Leader of the
CCP (Chinese Communist Party) during the
Liberation, and as a result gained god-like respect among all
Chinese in that era. Growing up in a
peasant family in
China, he never made it past 6th grade in
education, however, he did try to learn later in
life and has written a collection of semi-decent
essays.
He gained control of the budding CCP during the persecution 1920's period, under the dictator Chang Kai-shek, when two other leaders were arrested, tortured and executed, leaving Mao as leader. He then began a guerilla campaign against the Nationalist government. This was when he made the Long March, a huge trek across some of China's harshest terrain to escape from the Nationalist army.
During the Japanese occupation, he hid out in Western China and let the Nationalists take the brunt of the Japanese war machine, occasionally coming out to gnaw at the Japanese flanks. After the war, he took advantage of the war to come out in full force, striking at the tired Nationalist soldiers and seizing Beijing in 1949. Chang Kai-shek decided to go to Taiwan, and the US, for some odd reason, decided to protect the corrupt little mofo.
Taking advantage of his status, which only increased after the Korean War, he began to go about "purifying" communism in China, but failed horribly in the Great Leap Forward, killing 35 million Chinese. Sinking into semi-retirement, he returned with a vengeance in the Cultural Revolution, killing more Chinese with his insane policies (I have more detailed writeups written seperately). He was more like a "father figure" than an active politician, but what he does always has colossal consequences. Being delusional and paranoid, he conducted frequent purges in the guise of communist idealism.
He died in 1976, a deity in Chinese eyes, a view only debunked in recent years. His mummified corpse is on display in Beijing. He looks like a nasty wax figure.