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Biographical Timeline of Mao Zedong

Hello, my name is Ava Roberson, and this is my Biographical Timeline of Mao Zedong

Mao Zedongs Life

Born – 26th December 1893

Died – 9th September 1976

Father – Mao Yichang (1870 – 1920)

Mother – Wen Qimei (1867 – 1919)

Spouses – m. 1907 – Luo Yixiu (1889 – 1910); m. 1920 – Yang Kaihui (1901 – 1930); m. 1928, div. 1937 – He Zizhen (1910 – 1984); m. 1938 – Jiang Qing (1914 – 1991)

Children – by Yang Kaihui – Mao Anying (1922 – 1950), Mao Anqing (1923 – 2007), Mao Anlong (1927 – 1931) by He Zizhen – Mao Jinhua (b. 1929), Li Min (b.1936) by Jiang Qing – Li Na (b. 1940)

Known to History – Founder of the People’s Republic of China

1893 (26th December) Mao Zedong was born at Shaoshan, Xiangtan, Hunan Province, China to Mao Yichang, a wealthy farmer and his wife Wen Qimei

1901 Mao began his education at Shaoshan Primary School.

1904 Mao disliked the fact that his education was limited to traditional texts that focused on the teachings of Confucious and did not include any modern texts. He attempted to leave home but his father found him and brought him home.

1906 Mao completed his education and began working with his father in their fields.

1921 (23rd July) First National Congress of the Chinese Communist PartyThis was held to bring together the members of the party across China. Mao was one of 13 delegates to attend, representing the party’s 50 members.

1921 (30th July)Police officers broke up the First National Congress Meeting. The delegates continued their meeting on a tourist boat and decided to establish a Communist Party with Chen Duxiu as leader.

1922 (July) Second National Congress of the Communist Party Mao did not attend this meeting held in Shanghai. At this Congress the party agreed to form an alliance with the Nationalist Party, Kuomintang (KMT) in order to foment a nationalistic revolution in China and defeat the warlords that had controlled much of northern China since the fall of the Empire. Mao agreed with this strategy.

1923 (June)Third National Congress of the Communist PartyDelegates agreed to continue to work with the Kuomintang (KMT). Mao was elected to the KMT Party Committee in Shanghai and moved to the city to take up this position.

September 9, 1927 Mao Zedong led his troops into Changsha. He planned to attack the KMT-held city as commander-in-chief of the Red Army.

October (14, 1934) The Long March The Red Army broke through the KMT to embark on the Long March. Many wounded, children, elderly, and ill were left behind, but 85,000 soldiers and 15,000 others were on their way to cross the Xiang River, Wu River, and the Guizhou territory. During a temporary rest, Mao was elected as Chairman of Politburo.

The Civil War (1940-1949) The Communist Party of China was sent a special envoy from the diplomats, called the Dixie Mission. In 1948, Mao ordered the People's Liberation Army to occupy Changchun. More than 160,000 civilians were killed in the siege that lasted five months.

1943 Mao became Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

October 1, 1949 The People's Republic of China was established. After two decades of international and civil wars, Chairman Mao became a businessman and a leader from his poolside compound. He established the Peoples Volunteer Army and sent them into the Korean War.

1950 (14th February) Sino Soviet TreatyMao and Stalin signed a treaty of friendship.

1953 Mao Zedong split from the Soviet Union. After Stalin's s death in March, Albania was the only nation to openly side with China, forcing an alliance. Mao led the alliance by the Marxist doctrine.

1958 (January) Great Leap ForwardMao’s second five year plan introduced collectivisation with a view to an increased mobilisation of labour to improve agricultural and industrial ouput. Unfortunately, the move failed to increase output and officials, not wanting to be seen to be critical of Mao, over exaggerated output figures. This meant that the amount requisitioned by the government was too high and the peasants were left with insufficient food. This, combined with floods and a poor harvest led to famine and more than 20 million people starving to death.

September 9, 1976 Mao Zedong passed away At the age of 86, after years of smoking, drinking, Parkinson's disease, and two heart attacks, Chairman Mao died from heart attack complications. His body was in state for a week for visitors to pay their respects. He was then put to rest in a mausoleum. Mao Zedong still remains a debated character with many opinions of his legacy. He is praised for unifying China, ending decades of war, refining women's rights, literacy, and education. His policies, however, triggered millions of deaths and his military tactics are still used today.

Mao Zedong

Chairman Mao swims the Yangtze

Decades after leading the Chinese Communist Party and then his nation, Mao Zedong began to worry about how he would be remembered. The 72-year-old Chairman feared too that his legacy would be undermined by the stirrings of a counterrevolution. And so in July 1966, with an eye toward securing his grip on power, Mao took a dip in the Yangtze River to show the world that he was still in robust health. It was a propaganda coup. The image of that swim, one of the few widely circulated photos of the leader, did just what Mao hoped. Back in Beijing, Mao launched his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, rallying the masses to purge his rivals. His grip on power was tighter than ever. Mao enlisted the nation’s young people and implored these rabid Red Guards to “dare to be violent.” Insanity quickly descended on the land of 750 million, as troops clutching the Chairman’s Little Red Book smashed relics and temples and punished perceived traitors. When the Cultural Revolution finally petered out a decade later, more than a million people had perished.

Did you know?

Chairman Mao didn’t brush his teeth. Instead, he rinsed his mouth with tea, then chewed the leaves. This left the Chairman with green, rooting teeth. When encouraged by his physician to brush, Chairman Mao would respond, “Does a tiger brush his teeth?”

Death of Mao Zedong

At around 5:00 pm on 2 September 1976, Mao suffered a heart attack, far more severe than his previous two and affecting a much larger area of his heart. Three days later, on 5 September another heart attack rendered him an invalid. On the afternoon of 7 September, Mao's condition completely deteriorated. Mao's organs failed quickly and he fell into a coma shortly before noon where he was put on life support machines. Mao Zedong died just after midnight, at 00:10, on September 9, 1976, at age 82. The Communist Party of China delayed the announcement of his death until 16:00 later that day, when a radio message broadcast across the nation announced the news of Mao's passing while appealing for party unity.