Maos Cultural Revolution :: Chinese China History

Maos Cultural mutationDressed in the drab military uniform that symbolized the new political science of Communist China, Mao Zedongs body still looked powerful, like an giant oscillate in a gushing river. An enormous red flag absorbed his coffin, like a red sail unfurled on a Chinese junk, illustrating the dualism of traditional China and the present Communist China that typified Mao. 1 A river of people flowed past while he lay in enjoin during the second week of September 1976. Workers, peasants, soldiers and students, united in grief brought unitedly by Mao, the helmsman of modern China. 2 He had assembled a revolutionary government using traditional Chinese ideals of filial piety, harmony, and order. Maos cult of personality, troupe purges, and political policies reflect Maos esteem of these traditional Chinese ideals and history. Mao was natural on December 26, 1893 in Shao Shan, a village in Hunan Province. 3 His family lived in a rural village where for hundreds of yea rs the pattern of chance(a) life had remained largely unbroken. 4 Maos father, the son of a poor peasant, during Maos puerility however, prospered and become a wealthy land owner and rice dealer. 5 Yet, the structure of Maos family continued to mirror the rigidity of traditional Chinese society. His father, a strict disciplinarian, demanded filial piety. 6 Forced to do farm craunch and study the Chinese classics, Mao was expected to be obedient. On the opposite hand, Mao remembers his mother was generous and sympathetic. 7 Mao urged his mother to stage his father but Maos mother who believed in many traditional ideas replied that was non the Chinese way. 8 Mao in his interviews with historian Edgar Snow reports how during his childhood he tried to escape this traditional Chinese upbringing by running away from home. The rebellion Mao claims to energise manifested might have distanced Mao physically from his family but, traditional Chinese values were deeply ingrained, determ ine his political and personal persona. His fathers harshness with dealing with opposition, his cunning, his demand for reverence from subordinates, and his dream were to be seen in how Mao demanded harmony, order, and reverence as a merciless dictator. Yet, Mao, was also the kindly father figure for the people of China, as manifested in characteristic qualities of Maos mother kindness, benevolence, and patriarchal indulgence. The China that Mao was born into was betting becoming a shell of its former past.