.  Eventually they ended the effort.  But, Mao took their criticism as an act of unfaithfulness to Mao and the CCP.  He then began a time period known as the Cultural Revolution.  The Cultural Revolution was another awful and bloody time in communist China.  Mao wanted the spirit of the revolution that brought in communism to be re-lit.  The children of those who fought in the civil war were not alive during those times.  Mao thought that they should see the true spirit of revolution and released a scary force upon China.  These youths who took part in the Cultural Revolution doubted everyone in the government, except for Mao.  They loved Mao and thought that he was their righteous savior (remember, there is no religion in communism, so he became like their God). 

          As a reaction to the criticism that Mao faced from the Great Leap Forward, he encouraged young people to question their teachers, the businessmen, the managers and their parents.  The youth were to question loyalty to Mao and to the revolutionary spirit.  There is a picture of a book above, left.  This book is called the "Little Red Book."  This was like the Bible during the Cultural Revolution.  The Little Red Book is a collection of sayings by Chairman Mao.  His picture is on the front of it.  Notice how it looks like there are sunbeams coming off of his picture.  His picture is in the center of these "sun" beams, which makes him appear as though to be the sun.  Remember back to the beginning of this section when we talked about the Mandate of Heaven.  The ancient tradition of China's leaders being endowed to rule by the gods.  This is the type of propaganda that Mao was trying to play into.  He was the religion of China....

           During the Cultural Revolution, there were groups of people known as "Red Guard" who were the lynch-pins of the Cultural Revolution.  These youth wore red bands on their sleeves and sought out people who had been unfaithful to the revolutionary cause.  EVEN WHEN IT WAS NOT TRUE, the Red Guard would beat, kick, punch, gang up on, flog and parade around victims in front of large crowds. Many people were even executed or beaten so badly that they were killed.  The job of the Red Guard was to "re-educate" people, which meant to get them thinking the correct way and make them be loyal to Mao.  By treating so many people so viciously -- the Red Guard assured that no one would dare go against Mao.          

BBC News Coverage Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 1989

CBS Coverage of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 1989