Mao Zedong

Term Paper # 102719

Asian Studies
History > Asian
History > Leaders

Mao Zedong

This paper utilizes Freudian psychoanalysis to describe, analyze and interpret the life of Mao Zedong.

2,010 words () | 5 sources | APA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

The paper questions how Mao Zedong managed to take control of the Chinese Communist Party, establish the Peoples' Republic of China and rule the most populous nation in the world with an iron fist until his death when he came from commonplace beginnings. The paper examines this question from the point of view of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. The paper explains that Mao dreamt of death and destruction as much as he dreamt of life and liberation, making him an extraordinary man. The paper maintains that this explains to some extent how this commonplace boy was able to change the world.

From the Paper:

"The only thing these two responses have in common is passion. Anyone who can inspire such very different responses is clearly a most remarkable person. Another authority refers to Mao's megalomania, his reckless fearlessness, and his "idiosyncratic self-assertion [which] became deeply ingrained in the collective experience of the CCP and ... profoundly shaped the communal awareness of the Chinese intelligentsia as a whole" (Wei-Ming, 1996, p. 156). Moreover, as we know, the CCP on which Mao stamped his personality was collectively responsible for millions of deaths, to the point that one authority sees the "destruction of lives, property, institutions, and values" as "a defining characteristic of modern Chinese history" (Wei-Ming, 1996, p. 149). As far as "motiveless malignities" go, Mao had Iago hopelessly outclassed."

Sample of Sources Used:

Beichman, Arnold. (Dec. 5, 1996). The Gender Bias of Totalitarianism. The Washington Times: 17.
Collinson, Diane, Kathryn Plant and Robert Wilkinson. Fifty Eastern Thinkers. London: Routledge, 2000.
Lynch, Michael. (2002). Mao Zedong: Liberator or Oppressor of China? Michael Lynch Introduces the Controversial Career of a Gargantuan Figure in Chinese and Modern World History. History Review: 10+.
Spence, Jonathan. (1999). Mao Zedong: A Life. New York: Penguin.
Wei-Ming, T. (1996). Destructive Will and Ideological Holocaust: Maoism as a Source of Social Suffering in China. Daedalus, 125.1: 149+.