As two historical giants, Stalin and Mao Ze-dong must be involved at the mere mention of the Sino-Soviet relationship. The relation between the two states leaders draws the outline of the basic structure of Sino-Soviet relations. In the memory of the generation of 1950s to 1970s, there usually five portraits were hung in public, which were Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Ze-dong, even in Tian An Men’s lobby, as the leaders of International Communist Movement and the greatest teachers of the revolution. To be honest, for the generation of 1950s to 1970s, Marx, Engels and Lenin could be ‘deity’ who were in the distance, but Stalin and Mao were alive in the same world, and they were real mentors. Both of them were the revolutionary leaders, and both had distinct characters, as same as common, both men own the merits, the weaknesses, the temper and the natural instincts. During the long-term contact between Stalin and Mao, they left many fascinating stories, and numerous profound lessons. With the same communism belief, Stalin helped Mao fight for sovereignty in China, and provided actively various kinds of weapons, such as canons, tanks, rifles and machine guns, and tried to give useful idea and constructive advice. Two such extraordinary person met, friendship developed with contradiction. They were communists, and also they were leaders of different countries. As leaders of distinct sovereignty states, Stalin and Mao usually care much about their countries’ interests. In other words, Stalin and Mao were strategic partners. After Stalin was attacked in the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mao talked about repeatedly that Stalin tricked China four times and forbade Ma...
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...-mast. Apparently, once being Mao’s mentor, the left of Stalin could be a serious hit to Mao. Without a notional advisor, Mao had to single-handedly strive among Western countries, and also could be confused about the future direction of PRC. After all, Mao was in the same camp with Stalin who also a mutually beneficial partnership and both confronted collectively with capitalism. As for the negative behaviors of Mao, there must be sadness for the permanent departure of an old friend, and there could be lost in Mao’s mind, also there was a bit of easiness that no one could command over Mao’s head again and no one could did wrong to China again. Shi Zhe, who was Russian translator in China and worked for Mao 18 years, expressed that Mao was annoyed extremely with Stalin’s suggestion of compromise with Chiang Kai-shek, even locked himself in a room to silently fume.
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
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.
From Mao’s three essays, namely In Memory of Norman Bethune, Serve the People, and The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains, we can see that the two defining themes of Mao’s rendition of Marxist philosophy towards life are altruism and pragmatism, both of which are in line with Marxist theories. However, considering the historical context of the three essays, Mao’s philosophy of life as shown in the aforementioned essays can be seen as propagandistic and does not necessarily reflect Mao’s true opinions on life.
There have been many dictators through out history that have shaped the way we look at them now. Sometimes it’s the way that dictators came to power that people judge them on. Sometimes it’s how long they stayed in power, but it’s not just how long they stayed in power. It’s what they did to stay in power. These two men are some of the most infamous dictators for those reasons alone. These men are Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro, and they played a huge part in shaping the way we look at dictators today.
Isaac Murrin Mr. J. Pharion Freshman English 20 February 2013 The Similarities and Differences between Lenin and Stalin Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were similar in what they claimed to be, but in actuality they were very different people. Although Stalin claimed that he followed Leninism, the philosophy that Lenin developed from Marxism, he often distorted it to follow what he wanted to do. While Lenin wanted to make a unified society without classes, with production in the hands of the people, while Stalin wanted to make Russia into a modern industrial powerhouse by using the government to control production. Lenin accomplished his goals through violence, because he thought achieving the Communist revolution was worth using violence, with a ‘The ends justify the means’ mentality. Stalin also used violence to accomplish his goals, however Stalin used much more violence than was often necessary to accomplish his goals.
Josef Stalin, a politician from the earliest beginnings of his life, strove to achieve a national sense of power during his reign over the citizens of Russia. Adolf Hitler, however, a born high school dropout somewhat longed for a place in life. He rather fell into his role as a politician, after his brief shortcomings in arts and sciences. These two individuals developed varying ideas to put their controlling minds to work to lead their political parties in the direction of total domination of the state.
