Mao's death on 9 September 1976, the Hua Guofeng interregnum, the rise of Deng Xiaoping and the reform settlement, the 1981 Resolution's verdict that Mao was 70 percent correct and 30 percent in error, the continuing place of Mao in PRC public space, and his contested place in modern Chinese history

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to assess the legacy of Mao Zedong, including his death, the political settlement that followed, and his continuing place in the PRC. Strong answers integrate positive achievements (national reunification, basic welfare, international standing) with negative costs (famine, terror, Cultural Revolution), and the 1981 Resolution as the official verdict.

The answer

The death, 9 September 1976

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.

The radio announcement at 16:00 on 9 September shocked the country. A 30-day mourning period was declared. About 1 million people attended the Tiananmen memorial on 18 September 1976. Foreign reactions were extensive; Henry Kissinger called Mao "a colossus among 20th century men".

The Mao Memorial Hall

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.

The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall (Mao Zhuxi jinian tang) was built in 10 months between November 1976 and May 1977 on the south side of Tiananmen Square, on the line of the old Daming Gate. It opened on 9 September 1977 (the first anniversary). The body lies in a crystal coffin. About 200,000 visitors a day in the peak season visit the Mausoleum.

Hua Guofeng's interregnum, 1976 to 1981

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."

The Two Whatevers blocked the rehabilitation of Cultural Revolution victims and the repudiation of late-Mao economics. Deng Xiaoping, rehabilitated for the third time at the Third Plenum of the Tenth CC in July 1977, attacked the Two Whatevers through the May 1978 Guangming Daily article "Practice is the Sole Criterion of Truth" (Shijian shi jianyan zhenli de weiyi biaozhun).

The Third Plenum of the Eleventh CC (18 to 22 December 1978) was the watershed. The plenum repudiated the Two Whatevers, restored "seek truth from facts" (shishi qiushi) as the Party's working method, shifted focus from class struggle to economic construction, and made Deng the effective paramount leader. Hua remained Chairman until June 1981.

The reform settlement, 1978 to 1981

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

• Household responsibility system (baochan daohu) from 1978, with the Anhui Xiaogang village contract restored peasant household farming inside the commune shell. The communes were formally dissolved between 1982 and 1985.
• Special Economic Zones, the first four (Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Xiamen) established in 1980.
• Open Door Policy to foreign investment and trade.
• Rehabilitations. About 3 million victims of Mao-era campaigns were formally rehabilitated; 552,877 Rightists from 1957 to 1958; the Cultural Revolution victims.

The Cultural Revolution itself was reframed. The trial of the Gang of Four (November 1980 to January 1981) and the Lin Biao group (the trials were joined) gave Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao suspended death sentences and Wang Hongwen and Yao Wenyuan long prison terms.

The 1981 Resolution

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.

Drafted under Hu Qiaomu, the Resolution had three propositions:

1. Mao's contributions outweighed his errors. In Deng's gloss to Oriana Fallaci in August 1980, Mao was "70 percent correct, 30 percent in error" (Mao Zedong de gongguo san qi kai). His leadership of the 1949 revolution was the central positive.
2. The Cultural Revolution was an error. "The Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976 was responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the state, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic. This Cultural Revolution was initiated and led by Comrade Mao Zedong... but was utilised by counter-revolutionary cliques of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing."
3. Mao Zedong Thought is to be distinguished from Mao Zedong's personal errors. The Thought remained an official guiding ideology; the Cultural Revolution was Mao's personal "leftist error".

The Resolution's compromise (preserve Mao as founder, criticise his late errors) has been the Party's working frame to the present.

Achievements and costs

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. Infant mortality fell from about 200 per thousand to about 50. China developed nuclear weapons (1964) and joined the UN Security Council (1971). The PRC's basic institutions (CCP, PLA, state-owned enterprises, planning system) survived to run Deng's reforms.

Costs. 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.

Continuing presence

Mao remains in the PRC public space:

• His portrait hangs over the Tiananmen Gate (replaced annually).
• His image is on every renminbi note from the fifth series (1999 onwards).
• The Mausoleum remains in central Tiananmen.
• Mao Zedong Thought remains an official guiding ideology of the CCP.
• The Mao quotation tradition has been revived under Xi Jinping (CCP General Secretary from 2012).
• Mao Anniversary commemorations were held in 2013 (120 years) at high ceremonial level.

Timeline

Historiography

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.

Stuart Schram (Mao Tse-tung, 1966; The Thought of Mao Tse-tung, 1989) gave the intellectual biography.

Philip Short (Mao: A Life, 1999) gave the standard one-volume English biography after the archive openings.

Frank Dikoetter (The People's Trilogy: The Tragedy of Liberation 2013, Mao's Great Famine 2010, The Cultural Revolution 2016) gave the maximalist revisionist case for Mao's responsibility for tens of millions of deaths.

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (Mao: The Unknown Story, 2005) treated Mao as a monster whose 70 million deaths exceed Hitler's and Stalin's.

Andrew Walder (China Under Mao, 2015) gave a sociological synthesis emphasising the institutional logics of campaigns.

Roderick MacFarquhar treated the Mao era as a coherent ideological project whose internal contradictions destroyed it.

Common exam traps

Treating Mao as wholly bad or wholly good. The 1981 Resolution's 70-30 verdict captures the historiographical centre.

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

Ending the legacy in 1981. Mao's image has been re-strengthened under Xi Jinping.

In one sentence

Mao Zedong's legacy is the founding of the unified People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949, basic welfare gains (life expectancy rising from about 35 to about 65), nuclear and Security Council standing, set against an estimated 40 to 70 million deaths in the Great Famine and the campaigns, the destruction of the May Fourth intellectual tradition, and the Cultural Revolution that the 1981 Resolution officially repudiated, the whole settled in the Party's working verdict of "70 percent correct, 30 percent in error" with the body in the Tiananmen Mausoleum opened in September 1977 and the portrait still over the Tiananmen Gate.