The "Cultural Revolution", "Great Leap Forward" and a series of absurd extremes of Mao Zedong created an atmosphere of fear and arbitrariness and cost the lives of millions of Chinese. Despite this, he is still revered as an idol today. Why is that?
His portrait hangs at the entrance to "Tiananmen Square", in the political heart of the People's Republic, which he proclaimed in 1949. Mao Zedong died in 1976 at the age of 82 in Beijing. But his legacy is still controversial today.
Mao dreamed of a strong communist country with a planned economy in which the state distributes wealth. He promoted class struggle and in 1966 launched the "Cultural Revolution", which lasted until his death. Those belonging to the so-called "five black categories", including capitalists and counter-revolutionaries, were sent to prison. The state is ruled solely by the proletariat.
One of the main changes after Mao's death was that he stopped categorizing people according to their class background, historian Professor Daniel Leze from the University of Freiburg explained to DW. The uncertainty and strategic arbitrariness associated with declaring people public enemies managed to create a deep sense of anxiety and made society susceptible to manipulation. And Mao took this to absurd extremes with his political campaigns.
Are Mao's ideas still relevant?
No, China today no longer needs Mao's ideas, says Professor Zhang Lun from the University of Cergy-Paris. There is no longer any need for Mao's political legacy. "The main change in China is 'demaoization,'" Zhang told DW.
"However, the process has never been fully completed in the past five decades," the expert admits. What remains is the one-party state and the strong leadership of the Communist Party. Mao's name is written into the Constitution, and his theories continue to be part of China's official ideology.
The dominance of the party over the state and society has remained a guiding principle, says Professor Jean-Christopher Mittelstedt from the University of Zurich. Mao's famous saying "Political power comes from the barrel of a gun" still holds true. All general secretaries of the Communist Party are also supreme commanders-in-chief.
Mao established his ideas as the core of state governance. The principle is: "The Party leads everything," Chinese journalist Chang Ping, who lives in exile in Germany, told DW. "The state wants to seize resources in order to fulfill its great tasks. The Communist Party will pursue its political goals at any cost. The interests of the ordinary population can be sacrificed if this is necessary to maintain the regime."
Mao's legacy
As much as Mao was contested within the party, subsequent rulers paid tribute to him. The reformer Deng Xiaoping once fell victim to Mao's political campaigns. However, in 1980, he said in an interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci that Mao's portrait would remain forever in Tiananmen Square. "Mao's achievements outweigh his mistakes. To slander Comrade Mao is to slander the party and the country." In the same interview, Deng also said that 70 percent of Mao's actions were good and correct, and his mistakes were 30 percent - especially in view of the "Cultural Revolution" from 1966 to 1976, which stemmed from Mao's initiative for mass class struggle and threw the country into chaos. In 1978, Deng began a policy of reform and opening up, thus paving the way for China to prosperity. However, subsequent presidents never questioned the authority of the political idol Mao. In 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping said that the era after reform and opening up should not be used to deny the era before it. The era before 1978 was marked almost exclusively by Mao.
The Communist Party refrains from reassessment
“Even today, the legitimacy of the Communist Party depends on Mao”, emphasizes historian Mittelstedt. “If a fundamental reassessment were to be made, it could shake the party. It would raise questions not only about Mao's personal decisions, but also about the institutions and structures that allowed them, including the party's claim to have sole authority to interpret its own history.”
The Chinese political landscape is very different from that of the former Soviet Union, where there were two leading figures, explains historian Felix Wehmheuer of the University of Cologne. “As chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev could say that Lenin was the great founder of the state, while Stalin was a dictator. But in China, only Mao played the dominant role in the party's history. If he were to be completely disavowed, that would also call into question large parts of the party's history.”
Is Xi the new Mao?
Today's President Xi Jinping and his family are victims of the “Cultural Revolution”. His father was a victim of the purges of that time, and Xi was rejected nine times from the party, only succeeding on the tenth time.
“What Xi learned from the “Cultural Revolution” is the lesson of power,” says the journalist Chang Ping. “He did not learn that such a system should never exist again, but rather that whoever loses political power is at the mercy of others.”
When Xi rose to the top of the party hierarchy in 2012, he also made an effort to present Mao as a cult figure. For him, control and management are of the utmost value, says Wemheuer. In this way, he can consolidate his power by strengthening the institutions and the party apparatus.
But Mittelstedt also points out the difference between the two: Mao stood above the party as a supreme idol. “While Xi is a party warrior. His authority comes from the party organs and he rules through them. Ultimately, however, Xi Jinping remains a product of the system created by Mao."