Mao's China: The Biography of the Controversial Chairman Mao

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[Applause] [Music] this man M Tong brought a country of 540 million peasant people into the modern

world he did it after half A Century Of War and Civil War he used a mixture of nationalism and communism to bind the people together he led the Chinese

Communist party for 42 years [Applause] [Music] ma was 7 years old when the 20th century

began his father was a peasant who owned land round this Farm because ma was clever his father wanted him to keep the farm accounts but

Mau had other ideas The Peasant boy from the provinces watched as the rule of the emperor

Dodger in P King gave way to [Applause]

chaos in 1912 the K Tang was formed a People's Party under sunat sen Malong at first a student then a teacher then a

librarian read widely in history and politics he began to see how badly managed China was most most of her ports and industries were controlled by foreign powers Shanghai under the

British and the French was China's greatest Port it was here that Ma's Revolution [Music]

began in 1921 oddly enough in a girl's school the founders of the Chinese Communist Party met for the first time ma was among them they agreed to join

forces with the Comm tank many parts of the country were dominated by local Warlords the Kang Army now backed by Communists marched

against them Mau later went to the province of Jang XI to organize a peasant Army there in jangi he he was confirmed

in his belief that the Chinese peasant was the real key to Revolution in China by 1927 the K Tang campaign against the Warlords was well

underway but jealousy of the Communists within the Comm Tang led to a purge and this felt disaster for the Communists in a Kind of Night of the Long Knives in

Shanghai communist leaders were killed luckily Mau was out of Shanghai some Communists escaped to their few remaining strongholds like

jangi may I introduce to the audience the president of the national government the new leader of the Comm Tang was changai

Sheek long three people's [Music] princip long live the Revolutionary Spirit of the Nationalist China Chang

hated communism he ordered his troops to surround the Communist bases in Jang XI they slowly tightened The Noose in a series of extermination

campaigns by 1934 Mao knew that his Red Army must either fight its way out or die so 100 ,000 set out on the legendary

Long March a trek of 6,000 Mi that took them a year coming Tang forces harassed the [Music]

Marchers during the Long March at a town called Sun ma was elected chairman of the Chinese Communist party then to avoid the Comm Tang the Communist armies

split up Ma LED one Army [Music] himself though there was Discord the Marchers eventually reached communist

held territory in the Northwest only 30,000 survived they set up their base around the little town of

yanan they lived in caves carved in the [Music] hillside a young American journalist Edgar snow managed to reach Mau in yanan

when he began to talk to me about his plans for the future of China and the revolution at first sounded fantastic

because he had only this tiny little area and small band with him but the way in which he presented his program and

his ideas was so logical and so convincing that he uh in the end had me believing that he was truly an

exceptional person Edgar snow also filmed Army it was a time of planning and preparing their soldiers were trained to spread a political message that the

peasants didn't have to starve and be exploited that China could be run in a reasonable way the peasants had never known soldiers to behave like this before they

had to help the people pay for everything they needed leave everything clean respect women never damaged crops in 1937 Japan began allout war on

China now changai Sheek and the Communists were faced with a common enemy the Communists called for a united front of all Chinese to fight

Japan the Americans and British who supported the K Tang called on changai Sheek to accept the surrender of the Japanese in 1945 the Americans made some attempt to

bring the Communists into a coalition Chinese government but it all came to nothing Civil War

[Applause] followed the com Tang at first had enormous superiority in numbers and modern weapons but their forces were ill

trained and badly paid by the summer of 1948 the Kang Army was losing ground Mao chose Lin p as his military

commander to plan the final struggle a few months more and the Kint Tang was in full Retreat The Remnant took refuge on the island of Taiwan where the Americans

continue to support them Mount zong was approaching the moment for which he'd planned and fought for more than 20

[Music] years on the 1st of October 1949 ma stood with his colleagues on the Gate of heavenly peace in ping and proclaimed the new

