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Paper Abstract: Life & career of Chinese Communist leader in historical, political & cultural perspectives. Paper Introduction: Mao Tse Tung in Historical Perspective This research will examine the life and times of Mao Tse Tung in historical context, in order to more fully understand the nature of Mao's role in Chinese history. In the centuries before Mao's birth, China was possibly the world's least aggressive major nation. It was a center of learning and culture, but it had no military power of any consequence. This resulted in part from the pacifist teachings of the Buddhist religion (which had many converts among the Chinese) and in part from the nature of Chinese society, which was peaceful and serene, at least in comparison with the societies of Northern Europe. No major empire has ever grown up in a plentiful region and then gone on to conquer the more poverty-stricken areas of the world. In every major case (Rome's conquest of Greece and Egypt, Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. [11]Bagby, 218-19. Although these early conquerors took most of the wealthof China for themselves, when conquerors remained in China theirappropriated wealth remained there too, eventually percolating back downthe Chinese masses through trade and other forms of commerce at which thenative excelled. New York: Alfred A. America is receding as a power in theFar East, having learned the hard way that it is impossible to win landwars in Asia from a determined native population. The third consisted of areasconquered and occupied by the Japanese. Foreign observerspredicted the Communist victory long before it occurred. The fact that the Chinesecountryside was ravaged in the late 194 s probably helps to explain bothMao's success in the final Civil War and his failure in the earlier one.[9] Mao used the Long March as a means of glorifying the role of theCommunists and his role to further his own ends.[1 ] One important aspect of World War II was the fact that the UnitedStates asked the Soviet Union to declare war on Japan before dropping theatomic bomb.[11] The result was that the Soviet Union (whose soldiersbarely had a chance to face Japanese troops before Japan surrendered) wastreated as a spoils-deserving victor at the end of the war with Japaninstead of as a non-combatant. The second China centered around Mao'srevolutionary headquarters at Yenan. After the 185 s, Japan became a worldpower, holding large areas of China, along with other colonies. From the late 192 s onward, Maowas the leader of that portion of the Chinese Communist Party thatsurvived. There wasa variety of reasons for this, including superior strategy and lessexhausted forces. [9]Paloczi-Horvath, 196-216. Before the 185 s, Japan had freedomsthe Chinese could not even dream of. After1949, China assisted in the North Korean attempt at conquering South Korea,conquered Tibet and aided and abetted the North Vietnamese in theirsuccessful conquest-liberation of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. The Boxer Rebellion,even though it failed dismally, was the beginning of a series of eventsthat resulted in the liberation of China under the leadership of Mao Tse-Tung. Mao Tse Tung in Historical Perspective This research will examine the life and times of Mao Tse Tung inhistorical context, in order to more fully understand the nature of Mao'srole in Chinese history. The fact that Mao's Red Army was only a small factionwithin the overall Communist movement in China during the 192 s probablycontributed greatly to his eventual success. It was evident from the first that Chiang was less than a ragingfanatic on the subject of foreign domination of China. Mao Tse Tung: Ruler of China. Unlike other conquered peoples, however, the Chinese never gave uptheir native culture or beliefs. [4]George Paloczi-Horvath, Mao Tse-Tung, Emperor of the Blue Ants (NewYork: Doubleday, 1963), 27-35. In return, the plunderers weresupposed to civilize and uplift the conquered (and now poverty-stricken)heathen. It has been a case of people who have to bestrong in order to survive conquering those whose lives are so easy thatthey have had no reason to learn strength. Logically, the Chinese Communists turnedto the Soviets for aid in battling the forces of Chiang and the Kuomintang. There are now three major powers in the world: Russia, America andChina. Peking and Moscow. At the turn of the century, when Mao was still a small child, theBoxer Rebellion broke out in Bejing. Knopf, 1974.Gittings, John. It alsorequired no master of guerrilla warfare to understand that, if the Boxershad thought far enough ahead to have allies in the countryside betweenTientsin and Bejing, they might very well have held off the relief forcelong enough to capture the legations. This, in turn, made each wave of conquerors lessaggressive and therefore easy victims of the wave that followed them. It was a center oflearning and culture, but it had no military power of any consequence.This resulted in part from the pacifist teachings of the Buddhist religion(which had many converts among the Chinese) and in part from the nature ofChinese society, which was peaceful and serene, at least in comparison withthe societies of Northern Europe. In every majorcase (Rome's conquest of Greece and Egypt, the empires of Genghis Khan andTamerlane, the British Empire, etc.), the world's less wealthy regionsconquered the more wealthy areas. Mao's dictum that control