Deng also separated Mao from Maoism, making it clear that Mao was fallible and hence that the truth of Maoism comes from observing social consequences rather than by using Mao's quotations as holy writ, as was done in Mao's lifetime.

Rejecting Mao's idealistic, communitarian values but not necessarily the values of Marx and Lenin, Deng emphasized that socialism did not mean shared poverty ( thus repudiating the Gang of Four's slogan " We would rather be poor under socialism than rich under capitalism.

Even under torture, she is reputed to have told her captors that " You could kill me as you like, you would never get anything from my mouth ," " Chopping off the head is like the passing of wind, death could frighten cowards, rather than our Communists ," " Even if the seas run dry and the rocks crumble, I would never break off relations with Mao Zedong ," and " I prefer to die for the success of Mao's revolution career.

Anchee Min, the author, seems to attribute a lot of Madame Mao's later actions to her childhood-and that a lot of her incessant claims to power actually came from a need to be desired and to feel close to Mao rather than a deep need for power herself.

When it became clear that Li was unlikely to accept Mao's terms, the Communists issued an ultimatum in April 1949, warning that they would resume their attacks if Li did not agree within five days.

Chiang's portrait hung over the gate of the Forbidden City before Mao's portrait was set up in its place.

As a result, he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution, but regained prominence in 1978 by outmaneuvering Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng.

He had believed that Mao's policies were largely responsible for the famine, but that Mao was misled about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies.

Several of these articles advocated his staunchly feminist views, calling for the liberation of women in Chinese society ; alongside his early experiences with forced arranged marriage, this was possibly influenced by the recent death of his mother and his increasing romantic involvement with Yang Kaihui ( 1901 – 1930 ), the daughter of Mao's recently deceased mentor Yang Changji.

Mao's hope was that the creation of a Hunanese constitution would increase civil liberties in the province and thereby make his revolutionary activity easier ; although it proved successful, in later life, he would subsequently deny any involvement in the movement.

Biographer Stuart Schram would later comment that during the period between 1925 and 1927, Mao was closer to the Kuomintang than he was to the Communist Party, something he attributed to Mao's belief that the good of China was more important than the cause of socialism.

When party leader Sun Yat-Sen died in May 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist, Chiang Kai-shek ( 1887 – 1977 ), who was opposed to Mao's involvement.

During his stay at home, Mao's interest in the revolution was rekindled after hearing of the 1925 uprisings in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the military force, was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers.

Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership.

Mao's first appearance in The Times was in August 1929:

It was during this, year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side.

One of these documents, released on May 16, was prepared with Mao's personal supervision and was particularly damning:

" The party leadership was relatively united in approving the general direction of Mao's agenda, but the charges against esteemed party leaders like Peng Zhen rang alarm bells in China's intellectual community and among the eight non-Communist parties.

" Mao's praise for rebellion was effectively an endorsement for the actions of the Red Guards, which grew increasingly violent.

In the same month, at the 12th Plenum of the 8th Party Congress, Liu Shaoqi was " forever expelled from the Party ", and Lin Biao was made the Party's Vice-Chairman, Mao's " comrade-in-arms " and " designated successor ", his status and fame in the country was second only to Mao.

Furthermore, despite Mao's efforts to put on a show of unity at the Congress, the factional divide between Lin Biao's PLA camp and the Jiang Qing-led radical camp was intensifying.

According to the book, Li witnessed Mao's private life on a day-to-day basis, mostly dealing with Mao at the height of his powers.

Xiahou Mao's younger brothers had constantly misbehaved and abused their powers, and Xiahou Mao disciplined them repeatedly.

When Mao's will was eventually found, he named Hua Guofeng as his successor, a provincial governor from his home province.

Finally, in October 1935, Mao's army reached Shaanxi province and joined with local Communist forces there, led by Liu Zhidan, Gao Gang, and Xu Haidong, who had already established a Soviet base in northern Shaanxi.

He went into hiding in the city of Canton, where he was sheltered by the local military commander, who did not care for either the Gang of Four or Mao's newly appointed successor Hua Guofeng ( see below ).

