Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary and statesman who led the Communist Party to victory in the Chinese Civil War and founded the People's Republic of China in 1949, ruling until his death in 1976.
Mao rose to leadership within the Chinese Communist Party during decades of civil war and conflict, including the Long March in 1934-35, a strategic retreat that helped cement his leadership of the party.
After the Communist victory in 1949, Mao introduced sweeping and often disruptive economic and social policies, including the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, which aimed to rapidly industrialize China but instead contributed to a devastating famine.
Mao later launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, a decade-long period of political upheaval aimed at reasserting his authority and communist ideology, with lasting and significant social and political consequences for China that are still studied and debated by historians today.