26Young Anarchist Mao
Mao Zedong was originally an anarchist when he became a librarian's assistant at Peking University in 1919. He was exploring both anarchism and Marxism simultaneously but chose to convert to the latter.
27. When he was young, Mao Zedong dropped out of a police academy, a soap-production company, a law school, an economics school, and a government-run middle school. He spent his time independently studying core works of classical liberalism by Western authors, scientists and philosophers.
28. U.S. President Harry S. Truman called Mao Zedong ‘Mousie Dung’ in private.
29. Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong despised each other. Soviet agents claim Stalin had ordered Mao to be fed well during his 10 days' visit to Moscow. Mao’s excrement was collected daily for tests. Scientists wanted to determine the state of mind of the Chinese leader by examining his excrement.
30. The “Mao Suit” that is often associated with Chairman Mao Zedong was actually introduced by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, who is considered the “Father of Modern China” by both governments in the Republic of China in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China in the mainland.
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31Dong Xiwen’s Painting
When Dong Xiwen’s oil painting of China's founding was first unveiled in 1953, it was lauded as one of the greatest paintings ever made by a Chinese. Later, Dong had to edit the painting by removing Gang Gao, the man standing next to Mao, who later “committed suicide” because he urged Mao to retire.
32. In 1966, when Mao Zedong launched the “cultural revolution” in China, he banned all cultural work that did not have the required ideological content, including Shakespeare. The ban was removed only in 1977, after China’s economic opening to the Western World.
33. Mao Zedong’s “100 Flowers Campaign” was promptly followed by the Anti-Rightist Movement Purge. 300,000 to 550,000 people were identified as rightists, most of them intellectuals, academics, writers, and artists, and many were forced into Labor Camps for “re-education.”
34. Seven years after the Chinese Republic was established, Mao Zedong allowed people to express their opinions on the way the country was being run in a campaign called the Hundred Flowers Campaign. After a year, the campaign was withdrawn and those who spoke against the government were jailed or unheard of since.
35. Mao Zedong told the Japanese PM in 1972 not to apologize for what the Japanese Army did in WW2 (including the Rape of Nanking) because they destroyed the Chinese Nationalists and helped him come to power.