Zhang's armies then took a different route from Mao's and were badly beaten by local forces in Gansu.

In his 2010 book Mao's Great Famine, Hong Kong based historian Frank Dikötter, who has had access to newly opened local archives, places the death toll for the Great Leap Forward at 45 million, and describes it as " one of the most deadly mass killings of human history.

Along with closing China's schools and universities, and Mao's exhortations to young Chinese to randomly destroy old buildings, temples, and art, and to attack their teachers, school administrators, party leaders, and parents, the Cultural Revolution also increased Mao's prestige so much that entire villiages adopted the practice of offering prayers to Mao before every meal.

In practice, the changes of the last decade made it impossible to ever truly return to the ways of Mao's time.

An example of a well-known group, until recently armed, that looks to Mao's principles is the Communist Party of Nepal ( Maoist ) who the current CPC has publicly opposed.

She became a member of the Communist Party in 1938, and married Deng a year later in front of Mao's cave dwelling in Yan ' an.

The Great Leap's failure reduced Mao's prestige within the Party.

The event caught the party leadership off guard: that Lin – already enshrined into the Party Constitution as Mao's " closest comrade-in-arms " and " successor " – could betray Mao de-legitimized a vast body of Cultural Revolution political rhetoric.

It also separates Mao's personal mistakes from the correctness of the theory that he created, which remains an official guiding ideology in the Party.

Upon Mao's death Hua was named Communist Party chairman as well.

Zhou, who had come to appreciate Mao's strategies after the series of military failures waged by other Party leaders since 1927, defended Mao, but was unsuccessful.

After the establishment of the Jiangxi Soviet, Mao's status within the Party declined.

Although the de facto leader of the party at the time, Zhou Enlai, originally supported Mao's purges as necessary to eliminate KMT spies, after he arrived in Jiangxi in December 1931 Zhou criticized Mao's campaigns for being directed more against anti-Maoists than legitimate threats to the Party, for the campaign's general senselessness, and for the widespread use of torture to extract confessions.

The most senior leaders to support Mao in 1932 were Zhou Enlai, who had become disillusioned with the strategic leadership of other senior leaders in the Party, and Mao's old comrade, Zhu De.

This marked Mao's position as the pre-eminent leader of the Party, with Zhou in a position second to Mao.

Hua Guofeng, as Mao's designated successor, held the titular power as the acting Chairman of the Communist Party and as Premier.

In the early 1960s, President Liu Shaoqi, Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, and Premier Zhou Enlai took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's communitarian vision, and disbanded communes, attempting to rework the system to pre-Leap standards.

Lin Biao, having gained Mao's trust, had his name codified into the Constitution of both the State and Party as Mao's designated successor.

Liu's position as the second most powerful leader of the CCP contributed to Mao's rivalry with Liu at least as much as Liu's political beliefs or factional allegiances in the 1960s, indicating that Liu's later persecution was the result of a power struggle that went beyond the goals and wellbeing of either China or the Party.

After Mao died in 1976, Hua Guofeng gave a speech praising Mao's suppression of " Right and ' Left ' Opportunist lines of the Party " as one of the late Chairman's greatest achievements: Chen's was the first person to be named as being correctly suppressed ; Deng Xiaoping was the last.

After Mao's death, Hua took on the titles of Chairman of the Communist Party of China and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, to the surprise and dismay of Jiang Qing and the rest of the Gang of Four.

After Mao's death and the fall of the Gang of Four in October 1976, Party leaders rehabilitated Deng and brought him back to Beijing, where he emerged as China's Paramount Leader in 1978.

The term Zhuxi refers to the chairman in a committee, and was translated as such prior to the 1982 constitution ( as in Chairman Mao Zedong, although Mao's title refers primarily to the position of Party Chairman which he held from 1943 until his death in 1976 ).

From 1966 – 1970, radical factions within the Communist Party, led by Lin Biao and Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, singled out Peng for national persecution, and Peng was publicly humiliated in numerous large-scale struggle sessions and subjected to physical and psychological torture in organized efforts to force Peng to confess his " crimes " against Mao Zedong and the Communist Party.