This is an archive of past discussions about Mao Zedong. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Mao learned the Water Margin book as a child. And later during the fighting of the revolution Mao carries a copy of the Water Margin with him. The Water Margin book helped to inspire Mao's revolution. This information is found in a translation of the Water Margin. It was translated by J.H. Jackson and it was published by Tuttle books. The title is The Water margin Outlaws of the Marsh the classic Chinese novel.
Mao is photographed with Stalin in 1949 celebrating Stalin's 71st birthday, however in the paragraph covering Mao's State Visits, it states that Mao visited Stalin to celebrate his 70th birthday. Stalin was born in 1878 according to the Wikipedia page on him. 150.160.109.107 (talk) 16:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
I am in agreement with @Y-S.Ko. Much of the trimming was fluff. I had a different reason for agreeing about trimming deaths for Great Leap Forward, namely that we already have a good deal of millions of death material in the lead. JArthur1984 (talk) 00:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
A few bullet points, some not directly related to the main reason for reversion:
Conversely is a word to watch, but the way it is being used here is clearly fine, as the two perspectives are clearly not compatible in most cases. In fact, your phrasing itself plausibly implies that the two views are
While 55 million may not be attested in the article here, it is clearly cited at the article linked. The most productive thing to do here is to copy the references over, not force others to go and do it on your behalf. I don't think there's an NPOV justification in omitting figures as such.
Your removal of any mention of escalation or motion is not encyclopedic in my view, akin to above, it actually has the unintended effect of mischaracterizing events by describing them as little as possible. There is a point where slimming summaries goes too far, and in this case you've crossed it imo.
If the phrase give the impression "two perspectives are clearly not compatible", which is not well-sourced fact, then the phrase must be fixed.
I removed the content that does not exist in main body, but link to Great Chinese Famine is remained, which ("great ... famine") give impression of numerous deaths already, without worrying on the contents does not exist in main body. and general number of deaths is already treated in last paragraph of lead section (whose contents exists in main body of the article).
I'm saying that whatever the relationship is, your particular juxtaposition also creates a synthetic connotation to my eye. I'm sure you've seen it, but the examples given at WP:SYNTH are pretty analogous to the contention here, though without an explicit linking and, it's analogous. Remsense ‥ 论02:03, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
The examples in WP:SYNTH are problematic, because "but" and "only" gave some sort of impression, which is not neutral. "Conversely" creates much stronger non-neutral impression than my phrasing. My phrasing does not include these sort of words. I think my phrasing has less problematic connotation, and more neutral than using such problematic words. Of course, the best option is giving no impression about the two perspectives' compatibility. Y-S.Ko (talk) 03:44, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
I am saying the effect is subtler: I would not find an argument compelling that mere juxtaposition cannot ever take up its own connotations in this context. But it is a minor tone issue. Remsense ‥ 论04:30, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
Mao Zedong's heart attacks and reported time of death
At the time of writing this talk topic the Death and aftermath section of the article page reads:
"He suffered two major heart attacks, one in March and another in July, then a third on 5 September, rendering him an invalid. He died nearly four days later, on 9 September 1976, at the age of 82. The Communist Party delayed the announcement of his death until 16:00, when a national radio broadcast announced the news and appealed for party unity.[1]"
Now the main contention: The referenced source only mentions that Mao Zedong died at 12:10 a.m. on September 9, but it does not mention how many heart attacks Mao Zedong had, nor the time that Mao had the heart attacks, therefore the following quoted claim does not currently have a source attributed to it:
"He suffered two major heart attacks, one in March and another in July, then a third on 5 September, rendering him an invalid. He died nearly four days later..."
The same sourcing issue is apparent in regard to information described in the article about the Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong, which uses the same source attribution and currently reads:
"At around 17:00 on 5 September 1976, Mao had a heart attack, far more severe than his previous two earlier that year which affected a much larger area of his heart, leaving him bedridden. On the afternoon of 7 September, Mao's condition completely deteriorated. Mao's organs failed quickly and he fell into a coma shortly before noon and was put on a ventilator and life support machines.
