Mao Zedong

Chinese Memoirist Yuan-tsung Chen, 93, Rejects Forgetting of Maoist Horrors

Chen is one of the few survivors of the Great Leap Forward, but struggles with doubters of the veracity of her accounts. 

The Communist Takeover in China is the Better Parallel to the Ukraine Crisis

Will American politicians repeat the error of asking who "lost China" instead of asking whether it was ours to lose? 

Rebel is Right: Reassessing the Cultural Revolution

by Chaohua Wang

A new book by the Chinese scholar Yang Jisheng examines the Chinese Cultural Revolution's lasting impact on the Communist Party, concluding that the generation of party leaders who experienced it were indifferent to utopianism but deeply attracted to the exercise of absolute power. 

Psychologically Speaking, Who Were the Heads of the Chinese Communist Party?

by David Shambaugh

Sinologist David Shambaugh's new book examines the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic's role in the world through a psychological history of the CCP's leaders. Excerpted here, he offers a schematic overview of the work. 

Around the World with Mao Zedong

by Ian Johnson

Julia Lovell's "Maoism: A Global History" traces the surprisingly wide influence of Chinese Communism. 

Why Xi Jinping’s (Airbrushed) Face Is Plastered All Over China

Not since the days of Mao Zedong has one figure so dominated Chinese life.

Once Upon a Time Mao Was also Regarded as a Crazy Personality Cult Leader with Nukes

by Michael Sheng

There’s a lesson today in how we avoided war then.

Mao Won the Battle, Chiang Kai-shek Won the War

by Robert D. Kaplan

History will prove the defeated Generalissimo had a greater impact on modern China than its most famous father.

Seeking Mao’s Matrimonial Blessing

Hundreds of couples plan to tie the knot under the gaze of a giant Mao statue.

Milder accounts of hardships under Mao arise as his birthday nears

Some Maoist supporters downplay number of deaths from Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.

Zheng Wang: It’s All About Mao

Zheng Wang, an associate professor of diplomacy and international relations at Seton Hall University and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is the author of “Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations.”WASHINGTON — The trial of Bo Xilai, the fallen Chinese Communist Party official and former member of the ruling Politburo, is attracting the world’s attention with its tales of corruption, sex, murder and political intrigue. But while such details are riveting, they divert attention from the real meaning of the case.

Aging Chinese apologise for Cultural Revolution 'evil'

BEIJING (AFP).- As a teenager radicalised by China's Cultural Revolution, Zhang Hongbing denounced his mother to the authorities. Two months later a firing squad shot her dead.Now after more than 40 years of mounting guilt, Zhang has ruffled the silence that cloaks China's decade of turmoil with a public confession.Such rare apologies have been welcomed as a potential gateway to the collective soul-searching that could bring healing -- but is blocked by a ruling Communist Party whose critics say is unwilling to confront its own responsibility."Back then everyone was swept up and you couldn't escape even if you wanted to. Any kindness or beauty in me was thoroughly, irretrievably 'formatted'," Zhang told the Beijing News last week."I hope that from my self-reflection other people can understand what the situation was like at that time."...

Pin Ho: From Maoist Criminal to Popular Hero?

Pin Ho is a journalist and co-author of “A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel: Murder, Money, and an Epic Power Struggle in China.” This essay was translated by his co-author, Wenguang Huang, from the Chinese.ANY day now — the authorities won’t say precisely when — China will begin one of the most sensational trials in its modern political history, when Bo Xilai, the former rising star in the Politburo and Communist Party boss in the megacity of Chongqing, faces corruption charges....Predictions that the charges against Mr. Bo would deal a death blow to the revival of Maoist ideology haven’t come to pass. If anything, since the party’s 18th National Congress last fall, some leaders, alarmed by rising unrest and a slowing economy, have promoted Maoist campaigns similar to Mr. Bo’s.

China's Cultural Revolution: son's guilt over the mother he sent to her death

They beat her, bound her and led her from home. She knelt before the crowds as they denounced her. Then they loaded her on to a truck, drove her to the outskirts of town and shot her.Fang Zhongmou's execution for political crimes during the Cultural Revolution was commonplace in its brutality but more shocking to outsiders in one regard: her accusers were her husband and their 16-year-old child.More than four decades on, Fang's son is seeking to atone by telling her story and calling for the preservation of her grave in their home town of Guzhen, central Anhui province, as a cultural relic....

Docs signed by Mao sold for millions

Two secret documents signed by China’s Mao Zedong during the 1930s sold for almost a million dollars at a New York auction on Wednesday, reported the state-run news agency China News Service.The rare documents are related to the famous 1936 Xi’an Incident, a turning point in Chinese history when one of Chiang Kai-shek’s most trusted generals, the “Young Marshal” Zhang Xueliang, placed him under house arrest — forcing the leader of the nationalist Chinese Republic of China to negotiate a cease-fire with Mao’s Communists, in order to fight a joint war against the Japanese invasion....