Let’s Learn about the Cold War: Part 7 – Mao Zedong and the People’s Republic of China

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Sean D. Smith
  • Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  China played a significant role in the Cold War, particularly in Korea, as the Soviet Union's primary means of supporting North Korean forces. But, how did China move away from an imperial system of government and become a communist country under the influence of the Soviet Union?

During the first half of the 20th century, China went through several uprisings and several new governments. Mao Zedong was a revolutionary whose exposure to Chinese nationalist uprisings early in life set him on a course to become one of the most influential men in the world.

Influenced by Marxism-Leninism, Mao helped found the Communist Party of China and set out to change his country. What followed was over two decades of wars and conflict, international and domestic, ultimately leading to a communist China.

In 1949, the civil wars that had devastated Chinese unity were finally over, and Mao announced the foundation of the People's Republic of China.

Like Joseph Stalin, Mao remains a controversial figure. He modernized China and built it into a world power, but at great cost to its people. Mao is credited with damaging Chinese culture, abusing human rights, and his authoritarian rule may be responsible for as many as 70 million deaths.

Yet under Chairman Mao, the Chinese population nearly doubled. Education and health care improved, as did women's rights and Chinese life expectancy. Mao's philosophies and visionary military strategies are still studied today.

Mao's China was a powerful ally for the Soviet Union, but luckily for the West, the alliance didn't last.

China and the USSR had very different approaches to communism, and starting around 1960, relations between the two powers began to sour. The USSR withdrew financial and technological support from China, and the relationship only grew colder.

The divide between China and the USSR severely weakened the worldwide communist movement. The dissolution of the powerful alliance between China and the USSR is known as the Sino-Soviet split, and it was one of the most critical developments in the conflict, substantially reducing the Soviet Union's chances of breaking NATO resistance to the spread of communism.

It wasn't an easy century for anyone, but China had it harder than most. The Sino-Soviet split was an opportunity to salvage relations between the United States and China - a chance that American President Richard Nixon seized in 1971.

Relations between China and the USSR did not begin to mend until the late 1980s.

Next time: Radio Free Europe