April 12, 1927 would be the year that the Guomindang (GMD) would set out to try to exterminate its competitor, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and creating a brutal civil war that would last over a decade. However, through these flames of war was born a revolutionary man whose ideals would spark the ideals behind China's many policies, and that man was none other than the first Chairman of the CCP, Mao Zedong. Having escaped the massacre in Shanghai that fateful day, Mao would lead China to superpower status, or at least pave the way for it. As mentioned earlier, Mao had managed to escape with his life the White Terror which had virtually destroyed all relations between the GMD and the CCP and "marked the end of the First United Front" (Alpha History). This led to anti-communist movements across the country and resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 communists nationwide (Zhou Enlai: A Political Life). Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayMao had managed to escape with his life and would go on to co-form the short-lived Jiangxi Soviet in 1929. Mao knew that His troops were too few in number to actually confront the GMD on the front line and instead chose to adopt the guerrilla strategy, saying, "When the enemy advances, we retreat." When the enemy rests, we harass him. When the enemy avoids a battle, we attack. When the enemy retreats, we advance. This allowed the Jiangxi Soviet to continue to exist until 1934, during the Fifth Encirclement Campaign, during which the Communist army changed its tactics to fight on the front lines. It was this decision that caused the fall of the Jiangxi Soviet and also the reason why the Red Army was forced to undertake a long march to escape the clutches of the GMD. It was also at this time that Mao took a more prominent position within the CCP and became the "de facto leader of the Party and the Red Army" (Mao: A Reinterpretation). After the end of the Long March, Mao established a communist government in Yan'an, a precursor to the policies he would implement after winning the civil war. However, before the war ended, another Sino-Japanese War broke out, leading to the formation of the Second United Front between the GMD and the CCP. This fragile alliance would successfully defend China against the Japanese invaders and the second part of the civil war would continue until Mao's final victory in 1949. Through these constant difficulties, Mao had proven himself to be a leader and had also earned him trust. by the people of China. One of the first things Mao did in his early years as president was to establish the Marriage Law and land reforms. First, marriage laws. This change brought men and women to a more “equal” status in society. Although this did not give complete equality to women, it succeeded in giving women more rights and was very well accepted by young women who were not yet looking to settle down in a family. The Marriage Act also prevented bigamy and female infanticide. All of this allowed China to become more modern, but also contributed to a better economy since women would spend more time working instead of staying at home caring for their own children. Land reform was the promise of free land for all. Peasants were happy when Mao asked the CCP to take land from rich landlords and distribute it to them. Hewas about achieving the communist ideal of equality of outcome and narrowing the gap between rich and poor in China. It was also a way of shifting responsibility for the civil war which had caused many victims and which therefore had to be attributed to the landowners, who wanted to support their own interests by keeping the GMD in power. The CCP even encouraged this attitude as evidenced by bitter speech campaigns that encouraged mistreated peasants to lash out at their landlords, even going so far as to beat them. The new laws and reforms had helped China in its early days, but at the expense of a small group of people. After dealing with the most pressing problems in China at the time, Mao decided to turn his attention to educating the people on the ideals of Marxism. -Leninism and Maoism. He would be able to brainwash his population into working harder not for themselves but for the party, later integrating the thought reform of 1951 into the Three Antis campaign and the Five Antis campaign, the latter aimed at preventing corruption within the party itself while the former would prevent the rise of individualistic needs. These were highly successful campaigns that encouraged people to spy on others to expose such corruption. Although some people may have been innocent, the rest of the arrests would serve as an example to those who might try to imitate their actions. In a nutshell, these propaganda campaigns would essentially encourage people to spy for the party and also change the way Chinese people think. Even though many social and political problems were resolved, Mao still had to find a way to turn the country's economy around. After GMD stole all of China's gold reserves and took them to Taiwan, the Chinese economy was in dire straits. They also had extremely poor infrastructure due to the civil war and these problems needed to be addressed. But Mao's goal was not just limited to fixing the economy, but he had greater aspirations to make China completely independent and I quote: "only with the industrialization of the state could we will be able to guarantee our economic independence and our non-dependence on imperialism.” (Alpha History) To achieve this goal, he received help from the Soviets in the form of monetary loans, but more importantly in the form of a talented workforce such as scientists and engineers who doubled industrial production, heavy industry benefiting enormously. we are seeing large increases in the production of different raw materials such as steel and coal. This had also brought China closer to the Soviet Union by signing the Treaty of Alliance of Friendship and Mutual Assistance. This has also led to a better quality of life for the urban population as the number of people living in urban areas increased from 57 million to 100 million people (AlphaHistory). In 1956, Mao gave the famous Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom speech, asking the people of China to voice their criticism of the party. There are two different opinions on the matter, the first being that he did this in order to identify his political opposition and suppress them and the second being that he wanted to improve the party and its leadership, but the staggering amount of The criticism he received caused him to become agitated, especially as he attended Khrushchev's speech denouncing Joseph Stalin's actions after the Soviet leader's death, fearing that the same fate awaited him as well. Whatever his initial intentions, he stopped the campaign in 1957 and began cracking down.