Mao Zedong

== Early revolutionary activity ==
=== Beijing, anarchism, and Marxism: 1917–1919 ===
[[File:Mao Zedong in 1924.jpg|left|thumb|Mao Zedong in 1924]]
Mao moved to Beijing, where his mentor Yang Changji had taken a job at Peking University.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=48}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=47, 56–57}}.</ref> Yang thought Mao exceptionally "intelligent and handsome",<ref>{{harvnb|Feigon|2002|p=18}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=39}}.</ref> securing him a job as assistant to the university librarian [[Li Dazhao]], who would become an early Chinese Communist.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=48}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=59}}.</ref> Li authored a series of ''New Youth'' articles on the [[October Revolution]] in Russia, during which the Communist [[Bolshevik Party]] under the leadership of [[Vladimir Lenin]] had seized power. Lenin was an advocate of the socio-political theory of [[Marxism]], first developed by the German sociologists [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]], and Li's articles added Marxism to the doctrines in Chinese revolutionary movement.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=47}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=59–62}}.</ref>

Becoming "more and more radical", Mao was initially influenced by [[Peter Kropotkin]]'s [[anarchism]], which was the most prominent radical doctrine of the day. [[Anarchism in China|Chinese anarchists]], such as [[Cai Yuanpei]], Chancellor of Peking University, called for complete [[social revolution]] in social relations, family structure, and [[Gender inequality in China|women's equality]], rather than the simple change in the form of government called for by earlier revolutionaries. He joined Li's Study Group and "developed rapidly toward Marxism" during the winter of 1919.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=48–49}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=62–64}}.</ref> Paid a low wage, Mao lived in a cramped room with seven other Hunanese students, but believed that Beijing's beauty offered "vivid and living compensation".<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=48}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=57–58}}.</ref> A number of his friends took advantage of the anarchist-organised ''[[Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement|Mouvement Travail-Études]]'' to study in France, but Mao declined, perhaps because of an inability to learn languages.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=51}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=53–55, 65}}.</ref> Mao raised funds for the movement, however.<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=35}}

At the university, Mao was snubbed by other students due to his rural Hunanese accent and lowly position. He joined the university's Philosophy and Journalism Societies and attended lectures and seminars by the likes of [[Chen Duxiu]], [[Hu Shih]], and [[Qian Xuantong]].<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=48}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=62, 66}}.</ref> Mao's time in Beijing ended in the spring of 1919, when he travelled to Shanghai with friends who were preparing to leave for France.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=50–52}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=66}}.</ref> He did not return to Shaoshan, where his mother was terminally ill. She died in October 1919 and her husband died in January 1920.{{sfn|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=66–67}}

=== New Culture and political protests: 1919–1920 ===
[[File:Mao Zedong in 1919 (02).jpg|thumb|Mao Zedong in 1919]]
On 4 May 1919, students in Beijing gathered at [[Tiananmen]] to protest the Chinese government's weak resistance to Japanese expansion in China. Patriots were outraged at the influence given to Japan in the [[Twenty-One Demands]] in 1915, the complicity of [[Duan Qirui]]'s [[Beiyang government]], and the betrayal of China in the [[Treaty of Versailles]], wherein Japan was allowed to [[Shandong Problem|receive territories in Shandong]] which had been surrendered by [[German Empire|Germany]]. These demonstrations ignited the nationwide [[May Fourth Movement]] and fuelled the [[New Culture Movement]] which blamed China's diplomatic defeats on social and cultural backwardness.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=51–52}}; {{harvnb|Feigon|2002|pp=21–22}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=69–70}}.</ref>

In Changsha, Mao had begun teaching history at the Xiuye Primary School{{sfn|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=68}} and organising protests against the pro-Duan Governor of Hunan Province, [[Zhang Jingyao]], popularly known as "Zhang the Venomous" due to his corrupt and violent rule.{{sfn|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=76}} In late May, Mao co-founded the Hunanese Student Association with [[He Shuheng]] and [[Deng Zhongxia]], organising a student strike for June and in July 1919 began production of a weekly radical magazine, ''[[The Shian Kian Weekly Review|Xiang River Review]]''. Using vernacular language that would be understandable to the majority of China's populace, he advocated the need for a "Great Union of the Popular Masses", and strengthened trade unions able to wage non-violent revolution.{{clarify|date=May 2016}} His ideas were not Marxist, but heavily influenced by Kropotkin's concept of [[Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution|mutual aid]].<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=53–54}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=71–76}}.</ref>

