Philosophy of Mao Zedong - Essay Example

Mao Zedong was one of several children growing up in a rural part of China. His father was a peasant farmer. As far as one can be successful as a peasant farmer, Mao’s father was a success. He consolidated parcels of land, building them up slowly until he owned twenty acres of ground, the largest land holding in the village. Farming in China was backbreaking work. There were no machines to help in the field labor, so crops were cultivated by hand using rudimentary tools. Mao Zedong was sent to school by his father because he wanted his sons to be prominent among the village boys. After five years of education, Mao’s father wanted him to return to the farm. Mao obeyed, but he was restless. He became a voracious reader and a substandard peasant farmer. During this period of his life, Mao’s glorification of strong political leaders such as George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte began to develop (Chang & Halliday, 1980).

Mao Zedong eventually left his father’s farm and moved to the provincial capital of Changsha. He completed his education and eventually landed a position in Beijing. This is where Mao met the individuals that would introduce him to the teaching and philosophy of Karl Marx. 

Mao was above all else a Marxist. He believed strongly in the idea that eliminating the differences between classes in society would lead to the best form of government. He strongly believed that the only way this could occur in China was to organize the masses of peasants that held little or no political power under the rule of the emperor. The exciting thing about Mao’s life was the last emperor of China was dying before his eyes. He could feel that it was time for something new for China, and Mao believed that the best development would be a broad-based peasant revolt that would usher in a Marxist state.  He was determined to be the leader of that state.

Mao was a forceful personality and he did not shy away from doing brave things. One of his early rivals in China for power was the leader of the nationalist Chinese, Chang Kai-shek. A civil war broke out between these two groups but was interrupted by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, a part of northeastern China. This was a difficult time for China because there was no central government to stand up to the Japanese. Mao and Chang Kai-shek decided to join forces to withstand the Japanese. For a while, there was cooperation, but soon it was clear that the truce would not hold. Mao took his army and followers far into the north of china to escape the Nationalists. This was known as the Long March. Most of the army died, but Mao lived to lead the Communists over the nationalists, who fled to Taiwan when they were defeated in mainland China.

Once Mao established himself as ruler of China through his authority as President of the Chinese Communist Party, his penchant for strong leaders started to show. He conducted a series of political purges that eliminated his political rivals through mass executions and starvation. Mao undertook a program of transforming China in every way, not just through politics. He wanted to change the very nature of China. He outlawed traditional arts and crafts, discouraged Buddhist and Confucian teachings, and branded anyone that got in his way as “counter-revolutionary”.

One of Mao’s greatest endeavors was the so-called “Great Leap Forward”. Under this scheme, Marxist ideas about land distribution and rapid industrialization were undertaken at the same time. This was the way that Mao said china could surpass its Communist rivals, the Soviets, and eventually takes the revolution to Europe and America. The problem with the Great Leap Forward was that Mao was unaware of the ill effects it was having on the Chinese peasants so vital to his revolution. The land collectivization schemes were largely unsuccessful, resulting in wasted or failed harvests. Millions starved as a result (Ditmer, 1980). Industrial products such as steel and other manufactured goods were presented to Mao as proof his policies were bearing results, but the fact was that manufacturing was producing very poor quality goods. Mao thought China was becoming a success, but it was a worse place than when communist rule started.

Mao Zedong is a famous person because he had a lot of power in China during the 20th century. He was a Marxist that believed class conflicts resulted in weakened countries.  He was the son of a peasant farmer that believed peasants could revolt to change China for the better. Little did he know that during his rule, millions of these peasants would die as a result of his political beliefs.