of the cities dependson control of the countryside was put into immediate effect, with theresult that the Kuomintang (or "Nationalists," as they preferred to callthemselves) made strong stands in several major cities of China but couldnever effect massive maneuvers because of guerilla work by Communists andCommunist sympathizers in the countryside. The goal of the Boxers (one of themany secret societies dedicated to the liberation of China from foreigninfluences) was to capture as many emissaries of the treaty powers aspossible by forcibly taking control of the foreign legations in the capitalcity of the Manchu emperors. Once Stalin took control of the Soviet government, he began sending outorders to the Chinese Communists. This meant that Stalin's Asian armiesaccepted the surrender of large numbers of Japanese troops with modernweapons and supplies. The year 1911 is just as important inChinese history as 1776 is in America or 1789 in France.[4] Sun was eventually replaced by his brother-in-law, a considerablyyounger man named Chiang Kai-Shek. Once theUnited States "opened" Japan in the 185 s by threatening to use force, theJapanese copied the world's major powers in the formation of an army andnavy to be used for foreign conquest. [7]Wesley M. New York: Harper and Row, 198 .----------------------- [1]Hsin-Hai Chang, American and China (New York: Simon and Shuster,1965), 66-7. Mao Tse-Tung, Emperor of the Blue Ants. It was suspected byboth left- and right-wing observers of the international scene that theBolsheviks were interested in spreading their revolution for the samereasons that the Tsars had tried to extend their own territory. Mainly, however, the victory of the Red Army was theresult of the personal appeal that Mao had for the people of China,especially the peasants. Previousrebels against the Manchus had fought for personal power, wealth andeconomic necessities; the Boxers fought for an ideal. It marked a needed change in American foreign policyfrom a position of crusading quixotry to one of sound realism, based on theunderstanding that Mao's China was America's equal in world affairs.Second, this dйtentй effectively widened the split between Russia and Chinawhich began shortly after Mao's victory in 1949. He never allowed the United States to dominate Chineseinterests, which was predictable, and he never allowed the Soviets to turnChina into a satellite nation, which was not predictable. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974.Chou, Eric. While essentiallyopposed to it, Chiang was willing to let the treaty powers maintain theirspheres of influence for the time being. Hunan had always led thenation because of its large percentage of inhabitants who could read.[2]By the time of Mao's birth, foreign nations such as England, Portugal,France, Germany and Russia owned portions of the Chinese nation, and Japanwas soon to join the ranks of the treaty powers. Putnam's Sons,1963), 236-48. No major empire has ever grown up in a plentiful region and then goneon to conquer the more poverty-stricken areas of the world. He turned China into a major world power,equalled only by the Soviet Union and the United States in worldgeopolitics. At the time of his first rise to power, however,Chiang was more concerned with defeating the warlords who had replaced theManchus in many parts of China and with gaining greater concessions fromthe treaty powers than he was with dealing with China's insignificantCommunist Party. The World and China: 1922-1972. As stated earlier, Mao won the final struggle with Chiang. Sun's victory in creating a republic was quite arevolutionary event for its time because China had not previously beenruled by anything more advanced than an autocracy. The Chinesepeople finally got hungry enough to become imperialists and spread thebenefits of their own civilization to other parts of the world with plansfor the same sort of empire that once conquered China. New York: Doubleday, 1963.Payne, Robert. [8]Ibid., 19. No general, Mao contributed to the Red Chinesecause by leadership that held his party together through an incrediblydifficult period. China'smilitary position in the world improved with the American retreat fromSoutheast Asia and the refusal of the Bejing government to be inhibited bythe presence of massive numbers of Soviet troops along the Sino-Sovietborder, which is the world's longest continuous military frontier. As Mao said when heand his forces entered Bejing in 1949: Once the destiny of the people is in the hands of the people, the Chinese people will see a new China rising like the sun from the East, shining with brilliant rays. Knopf,1974), 95-9. Chiang was a major figure on the Chinese scene longbefore Mao made his first important public speech (in favor of Marxism atChangsha in March of 1919),[5] and for a long time Chiang was theinternational symbol of Chinese independence and liberalism. (TheBolsheviks in Russia and the French Jacobins are two excellent examples.)In a small faction, a leader can emerge and rule dictatorially without anyde jure power. In the centuries before Mao's birth, China waspossibly the world's least aggressive major nation. The key issue in the long war between Chiang and Mao wasforeign domination of the country, which Chiang's capitalist inclinationsinvited to an extent. