[mou zuh-doo
ng, dzuh-; Chin. mou zuh-dawng] 
| 1893–1976, Chinese Communist leader: chairman of the People's Republic of China 1949–59; chairman of the Chinese Communist party 1943–76. |
[mou tsuh-toong, dzuh-doong; Chin. mou dzuh-doong] .| Mao Ze·dong (mou' dzŭ'dŏng') Chinese Communist leader and theorist. A founder of the Chinese Communist Party (1921), he led the Long March (1934-1935) and proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949. As party chairman and the country's first head of state (1949-1959) he initiated the Great Leap Forward and the founding of communes. He continued as party chairman after 1959 and was a leading figure in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969). In the 1970s he consolidated his political power and established ties with the West. |
A Chinese revolutionary leader of the twentieth century. He led an army of workers and peasants on the Long March in the 1920s and used guerrilla warfare techniques successfully on both the Japanese invaders and the forces of the Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek. In 1949, his armies took over the country and established the People's Republic of China. Mao continued as chairman of China's Communist party and as premier. His “Little Red Book,” Quotations from Chairman Mao, was standard reading for schoolchildren of the country. Toward the end of his life, he brought about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in which all capitalist or elitist culture was to be purged. Mao died in 1976.
