Mao Zedong and Mohandas Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi and Mao Zedong were two great leaders who succeeded in many ways by their actions and decisions. Gandhi was an Indian leader and Mao a Chinese leader. However, their approach to success, peace, and ultimately, a revolution, was very different. Mao favored peace through violence, and Gandhi favored peace through non-cooperation and standing up for what is right. He also believed that these changes will be accomplished by “conscious suffering”, was the way he put it. However, despite their differences, these two leaders were similar too. They were both very charismatic leaders who successfully made it through their revolutions. Mao’s revolution led to change in class structure while Gandhi’s revolution involved India as a country, and he wanted people to realize that working together is a great way to gain independence. While Mao and Gandhi both believed that each of their countries have the need of independence, their views differed when it came to the use of violence, development towards the revolution, and their thoughts on a caste system.

Gandhi and Mao Zedong had different ideas when it came to the use of violence. Mao believed that “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” (reading packet, 12) What this means is that force is absolutely necessary and the outcome of force is violence. Mao is in total agreement with violence and sees the people opposing the movements he is favoring as “paper tigers”. As in, at first, these rebels might seem terrifying, but in reality, they are helpless and harmless. Mao actually blames the Hunan landlords and the higher, wealthier class for a bloody battle between the peasants and the landlords. He said that for a long time now, the wealthier class ha...

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...n a caste system, they are truly the same in one thing: they are both very great leaders that influenced China and India until today. They were both very creative with their ideas and had different motives and knew how to get what they believed in through to people all over their nations. Leaders today such as Barack Obama can learn a lot from these two influential leaders. From Mao they can certainly learn different strategies for war and such, as well as how to develop their country towards the better. From Gandhi, leaders can learn how to get what they want with peace and kindness, while simultaneously learning that independence is possible through peace, which even leaves a bright stain of Nationalism to go with it. Mao and Gandhi both had a lot to offer, and they both expressed themselves in different, but effective ways that changed China and India forever.