Mao's Obituary

The chief of the Chinese revolution, communist leader Mao Zedong, has died at the age of 82.   Mao dies of a heart attack in Beijing on 9 September 1976. Mao died in the presence of the ranking members of the Politburo, who had been summoned to his room, and his attendant physicians. News of Chairman Mao's death has spread quickly through the Chinese capital. Many people are wearing black armbands. Groups have paid tribute opposite a huge portrait of Chairman Mao at the main entrance to the Forbidden City.
His success in inspiring the vast majority of some eight hundred million people, perhaps the most populous cultural unit in the world of mankind today, with a great ideal - that of the classless society - has been an unparalleled achievement. He also unified Republic of China and becoming the leader of the greatest social revolution in history.
Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 in a farm village called Shaoshan, Hunan province China.   He began to work on his parents’ farm at the age of six, and after he was enrolled in the village primary school at the age of eight, he continued to farm work.   Mao stayed in primary school until 1907. When he was thirteen, he left school and began to work full time for his father. For months on the end in his early childhood, Mao lived with his maternal grandparents and absorbed some of their gentler outlook on life. His father had served as a soldier in the provincial army before returning to farm, and always had a quick temper and firm views. His mother was a devout believer in Buddhism, while her husband was a skeptic. Mao was caught between the two but sympathetic his mother’s point of view. Despite Mao’s love for his mother, it was his father who laid out the lines of Mao’s life.
When he is 14, Mao entered an arranged marriage with a local woman, although he never lives with her and refused to recognize the marriage. At age 16, against his father's wishes, he enrolled in a nearby higher primary school. It was during...