Episode 4: The Cat's Mao looks at Mao Zedong, the man, the myth, the legend, the disgusting, horrible war criminal and mass murderer who...ahem. Sorry about that. Mao Zedong remains a controversial figure to this day. Some believe China would never have recovered in the manner that it did, and that China would never be the power that it is today, without Mao Zedong at the helm. At the same time, while some are content to name fast food restaurants after him, others decry his responsibility, both directly and indirectly, for the loss of millions of lives - figures too difficult to pin down, but certainly high enough to qualify him in the rank of mass murderers alongside Stalin and Hitler.

Indeed, controversy followed Mao, but in this episode we do our best to dispense with what Mao would DO, and focus instead on what the leader of the Chinese Communist Party actually DID. To find out, we look at his birth, his growth, his involvement in the civil wars, in the wars against the Japanese and then in the last phase of the civil war in the late 1940s, whereupon he would be pushed into a position of power arguably never attained by a Chinese figure since the all-powerful Emperors of yore. As was customary though, Mao's power disguised the bare facts of his country's vulnerability and devastation, themes which we will grapple with over the coming episodes.

*****

Music used:

Chinese National Anthem: http://www.freeinfosociety.com/media.php?id=4045

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