Mao Essay

        The Cultural Revolution in China was Mao’s way of regaining the power that he lost in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward.  He got it started in 1966 by launching a cleansing of the Chinese Communist Party, with the aims of ridding of anyone who was anti-Communist.  Mao’s target audience this time were the students, most of whom became Red Guards, he told them that they needed to help get rid of Capitalist Roaders because they were corrupting China with their rightist views.  Many of the people who were accused of being rightists were teachers, party officials, principals, or others who had authority, these people were publicly denounced, beaten, tortured, murdered, or sent to prison, all at the hands of the Red Guards, who were serving Mao only.  This was exactly what Mao had wanted, he didn’t want anyone in power who was going to question him and his authority, he personally wanted Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping out of power, as they had previously spoken out about Mao’s greatest mistake, the Great Leap Forward.  Besides targeting his opponents and rightists he also targeted traditional Chinese culture, such as art, literature, and music, as well as any foreign influences, he put his wife, Jiang Qing, in charge of this section.  The Cultural Revolution had once again destroyed the economy, as well as wrecking schools, and factories.  At the end of it the Red guards were the only ones still engaged and Mao had, to call upon the army to disband them. The Red Guards were responsible for millions of deaths across the country, the Red Guard was comprised of teenage students who had been born and raised during Mao’s time in power, since they knew no other leader they earnestly followed him, without paying attention to whether it was actually the right thing to do.  They formed an angry mob and attacked many authority figures, even old Communist officials, who had been members of the Communist party since the Long March.  During this period of time China lost much of it’s cultural heritage, through the purges of the Red Guard, with the encouragement of Mao and his wife, Jiang Qing.  Mao was able to use all this violence and chaos to his advantage, his public image as a great leader was further and further enforced throughout the whole event, proving that Mao was a revolutionary hero.

        Each of these violent events clearly demonstrate Mao’s successful and unsuccessful uses of violence to gain and keep his power, through all of this violence one can see that Mao must be a revolutionary hero.

        Another important piece of criteria a revolutionary hero must have is a set of their own, unique, ideology. Mao certainly had this, as demonstrated through the Little Red Book.  The Little Red Book was a small book filled with Mao’s thoughts and writings, they were distributed all around the country and much of the population looked at them as a Bible.  This book strongly encouraged the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution to take action and organize attacks on Mao’s enemies, for those who had not had the chance to go to Beijing and see him; this book gave a feeling of Mao speaking right to them.  Presently, this book sits as the second most published book in the world, only behind the Bible, this shows that even though it has been many years since Mao’s death his ideology still lives on.

        A revolutionary hero must also be inspiring, they must be able to inspire others in order to gain followers and become successful.  Mao did this very well, as demonstrated through the Red Guards.  The Red Guards were Mao’s target audience during the Cultural Revolution; they were teenage students, who had only ever had Mao as their leader and therefore, were very devoted to him.  The Red Guards started by criticizing their teachers and other institution workers, then they were told to start criticizing their local governments.  This was all under the orders of Mao, who said that the authority figures were wrecking things with their rightist views.  The Red Guards never questioned any of Mao’s orders, so they never questioned shaming, torturing, and murdering parents, teachers, doctors, writers and Communist officials.  They eventually got out of control; when they were found to be violent towards each other, by this point the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end so, Mao sent out the army to separate them.  The Red Guards had also been given the task of re-educating peasants and workers who cared more about their work and living conditions than Chairman Mao.  They were to do this through the teachings of Mao’s Little Red Book; unfortunately many of the workers did not want to be re-educated and instead took to fighting the Red Guards.  Through the complete willingness of the Red Guards to do whatever Mao asked of them, it’s demonstrated that Mao was very inspiring, making him a revolutionary hero.

        After careful consideration it’s very clear that Mao was a revolutionary hero.  He met all of the requirements, he led his people through violence, he had his own ideology, and he was inspirational.