Mao Zedong

Today in class, we learned about a new communist leader, who established his regime in China. Mao Zedong grew up as a lower class peasant; he saw that the minority of his people lived in poverty, while a meager fire percent lived in great wealth. Mao began to gain supporters from the lower class. After being influenced by the hardships of inequality in his youth, Mao aimed for a China where everyone was equal. At this time, the corrupt nationalists held power in China. The Japanese invaded China, seeing that it had internal conflicts and was unstable. Mao began fighting the Japanese in simple strategic methods including gorilla warfare. After Mao had gotten rid of the Japanese, many more peasants began to follow him, after seeing that Mao defeated a strong nation. With the nationalists weakened by the Japanese, Mao took over. Mao continued to accumulate followers by giving all peasants two square meals a day, and land. The people were happier than they were under national leaders. In order to give land to the people and to bolster his reputation, Mao publicly humiliated and killed rich landlords. In the 1950, while Mao was still the leader of China, Stalin had passed away. Mao had viewed Stalin as a great teacher of the Chinese people and as a role model for communism. After his death, Khrushchev took over the USSR. Mao did not like Khrushchev because Khrushchev had offended Mao by speaking against Stalin. Khrushchev withdrew the minimal support that had earlier been given to China by the USSR. Soon after the dispute with the USSR, Mao wanted to purge China of anti-communists and intellectuals, similar to what Stalin did. Through the Hundred Flowers Campaign, a campaign that allowed people openly say what they disliked about communism. The people who spoke against communism were punished and sent to be re-educated in bad conditions such as cattle farms. For now, Mao seems to be a harsh leader, but not as harsh as Stalin. Because he grew up among the poor, I believe Mao will be a better leader for the people than Stalin.