law-of-freedom

After Glenn Beck revealed a video showing White House Communications Director Anita Dunn telling a group of high school students that one of her favorite philosophers was Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong), I did some quick research on Mao and prematurely commented in a discussion that Mao united China and deserved credit.  I have since done further research, and I was wrong.  China was on the right track until Mao took over.  I have summarized the results of my research below.  Please be forewarned, history is not my strongest suit, and I relied heavily on Wikipedia for my research, but I took a lot of pains to try to get the history right.  I am focusing on health care policy issues and have not documented sources like I normally would.  Please comment if you find something that is incorrect.

Mao Zedong was born in December 1893, under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, which had been in power since 1644.  The people of China became convinced that the Qing government was incapable of effective rule, and in 1911 overthrew the Qing, establishing the Republic of China.  Mao fought with the revolutionaries to overthrow the government, then returned to school.

In their last 16 years in power, the Qing government formed the New Armies and supported the killing of Christian missionaries and converts by Boxer rebels, only stopping after the Eight Nation Alliance intervened militarily.  The western countries demanded political and monetary reparations.  The government attempted to make reforms, but showed an unwillingness to give up any power.

The Chinese Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenhui), the group with which Mao fought, was organized by Christian Sun Yat-Sen and was motivated by anger against government corruption, foreign intervention, and minority Manchu rule.  Their principles were nationalism, socialism, and republicanism.  After the revolution, they became the Kuomintang Party, which still exists in Taiwan.

Yuan Shikei, the leader of the New Armies, had the military power, so he became president after the revolution instead of Sun Yat-Sen and set up military governors of the provinces, each with their own army.  Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor in 1915, immediately faced a national rebellion, and died within a year.  

After his death, the army splintered into factions ruled by warlords, who fought wars constantly for control of China.  During this time, Mao became active in the Communist Party of China (CPC).  In 1925, he became the acting Propaganda Directors of the Kuomintang, which was allied with the CPC.  

In 1928, a leader of the Kuomintang named Chiang Kai-shek, who was endorsed by Sun Yat-Sen before Yat-Sen's death in 1925, led a military campaign called the Northern Expedition to unify China and end the rule of local warlords.  Kai-shek opposed the alliance between the Kuomintang and the CPC, but still allied with them and the Soviet Union to accomplish the Northern Expedition.  

They were successful in bringing down the warlords, but new warlords sprung up in their place, and caused even more casualties than before.  Furthermore, in 1927, Kai-Shek, increasingly opposed to Communists, executed hundreds of leftist members of his party, beginning the Chinese Civil War (in which Mao was his communist nemesis).  Despite this, Chiang's government was popular and made progress toward modernity.  

Japan's attacks on China in the 1930's, including that front in World War II, resulted in Chiang being forced (in the Xi'an Incident of December 1936) to cooperate with the Communists to defend China.  After the War ended, the truce fell apart, and war between Mao's CPC and Chiang's KMT resumed.  Mao promised the peasants that they could have their landlords farmland if they fought for the CPC.  In 1949, Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China.  Chiang Kai-shek and about 2 million Chinese retreated to Taiwan.

The basic tenets of Maoism include revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures, termed a People's War. Maoism departs from conventional European-inspired Marxism in that its focus is on the agrarian countryside, rather than the industrial urban forces.

In its post-revolutionary period, Mao Zedong Thought asserts that class struggle continues even if the proletariat has already overthrown the bourgeoisie, and there are capitalist restorationist elements within the Communist Party itself.

Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book), is a collection of quotations excerpted from Mao Zedong's past speeches and publications.  The Communists have a translation of it available at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/