a dramatically, eliminating traditional Chinese values such as those of the family. Early on, according to Chang and Halliday (2005), it became apparent that Mao become a communist not because of idealism or passionate belief, but simply by being at the right place at the right time and because of his determination to be a key figure in the reorganization that he felt was needed in China. Far from being a fervent believer in the principles of Marxism or the interpretation of those principles by Lenin and Stalin, Mao was a realist who sought personal power and who was ideologically rather vague.
Nevertheless, Mao (1967) recognized early on that any revolution in China would need to engage the peasant population if it was to be successful. Writing in 1927, Mao (1967) stated that he anticipated the uprising of several hundred million peasants in China's central, southern, and northern provinces that would sweep away imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants, and evil gentry alike. It was his intent throughout the 1920s to organize the rural peasantry in places such as Hunan to comprise a revolutionary cadre that was capable of taking on the Nationalists. Mao (1967, p. 25) defined a revolution as "an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the power of the feudal landlord class." Here, it is quite clear that unlike Stalin with his emphasis on urban political revolution, Mao (1967) was quite convinced that the unique circumstances of China required a peasant revolution. This is a major innovation and transformation of the proletarian-centered revolutionary ethos of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology.
Meisner (2006) notes that Mao and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party were well aware of the Marxist defined material preconditions for socialism and were painfully conscious that a preindustrial and imp...