[[File:Beijing students protesting the Treaty of Versailles (May 4, 1919).jpg|thumb|Students in Beijing rallying during the May Fourth Movement]]
Zhang banned the Student Association, but Mao continued publishing after assuming editorship of the liberal magazine ''New Hunan'' (''Xin Hunan'') and authored articles in popular local newspaper ''[[Ta Kung Pao]]''. Several of these advocated [[Feminism in China|feminist]] views, calling for the liberation of women in Chinese society; Mao was influenced by his forced arranged-marriage.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=55}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=76–77}}.</ref> In fall 1919, Mao organized a seminar in Changsha studying economic and political issues, as well as ways to unite the people, the feasibility of socialism, and issues regarding Confucianism.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |last=Huang |first=Yibing |url= |title=An ideological history of the Communist Party of China |date=2020 |others=Qian Zheng, Guoyou Wu, Xuemei Ding, Li Sun, Shelly Bryant |isbn=978-1-4878-0425-1 |edition= |volume=1 |publisher=Royal Collins Publishing Group |location=Montreal, Quebec |pages=16 |oclc=1165409653}}</ref> During this period, Mao involved himself in political work with manual laborers, setting up night schools and trade unions.<ref name=":9" /> In December 1919, Mao helped organise a general strike in Hunan, securing some concessions, but Mao and other student leaders felt threatened by Zhang, and Mao returned to Beijing, visiting the terminally ill Yang Changji.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=55–56}}; {{harvnb|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=79}}.</ref> Mao found that his articles had achieved a level of fame among the revolutionary movement, and set about soliciting support in overthrowing Zhang.{{sfn|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=80}} Coming across newly translated Marxist literature by Thomas Kirkup, [[Karl Kautsky]], and Marx and Engels—notably ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]''—he came under their increasing influence, but was still eclectic in his views.{{sfn|Pantsov|Levine|2012|pp=81–83}}

Mao visited Tianjin, [[Jinan]], and [[Qufu]],{{sfn|Pantsov|Levine|2012|p=84}} before moving to Shanghai, where he worked as a laundryman and met [[Chen Duxiu]], noting that Chen's adoption of Marxism "deeply impressed me at what was probably a critical period in my life". In Shanghai, Mao met an old teacher of his, [[Yi Peiji]], a revolutionary and member of the [[Kuomintang]] (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party, which was gaining increasing support and influence. Yi introduced Mao to General [[Tan Yankai]], a senior KMT member who held the loyalty of troops stationed along the Hunanese border with Guangdong. Tan was plotting to overthrow Zhang, and Mao aided him by organising the Changsha students. In June 1920, Tan led his troops into Changsha, and Zhang fled. In the subsequent reorganisation of the provincial administration, Mao was appointed headmaster of the junior section of the First Normal School. Now receiving a large income, he married Yang Kaihui, daughter of Yang Changji, in the winter of 1920.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=56–57}}<ref name="Mair_2013_p211">{{cite book |last1=Mair |first1=Victor H. |last2=Sanping |first2=Sanping |last3=Wood |first3=Frances |title=Chinese Lives: The people who made a civilization |date=2013 |publisher=[[Thames & Hudson]] |location=London |isbn=978-0500251928 |page=211}}</ref>

=== Founding the Chinese Communist Party: 1921–1922 ===
[[File:Location of the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party Xintiandi Shanghai July 1921.jpg|thumb|upright|Location of the first Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921, in [[Xintiandi]], former [[French Concession]], Shanghai]]

The Chinese Communist Party was founded by [[Chen Duxiu]] and [[Li Dazhao]] in the [[Shanghai French Concession]] in 1921 as a study society and informal network. Mao set up a Changsha branch, also establishing a branch of the Socialist Youth Corps and a Cultural Book Society which opened a bookstore to propagate revolutionary literature throughout Hunan.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=63}}; {{harvnb|Feigon|2002|pp=23, 28}}</ref> He was involved in the movement for Hunan autonomy, in the hope that a Hunanese constitution would increase [[civil liberty|civil liberties]] and make his revolutionary activity easier. When the movement was successful in establishing provincial autonomy under a new warlord, Mao forgot his involvement.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=63–64}}; {{harvnb|Feigon|2002|pp=23–24, 28, 30}}</ref>{{clarification needed|date=July 2023}} By 1921, small Marxist groups existed in Shanghai, Beijing, Changsha, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Jinan; it was decided to hold a central meeting, which began in Shanghai on 23 July 1921. The [[1st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party|first session of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party]] was attended by 13 delegates, Mao included. After the authorities sent a police spy to the congress, the delegates moved to a boat on South Lake near [[Jiaxing]], in Zhejiang, to escape detection. Although Soviet and [[Comintern]] delegates attended, the first congress ignored Lenin's advice to accept a temporary alliance between the Communists and the "bourgeois democrats" who also advocated national revolution; instead they stuck to the orthodox Marxist belief that only the urban proletariat could lead a socialist revolution.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=64–66}}

