4. Chairman Mao Was a Poet
Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) was a guerrilla fighter, soldier, and statesman, who played the key role in his country’s communist revolution. He led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 until his death, and after the communists won control in 1949, he ruled China until his demise. During his years in power, he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions Chinese, killed outright by his followers, or starved to death because of his disastrous economic policies. In his free time, he indulged his fondness for classical Chinese poetry and literature, and was a prolific writer and poet.
Incongruously, he liked to compose and pen verses in classical Chinese forms. Mao’s education, like that of most intellectuals of his era, was based on a foundation of classical Chinese literature. However, while most of Mao’s contemporaries moved on to modern styles and themes, he stuck with the old. Since his youth, he composed poetry in the classical style, and his image as a poet played a significant role in shaping his public persona. He was actually considered a good poet. Not just by critics in China, who would have been foolhardy to pan his poetry, but also by literary critics who were outside China, and thus beyond his clutches.