Eps 1: Mao
Mao Zedong declares the founding of the modern People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949
In August and September 1966, there were a reported 1,772 people murdered by the Red Guards in Beijing alone.
"middling peasants," who now accounted for 90 percent of the village population, owned 90.8 percent of the land, as close to perfect equality as one could possibly hope for.
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He was also a political radical who waged a destructive and sometimes violent mass campaign against the Communist Party and its political opponents. After Mao's death, his son and successor Deng Xiaoping took power, ousted the leftist revolutionaries, and took power. Deng, now thoroughly rehabilitated, led the country through a period of rapid economic growth and the rise of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
In essence, all those who had been arrested or tried for crimes related to the Cultural Revolution were arrested and rearrested.
He came to the conviction that only a revolutionary change in Chinese society could bring freedom from Western domination and subjugation. Considered the "founding father of modern China," he served as a model for the Nepalese and Indian Maoist movements that inspired twenty-first-century rebellions.
In 1921, he became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but he was more often split into those who advocated slavishly copying the communism that had come to power in Russia through the Bolshevik Revolution that brought communism to Russia.
Mao insisted that the revolution in China would come from the country's peasants, not from urban workers. Mao Zedong, aka Chairman Mao, founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and ruled the country until his death in 1976. Millions of people across China still flock to Beijing to visit his grave, billions celebrate his birthday every year, and he is revered as one of the most important figures in the history of modern China.
Mao was a demigod who, by virtue of his will and wisdom, transformed China from a poor country into one of the world's superpowers. Born in 1893 as a wealthy farmer in Hunan Province, Mao wanted to transform China into a communist state and achieved his goals in 1949 when he proclaimed the People's Republic on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
But the leader's rule in China has been far from smooth, as the country has been shaken, while his ill-conceived initiatives have led to the deaths of millions.
His body lies in the centre of Beijing, guarded by a huge portrait hanging on the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square. Mao Zedong's presence has yet to be discussed, discussed, and even escaped by his own son, the late President Xi Jinping. A man poses for a photo in front of a portrait of Mao in Beijing's Forbidden City on July 1, 2012.
Chinese President Xi Jinping suffered from his father's imprisonment, but the Party has not yet acknowledged Mao's mistakes. There is no mention of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, which plunged China into chaos and violence and cost the lives of millions.
Xi made a televised pilgrimage to key revolutionary sites such as the Tiananmen Square mausoleum and ordered party officials to hold up the Mao Zedong banner forever. Xi was sent to the countryside to live with his father and mother, a former Communist Party leader, in a remote village in central China.
He railed against hostile foreign powers with a ferocity not seen since Mao's time, when China fought several wars with its Western neighbors. Mao's presidential embrace surprised many in China, as the dictator was responsible for the terrible suffering of Xi's own family.
Historians have long argued about how to place the legacy of twentieth-century revolutionaries like Mao in a contemporary context. 1 October is the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The president's father, Xi Zhongxun, was born the son of a Communist guerrilla leader who was deputy prime minister in the late 1950 "s.
Mao's influence on world politics is far greater than is usually acknowledged, and his impact continues to this day, according to a new book out this week. Many of Mao's goals, including those that emphasized China's autonomy, were generally laudable, but some were ill-conceived and had disastrous consequences.
In 1966, Mao Zedong returned to politics, triggered the Cultural Revolution, and died of a heart attack in his hometown of Beijing at the age of 65. He has written a series of books on the history of China's political and economic history and human rights.