The Achievements and Failures of Mao Zedong - Report Example

The achievements and failures of Maozedong Mao Zedong was born on December 29, 1893 in Hunan where he went to school between ages 8-13 before his father arranged a marriage for him at 14. He is one of the most controversial leaders in the history of the world considering that he was both successful and failure tos the Chinese territory. The world recognizes him as a saver and a tyrant in equal measures; consequently making it significant to study how the impact of the figure. While studying the successes and failures of Mao Zedong, it is intrinsic to consider the way in which he was brought up and his studies since these influenced the future decisions he made for while in leadership. In the event of growing up, he deemed that there was need for reform in the Chinese way of thinking thereby making him to concentrate on his peers (younger people) and peasants to help in making his political career a success. Considering his political career, Long March was one of his many tactical successes that happened when CCP was in power. However, one of the embarrassing failures is the Great Leap Forward which has impacted the contemporary China. This essay focuses on reporting on the success and failures of Mae Zedong while considering that he is one of the controversial historic leaders who have shaped the modern world. Integrating the peasant as part of the revolutionary structure is one of the significant successes that Zedong established in the Communist world. According to the Stalinist belief, only the urban workers, known as the proletariat, constituted the most important part of the revolution. The second congress held by Communist Party in July 1922, had inclined to Lenin’s advice about only involving the urban class in the nationalistic revolution 1. This is because the Leninist considered them (urban workers) as the working class and hence the only instrumental group to be integrated as revolutionist. In this case, the peasants were excluded with the motive that they did not have revolution. At this point, Zedong came in as a significant figure in pacifying the division between the revolutionist and the peasants. On his trip back to his hometown, he came to realization that there was a revolutionary potential in peasantry, which then he considered inherent. The following quote is essential to reinforce the point about integrating peasantry in revolution: Zedong turned to the rural world for garnering support for China’s regeneration. Following fellow Communist leaders, Zedong began to channelize the energy and protest of the Hunanese peasants into a network of peasant association2.  He took this chance to organize the peasants from the countryside practicing agriculture. This makes Zedong as an important figure when studying China regeneration by including the peasants in the national revolution. Henceforth, the peasantry association formed helped in addressing the needs of the peasants at national level consequently forming the communist view in China. The Long March served as one of the major successes established by Zedong since he was able to save the Communist from coming to an halt. Initially an alliance was formed between the peasants and the KMT figures and generals. However, the alliance between the two deteriorated considering the rift between the views of the peasants and senior KMT figures. At the time of the rift, Chiang (the KMT leader) began attacking the communist supporters, who were mostly the peasants. His violent purge against the communist, fresh from overthrowing warlords in the northern expedition, led to the loss of almost 25,000 communist Party Members3. Considering that Zedong was one of the significant figures enforcing communism, he recognized the defeat and migrated eastwards (Jinggang Mountains) with his troop. This was the first landmark for the Long March, considered as Zedong’s success, since he was able to save the communist from total demise4. Even after the first attack from Chiang, Zedong remained strong and organized five villages leading to formation of 1800 people troop for the Long March. Zedong harmonized the 1800 people troop to establish the Soviet Republic of China. After rising to the chairman post for the small republic, he was able to establish a strong army consisting of guerilla fighters which henceforth helped in acquiring 10 regions. The strength of the small republic triggered anxiety in Chiang who had realized the increase in number of the communist group. Consequently, this made Chiang to arrange for yet another attack by organizing 1 million government forces to mount the communist stronghold. Zedong considered a fight against the government forces as unwise thereby making him to initiate the Long March to help in retreat. The Long march continued for 12 months with more than 100,000 Communists and their dependents trekking towards northwest under the leadership of Zedon5. Upon reaching Yanan, he was able to emerge as the top communist leader considering his achievement of initiating an alliance with Kuomintang. In this case, the communists had survived again another devastating attack from the KMT figures, through the leadership of Zedon “the savior”. As a leader of the people’s republic of China, Zedong was successful in bringing up many positive changes which Chiang was unable to impart. In the international realm, Zedon was successful in defeating Japanese after the latter’s invasion in 1937. Chiang had lost control over the major cities in China implying that he could not easily defeat the Japanese. Consequently, this made Chiang to sought for help from Zedon, who was then the leader of the communist group. This was a significant chance to Zedon enabling him to serve as the military leader in fighting against the Japanese forces. On defeating the Japanese in 1945, Zedong overthrown Chiang on the control of most part of the country making him form People’s Republic of China while leaving the latter with Taiwan to set up Republic of China6. At this point, the power garnered by Zedong allowed him to trigger many positive changes as shown in this quote: During his rule, Zedong brought about quite a many positive changes in the working of the nation. He uplifted the status of women, promoted education, made healthcare facilities accessible and raised life expectancy7. Fighting for gender equity, promoting education and healthcare facilities makes Zedon as one of the recognized leaders since these factors were essential for changing China from being an agricultural nation to a modern economy. Even though Zedong impacted a lot of positive change on the Chinese people, it is significant to notice that the Great Leap Forward was one of his major failures. Zedong initiated the “Great Leap” program as an instrument for enhancing the agricultural and industrial growth of the territory. The Great leap program aimed at establishing communities of 75000 people per each to practice commune agriculture. In this case, the government was responsible for sharing the profits with the people and also providing them with small piece of land. Despite the Great Leap program, meaning good to the people, the acts of nature prove as a major hindrance leading to the failure of the program8. The occurrence of disasters such as floods led to bad harvest consequently making the promising agricultural and industrial revolution to come to a halt. Following the poor yield from the Great Leap, the nation under Zedong rule suffered a famine which left about 40 million people dead. This was a failure on the part of Zedong since he had not carried an initial assessment on the program. An initial assessment would have helped in weighing between the success and failures of the project; consequently prompting for a proper management practice. The failure of the program, in 1961, made Zedong to submit to his rivals thereby allowing them to take control of the country since many citizens were now against him. Following his failure and the subsequent submission to his rivals, Zedong launched Cultural Revolution which again in ended up as his another failure. He considered Cultural Revolution as a comeback project, which could help him regain the lost power from his rivals. In launching the revolution, he arranged rallies targeting thousands of youth supporters while excluding the old aged population. The major reason for choosing the youth was because the latter had little knowledge about his failure with the Great Leap program. In order to craft an effective crisis situation, he convinced the youth that the people in power were aiming to bring back capitalism consequently the only remedy was to exclude them from the society. This led to struggle between the young people (Red Guards) and the authorities in the society consequently disrupting the traditional heritage of China9. The immediate effect of the revolution included closing of the schools and subjecting the city elites to hard manual labor which they were not used. The revolution only ended after the report about death of Zedong. As a result of the revolution, millions of people died consequently contributing to yet another massacre caused by Zedong. In conclusion, the late Zedong, both for wrong and right reasons, draws enough worldwide eyeballs making him one of the most controversial leaders. At one time people hail him as the supporter of communist view and also the founder of the Peoples Republic of China and in another point he was responsible for the historic deaths of Chinese people. Bibliography TheFamousPeople.com, 2014. Mao Zedong. Retrieved from: http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/mao-zedong-56.php Gay, Kathlyn. 2008. Mao Zedongs China. Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&A N=483285. Mao, Zedong, and Shawn Conners. 2009. Collected writings of Chairman Mao. [El Paso]: El Paso Norte Press, Special Edition Books. Hatt, Christine. 2003. Mao Zedong. Milwaukee, WI: World Almanac Library. Read More