Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was a Chinese communist revolutionary and the founding leader of the People's Republic of China, serving as chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1943 until his death. He rose to prominence during the Chinese Civil War, leading Communist forces through the Long March of 1934-35 and ultimately to victory over the Nationalist government in 1949. As head of state he launched the Great Leap Forward, a rapid industrialization and collectivization campaign beginning in 1958 whose accompanying famine is estimated to have caused tens of millions of deaths, and later the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, a prolonged political upheaval marked by mass persecution, purges and widespread social disruption. He remains a deeply consequential and highly contested figure, officially honored in China as the founder of the modern state while his policies are also documented as responsible for some of the largest death tolls of the twentieth century.