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1965.Ch'en, Jerome. China Perceived. It was in this sort of atmosphere that Mao spent his boyhood, the sonof a Hunanese father who lived a marginally well-off existence that mighthave been improved if China had not been a tributary of so many foreignpowers. At the time ofhis death, Mao's greatest accomplishment was neither gaining control of thecountry nor reorganizing Chinese society through the cultural revolution.His greatest success was establishing the first native Chinese regime incenturies to drive out all foreign intervention. Forthis reason, the Chinese people were able to survive the various waves ofconquest (Mongol, Manchurian, etc.) with minimal turmoil and suffering.This condition changed only when the nature of imperialism changed in theearly 19th century. Chiang was, of course, destined tooppose Mao for the leadership of China in a massive civil war that lastedmore than 2 years. Once Chiang had succeeded in defeating the warlords, however,differences of opinion grew up between the two groups, and the Civil Warinevitably followed. He was first concerned withsolidifying his influence in the parts of China that the foreigners did notcontrol. Wolff,195 ), 254-55.----------------------- 15 One wasruled by Chiang Kai Shek from Nanking (Bejing had been discarded as a linkwith the autocracies of the past). In any case, the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintangnever entered into even an uneasy alliance against Japan until the UnitedStates entered the war in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on PearlHarbor. [12]Robert Payne, Mao Tse Tung: Ruler of China (New York: H. Even then, the main force behind the Communist-Kuomintang dйtentйwas American arms rather than a unity of purpose.[7] World War II came along at exactly the right time for Mao's army,which had been defeated in the latter stages of the Civil War with ChiangKai-Shek and had been forced to undertake the famous "Long March."[8] TheJapanese took up too much of Chiang's time for him to do anything aboutdestroying the Chinese Communist Party, and the warfare between Mao'slegions and the Chinese helped mold the Red Army into a more efficient andexperienced fighting force. In this, he was opposed by a coalition of groups that eventuallyhelped to form the Red Army that fought Chiang's Kuomintang throughout the193 s and 194 s. [2]Eric Chou, Mao Tse Tung: The Man and the Myth (New York: Stein andDay, 198 ), 9. At this point, neither the SovietUnion nor the United States was at war with Japan, and the two Chinesegroups were just as anxious to fight each other as they were to fight theJapanese. Rather, in every case, the conqueringpeoples were absorbed into the flow of Chinese life, adopting the customsof the native Chinese and, in the course of time, becoming an integral partof the Chinese nation. The rebellion almost succeeded in its limitedaims and probably would have gone further had not an international reliefforce landed at Tientsin and marched overland to Bejing.[3] This event wasimportant to Mao's life in that it showed the sacrifice that many Chinesewere willing to make for what they considered a worthwhile cause. The reason China was such an easy mark for the European conquerorsgrew out of the ancient Chinese philosophy of wealth and government: "[Itis] the duty of the more fortunate peoples to help raise other nationswhich have become extinguished and to allow those which have becomediscontinued to prolong their life."[1] This philosophy of peaceful co-existence precluded any Chineseefforts toward conquering other regions and practically invited foreignconquerors to take what they wanted out of China. Nixon's dйtentй with Maoand Chou En-Lai in 1972 was important in world history on both the symbolicand practical levels. American and China. Hunan for centuries was the wealthiest province of China, beingthe greatest agricultural producer in China. The Eagle-Dragon Alliance: America's Relations with China in World War II. Japan steadfastly refused to allowforeign intervention during this period, even to the extent of executingshipwrecked European sailors who landed on Japanese shores. Mao used thisperiod to reinforce his position as the absolute leader of the Red Army andits followers (Chu Teh was the military leader, but he was definitely Mao'ssubordinate). New York: H. More important, the Soviet Union was now under the control ofthe Leninists, who claimed to be creating in the Soviet Union a mothercountry for worldwide revolution. To the rest of the world, the rise of China corresponded directly tothe decline of Europe and the peaking of America as a world power. Before the British victimization of China in the Opium Wars of themid-19th century, the conquerors of China had almost always settled inChinese territory. [1 ]Chou, 135. Mao himself was not old enough to have taken part inthis revolt in more than a minor way, but it was nevertheless an importantevent in his life. [6]Klaus Mehnert, Peking and Moscow (New York: G.P. Such leaders are necessary for the success of one smallgroup in taking over a movement or nation. Mao had the propagandaadvantage over Chiang at this point, in that the country was in ruins andChiang, not Mao, had been in power for the preceding 25 years.Psychologically, many Chinese were anxious for a change in the nature oftheir government, having seen limited differences between the old Manchuautocracy and the republican dictatorship of Chiang (who did not hold freeelections until 1947, by which time it was too late). Chiang, who had no choice but to accept all the American aidhe could get, became even more of a foreign puppet in the eyes of theChinese people than he previously had been. BibliographyBagby, Wesley M. [5]Jerome Chen, Mao: Great Lives Observed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1974), 46. In theaftermath of World War II, the Communists conquered China, but theyconquered only part of it from Chiang. This meant that, when the struggle between Mao andChiang resumed after the Japanese had been defeated, Chiang no longer hadthe wealth of a growing nation to draw on. In China, this was something of a bad joke in that the nativeswere a good deal more civilized than the Europeans and therefore could haveused their national wealth and freedom a great deal better than thebenefits of cultural exchange with Europe. