Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong (correctly transliterated as Mao Tse-Tung) lived from December 26, 1893 to Semptember 9, 1976. He was a Marxist and Trotskyist, and a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921.

Mao was the author of Quotations from Chairman Mao, published in 1966, informally known as "the little red book." During his lifetime, almost everyone in the People's Republic of China was expected to have a copy. After reaching a general truce with the Chinese Nationalist forces during WWII, Mao eventually lead the Communists to victory, establishing the People's Republic of China and spurring the Nationalists to relocate to Taiwan (formerly Formosa). As the leader of China, Mao initiated the Great Leap Foreward, an economic plan intended to industrialize China's then largely rural economy. In the end it proved a failure, for it prevented the peasants from producing needed food, and oer 20 million starved. Later, Mao instigated the Cultural Revolution, in which those questioned of disloyalty to the party were killed or humiliated in order to solidify Mao's control. Richard Nixon was the first United States president to meet with Mao, and thus the first to acknowlege the existence of the People's Republic of China, as opposed to Taiwan's Republic of China.

Although his family name Mao is the Chinese word for cat, Mao Zedong did not like pets of any kind. However, his wife Jiang Qing -- who was generally considered responsible for the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1969 and the Right Economist Wind movement of 1970 -- insisted on keeping cats in their state residence in Beijing, perhaps for superstitious reasons.