On 8 September, when it was clear the comatose Mao was beyond recovery, Chinese government officials decided to disconnect his life support machines at midnight..."
Is anyone able to find a source that verifies these claims that time Mao Zedong's heart attacks to March, July, and 17:00 on 5 September?
I have identified a source by James Palmer (Chapter 6: "You die, I live" of Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao's China, published 3 January 2012) that alternatively claims that Mao Zedong suffered a heart attack at about 5:00 p.m. on September 2. This source is also referenced at least one time by other authors including in Chapter 7: "Selective Integration" of Peter Martin's China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, published 2021.[2]
Is anyone able to find any reliable sources earlier than 3 January 2012 that affirmatively verify that Mao Zedong had heart attacks in March, July, 2 September and/or 5 September, 1976?
As Mao Zedong's heart attacks thus far have an identifiable source attribution referenced to James Palmer's Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes (2012), I can propose a revision to the article on the Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong as follows, however someone with greater editing privileges can investigate making changes to the main Mao Zedong page.
e.g. "At around 17:00 on 2 September 1976,[3] Mao had a heart attack..."
Luckily, Spence (1998) has us covered, pp. 176–177:
“
On June 26, Mao had a second heart attack. A third came on September 2, more serious than the previous two, leaving him weakened and comatose. On September 8, he was alert enough to spend some short periods reading reports, but he dozed off repeatedly. Around 11:15 P.M., he drifted into a coma. Ten minutes after midnight, on September 9, 1976, Mao died in the presence of the ranking members of the Politburo, who had been summoned to his room, and his attendant physicians.
^Palmer, James (3 January 2012). "6 You die, I live". Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao's China. New York: Basic Books. p. 196. ISBN9780465023493.
^Palmer, James (3 January 2012). "6 You die, I live". Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao's China. New York: Basic Books. p. 196. ISBN9780465023493.
Semi-protected edit request on 3 January 2025
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Unfortunately, due to copyright problems involving restoring for the lead photo, which would otherwise be the clear choice, we have to scramble to decide what the lead photo of this article should be. Remsense ‥ 论23:28, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
@Remsense I am the one who replaced the current image with the colorized one of mao at tiananmen square. the picture used right now is very clearly photoshopped and "beautified" while the photo that I had used is the photo that is already used as the lead in many other languages' articles. I strongly recommend that for the time being, that photo should be used as the lead photothe photo in questionAnonpriest (talk) 05:08, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
@Remsense Can previous photos that were deleted due to copyright reasons be properly restored with copyright permission? Since it is an official photo, it is the best option because the infobox should use the best or official photo, so we should restore the photo legally. Thailand59 (talk) 03:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
I am not sure of the specifics. The broad points are that the famous war hall portrait of Mao is indeed in the public domain, but the version we had was subject to restoration during the 1990s, meaning that version is a derivative work protected by copyright.
In any case, it would be the ideal portrait—not because it's official, but because it is by far the best known representation of Mao. Remsense ‥ 论03:22, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
I've never directly asked you this before, but please stop socking. If you want to improve articles, that we have to prevent you from contributing means the improvements you want likely take longer on average. Remsense ‥ 论03:29, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
(I do wish sockpuppets I've reverted thousands of times wouldn't attempt to talk to me as if they've never spoken to me before, though.) Remsense ‥ 论03:26, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
Yeah the current one is really bad lol. very obviously airbrushed. Not a big fan of the other options up there either. I’d recommend some version of this one, assuming we can’t get the original back.
