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The Life of Mao Zedong Dressed in the drab military uniform that symbolized
the revolutionary government of Communist China, Mao Zedong's body still looked
powerful, like an giant rock in a gushing river. An enormous red flag draped his
coffin, like a red sail unfurled on a Chinese junk, illustrating the dualism of
traditional China and the present Communist China that typified Mao. 1 A river
of people flowed past while he lay in state during the second week of September
1976. Workers, peasants, soldiers and students, united in grief; brought
together by Mao, the helmsman of modern China. 2 He had assembled a
revolutionary government using traditional Chinese ideals of filial piety,
harmony, and order. Mao's cult of personality, party purges, and political
policies reflect Mao's esteem of these traditional Chinese ideals and history.
Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in Shao Shan, a village in Hunan Province. 3
His family lived in a rural village where for hundreds of years the pattern of
everyday life had remained largely unbroken. 4 Mao's father, the son of a poor
peasant, during Mao's childhood however, prospered and become a wealthy land
owner and rice dealer. 5 Yet, the structure of Mao's family continued to mirror
the rigidity of traditional Chinese society. His father, a strict
disciplinarian, demanded filial piety.
6 Forced to do farm labor and study the
Chinese classics, Mao was expected to be obedient. On the other hand, Mao
remembers his mother was generous and sympathetic. 7 Mao urged his mother to
confront his father but Mao's mother who believed in many traditional ideas
replied that was not the Chinese way. 8 Mao in his interviews with historian
Edgar Snow reports how during his childhood he tried to escape this traditional
Chinese upbringing by running away from home. The rebellion Mao claims to have
manifested might have distanced Mao physically from his family but, traditional
Chinese values were deeply ingrained, shaping his political and personal
persona. His father's harshness with dealing with opposition, his cunning, his
demand for reverence from subordinates, and his ambition were to be seen in how
Mao demanded harmony, order, and reverence as a ruthless dictator. Yet, Mao, was
also the kindly father figure for the people of China, as manifested in
characteristic qualities of Mao's mother: kindness, benevolence, and patriarchal
indulgence. The China that Mao was born into was fast becoming a shell of its
former past. The Ch'ing dynasty which had ruled China for 250 years was only 14
years away from its collapse. 9 Peasant rebellions, famines, and riots heralded
its failing. For Mao, one particular event when he was just ten years old, left
a lasting impression. It both symbolized the deterioration of order in Chinese
traditional society and was in sharp contrast to principles of harmony. A group
of local villagers rioted for food during a famine in 1903. The leaders were
captured, beheaded, and their heads displayed on poles as a warning for future
rebels. 10 Amidst the change that quaked the Chinese nation and Mao's family's
economic situation, 11 Mao sought solace in books about Chinese history and its
emperors. 12 He became known in his family as, the scholar. As a child [I was]
fascinated by accounts of the rulers of ancient China: Yao, Shun, Ch'in Shih
Huang Ti, and Hu Wu Ti, and read many books about them. 13 Indeed, the emperors
grandeur, elegance and power were a sharp contrast to the brutish leaders that
Mao was exposed to during his childhood.
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