Mao


 * by Emmett,** **Grade 5**

Mao Zedong was born in 1895 in China. Mao was a communist party leader in China. He had hundreds of thousands of people in his revolution. The revolution was about Mao making China’s government communist.

The country of China had been dominated by fierce warlords and populated by millions of poor peasants. The Manchu government was too weak to prevent the USA, Russia, France and Germany from establishing colonies in China.

In 1911, Chinese students formed a revolutionary group under the leadership of Sun Yat-Sen. Mao played a minor role in the 1911 revolution. A new government secretly began organizing a Chinese communist party. When Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925 the party was taken by Jiang Jie-Shi. Mao decided to gather followers from China’s poor people. Then Jiang Jie-Shi turned against the party in 1927. That year, Mao formed a Red Army. It began a twenty two year war against the Chinese government. In 1934, Mao and his followers were forced to leave their stronghold. They had to retreat to Yenan in northwest China. It was during this long march of 5,000 miles that Mao made more people like him. In 1949 Mao established the People’s Republic of China with him as the leader. After the communist victory one million people died.