mao's legacy:What legacy did M

Mao Zedong is one of the most controversial leaders of the twentieth century. The Chinese people know him both as a survivor and a tyrant. From his tactical success of the Long March to his embarrassing failure of the Great Leap Forward, Mao has greatly influenced the result of what China is today. Most of Mao’s major successes have been in the Cap’s rise to power, while Mao’s failure have come at the time when the CCP was in power. To focus on Mao’s legacy one has to illuminate the questions why Mao despite all his big failures and his tyranny hold such a hero status? And how did his successors elude with his controversial legacy?

China was a “predominantly rural society, with more than 80% of its people peasants” before Mao came into power. The economic problems were so big that the totalitarianism with which Mao reigned was necessary. “The collectivisation and industrialisation programmes that Mao enforces may not have accorded with civil rights as understood and operated in other nations but China’s needs made them unavoidable.” Mao’s way of reign was ruthless and despotic but it saved China from “disintegration and laid the basis for the ‘revol

During the next six years, Mao's health gradually deteriorated and he inevitably ceded most of his power to his wife and the Gang of Four, a radical group consisting of Mao's wife and three others. They ruled China while Mao grew more incapacitated. But even in the waning years of his life, Mao continued to write and espouse his belief in the power of Sinified-Marxism. On September 9th 1976 Mao died. After his death, there was a power struggle over who would control China. Despite all the woe, death and a country left on the verge of collapse “ Mao’s role during the years 1966-76 was clear to everyone; he was the author and prime mover of the great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. A repudiation of it would automatically mean evaluating his position and activities. Could this be accomplished without irreparably shattering his image as the founder of People’s China, and perhaps, still more important, without inflicting permanent damage on the prestige and credibility of the party?” Because of this a lot of the top CCP leaders and the first successor of Mao –Hua Guefong- decided to follow Mao's direction to stabilise the party and extended Mao's influence into every part of the country. Hua's legitimacy was based on his theory of "two whatever" - whatever Mao had decided would remain valid and whatever Mao had instructed should not be contravened. The "two whatever" theory was an endeavour by Hua to not only solidify his authority in the CCP and PRC, but also an attempt to eliminate any Mao's damaging legacy after his forty years of authoritarianism. Hua did not step away until 1980 but during this time Deng’s power grow at the expense of Hua’s. “Deng was a natural survivor”. He had an “instinctive feel for politics and his strength lay in his reputation and his range of contacts”. Furthermore “developments in foreign affairs further accented the shift of power to Deng”. He had learned of the greatest international statesman Zhou Enlai, with whom he worked together for a couple of years until his dead. Beginning in 1978, Deng Xiaoping became China’s paramount leader. He didn’t take the highest official position himself. Instead his associate Hu Yaobang replaced Hua as a premier in September 1980. It was difficult for Deng to change things because of the god-position that Mao still held in but he found the compromise in saying that Mao was a great leader in his days but that he made mistakes that had to be corrected now. Deng began to push for the reform of Mao’s socialist economy. He created the Open Door Policy, and China began to open to the outside world. Tourism was allowed, students began to go overseas, special economic zones were established, and joint ventures with foreign firms were encouraged to bring in foreign technology, investment, managerial know-how, and market access. He emphasised that state firms government agencies should be led by those who had some expertise, not just by those who showed the proper revolutionary favor. He encouraged the elemination of rural communes, and land was turned over to the rural household. Agricultural productivity jumped dramatically, free markets were created to sell food. A large number of rural workers began to pour into other economic activities. A two-tier piercing scheme was created that encouraged first farmers and then state firms to produce more than their planned quota, and the economy began to “grow out of the plan”, in the words of Naughton. State owned enterprises were given to improved managerial incentives, allowed to keep much of their own profits for reinvestment and worker bonuses, and forced to rely loans from state banks rather than direct government grants. Eventually, the planned economy, with its

Some topics in this essay:
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