ABSTRACT
The Chinese Communist Revolution, led by Mao Zedong (1893–1976), routed the Kuomintang (Nationalist) forces of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949. In attempting to adapt Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions, Mao set even greater store by the peasantry than had Lenin. After the revolution, the “people”—by which Mao meant mainly the peasantry, under the stern guidance of the Chinese Communist Party—were to rule. The “people’s democratic dictatorship” meant rule not so much by, as on behalf of, the numerically largest class, namely, the peasantry. This interim “dictatorship” was to be a period of civic “education” for the peasantry and harsh “re-education” for others. Once in power, Mao—like Stalin in the Soviet Union—made himself a larger-than-life object of veneration and worship.