People's Republic of [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

[Music] China [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

[Music] [Applause] [Music] the problems were daunting China was

starving and in Ruins Ma and his colleagues started forcefully big landlords especially those who dealt harshly with the peasants were condemned

by so-called people's courts many were killed the Deeds of ownership to their land were burnt their possessions were shared out many peasants received a plot of

land for the first [Music] time in m go Stalin met ma for the first time and offered him made Soviet

technicians were sent to help the Chinese plan the building of dams Bridges factories and [Music] railways [Music]

the Korean war in 1950 brought China into conflict with the United Nations when in October United Nations troops drove the North Koreans back to the Chinese border

Mao immediately sent so-called volunteers across the Yow River into [Music]

Korea at first the Communist Chinese forces won great success against the United Nations inside China the war sparked off a campaign against all foreigners

ma wanted to spur on the great mass of the Chinese people to new achievements by their own efforts with the mid-50s came the farming collectives a collective was the

joining together of peasant small Holdings into a bigger unit more schools were opened peasants were trained as part-time soldiers

Mau was confident ready to welcome criticism in 1957 with the slogan let a 100 flowers bloom he called on intellectuals to say what they thought

about the government but the campaign got out of hand Mal found himself in the Communist Party openly under attack the 100 Flowers Campaign was

over in 1958 came the Great Leap Forward an allout effort to bring China a breast of the western industrialized World orders went out to create industry

in the countryside all over China peasants tried to produce Steel in their own backyard furnaces work hard for 3 years be happy for a thousand ran the slogan

but the Great Leap Forward failed to produce the results that were hoped for China just wasn't ready to carry it out with the speed the leaders wanted so although ma kept the key job

of party chairman an organization man Leu shiai took over his head of state the failure of the Great Leap was a setback for China and three years of bad

weather and bad harvests made matters worse the people went hungry though there was hardship a

system of rationing prevented widespread [Music]

starvation in 1960 Chris chof visited ping behind the smiles trust and suspicion were growing between China and the Soviet Union perhaps China was

advancing too fast Russia broke a promise to help with a nuclear bomb the split widened the Russians recalled all their technicians

and set back important schemes of industrial advance for Years yet in 1963 without Russian help China detonated her first nuclear weapon

[Applause] [Music] but chairman ma was unhappy at The Growing Power of Chinese bureaucracy so

he tried to break it in 1966 by starting a nationwide cultural revolution in a little red book was set out his thoughts on how the people should live and [Applause]

[Music] work Lin at that time M's declared successor spoke to thousands of teenage red guards in P King in the name of the

cultural revolution they set out to destroy the establishment Ma's wife changqing added her own ideas

she demanded a revolution in the arts schools and universities closed red guards set out on a violent campaign against all that recalled the old world

Ma's opponents were disgraced and disappeared but events got out of hand there was only one thing to be done the Army was called in to restore order

so for years the Army took over in factories communes and colleges when all the chaos of the cultural revolution had died away ma sought to to Rally the

country more important than the revolution in farms and factories was to be the revolution inside the new Chinese man meanwhile in the north Russians and

Chinese clashed over border territories Chinese leaders saw the Soviet Union as a growing threat the newsreels gave voice to their fears our lives may be sacrificed but not a single inch of the

secret territory of our motherland must be lost so China began to cultivate relations with other governments and in 1972 President Nixon

of the United States went to Ping ending nearly a quarter of a century of hostility between China and America At Last At The United Nations in

New York communist China took the seat that till then had been occupied by the Corman Tang exiled in Taiwan by now Ma was well into his 7s he was

Ill but along with others like Joe and lie he'd seen the revolution through and he wanted it to go [Music]

on he firmly believed that Revolution was vital to China's industrial progress [Music] the commune some with 60,000 people had

already replaced the farming [Music] Collective ma had improved the living standards of hundreds of millions of

Chinese in the minds of his people he towered above the other

[Music] leaders the thoughts of German Mau were the subject of children's songs his

political writings were quoted to support whatever policy or line the government decided to follow ma was still the great revered leader when he

died in September 1976 those like his widow who used Ma's words to push extreme policies were soon replaced the leadership of the world's

largest Nation felt aaku Fang yet it was a nation still dominated by the memory of Mong

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