Anything but 1950AB (Preferably 1955A or 1955C, though). It's explicitly stated in the Image use policy that images "should not be overly stylized" are unsuitable for Wikipedia. 1950AB is in direct violation of this policy, considering that it is an image that has been both AI-beautified and digitally altered. IndianaEnjoyer (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
My notion is likely going to be that photos from the 60s or later are not going to adequately depict Mao as would be expected by a general readership. I did a brief scan through Commons:Mao Zedong for years mostly before 1960, but didn't immediately find any preferable to the present. Remsense ‥ 论01:20, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
1949 is a classic image and would be immediately recognizable. I think, honestly 1965 is my second choice. I don't know. 1955 seems too casual for one of the 20th century's most prominent politicians, war-fighters and political theorists. Simonm223 (talk) 01:52, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
1949 is the best one but the scans for most these images are strange and I think that I might need to do a photo restoration for the image that has the most consensus Wcamp9 (talk) 02:53, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
The background of the 1949 photo is clearly different from the 1959 deleted photo. Before it was explicitly deleted, it should have been considered as one of the options. Furthermore, according to WP:Talk dos and don'ts, please do not change my comments casually, thanks a lot. Nagae Iku (talk) 03:56, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
The original version of the 1949 photo has been found, and its actual date of capture is June 1950. I have included it in the candidate options. Nagae Iku (talk) 08:09, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
Hmm. 1949 is probably the highest quality, but I think its copyright status needs to be clarified. The description on Commons identifies it as a derivative work, and there's no indication of the copyright status of the original photo. 1965 is a little blurry and not especially recognizable as Mao. That leaves 1955 as my top choice, though it's far from ideal. —Mx. Granger (talk·contribs) 02:43, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
1955C the new one is clearly touched up and looks pretty ridiculous. Does not need to be the LEAD photo of this. A good, tight, unedited crop does just fine - not this beautifi-app-thing. Pylonshadow (talk) 08:40, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
1955C because he appears closer to official state portrait and western media coverage here, if we are to stay neutral on the topic. 𝙲𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚜 𝚁𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚗 (talk) 09:25, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Remove 150A, heavily beautified & touched up (it’s the same portrait used on Renminbi notes if you want to see a comparison). If a non-beautified/photoshopped version exists of this portrait, it should be added. B3251(talk)10:56, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Any one except 1950AB, heavily beautified and photoshopped image which is being used to troll Wikipedia on social media! (edited)Theofunny (talk) 18:23, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Mao is considered one of the most significant figures of the 20th century. His policies were responsible for a vast number of deaths, with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims of starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions, and his regime has been described as totalitarian. He has also been credited with transforming China from a semi-colony to a leading world power by advancing literacy, women's rights, basic healthcare, primary education, and life expectancy. Under Mao, China's population grew from about 550 million to more than 900 million. Within China, he is revered as a national hero who liberated the country from foreign occupation and exploitation. He became an ideological figurehead and a prominent influence within the international communist movement, inspiring various Maoist organisations.
Please justify how it is reasonable to summarise legacy by having a single critical sentence ("his policies were...") followed by 4 positive ones. Legacy sections are difficult, but this is effectively hagiography. And hagiography does not necessarily come in content - that is why I removed little, only restructuring it. Zilch-nada (talk) 19:54, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
That's reaching on your part. The passage consists of one long, extremely critical sentence that (rightfully imo) comes first, two explicitly of praise, and two that are not explicitly either and depend more on perspective—China's population growth wasn't positive for many affected, and I would imagine those who are against Maoism or international communism would not find the other sentence to be one of praise either. Remsense ‥ 论19:56, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Well, that's obviously where structure matters. If you say "revered as a national hero who liberated the country from foreign occupation and exploitation" directly followed by "...ideological figurehead and a prominent influence... inspiring various Maoist organisations", you can definitely see that as laudatory. I am simply requesting a restructuring, similar to articles such as Stalin or Castro. Zilch-nada (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
I don't agree, and I read it differently—with sentences that are merely juxtaposed, readers may find their own point of view interpolating things the text simply does not say. By contrast, an explicit interspersion of words like conversely is more clearly a fount of potential editorializing issues that needs to be more carefully weighed against what sources actually say. Remsense ‥ 论20:03, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
