Mao Tse-tung as Political and Spiritual Leader

Mao Tse-tung in many ways was both the political and spiritual leader of China, and the Cult of Mao developed as he led the Chinese people in the Chinese Revolution and in building a new and different China after 1949. Mao was revered far beyond what would be accorded a leader in the West. The Chinese have a history of mythologizing their heroes and of making them into near-gods, and Mao would both benefit from this tendency and make use of it to solidify his position and to nurture his power. In some ways, his role was similar to that of the Emperors who had gone before, but he avoided the trappings and lifestyle of the Emperor in order to remain one with the people. This fact alone added to his mystique and to the myths that abounded about him. In popular belief, Mao was not merely a human leader but a healer capable of feats beyond what would be expected of any human being. In the mythology of the people, Mao emerged as a god. As noted, this was partially because the Chinese tended to elevate their heroes in this fashion, and it was also partially because of the way mao made himself the spiritual center of the revolution and utilized the cult of Mao to mobilize the people to action in such endeavors as the Great Leap Forward.

Wills emphasizes that China was never a country that could be held together by force alone, and indeed in this century the increasing militarization tore the country apart. Mao fulfilled a need:

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itage by Western civilization. May Fourth was the culmination of that challenge: the brutal, wholesale repudiation of Confucianism, the symbol of Chinese culture and Chinese history. China was already undergoing change at the time when Mao became politically active and sought even greater change. One of the changes from the time of Confucius to the time of Mao was that by the later era, there had come a strong Western influence, sometimes adopted, sometimes resisted. After 1895, this Western invasion increased and became more a part of the scene in China, with the establishment of new schools that combined both Western and Chinese subjects. The old civil service examinations were abolished in 1905, and this ended the structure that had molded Chinese thought for so long. Added to the concern over Western ideas was the defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese War. The generation in charge at the turn of the century had had its confidence shaken by these and other events, and this may have provided the opportunity for change in the Hundred Days of Reform in 1898: Yet it also created a deeply felt need among educated Chinese somehow to be reassured that China's cultural identity would not be wholly lost amid these changes--a n

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