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992.Chang, Hsin-hai. The fact that Sun'srepublic soon became every bit as autocratic as the Manchu regime thatpreceded it in no way detracts from the greatness of its early achievementin simply coming into existence. Mao Tse-Tung: The Man and the Myth. Until this century, that has been thehistory of China: conquest by the more desperate inhabitants of lesswealthy portions of the globe. His lack of any real power within the Communist Party of the192 s is evidence of this. Like Napoleon, Mao would probably never have risen to greatness ifhis country's political problems could have been solved without recourse towarfare. [3]John K. It was latercharged that Chiang "lost China," but the fact was that at no time duringhis long period of power did he ever control the entire country. It is interesting tocompare the status of the Chinese during the period of Western Imperialismwith that of Japan, which as a geographic neighbor should have been subjectto the same foreign interference. Mao: Great Lives Observed. Bagby, The Eagle-Dragon Alliance: America's Realtionswith China in World War II (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992),162. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.Mehnert, Klaus. Thosereasons were wealth, plunder and the creation of a worldwide Soviet Empire. After World War I, the status of the treaty powers in China wassignificantly altered, with Germany becoming less a world power and theUnited States and Japan expanding their spheres of influence in Asia andthe Pacific. In addition, the nature of this war in China (which was possibly evenmore brutal than the war going on in Europe at this time) was destroyingthe country and equalizing the positions of the Chinese Communist Party andthe Kuomintang to a greater degree than had been the case before theJapanese invasion. The 1972 detente alsoprovided the precedent that helped the modern reforms under Deng to takeplace. The Chinese Communists and the Kuomintang were ableto work hand-in-hand in the early 192 s (Mao himself was a member of bothorganizations for a while) so long as Chiang seemed dedicated to a freeChina. In the short run, however, the Boxer Rebellion is important in thatit helped bring on the events of 1911, in which liberation forces led bySun Yat-Sen finally toppled the government of the Manchus and declaredChina a republic. These supplies found their way into the hands of theRed Army of China, which partly offset the tremendous amounts of armamentsthat the United States was handing over to Chiang's forces then. They will see her swiftly clearing away the debris left by reactionary governments, healing the scars of war and building a new, strong, prosperous People's Democratic Republic of China.[12] In all probability, the Chinese move toward expansionism willcontinue in the next few decades. This was Mao's last and perhapsgreatest gift to the Chinese people. Chiang was forced to abandon his capitol atone point in the fighting, but the Reds were able to entrench themselves inthe Yenan area to an even greater extent than previously. In the years after he took power, Mao lived up to his originalpromise on one major point. Mao: A Biography. What is most important about the Boxer Rebellion, however, is thesymbolic act of its participants in standing up to fight for the principleof a free and independent China without foreign influences. Putnam's Sons, 1963.Paloczi-Horvath, George. New York: G.P. Complicating the picture, however, was the fact that the Communist regimein Moscow was attempting to hold onto all the Tsar's foreign possessions inCentral and Eastern Asia, including portions of China. New York: Stein and Day, 198 .Fairbank, John K. Small groups such as Mao'shave always taken over and co-opted massive revolutionary movements. The imperialism of the 19th century, however, involvedthe wholesale plundering of the conquered regions in order to provide themother countries with tremendous wealth. Fairbank, China Perceived (New York: Alfred A. Wolff, 195 .Terrill, Ross. China's status as one ofthe world's major powers is purely the result of the courage and brilliancedisplayed by Mao and his fellow rulers of China in the last three decades.When the history of the 2 th century is written, this is what Mao will bemost remembered for. Some of these orders were obeyed andothers ignored by the Red Chinese leaders, usually because of the amountsof Soviet financial and military aid that either were or were not gettingthrough to Mao's Army.[6] In any case, by the late 193 s there were three Chinas. How they align themselves in the future will probably be more onthe basis of self-interest than ideology. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.