See my comment under JArthur's about "conversely" - so much of Mao's legacy is juxatposed, if not most of it (famous 70 and 30% within China, not to mention the Western sources I mentioned below). Zilch-nada (talk) 20:11, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
We shouldn't be the ones doing it, since I doubt our sources in aggregate justify our doing so in the lead. Remsense ‥ 论20:15, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
And we don't have the time for what amount to empty words in the lead, given they are not given space to mean anything in particular. Remsense ‥ 论20:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
As you've written, "conversely" does not actually communicate anything more than innuendo about the nature of the juxtaposition, forcing the reader to assume. In the lead, it is dead weight. We do not have space to communicate it properly. Remsense ‥ 论20:33, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Hardly. The sources cited (three examples below) all use juxtaposing terms like "but" to emphasise the juxtaposition, and that's it. There is a clear emphasis on juxtaposition; we should include it. Of course, the structure of legacy in the lede is already juxtaposed; I'm not adamant about "conversely" as that's clearly not the main issue. It seems like a strange thing to oppose, however. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:36, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
It's superfluous innuendo in the lead, and we should leave it to the Legacy section where it can actually be explicated. Remsense ‥ 论20:38, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Why do you say "rightfully" to the critical sentence coming first? Doesn't thatdepend more on perspective as to one's views? Zilch-nada (talk) 20:01, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
I'm trying to get you off my back in case you think I'm the type that would like to carry water for the CR or whatever. Purely rhetorical for the purpose of more easily facilitating this conversation. Remsense ‥ 论20:03, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Act as if I didn't say it then, since I'd like to avoid getting bogged down in irrelevant side discussions. Remsense ‥ 论20:13, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Remsense has the better view here. Whether something like "becoming an ideological figurehead and a prominent influence within the international communist movement..." is 'good' or 'bad' solely is a question of the reader's own perspective. Similarly, a growing population as "laudatory" is in the eye of the reader. Likewise, we avoid language like "conversely" in order to avoid too explicit framing.
Perhaps related to this discussion, may we change "revered as a national hero" to something like "widely regarded" or "widely viewed"? JArthur1984 (talk) 20:04, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
My suggestion doesn't quite make sense if read literally, I mean to say -- change "revered" to "widely regarded" or "widely viewed"? JArthur1984 (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
My main problem is that this article - not that I oppose or support Mao (either of which irrelevant), - but that it currently reads like hagiography; the goal is to be as unpassionate as possible. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
At present that seems to be your problem, I'm afraid. You haven't been able to demonstrate that based in what it actually says, but rather what you are worried that it comes off as saying. Remsense ‥ 论20:15, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Well, of course WP:IMPARTIAL address notions of favouring a view over another, but of course notions of "favouring" are subjective. I would likewise posit the question of why you endorse an explicitly negative statement followed by 2-4 positive ones? Zilch-nada (talk) 20:19, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
You framing things by sentence count is another spot where you're going wrong. If one instead weighs the points of substance by their content, tone, and placement, it's pretty clear the net effect is not what your framing would suggest. Remsense ‥ 论20:23, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
I did, on all three of those. The tone is partly negative and partly positive - the latter outnumbering. It's placement has positive aspects outnumbering the negative, and so on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of splitting articles into juxtaposed aspects. Sources for Mao Zedong do not suggest this. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Again, I disagree. The negative points are numerous, strong, and prominent in my reading. Your primary metric of counting sentences (while still insisting there are four explicitly positive ones, your first claim to be debunked) is not remotely proportional to how it reads. Remsense ‥ 论20:34, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Let's not pretend there aren't two sides to this argument (if a good-faith argument not explicitly down political lines, still clearly one with two sides) as unduly mystifying. It's either unbalanced one way or it isn't. Remsense ‥ 论20:39, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
BTW I'm done for now here, as it's clear Wikipedia's majoritarianism prevents challenging. You're right in implying that expressing my arguments is futile. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:45, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
"Conversely" is hardly that. That is because almost everything about Mao, as depicted in the legacy section, is about juxtaposed results:
"whilst Mao "was a great leader in history", he was also "a great criminal because, not that he wanted to, not that he intended to, but in fact, his wild fantasies led to the deaths of tens of millions of people."