Mao was party secretary for Hunan stationed in Changsha, and to build the party there he followed a variety of tactics.{{sfn|Schram|1966|p=68}} In August 1921, he founded the Self-Study University, through which readers could gain access to revolutionary literature, housed in the premises of the Society for the Study of [[Wang Fuzhi]], a Qing dynasty Hunanese philosopher who had resisted the Manchus.{{sfn|Schram|1966|p=68}} He joined the [[YMCA]] Mass Education Movement to fight illiteracy, though he edited the textbooks to include radical sentiments.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=68–69}} He continued organising workers to strike against the administration of Hunan Governor [[Zhao Hengti]].{{sfn|Schram|1966|p=69}} Yet labour issues remained central. The successful and famous {{Interlanguage link|Anyuan coal mines strikes|zh|安源路矿工人大罢工}} (contrary to later Party historians) depended on both "proletarian" and "bourgeois" strategies. [[Liu Shaoqi]] and [[Li Lisan]] and Mao not only mobilised the miners, but formed schools and cooperatives and engaged local intellectuals, gentry, military officers, merchants, Red Gang dragon heads and even church clergy.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Elizabeth J. |last=Perry |url=http://apjjf.org/2013/11/1/Elizabeth-Perry/3882/article.html |title=Anyuan: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition |journal=[[The Asia-Pacific Journal]] |volume=11 |number=1 |date=14 January 2013 |quote=reprinting Ch 2 of Elizabeth J. Perry. ''Anyuan: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. |isbn=978-0520271890}}</ref> Mao's labour organizing work in the Anyuan mines also involved his wife Yang Kaihui, who worked for women's rights, including literacy and educational issues, in the nearby peasant communities.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Karl |first=Rebecca E. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/503828045 |title=Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history |date=2010 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8223-4780-4 |location=Durham [NC] |pages=22–23 |oclc=503828045}}</ref> Although Mao and Yang were not the originators of this political organizing method of combining labor organizing among male workers with a focus on women's rights issues in their communities, they were among the most effective at using this method.<ref name=":8" /> Mao's political organizing success in the Anyuan mines resulted in Chen Duxiu inviting him to become a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Karl |first=Rebecca E. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/503828045 |title=Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history |date=2010 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8223-4780-4 |location=Durham [NC] |page=23 |oclc=503828045}}</ref>

Mao claimed that he missed the July 1922 Second Congress of the Communist Party in Shanghai because he lost the address. Adopting Lenin's advice, the delegates agreed to an alliance with the "bourgeois democrats" of the KMT for the good of the "national revolution". Communist Party members joined the KMT, hoping to push its politics leftward.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=69–70}}
Mao enthusiastically agreed with this decision, arguing for an alliance across China's socio-economic classes, and eventually rose to become propaganda chief of the KMT.<ref name="Mair_2013_p211"/> Mao was a vocal anti-imperialist and in his writings he lambasted the governments of Japan, the UK and US, describing the latter as "the most murderous of hangmen".<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=73–74}}; {{harvnb|Feigon|2002|p=33}}</ref>

=== Collaboration with the Kuomintang: 1922–1927 ===
[[File:Chairman Mao-1.webm|thumb|Mao giving a speech (no audio)]]

At the Third Congress of the Communist Party in Shanghai in June 1923, the delegates reaffirmed their commitment to working with the KMT. Supporting this position, Mao was elected to the Party Committee, taking up residence in Shanghai.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=74–76}} At the First KMT Congress, held in [[Guangzhou]] in early 1924, Mao was elected an alternate member of the KMT Central Executive Committee, and put forward four resolutions to decentralise power to urban and rural bureaus. His enthusiastic support for the KMT earned him the suspicion of Li Li-san, his Hunan comrade.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=76–82}}

