By 1962, while Zhou, Liu and Deng managed affairs of state and the economy, Mao had effectively withdrawn from economic decision-making, and focused much of his time on further contemplating his contributions to Marxist-Leninist social theory, including the idea of " continuous revolution ".

After being confirmed as Mao's successor, Lin's supporters focused on the restoration of the position of State Chairman, which had been abolished by Mao after the purge of Liu Shaoqi.

Mao Zedong opposed all of these initiatives, but first focused his dissatisfaction on other marshals, Liu Bocheng and Luo Ronghuan, who Mao accused of " dogmatism " ( uncritically assimilating methods borrowed from the Soviet Union ).

Snow's account focused more on the role of Peng than Lin, evidently having had long conversations with, and devoting two whole chapters to, Peng ( more than any individual apart from Mao ).

Mao stressed the supposedly domestic roots of that bourgeoisie, while Stalin focused more on presumed Western spies.

Following this session, Mao encouraged public discussions focused on criticizing Confucius and Confucianism, and on interpreting aspects of historical Chinese society within a Maoist theoretical perspective.

These initial debates focused on interpreting the issues of slavery, feudalism, and the relationship between Confucianism and Legalism according to the social theories published by Mao and Karl Marx.

Also, some Maoist groupings attack even some of the shifts and changes that occurred while Mao was still alive and in leadership, like his 1972 welcoming of Richard Nixon ( see lesser evil for more on this event ).

This recent growth was inspired in part by theoretical works on guerrilla warfare, starting with the Manual de Guerra de Guerrillas by Matías Ramón Mella written in the 19th century and, more recently, Mao Zedong's On Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare and Lenin's text of the same name, all written after the successful revolutions carried by them in China, Cuba and Russia respectively.

Mao would claim that although he did not accept Marxism at first, he had come under the influence of anarchism and was becoming " more and more radical " as the months went on.

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.

Following the death of Mao, Peruvian Maoists associated with the Communist Party of Peru ( Sendero Luminoso ) subsequently coined the term Marxism – Leninism – Maoism, arguing that Maoism was a more advanced stage of Marxism.

Peng was replaced by Lin Biao, another revolutionary army general who became a more staunch Mao supporter later in his career.

Workers were supposed to “ grasp revolution and promote productions ”, while peasants were supposed to raise more pigs because “ more pigs means more manure, and more manure means more grain .” Even a casual remark by Mao, “ Sweet potato tastes good ; I like it ” became a slogan everywhere in the countryside.

" In Mao: The Unknown Story, Chang and Halliday attributed all the destruction of the Cultural Revolution to Mao personally, with more sympathetic portrayals of his allies and opponents.

The concept of reunification replaced the concept of liberation by the PRC in 1979 as it embarked, after the death of Mao, on economic reforms and pursued a more pragmatic and less ideological foreign policy.

The Chinese public became intensely discontented at this time and chose to blame Jiang Qing, a more accessible and easier target than Chairman Mao.

A more radical faction led by Mao Zedong argued that the best way to finance industrialization was for the government to take control of agriculture, thereby establishing a monopoly over grain distribution and supply.

Because of his past mistakes, amongst other factors, Mao was reluctant to designate any more successors, which only clouded the political situation further.

Mao Zedong had apparently decided that the Soviet Union was far more of a danger than the United States.

Other critics of Mao fault him for not encouraging birth control and for creating an unnecessary demographic bump by encouraging the masses, " The more people, the more power ", which later Chinese leaders forcibly responded to with the equally controversial one-child policy.

Following discussions that expanded the book twice more — finally closing on 33 topics and 427 quotations by Mao — the commission began publishing the definitive version in May 1965.

As late as 1970, more than 8 million copies of the 4-volume set of Selected Works of Marx and Engels that had already been printed ( both in cloth hardcover and paperback ) remained undistributed in storage warehouses on the grounds that other works “ should not interfere with learning Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung ”.

Zhou approached Mao about the situation, stating that more encouragement was needed from the central bureaucracy to lead the intellectuals into further discussion.

Mao Zedong's revolution that founded the PRC was nominally based on Marxism-Leninism with a rural focus based on China's social situations at the time.

It had a profound impact on the Russian Revolution and its ideas inspired Mao Zedong in his efforts at constructing a communist state in China.

* Mao on Guerrilla warfare

* Mao Zedong, Four Essays on Philosophy.

Stalin and Mao Zedong on Chinese postage stamp

* 1981 – The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issues its " Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China ", laying the blame for the Cultural Revolution on Mao Zedong.

The Ming Dynasty ( 1368 – 1644 ) text of the Wubei Zhi ( Treatise on Armament Technology ), written by Mao Yuanyi in 1628, outlined the use of land mines that were triggered by the heat of a slow-burning incandescent material in an underground bowl placed directly above the train of fuses leading to the mines buried 3 ft beneath.

Likewise, Mao Zedong rejected environmentalism and believed that, based on the laws of historical materialism, all of nature must be put into the service of revolution.

Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in a rural village in Shaoshan, Hunan Province.

Aged 16, Mao moved on to study at a higher primary school in nearby Tungshan.

In his first year at the school, Mao befriended an older student, Siao Yu, and together they went on a walking holiday through the countryside, along the way begging in order to obtain food.

With two close friends, Mao began undertaking feats of physical endurance – such as sleeping outdoors and living on a frugal diet – and they began describing themselves as the " Three Heroes " after the rebels that featured in Chinese literature.

Now the party secretary for Hunan, Mao stationed himself in Changsha, from where he went on a recruitment drive to gain support for the Communist Party.

In early 1927, Mao returned to Hunan where, in an urgent meeting held by the Communist Party, he made a report based on his investigations of the peasant uprisings in the wake of the Northern Expedition.

During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao advocated a strategy of avoiding open confrontations with the Japanese army and concentrating on guerrilla warfare from his base in Yan ' an, while leaving the KMT to take on the brunt of the fighting and suffer tremendous casualties.

Instead Mao directed the CPC forces to concentrate on absorbing, and eliminating if necessary, Chinese militia behind enemy lines.

It's said by Mao Zedong, the founder of modern People's Republic of China, that the economic and administration system of Qin Dynasty have been retained through all the dynasties in China from then on.

Modern perception of war are based on the concepts Clausewitz put forth in On War, though these have been very diversely interpreted by various leaders ( e. g., Moltke, Vladimir Lenin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mao Zedong, etc.

Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong on a Chinese postage stamp, 1950.