Quick questions on Mao's death and legacy: HSC Modern History Personality

Mao Zedong died at 00:10 on 9 September 1976 in Zhongnanhai, his Beijing residence and CCP leadership compound. He had been mostly incapacitated since a series of cardiac events in mid-1976. The cause of death is reported as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (motor neurone disease), diagnosed in 1974, complicated by congestive heart failure. He had stopped eating in late August.

Despite Mao's request for cremation (signed in November 1956 with most of the leadership), the Politburo decided on 9 September 1976 to preserve the body. A team under Xu Jing of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences embalmed the body. A copy was made as a hedge against failure.

Hua Guofeng, Chairman of the CCP, Premier, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission from October 1976, attempted a continuation under the slogan of the "Two Whatevers" (Liang ge fanshi): "Whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, we will resolutely uphold; whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave, we will steadfastly abide by them."

Deng's reforms from 1978 amounted to a repudiation of the late-Mao economic model:

The Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic (Guanyu jianguo yilai dang de ruogan lishi wenti de jueyi), adopted by the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh CC on 27 June 1981, was the Party's authoritative historical verdict on Mao.

Achievements. Mao founded the People's Republic on 1 October 1949 after a century of Qing decay, warlordism, civil war, Japanese occupation, and renewed civil war. The PRC unified the country, expelled foreign concessions, and built a modern state. Life expectancy rose from about 35 in 1949 to about 65 in 1976. Literacy rose from about 20 percent to over 65 percent.

Mao remains in the PRC public space:

Maurice Meisner (Mao's China and After, 3rd ed. 1999) gave the standard Western political-historical account, finding Mao's social achievements substantial and his political errors catastrophic.

Mao founded the People's Republic on 1 October 1949 after a century of Qing decay, warlordism, civil war, Japanese occupation, and renewed civil war. The PRC unified the country, expelled foreign concessions, and built a modern state. Life expectancy rose from about 35 in 1949 to about 65 in 1976.

Conservative estimates put deaths attributable to Mao-era campaigns at around 40 to 70 million: the Great Famine of 1959 to 1962 at $15$ to $45$ million; the Cultural Revolution at $1.5$ to $3$ million; the suppression of counter-revolutionaries (1950 to 1951) at about 712,000; the 1950 to 1952 land reform at about 1.5 to 2 million; the labour reform (laogai) deaths through the period at perhaps several million more. Tens of millions were persecuted but not killed; a generation's education was destroyed; the May Fourth intellectual tradition was suppressed.

The 1981 Resolution's 70-30 verdict captures the historiographical centre.

Life expectancy and literacy gains are real and were one of the bases of Deng's growth-oriented reforms.

Mao's image has been re-strengthened under Xi Jinping.