In late 1924, Mao returned to Shaoshan, perhaps to recuperate from an illness. He found that the peasantry were increasingly restless and some had seized land from wealthy landowners to found communes. This convinced him of the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, an idea advocated by the KMT leftists but not the Communists.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|p=78}}.</ref> Mao and many of his colleagues also proposed the end of cooperation with the KMT, which was rejected by the [[Comintern]] representative [[Mikhail Borodin]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2RHIAeZEYjIC |title=Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920–1927 |last1=Wilbur |first1=C. Martin |last2=How |first2=Julie Lien-ying |date=1989 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0674576520 |language=en}}</ref> In the winter of 1925, Mao fled to Guangzhou after his revolutionary activities attracted the attention of Zhao's regional authorities.{{sfn|Schram|1966|p=83}} There, he ran the 6th term of the KMT's [[Peasant Movement Training Institute]] from May to September 1926.<ref>{{citation |page=465 |last=Mao |first=Zedong |author-mask=Mao Zedong |editor1-last=Schram |editor1-first=Stuart Reynolds |editor2-first=Nancy Jane |editor2-last=Hodes |display-editors=1 |ref={{harvid|Schram & al.|1992}} |series=''Mao's Road to Power'', Vol. II |title=National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920 – June 1927 |publisher=[[M. E. Sharpe]] |date=1992}}.</ref><ref>{{citation |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mpqApZWrJyIC&pg=PA66 66] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mpqApZWrJyIC |title=Frontier Passages: Ethnopolitics and the Rise of Chinese Communism, 1921–1945 |last=Liu |first=Xiaoyuan |author-mask=Liu Xiaoyuan |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |location=Stanford |year=2004 |isbn=978-0804749602 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> The Peasant Movement Training Institute under Mao trained cadre and prepared them for militant activity, taking them through military training exercises and getting them to study basic left-wing texts.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=82, 90–91}}

[[File:Mao 1925.jpg|thumb|Mao in Guangzhou in 1925]]

When party leader Sun Yat-sen died in May 1925, he was succeeded by [[Chiang Kai-shek]], who moved to marginalise the left-KMT and the Communists.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=84, 89}} Mao nevertheless supported Chiang's [[National Revolutionary Army]], who embarked on the [[Northern Expedition]] attack in 1926 on warlords.<ref>{{harvnb|Schram|1966|pp=87, 92–93}}; {{harvnb|Feigon|2002|p=39}}</ref> In the wake of this expedition, peasants rose up, appropriating the land of the wealthy landowners, who were in many cases killed. Such uprisings angered senior KMT figures, who were themselves landowners, emphasising the growing class and ideological divide within the revolutionary movement.{{sfn|Schram|1966|p=95}}

[[File:KMT 3rd Plenary Session of 2nd Central Committee.jpg|thumb|left|Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in March 1927. Mao is third from the right in the second row.]]

In March 1927, Mao appeared at the Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in Wuhan, which sought to strip General Chiang of his power by appointing [[Wang Jingwei]] leader. There, Mao played an active role in the discussions regarding the peasant issue, defending a set of "Regulations for the Repression of Local Bullies and Bad Gentry", which advocated the death penalty or life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of [[counter-revolution]]ary activity, arguing that in a revolutionary situation, "peaceful methods cannot suffice".{{sfn|Schram|1966|p=98}}{{sfn|Feigon|2002|p=42}} In April 1927, Mao was appointed to the KMT's five-member Central Land Committee, urging peasants to refuse to pay rent. Mao led another group to put together a "Draft Resolution on the Land Question", which called for the confiscation of land belonging to "local bullies and bad gentry, corrupt officials, militarists and all counter-revolutionary elements in the villages". Proceeding to carry out a "Land Survey", he stated that anyone owning over 30 ''mou'' (four and a half acres), constituting 13% of the population, were uniformly counter-revolutionary. He accepted that there was great variation in revolutionary enthusiasm across the country, and that a flexible policy of land redistribution was necessary.{{sfn|Schram|1966|pp=99–100}} Presenting his conclusions at the Enlarged Land Committee meeting, many expressed reservations, some believing that it went too far, and others not far enough. Ultimately, his suggestions were only partially implemented.{{sfn|Schram|1966|p=100}}