Communism was the ideology followed by the Soviet Union. Originally founded by Karl Marx, it said that everything should be owned by the government and then divided up equally among the people who would then all work for it. For the communist party in Russia, their political system was always in danger. From the start of the Russian Revolution there have been dangers to communism. Before World War II most of the western nations ignored Russia simply because it was a communist state and the western nations actually supported Hitler because they believed that Germany would provided a buffer against Communism. The permanent threat against Russia gave the incentive to expand and spread communist influence as much as possible to keep their way of life intact, it was very much Russia against the world. However not only was the Soviet Union communist, they were totalitarian, meaning all the power was with the rulers. While this was effective for keeping the standard average of living the same for everyone and preventing poverty, it also led to a poor work ethic among the working population...
...how the Soviets they were successful. Motivated by this reasoning, Mao choose to do nothing about the famine, claiming that his plan could never go wrong, that the Chinese Communist way was the only correct way. The inflexible Mao and his policies caused a decline in Chinas morality, that is apart of the continued cycle for each generation of the Chinese people. Each time the Chinese go into a major famine, we can see the change in government, this decline in a dynasty, that we have seen repeat itself throughout Chinas history. With Mao's death and the rise of western ideals in China, we can see that China has moved away from its Maoist ideals and moved towards a western model of government. No matter how long it takes the Chinese, I don't think they will ever forget these events in this history, always encouraging the new generation for change of a corrupt system.
Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the nation through the second world war. Roosevelt built a powerful wartime coalition with Britain and the Soviet Union, and led the U.S to victory against Nazi Germany. He was elected for presidency four times, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. His wartime efforts prepared the path for Harry Truman, to win the war against Japan four months after his death.
It can also be argued that the political activities of Chairman Mao’s Communist China were more of a continuation of traditional Imperial China, based heavily in Confucian values, than a new type of Marxist-Leninist China, based on the Soviet Union as an archetype. While it is unquestionable that a Marxist-Leninist political structure was present in China during this time, Confucian values remained to be reinforced through rituals and were a fundamental part of the Chinese Communist ...
(Peng 165). Zaofan implies that Chou is not worthy of the name ‘Mao’ because his father was a rightist. After thinking it over Chou thinks to himself, “I knew what he was getting at. Before their deaths, my father had been a rightist and my grandfather a landlord. I was not worthy of so great and honorable a family name as Mao; absolutely not,” (Peng 165).
Dressed in the drab military uniform that symbolized the revolutionary government of Communist China, Mao Zedong's body still looked powerful, like an giant rock in a gushing river. An enormous red flag draped 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 state during the second week of September 1976. Workers, peasants, soldiers and students, united in grief; brought together by Mao, the helmsman of modern China. 2 He had assembled a revolutionary government using traditional Chinese ideals of filial piety, harmony, and order. Mao's cult of personality, party purges, and political policies reflect Mao's esteem of these traditional Chinese ideals and history.
More murderous than Hitler, more powerful than Stalin, in the battle of the Communist leaders Mao Zedong trumps all. Born into a comfortable peasant family, Mao would rise up to become China’s great leader. After leading the communists away from Kuomintang rule, he set out to modernize China, but the results of this audacious move were horrific. He rebounded from his failures time and again, and used his influence to eliminate his enemies and to purge China of its old ways. Mao saw a brighter future for China, but it was not within his grasp; his Cultural Revolution was not as successful as he had wanted it to be. Liberator, oppressor, revolutionary, Mao Zedong was the greatest emancipator in China’s history, as his reforms and actions changed the history of China and of the wider world.
This essay will concentrate on the comparison and analysis of two communist figures: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Party in China, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. The main focus of this paper will be to explore each figure’s world view in depth and then compare and contrast by showing their differences and similarities. Joseph Stalin was a realist dictator of the early 20th century in Russia. Before he rose to power and became the leader of the Soviet Union, he joined the Bolsheviks and was part of many illegal activities that got him convicted and he was sent to Siberia (Wood, 5, 10). In the late 1920s, Stalin was determined to take over the Soviet Union (Wiener & Arnold, 1999).
Rosenberg, William G., and Young, Marilyn B. Transforming Russia and China: Revolutionary Struggle in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.