Mao Zedong

 



Mao loved to swim. In his youth, he worked as a way to improve the movement of Chinese citizens, and one of his first poems were celebrated with joy after beating the waves. As a young man, he and his friends often swim in local streams before they are discussed together face innumerable problems of their country. Especially after 1955, when he was in the 60s and at the height of his political power as leader of the People's Republic, the pool was a central element of his life. He swam so often in the big pool is built to the highest leaders of the party as a whole well kept as the other finally left the pool one person. He swam in the often stormy ocean on the north coast of China, where the Communist Party leadership gathered here for their annual conferences. And, despite the entreaties of his guards and his doctor, he was swimming in polluted rivers in southern China, drifting miles downstream, the head, the abdomen, in the air, arms and legs barely moving, indifferent to human waste dance gently glide past. "Perhaps you are afraid of drowning," he blamed his friends, if they started to panic in the water. "Do not worry. If you think about it, do not drown. If you do, you will."
Mao was a genius does not run. His enemies were legion: militarists, who resented teeth journalistic incompetence, party rivals, who found zealous supporter of a united front with the Kuomintang nationalists, landowners, who hated his pro -peasant rhetoric and activities, Chiang Kai-shek, who attacked its strong rural with indefatigable perseverance, the Japanese, who tried to break his base north to the United States after China entered the Korean War, the Soviet Union, when he attacked the anti-Stalin, Khrushchev and. Mao was also unsinkable in the turmoil - many of them personally promoted - has revealed that over the last 20 years of his reign in China.
Mao was born in 1893 in China, which seemed to crumble. Discoloration of the Qing Dynasty can not contain the spiral of social and economic tensions, and promised revenue China and most of its natural resources, apparently insatiable foreign powers. It was Mao later told his biographer Edgar Snow, a time when "the dismemberment of China" seemed inevitable, and only the heroic actions of the youth of China can save the day.
Wise survivors before Mao, written when he was 19 years old, was one of the most famous Chinese figures early cynicism and realpolitik, the 4th century BC great director Shang Yang. Mao received experience Shang Yang, a symbolic crisis in China. Shang Yang was put in place a series of laws ruthless force to "punish the wicked and the disobedient to protect the rights of individuals." The fact that people are still afraid of Shang Yang Mao was the condition of being "stupid." Mao said that fear and mistrust Shang Yang is not a politician, but the perception of this policy. "At first nothing special, many people have not always liked"
After the communist victory of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, and the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mao's position was extremely enhanced. In spite of all the Chinese suffered, apparently, it was not too difficult to convince Mao visionary and practical need for a big jump at the end of 1950. In the spirit of Mao, high energy consumption in China would marshaling the physical and mental work in a harmonious synthesis of the final and build a bridge across the abyss of poverty in China in the socialist paradise promised the other side.
In February 1957, Mao turned his thoughts to China as well as in a rambling on "Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People." Mao notes for speeches reveal a curious mixture of hilarity and brutality, utopian visions blind and perceptions, which are the basis of his character. Mao admitted that at least 15% of the Chinese population was hungry, and some critics consider "disgusted" Marxism. He also spoke of hundreds of thousands of deaths in the revolution so far, but strongly denied the figures quoted in the newspapers - Hong Kong - the 20 million deaths. "How can you kill 20 million people?" he asked. And 'now clear that at least the number of deaths in China during the famine that followed the Great Leap Forward in the period between 1959 and 1961. In the Cultural Revolution that followed five years later, Mao used the army and students against their opponents. Again, millions of people have suffered and died cruelty Shang Yang Mao combined with absolute confidence in additional swimmer.
Rejecting his former party allies, and those who could be accused of supporting the value of the old type and the Chinese civilization, Mao drew the crowd sing the livelihood of the Red Guards. The irony is that childhood reading, Mao knew the story of how Shang Yang, at the end of his life trying to reach the legal administrator at your service. The official rejected the pleas of Shang Yang, saying that "1000 is" Yes, yes, should not a person with a bold "No!" "The death of Mao in 1976, and over the years, flattering cries of" Yes, yes, "gradually disappeared. Learning as Mao Deng Xiaoping, Mao was able to reverse the policy, even when he claimed to love. They gave the Chinese people to express their entrepreneurial skills, which leads to incredible growth and the complete transformation of Chinese cities face.
It is these changes, the procedure of the new flexibility, somehow the legacy of Mao? Despite the agony he has caused, and Mao was a visionary and realistic. He learned as a young man not only as Shang Yang has strict laws for the Chinese people, even if you do not see the need for them, but also the severity of Shang Yang helped lay the foundation in 221 BC State Great central Qin. Mao knew that the Qing leaders were both hated and feared, and that their dynasty was overthrown quickly, despite its monopoly power and the efficient use of terror. But in the last years of his life, Mao seems to have hosted the meeting in his own name to these remote Qin ancestors. Ch'in, in the end, to create a single state of the universe into chaos. They were, like Mao, not the best that China has to offer, but something much more ruthless Canny, with the power to impose short simple emotions ventilation deviate wandering people. E 'in this gloomy picture that structured the heirs of Mao was able to build, even if you struggle with nervousness obvious social pressure to maintain his generation more open policy. Of course, Mao's words echo in my ears alone: ​​As long as you do not mind, do not drown.