"that they took an enormous human toll, cannot and should not be forgotten. But future historians, without ignoring the failures and the crimes, will surely record the Maoist era in the history of the People's Republic (however else they may judge it) as one of the great modernizing epochs in world history"
I must stress that I wouldn't mind "conversely" if it was positive before negative or vice versa. Read my comments above about that. Zilch-nada (talk) 20:12, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 23 February 2025
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In the first paragraph, it is said that "Mao's theories, which he advocated as a Chinese adaptation of Marxism–Leninism, are known as Maoism." I would like to suggest that we change Maoism to Mao Zedong Thought, since 'Maoism' as a political ideology was only realized as universal by Abimael Guzman, chairman of the Peruvian Communist Party. We should change it to something like "Mao's theories for how to apply Marxism-Leninism to China is known as Mao Zedong Thought. Later, in the 70's, supporters of Mao Zedongs theories believed his theoretical contributions were meant to be studied and applied universally, In what is called Marxism-Leninism-Maoism". I believe this would be closer to what happened historically and in that way it would be more suitable. Gustscape (talk) 15:58, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
This would likely come down to a MOS:COMMONNAME discussion. The construction "Mao Zedong Thought" is very common in China as Chinese sources tend to divide political theory by the political leaders who endorsed it. See also Xi Jinping Thought and Deng Xiaoping Thought for other examples. However, outside of China "Maoism" is a much more common appellation than "Mao Zedong Thought". This is relevant because, unlike those two other leader-thought examples, Maoism is explicitly international in character. I'm neutral here. Mao Zedong Thought is a redirect to Maoism; they talk about the same thing, neither is incorrect, and both are intelligible and regularly used. For an English audience "Maoism" may be slightly preferred as people without extensive knowledge of China may find "Mao Zedong Thought" somewhat unwieldy. Simonm223 (talk) 16:15, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
What the original poster was pointing out is that Mao Zedong Thought is Marxism-Leninism applied to the Chinese conditions. This is something that Mao (and other CCP theorists) widely talked about: the material conditions of Russia and of China were not equal, so the ideology needed to be applied, not copied from the USSR's experience.
In order to have Marxism-Leninism-Maoism one would need to go back and universalize what was applied in China to other countries. That is what Abimael Guzmán did in Peru: he analyzed Mao Zedong's application of Marxism-Leninism and demonstrated that it could be applied to other countries, including his own. The PCP(-SL)'s application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism would be Gonzalo Thought (Gonzalo is Guzmán's nom de guerre). In the case of Marxism-Leninism, the one that universalized it was not Lenin, but Stalin. Specifically, he did that in a text named Foundations of Leninism.
The redirect is not to the page about Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, but to the Mao Zedong Thought page, which is incorrectly named Maoism. While I do understand the reasoning, I find it a lot more confusing, especially since it's not even the name the CCP used/uses for their ideology. Check the Maoism talk page for the discussion around this. Sonofsilver (talk) 04:02, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
Note: Marking this edit request as answered as a discussion is now ongoing and the edit request queue is reserved for immediately actionable and uncontroversial requests. —Sirdog(talk) 22:24, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Done My own way, at least. That should work, right? Remsense ‥ 论 22:33, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Not done: Please see the top that the article is written in British English. Heart (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
1963 (current image)
1965
1955A
1955B
1955C,_Bestanddeelnr_915-6705_(cropped).jpg)
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(1).jpg)
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Note: Marking this edit request as answered as a discussion is now ongoing and the edit request queue is reserved for immediately actionable and uncontroversial requests. —Sirdog (talk) 22:24, 13 March 2025 (UTC)