HISTORY+_AWSE

On October 1,1949, Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China. Mao received a poverty stricken country that was scarred by war. Much of the aid that was provided to China came from the USSR. During the Korean War, the United States became China's enemy to cause China to lose one million chinese soldiers. In the mid- 1950's, Mao supported the fast agricultural commune formation, saying that the people of China could help the growth of Communism's development. In 1958, The Great Leap Forward wanted the Chinese citizens to participate in hard agricultural labor to change the economy and to dominate the West in Industrial and agricultural production. Since nobody wanted to disappoint their leader, many peasants changed their grain production numbers. This lead to terrible crop growth, famine, and millions of death. Mao displayed himself as a god-like figure. His philisophical sayings were promoted in chairman Mao's "Little Red Book". In 1966, the intelectuals were persecuted by the government in the cultural revolution. Mao died in 1976. His successor, Deng Xiaoping, claimed Mao's major accomplishment as founding the PRC (People's Republic of China), and his resistance against Japan. The idea of Communism came from Karl Marx in the USSR.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/pdf/prof_maozedong.pdf