Mao Zedong was a Chinese communist leader and is the founder of the People’s Republic of China. Mao was born on the 26th of December 1893 into a poor peasant family in Shaoshan, in Hunan province, which is a province in central China. After becoming a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, Mao has greatly influenced and shaped China into what it is today. He is regarded as one of the most controversial leaders of the twentieth century as a result of the widespread impacts and hardships that the Chinese people had to endure as a result of his policies and reformations. Firstly, the impacts and effects of the Great Leap Forward, which turned out to be a disaster, killing between 20-40 million people and ironically sending China backwards. Secondly, the Cultural Revolution and the chaos and disaster this had on the Chinese population, especially through the “Down to the Countryside movement” and finally, the Cult of Mao and what the idolisation and glorification of Mao meant for the future of China.

Mao’s introduction of the Great Leap Forward policy and the impacts and effects this had on the Chinese population as well as its role in the introduction of the Cultural Revolution played a key role in shaping China into what it is today. The plan’s failure lead to Mao’s loss of power, which resulted in Mao introducing the Cultural Revolution in China. Unfortunately, Mao’s five-year plan was a disaster, and caused the death of an estimated twenty to forty